world trade center timeline : 09/11/2001

American Airlines Flight 11, flying from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California, has 81 passengers, nine crew members and two pilots aboard. It hits the top of North tower of World Trade Centre in New York on the North face.

According to a man identified as a pilot on CNN:

"This morning we were at Midtown Manhattan on the 31st floor of a building facing south. We saw a (Boeing) 767 flying low down the center of the island of Manhattan, heading toward downtown Manhattan. About, maybe, 20 blocks north of the World Trade Center, we saw the plane veer to the left and fly directly into the north side of the south tower. This was the first plane, a 767."

Boston Herald:

"Just moments before the first crash, air traffic controllers heard the lone voice of the terror plot speaking from the cockpit of one doomed aircraft.

``We have more planes, we have other planes,’’ a voice alleged to be that of a hijacker could be heard saying through a microphone activated by a pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, the Christian Science Monitor reported on its Web site.

A flight attendant aboard Flight 11 called superiors to report two flight attendants had been stabbed and hijackers had broken into the cockpit, ABC News reported. The attendant also relayed the seat number of one hijacker before the plane struck the Trade Center."

Sydney Morning Herald:

""A man was giving a boring speech about securities when it happened. The building shook. I didn’t think much of it, but all the economists in their grey suits started running.

"They knew it was a terrorist attack. I got out into the street. I watched 30 people jump."