The World Trade Center
The September 11th Attack
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| The World Trade Center moments after the destruction of the South Tower |
According to conventional wisdom, the September 11th attack on Lower Manhattan targets consisted of two assaults: the collisions of Flights 11 and 175 with the North and South Towers. Analysis of the events of that day reveals that the most destructive events -- the building collapses -- cannot be explained as direct or indirect results of those assaults, and therefore must have been assaults themselves. The major destructive events in lower Manhattan on September 11th were as follows.
- The collision of a jet with WTC 1
- The collision of a jet with WTC 2
- The total destruction of WTC 2
- The total destruction of WTC 1
- The collapse of WTC 7
- WTC 1 - the north Twin Tower
- WTC 2 - the south Twin Tower
- WTC 6 - the U.S. Customs building
- WTC 7 - the 47-story building housing Mayor Guiliani's secret command center
The immediate death toll of the attack consisted of the 157 people believed to be on Flights 11 and 175, 421 firefighters, and 2,245 people in and around the towers. The vast majority of people killed in the attacks died when the buildings collapsed, not when the planes hit, nor as a result of the fires that followed. However, many witnessed the horrifying spectacle of people above the crash zone in the North Tower jumping to their deaths to escape the copious toxic smoke. Although the South Tower collapsed first, it is thought that around 600 people perished in it, compared to around 1,400 people in the North Tower. 1
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