1 00:00:00,00 --> 00:00:04,800 HISTORY presents: 2 00:00:08,900 --> 00:00:11,900 - September 11th, 2001. 3 00:00:13,300 --> 00:00:14,600 A day of grief... 4 00:00:17,400 --> 00:00:18,700 ...a day of courage. 5 00:00:20,900 --> 00:00:23,400 This is how that day unfolded. 6 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:26,100 - My daughter called me. 7 00:00:27,400 --> 00:00:30,200 She said the plane just flew into the World Trade Center. 8 00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:31,600 Now, you gotta be kiddin' me. 9 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000 It's gotta be a Piper Cub or some clown that was flying down the river. 10 00:00:36,300 --> 00:00:41,400 - At 8:46 a.m, American Airlines flight 11 from Boston 11 00:00:41,500 --> 00:00:46,200 with 92 aboard travelling at a speed of 470 miles per hour 12 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:50,100 strikes the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex. 13 00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:55,300 Within minutes, officials coordinate the citywide emergency response. 14 00:00:56,500 --> 00:01:03,100 Their base of operations is a state-of-the-art command center located on the 23rd floor of seven World Trade Center. 15 00:01:03,800 --> 00:01:07,600 - With one tower in flames, the tragedy is only beginning. 16 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:13,800 It is 9:03 when United Airlines flight 175 with 65 aboard 17 00:01:13,900 --> 00:01:18,800 travelling at a speed of 590 miles per hour smashes into the South Tower 18 00:01:18,900 --> 00:01:20,300 of the World Trade Center. 19 00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:27,900 This aircraft strikes the corner of the South Tower. It rips a diagonally shaped gash 20 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:30,600 from the 84th to the 78th floors. 21 00:01:31,500 --> 00:01:38,400 The South Tower lasts only 56 minutes before it succumbs at 9:59 a.m. 22 00:01:42,800 --> 00:01:45,400 - A dust cloud billows outward for blocks. 23 00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:51,500 - Victims stagger away. 24 00:01:53,900 --> 00:01:58,800 - At 10:28, the television mast atop the North Tower spears straight down. 25 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:08,100 - Once the collapse started, there really wasn't any way to stop it. 26 00:02:11,100 --> 00:02:13,900 It was just gonna go all the way down once it got started. 27 00:02:30,900 --> 00:02:32,700 - Chaos in New York City. 28 00:02:37,000 --> 00:02:39,500 - Power is down in lower Manhattan. 29 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:45,800 - Phone lines jammed with more than 230 million calls. 30 00:02:47,800 --> 00:02:51,100 - Hundreds of firefighters trapped in the towers. 31 00:02:52,700 --> 00:02:55,000 - Hundreds more race to the sea. 32 00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:03,200 - Falling debris from the collapse of the North and South Towers 33 00:03:04,100 --> 00:03:07,800 ignites fires in the neighboring buildings of the World Trade Center. 34 00:03:08,400 --> 00:03:12,700 World Trade four, five, and six are ablaze. 35 00:03:13,300 --> 00:03:18,400 World Trade seven, the building housing the city's command center burns unchecked 36 00:03:18,500 --> 00:03:22,600 for seven hours. At 5:20, it collapses. 37 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:31,800 - The city's emergency nerve center is destroyed. 38 00:03:32,100 --> 00:03:35,400 - Somewhere in that time, and it's very hard to keep track of time 39 00:03:35,500 --> 00:03:37,900 during this, they had been ordered to evacuate number seven 40 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:42,300 by the Port Authority. To this day, we don't know who gave that order, 41 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:46,100 but whoever it was saved a lot of people's lives. 42 00:03:47,400 --> 00:03:52,700 - With New York a warzone, some residents walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to get out of the city. 43 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,400 Others seek escape in vessels piloted by the Army Corp of Engineers. 44 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:11,900 At 7:45 p.m, the New York Police Department says 78 officers are missing, and estimates that 200 firefighters are dead. 45 00:04:15,600 --> 00:04:22,400 At 10:56 p.m, police officials say they believe there are victims alive in the rubble of the World Trade Center. 46 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:29,300 - Working with urban search-and-rescue teams, there was a lot of areas to be searched underneath the debris field. 47 00:04:29,400 --> 00:04:33,600 There were voids that had to be searched for possible live people. 48 00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:45,100 September 11th, 2001, the longest and most tragic day in New York's history is drawing to a close. 49 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Watch more History on the channel!