25 years after 9/11: How four hijacked planes changed US security

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At 8:46am on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York.

Seventeen minutes later, another hijacked aircraft struck the South Tower.

By 9:37am, a third plane had crashed into the Pentagon, while a fourth was heading towards Washington before passengers and crew members fought to regain control of the aircraft.

At 10:03am, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

By the end of the day, 2,977 people were dead.

The attacks exposed vulnerabilities in America’s aviation security, intelligence-sharing, emergency-response and national-security systems and triggered a sweeping restructuring of the country’s homeland security architecture.

Twenty-five years later, the US House Committee on Homeland Security has revisited that day, examining the progress made since the attacks and identifying more than 20 areas where it says further action is required.

Here is how the attacks unfolded — and how they changed the United States.

The September 11 attacks were the culmination of years of planning.

According to the House committee’s report, planning began as early as 1999, when Osama bin Laden met with conspirators in Afghanistan to discuss using commercial aircraft as weapons and identify potential targets.

In April 1999, hijackers began obtaining visas to enter the United States, while several prepared for the operation while living in Germany.

Throughout 2001, the hijackers enrolled in flight schools and conducted surveillance of cross-country flights to identify aircraft that could be used in the plot.

Several of the hijackers were cited for traffic violations while in the US, but law enforcement did not observe terrorism-related indications.

On the morning of September 11, the hijackers passed through security screening at airports in Maine, Massachusetts, Virginia and New Jersey.

The committee said eight were selected for random screening and two were flagged as suspicious, but none was prevented from boarding.

The morning of September 11

5:45am: Two hijackers underwent security screening at Portland International Jetport in Maine before travelling to Boston Logan International Airport, where they joined three other hijackers and boarded American Airlines Flight 11.

Five other hijackers later underwent security screening at Washington Dulles International Airport before boarding American Airlines Flight 77.

7:59am: Flight 11 departed Boston Logan International Airport with 11 crew members, 76 passengers and five hijackers aboard.

8:15am: United Airlines Flight 175 departed Boston Logan with nine crew members, 51 passengers and five hijackers.

8:19am: Crew members aboard Flight 11 notified ground personnel that the aircraft had been hijacked.

8:20am: American Airlines Flight 77 departed Washington Dulles with six crew members, 53 passengers and five hijackers.

8:24am: Hijackers aboard Flight 11 inadvertently transmitted a message to air traffic control instead of the aircraft’s public-address system: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you will be okay.”

8:30am: Employees began arriving at the World Trade Center.

8:37am: Boston air traffic control alerted the US Air Force’s Northeast Air Defense Sector after the hijacking transmission. Air National Guard fighter jets at Otis Air Force Base were mobilised to identify and track Flight 11.

8:42am: United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark International Airport with seven crew members, 33 passengers and four hijackers.

8:46am: Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

First responders immediately began rescue operations.

8:50am: President George W. Bush was informed that a small plane had struck the North Tower. At that point, the crash was believed to have been an accident.

8:52am: Crew members aboard Flight 175 notified a United Airlines operator in San Francisco that their aircraft had been hijacked.

8:55am: The Port Authority declared the South Tower secure.

8:59am: Port Authority police ordered the evacuation of the North and South towers.

9:02am: An evacuation order was broadcast in the South Tower.

9:03am: Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower.

More first responders were mobilised, while a request was made to shut down the airspace over New York City.

9:05am: President Bush was informed that a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

The scale and nature of the attack were becoming clear.

9:12am: Crew and passengers aboard Flight 77 began notifying family members that the aircraft had been hijacked.

9:36am: Vice President Dick Cheney was evacuated to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center.

9:37am: Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

9:42am: The Federal Aviation Administration grounded all flights.

9:45am: The White House and US Capitol began evacuations.

9:58am: Passengers aboard Flight 93 began making calls, including a call to 911.

9:59am: The South Tower collapsed.

Federal continuity-of-government procedures were activated.

10:03am: Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew members attempted to storm the cockpit.

10:15am: The Pentagon’s E Ring collapsed.

10:28am: The North Tower collapsed.

11:02am: The New York City mayor ordered the evacuation of lower Manhattan.

12:16pm: US airspace was closed.

The rescue and recovery effort continued.

5:20pm: World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed.

The human cost

The attacks killed 2,977 people.

Of those, 2,753 died at the World Trade Center, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 near Shanksville.

The World Trade Center victims included 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York Police Department officers and 37 Port Authority police officers.

The attacks represented the largest loss of life from a foreign attack on American soil in US history.

But the scale of the emergency response was also unprecedented.

Thousands of personnel from the New York City Fire Department, NYPD and Port Authority Police Department immediately mobilised to rescue and evacuate civilians.

The New York City Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management requested assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which activated its National Urban Search and Rescue Response System to deploy urban search-and-rescue teams to New York.

The operation was complicated by communication failures and the absence of a coordinated incident command and control structure.

The warning from 1993

The World Trade Center had already been attacked eight years earlier.

On February 26, 1993, terrorists detonated a 1,500-pound bomb beneath the complex, killing six people and injuring about 1,000.

That attack had exposed weaknesses in emergency-response and communications systems and prompted investments in security and technology at the World Trade Center.

But on September 11, first responders again faced communication problems and difficulties coordinating the enormous rescue operation.

America begins rebuilding its security system

Eleven days after the attacks, President Bush appointed Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as the first director of the newly created White House Office of Homeland Security.

Its task was to oversee and coordinate a national strategy to protect the United States against terrorism and respond to future attacks.

A major early reform focused on aviation.

Congress passed the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, creating the Transportation Security Administration.

Before TSA was created, aviation security was a joint responsibility involving the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines, which contracted private security companies to conduct passenger and baggage screening.

That system failed to prevent any of the 19 hijackers from boarding their flights on September 11.

The creation of TSA placed transportation security under a federal entity for the first time, replacing the previous fragmented system with federal oversight and standards.

The birth of Homeland Security

In June 2002, President Bush proposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security.

His administration argued that no single government agency had homeland security as its primary mission and that the country needed a unified structure capable of responding to known and unknown threats.

Congress passed the Homeland Security Act in November 2002, creating DHS as a Cabinet-level department to coordinate and unify domestic national-security efforts.

The new department brought together all or parts of 22 existing departments and agencies.

Its responsibilities came to cover counterterrorism, intelligence, transportation and maritime security, border security and immigration enforcement, cybersecurity and infrastructure protection, emergency preparedness and management, science and technology, and coordination with state, local, tribal and territorial authorities.

Counterterrorism spreads across government

Post-9/11 reforms also transformed state and local policing.

The New York Police Department established a Counterterrorism Bureau focused on monitoring potential terrorist targets, developing intelligence capabilities, training first responders and specialised units, and preventing attacks.

Law enforcement agencies across the US subsequently expanded and modernised counterterrorism missions in coordination with federal authorities.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces became an important mechanism for sharing information and intelligence with state and local agencies.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis also became a key link between federal intelligence and state, local, tribal, territorial and private-sector partners.

The 9/11 Commission

The country also sought to understand how the attacks had been possible.

The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States was established to investigate the attacks and recommend measures to prevent another attack.

Its final report, released in 2004, contained 41 recommendations aimed at addressing vulnerabilities and strengthening US national security.

Some of those recommendations were subsequently enacted through legislation and executive action.

The House also established a Select Committee on Homeland Security before making it a permanent standing committee.

The House Homeland Security Committee is the only standing House committee established in response to the September 11 attacks.

Twenty-five years later

A quarter of a century after the attacks, the committee says the threat facing the United States has changed.

It identifies lone actors and inspired attackers, cyber campaigns conducted by nation states, artificial intelligence, transnational criminal organisations, border vulnerabilities and the changing nature of terrorism among the challenges confronting the country.

Its latest report therefore does not simply look backwards.

It makes more than 20 recommendations for the next phase of homeland security, including improved intelligence-sharing between federal and state and local agencies, updated definitions of security threats, greater awareness of emerging terrorist tactics, stronger cybersecurity coordination, risk-based AI cybersecurity standards, full implementation of biometric entry-exit systems, additional northern-border resources and expanded use of non-intrusive inspection technology.

It also calls for stronger emergency preparedness, continued funding for emergency management, improved biodefence and biodetection capabilities, greater preparedness against agroterrorism and support for the reauthorisation of FirstNet.

The committee has urged Congress and the executive branch to implement the recommendations quickly and on a bipartisan basis.

For Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino, the review is also about ensuring that the lessons of September 11 are not lost as a new generation comes of age.

“Twenty-five years later, significant progress has been made towards strengthening our national security and ensuring we never again allow such an attack to be perpetrated against the United States,” Garbarino said.

“This no-fail mission requires persistent vigilance and adaptation to keep pace with the contemporary threat environment.”

And so, 25 years after four hijacked planes transformed the United States in a single morning, the House committee created in response to that catastrophe is once again asking what must change to prevent the next one.

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