|
 Day
of terror in N.Y., Washington
MSNBC STAFF
AND WIRE REPORTS
NEW YORK,
Sept. 11 — Americans reeled in horror Tuesday as the
worst terrorist attack in U.S. history sent planes
crashing into the World Trade Center in New York, toppling
the twin 110-story towers. An explosion later rocked the
Pentagon in Washington. The White House, the Pentagon and
the Capitol building were evacuated. Military jets
patrolled the skies above both cities. The FAA grounded
all civilian aircraft nationwide, but not before reports
of another large aircraft crashing in Western
Pennsylvania. President Bush vowed to “hunt down the
folks who committed this act.”
THE FATE OF
those in the twin skyscrapers was not immediately known.
Authorities had been trying to evacuate the thousands of
people who work in the twin towers, but many were thought
to be trapped. “I swear I’ve never seen anything like
this,” said MSNBC’s Ashleigh Banfield. “This whole
place is like a complete war zone.”
At the
Pentagon, eyewitnesses saw an aircraft crash into part of
the sprawling complex. Walls were later seen to have
collapsed.
An earlier
report of a car bomb exploding outside the State
Department was later denied.
In New York,
the aircraft struck minutes apart, starting fires and
sending smoke billowing out of the skyscrapers. The top of
the south tower later collapsed onto the street below.
The first
crash happened shortly before 9 a.m. ET.
MSNBC.com
reporter Martin Wolk, who was inside one of the towers,
said the lights flickered and then a loud bang was heard.
People panicked and started to flee the building.
When they
reached the lobby, smoke started to fill the building and
people could see debris falling and many cars outside were
damaged. “It was sheer pandemonium, people were
screaming and crying, afraid to go outside because of the
falling debris,” Wolk said. “We looked up and it
looked like the top 20 floors were in flames.”
Another bystander described a barrage of debris raining
down on the sidewalk below.
Shortly after
9 a.m., a second aircraft was seen crashing into the other
tower. Broadcast cameras already watching the scene filmed
the second plane as it slammed into the tower and exploded
in a huge fireball.
A half hour
later, President Bush made a brief statement to reporters,
calling the disaster a “national tragedy” and
attributing it to terrorists. He did not cite any specific
terrorist groups but vowed to “hunt down the folks who
committed this act.”
U.S. military jets reportedly took to the skies to shoot
down any unidentified aircraft, and congressional leaders
were taken to secure locations. A plane was reported to
have been circling the Capitol building before the
evacuation.
American Airlines later acknowledged that one of its
flights had been hijacked Tuesday morning shortly after
leaving Boston en route to Los Angeles.
In the wake of
the crashes, New York airports and the Lincoln Tunnel were
closed as precautionary measures. The stock exchanges in
New York also did not open.
Large holes
were visible in sides of the 110-story buildings. The tops
of the twin towers were obscured by the smoke.
Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper
came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles from the
tower, one witness said.
In an earlier
terrorist attack, the center was bombed on Feb. 26, 1993,
killing six people and injured more than 1,000 others.
Terrorist Ramzi Yousef and three others were convicted of
orchestrating the attack. Three other indicted
co-conspirators remain at large.
Traffic
entering New York City from New Jersey was at a standstill
approaching the Holland Tunnel as motorists stood outside
their cars watching the fire.
Across the
country, highrises like Chicago’s Sears Trade tower were
being evacuated as a precaution. Buildings were also being
evacuated in London.
The Associated
Press contributed to this report.
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