Remembering September 11, 2001 How has the events on 9/11 changed the face of America?

On September 11, 2001, terrorists launched closely coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon just outside Washington, D.C., while yet another attack by terrorists was thwarted when their hijacked plane crashed short of its intended target.

 Nearly 3,000 people perished in the attacks by three planes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the crash of a fourth hijacked plane in south-central Pennsylvania.  Hardest hit in terms of human casualties were the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, where 2,753 people died when hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were intentionally flown into those buildings.  At the Pentagon, 184 died when hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 was deliberately flown into the west face of the sprawling complex.  Yet another 40 passengers and crew members aboard United Airlines Flight 93 were killed when that plane crashed into farmland near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The twin towers of the World Trade Center are ablaze after terrorists flew hijacked jets into the buildings.

 When United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into pasturelands near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the ultimate target of that hijacked flight died with the terrorists who had taken control of the plane.  It is widely speculated, however, that Flight 93 was headed for either the White House or the U.S. Capitol in Washington.  Courageous passengers and crew aboard that hijacked plane sabotaged the terrorists' plans when they struggled to wrest control of the plane from the hijackers and the jet crashed.

 First responders in New York City suffered a devastating blow in terms of lives lost during the struggle to save others threatened by the attacks on the World Trade Center.  Of the 2,753 people who died in the aftermath of the disaster at the twin towers, more than 400 of them were first responders.  The New York City Fire Department lost 341 firefighters and two paramedics that day. The death toll among police officers was from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department and 23 from the New York City Police Department.  Also lost were eight emergency medical technicians or paramedics from private hospital units or commercial ambulance groups.

 In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the entire airspace over the United States and Canada was closed except for medical, military, and police flights.  All non-military flights required specific permission from the Federal Aviation Administration and President George W. Bush before they could take to the air.  Civilian air traffic was allowed to resume slowly on September 13, by which time more stringent airport security checks had been put into place.  Commercial flights that had been diverted two days before were the first to be allowed to take off to fly to their original destinations. After those flights had taken off, limited commercial service resumed

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