News Coverage on September 11 (2001)

to the Space Needle in Seattle were shut down. Now, to the detailed story of this awful day, told chronologically, as it unfolded by Kwame Holman. 8.47 a.m. Eastern Time. A commercial jetliner smashed into the north tower of the 110-story World Trade Center Building on the tip of Manhattan. 18 minutes later, these live TV pictures showed another airliner flying directly into the other tower. We have two airplanes that struck each building of the World Trade Center. The north building was struck on approximately the 80th floor. My estimation is that the south building, which is what you're looking at now, that was struck at approximately between the 50th and 60th floors. We had a big bang, and then we saw a smoke coming out, and everybody started running out, and we saw the plane on the other side of the building, and there was smoke everywhere and people jumping out the windows over there, jumping out the windows, I guess, because

they're trying to seize themselves, I don't know. Big explosion happened, some guy came out, he's skin was all off, I helped him out, this was all over. There's people jumping out of windows, I seen at least 14 people jumping out of windows. It's horrific, I can't believe this is happening. Anything else that you saw were you there for the second hit by the plane? About 10 minutes later, the second building went off. Did you see it? Yes, I saw it. It just blew up, a big explosion, people started running, it was just chaos everywhere. A few minutes later, the president's chief of staff, Andrew Card, told Mr. Bush about the New York City events during an appearance at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida. Mr. Bush then gave this statement. Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on

our country. I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation, to hunt down, and to find those folks who committed this act. Terrorism against our nation will not stand. Nineteen minutes after the president spoke, a third airliner smashed into the southwest side of the Pentagon building, a mile from downtown Washington, causing a huge fireball followed by heavy smoke. People were carried out, others lay on the ground. It came in at such a deep angle, at such fast speed, it was a severity of, I was telling

the gentleman, it was a real severe intention, is what it had to it. You could tell it was like a suicide bomber, but I'm not saying there was a bomb, it was a plane, and it just came streaking down and hit short. It didn't go into the top of the Pentagon, it came like in short, and then everything sprayed up like a fireball, sprayed up on the wall. Within minutes of the attack, officials in Washington began evacuating the U.S. Capitol building. Later in the morning, armed security personnel were seen on the roof of the White House, which was evacuated. Later, all other federal buildings in the Capitol were closed down. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights nationwide. Meanwhile, there were reports of a fourth jetliner crash outside Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania. 10-06 AM, back in New York City, the second World Trade Center tower to be struck, collapsed.

10-28 AM, much of the top floors of the other tower also fell to the street for less than 30 minutes. This was the view across the Upper New York Bay passed the Statue of Liberty at about

1030 in the morning. There was a media speculation about who was behind these