How it happened: a terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001

On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists, supposedly  having links with  Al-Qaeda, divided into four groups and seized four scheduled passenger airliner in the United States.

Each group had at least one member with initial flight training. They sent two of these airliners to the World Trade Center towers which caused collapse of both towers causing serious destruction to adjacent buildings.

A third plane was sent to the Pentagon. Passengers and crew of the fourth airliner attempted to gain the control of the plane from terrorists. As a result, the plane crashed into a field near Schwenksville in Pennsylvania.

The act of terrorism claimed 2,974 lives 9 (excluding 19 terrorists); 246 passengers and crew members of planes, 2,603 people in New York, in the WTC buildings and land, 125 in the Pentagon. U.S. citizens and that of 91 states were killed including 96 citizens and immigrants from the former USSR. As many as 24 people are listed as missing.

/Day.Az/