The largest terror attack in history and the deadliest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor occurred 25 years ago on Sept. 11, 2001. In 2026, with a whole new generation who were either too young to remember the attacks or were born after they occurred, it is worth pausing to reflect as a society on the events of that day, lest we lose the sense of just how horrible it truly was and the lasting, generational effect they had on America.
This need is especially relevant as radical elements of the far left in the United States downplay the attacks or shift the blame, with left-wing influencer Hasan Piker going so far as to say, “America deserved 9/11.”
Nineteen hijackers from the al-Qaeda terror group, including 15 from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt, and one from Lebanon, and all motivated by radical Islamism and hatred of America and Western Civilization, seized control of four passenger airplanes and turned them into missiles.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston was flown into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, with the impact and resulting explosion from the 76,400 pounds of fuel it was carrying killing all 76 passengers and 11 crew members instantly, along with hundreds of people inside the building. News outlets around the country trained their cameras on the smoke billowing out of the hole in the North Tower. It was not yet clear whether the crash was intentional, and some news outlets speculated that it could have been a horrible accident.
At 9:03 a.m., the attackers flew United Airlines Flight 175, also out of Boston, into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, killing all 51 passengers and nine crew members instantly. For this second attack, news cameras were already trained on the World Trade Center because of the first plane, so Americans around the country were watching live as the second plane slammed into the South Tower. It was now abundantly clear that the country was under attack. Somewhere between 50 and 200 World Trade Center employees on the impacted floors fell or jumped to their deaths as the fire and smoke spread.
At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 out of Washington Dulles International Airport was flown into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, killing all 53 passengers and six crew members, as well as 125 military and civilian personnel.
At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed, killing the more than 800 civilians, firemen, cops, and paramedics still in the building and filling the streets of lower Manhattan with smoke and debris.
The intended target of the hijackers who seized the fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93 out of Newark, is still unknown, although given the flight path many have speculated that it was heading for Washington, D.C. The reason the target is unknown is because the passengers on Flight 93, aware that the plane was intended for use as a missile, fought back against their hijackers. As the passengers stormed the cockpit, the plane veered out of control, crashing into a field in Pennsylvania instead of into a building full of people. The 33 passengers and seven crew members were killed in the attempt, but they doubtless saved many lives.
At 10:28 a.m. the North Tower of the World Trade Center also collapsed. More than 1,600 people were killed in the North Tower.
American policemen and firemen responded immediately to the attacks, putting themselves at great risk to rescue people before the buildings collapsed and then recovering survivors trapped in the rubble. All told, 343 NYFD firemen and 23 NYPD policemen were killed responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center.
People around the country and around the globe rallied in memory of the 2,977 people killed on Sept. 11 in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Both spontaneous and official demonstrations of support for the American people took place around the world in the days following the attacks. In Brussels, America’s NATO allies invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, saying an attack on America was an attack on all and committing many thousands of troops to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terror group, emerged as the mastermind of the attacks. Within days, American soldiers had deployed to Afghanistan, beginning a long fight to kill or capture the terrorists who had carried out the attack and to deny safe haven to other members of al-Qaeda to prevent it from happening again. In 2011, U.S. special forces raided a compound in Pakistan where bin Laden had been hiding ever since he fled Afghanistan in 2001, killing him and then dumping his body in the Indian Ocean.
The Sept. 11 attacks killed thousands of people across three American states and ushered in decades of counterterror and counterinsurgency operations across the Middle East, defining American national security policy for a generation of Americans. Hundreds of thousands of American men and women deployed to the Middle East in response, and thousands were killed in combat operations.
The Sept. 11 attacks must never be forgotten, and we should honor the efforts of the American military, law enforcement, and intelligence community to prevent another such attack from happening again.
