American Airlines Flight 11

American Airlines Flight 11 was an American domestic passenger flight from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport in California. On the morning of September 11, 2001, five al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked it as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijacked plane was deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex in New York City. All 92 people aboard the flight were killed, and more than 1,300 people died within the skyscraper's top 18 stories. Many others below the trapped floors also died.

The hijacking and crash of Flight 11 caused more deaths than any of the four hijacked flights, both on the plane and on the ground. It is the deadliest aviation incident in history. The plane was a Boeing 767 flying American Airlines' daily morning service from Boston Logan International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport.

The plane left the runway at 7:59 a.m. Less than 15 minutes after takeoff, the hijackers hurt two flight attendants, killed one passenger, and broke into the cockpit, forcing the passengers and crew to the back of the plane. They attacked both pilots, which allowed lead hijacker Mohamed Atta to take control of the plane. Air traffic controllers suspected the flight was in trouble when the crew stopped responding. They realized the plane had been hijacked when Atta's announcement to the hostages was accidentally sent to air traffic control instead of through the plane's PA system. Two flight attendants also contacted American Airlines and shared information about what was happening, including which crew and passengers had been hurt.

At 8:46 a.m. local time, Atta flew the hijacked plane into the North Tower from floors 93 through 99. People on the streets of New York City and in nearby New Jersey saw the impact. The media quickly began reporting on the event and guessed it was an accident. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower, showing that the first crash had not been an accident.

The damage from the plane and the fires it started caused the North Tower to collapse at 10:28 that morning, and hundreds more people were killed. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, remains of some people who boarded Flight 11 were found and identified, but many have not been identified.

Flight

The plane was a Boeing 767-200ER, with registration number N334AA, built and delivered in 1987. It could carry 158 passengers. On September 11, 2001, it carried 81 passengers and 11 crew members, about 58 percent of its seats. This was higher than the usual load factor for Flight 11 on Tuesday mornings. The Captain was John Ogonowski, a former Air Force transport pilot. The First Officer was Thomas McGuinness Jr., a former Navy fighter pilot. Flight attendants included Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney.

McGuinness took the assignment the day before, after celebrating his birthday with his family on September 10. Another pilot, Steve Scheibner, had first been scheduled for the flight.

All 92 people on board were killed. They included Frasier creator David Angell, his wife Lynn Angell, actress Berry Berenson, Daniel Lewin of Akamai Technologies, and astronaut Charles Edward Jones. Alberto Domínguez and seven TJX employees were also aboard. The oldest victim of the attacks, Robert Grant Norton, was on Flight 11. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had been scheduled for the flight but missed it because of a hangover and a travel agent's mistake about the departure time. Actor Mark Wahlberg had also planned to fly but canceled his ticket the day before. Hijackers Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari arrived at Portland International Jetport in Maine early on September 11. A ticket agent was suspicious of Atta but let it go, worried about racially profiling him. The two men boarded Colgan Air Flight 5930 to Boston. Both had first class tickets connecting to Los Angeles. The Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS) selected Atta for extra luggage checks. In Boston, Waleed al-Shehri, Wail al-Shehri, and Satam al-Suqami joined them. By 07:40, all five hijackers were on the plane, with Atta and al-Omari in business class seats. Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, had earlier called Atta's cell phone from Logan Airport. The plane took off from runway 4R at 07:59.

Hijacking

The 9/11 Commission estimated that the hijacking began at 08:14, when the pilots stopped answering requests from the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center (Boston ARTCC). Soon after, someone in the cockpit switched off the plane's transponder signal, and messages sent to the plane by Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) received no reply. The commission believes the hijackers were in full control of the aircraft by 08:20.

Flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong contacted American Airlines during the hijacking. They reported that the hijackers had injured two flight attendants and passenger Daniel Lewin. Ong and Sweeney believed the hijackers had barricaded themselves in the cockpit, and the passengers did not seem to understand the danger. Lewin is believed to be the first fatality in the 9/11 attacks. Ong and Sweeney also gave the seat numbers of the hijackers, which later helped investigators learn their identities.

See also: Air traffic control during the September 11 attacks

Air traffic controllers in Boston heard Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers, speak over the radio at 08:24. He told people to stay quiet and said the plane was returning to the airport. After these messages and the failed attempts to reach the plane, controllers began to realize that Flight 11 had been hijacked. The plane turned south and followed the Hudson River toward New York City. Boston ARTCC then contacted the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York. Two F-15 fighter jets at Otis Air National Guard Base in Mashpee, Massachusetts took off at 08:53, about seven minutes after Flight 11 had already crashed into the North Tower.

Crash

At 8:37 a.m., Flight 11 began a fast drop toward New York City and slowed down as it went. At 8:46, the plane, flying about 440 miles per hour and carrying about 10,000 U.S. gallons of jet fuel, struck the North Tower between floors 93 and 99. Hundreds of people died right away, including everyone still on the plane. The crash blocked the building's stairwells and trapped the people above it. Damage and fires spread across many floors, and the shockwave was felt in both towers.

Many people saw the crash, and cameras recorded it. A webcam set up by Wolfgang Staehle at an art exhibit in Brooklyn took pictures of Lower Manhattan every four seconds and captured Flight 11 flying toward the tower. French cameraman Jules Naudet, who was filming a documentary about the Fire Department of the City of New York (later adapted into 9/11), caught the only known clear footage of the plane hitting the tower. Pavel Hlava, a Czech immigrant, filmed the plane from far away while preparing to drive into the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel. Two audio recordings also captured the impact, one at a cafe in the Marriott World Trade Center and one at a business meeting at One Liberty Plaza. The New York television station WNYW had a camera in City Hall Park, and reporter Dick Oliver recorded the aftermath. CNN began broadcasting at 8:49 with anchor Carol Lin. Some reporters wrongly said the plane was a "small, twin-engine jet." At 8:55, senior advisor Karl Rove told President George W. Bush at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida that the crash "must have been caused by pilot error." Many people believed it was an accident, so the Port Authority did not order an immediate full evacuation of the South Tower. Seventeen minutes after the first impact, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower, confirming that the crash was deliberate.

Aftermath

Main article: Aftermath of the September 11 attacks

After the crash, the North Tower burned for 102 minutes before collapsing at 10:28. The impact caused heavy damage, but the long fire fed by jet fuel was blamed for the tower's failure. Although it was hit first, the North Tower was the second of the two towers to collapse. It stood for nearly twice as long as the South Tower, which burned for only 56 minutes. Flight 11 hit the North Tower at a lower speed and much higher up than Flight 175 hit the South Tower, so there was far less weight above the damage. Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on floors 101–105 of the North Tower, lost 658 employees, more than any other employer. Rescue workers at the World Trade Center site began finding remains from Flight 11 within days. Some remains suggested the hijackers might have used plastic handcuffs. Within a year, medical examiners identified 33 victims from Flight 11, and in 2006 they identified two more, including purser Karen Martin. Other unrelated remains were found near Ground Zero around the same time. In April 2007, newer DNA technology identified another Flight 11 victim. Remains of two hijackers, possibly from Flight 11, were removed from Memorial Park in Manhattan, while the other hijackers' remains are still buried there unidentified.

Al-Suqami's passport survived the crash and landed in the street, where a passerby gave it to a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective shortly before the South Tower collapsed. Investigators also retrieved Mohamed Atta's luggage, which had not been loaded onto the flight. It held papers, a driver's license and passport, and other items, along with a "The Last Night" document containing instructions to the hijackers. The contents identified the names of all 19 hijackers for the four September 11 flights. In a recording made a few months later in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, took responsibility for the attack. He had expected only the floors above the plane strikes to collapse. The flight recorders for Flight 11 and Flight 175 were never found.

After the attacks, the flight number for the scheduled flight on the same route with the same takeoff time was changed. As of 2024, it is flown using an Airbus A321 instead of a Boeing 767. An American flag is flown on the jet bridge of gate B32, where Flight 11 departed Logan Airport. In 2002, the first recipients of the annual Madeline Amy Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery were Sweeney and Ong, and Ogonowski received a posthumous award. All three were residents of Massachusetts, and relatives accepted the awards for them. In 2013, a piece of a Boeing 767 wing flap mechanism was found wedged between two buildings at Park Place, near other landing gear parts. In 2014, the onboard defibrillator from Flight 11 was found during roadworks near Liberty Street. At the National September 11 Memorial, the names of the 87 Flight 11 victims are inscribed on the North Pool.