25 Years Since the 9/11 Attacks

September 11, 2026 will be the 25th anniversary 9/11. 2,977 people lost their lives that day, with the deadliest terrorist attack on the USA. 2,977 victims died (excluding the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers), including 441 first responders.

September 11, 2001, terrorists from al-Qaeda , an Islamic extremist group based in Afghanistan, hijacked four commercial airplanes. Flight 11 was hijacked after leaving Boston, it crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at 8:46 am. At this time a lot of people thought it was an air traffic incident. But then United Airlines Flight 175 that had also taken off from Boston hit the twin towers, this time the south tower. This time, people knew that it was a coordinated attack on the USA. Right after American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, at 9:37 am. After that, at 10:03 am, United Flight 93 crashed into an empty corn field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. By then it was clear that the US had experienced a series of large planned terrorist attacks.

The plane crashes damaged both WTC towers . At 9:59 am, the South Tower collapsed after about 56 minutes of being hit, less than 30 minutes later, at 10:28 am the North Tower collapsed. And fires burned inside the buildings reaching temperatures of 1000 degrees Celsius. The World Trade Center 7 WTC (world trade center)7 also collapsed later. This destroyed much of the World Trade Center complex and left a huge pile of rubble in lower Manhattan called Ground Zero.

The overall death toll could have been higher if not for the heroic actions of the of the 40 passengers and crew members aboard United Flight 93. They fought the hijackers and forced the plane to crash in Pennsylvania. They all died, but their actions prevented the plane from reaching its intended target. The plane is believed to have been headed for the US Capitol in Washington, DC. Also a a plane hit the Pentagon, but the building mostly withstood the aircraft’s impact, but still killed 184 people.

Ground Zero has since has been turned into a memorial. It is called the National September 11 Memorial Museum. Two large reflecting pools occupy the areas where the Twin Towers once stood. The names of those killed in the attacks are writen around the pools, and now New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is set to designate September 11 as a Day of Remembrance and Service ahead of the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks.