Casualties of the September 11 attacks facts for kids

From top, left to right: Flight 175 hits the South Tower
Rescue workers at Ground Zero
Collapsed section of the Pentagon
Fragment of the Flight 93 fuselage
9/11 Memorial reflecting pool and One World Trade Center

The September 11 attacks of 2001 were the deadliest terrorist attacks in human history, causing the deaths of 2,996 people, including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers who committed murder. Thousands more were injured, and long-term health effects have arisen as a consequence of the attacks. New York City took the brunt of the death toll when the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in Lower Manhattan were attacked, with an estimated 1,600 victims from the North Tower and around a thousand from the South Tower. Two hundred miles southwest in Arlington County, Virginia, another 125 were killed in the Pentagon. The remaining 265 fatalities included the ninety-two passengers and crew of American Airlines Flight 11, the sixty-five aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the sixty-four on American Airlines Flight 77 and the forty-four who boarded United Airlines Flight 93. The attack on the World Trade Center's North Tower alone made the September 11 attacks the deadliest act of terrorism in human history.

Most of those who perished were civilians except for 343 members of the New York City Fire Department and 71 law enforcement officers who died in the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City; a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who died when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania; 55 military personnel who died at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia; and the 19 terrorists who died on board the four aircraft. At least 102 countries lost citizens in the attacks.

Initially, a total of 2,603 victims were confirmed to have been killed at the World Trade Center site. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office began to add people who died of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site to the official death toll. The first such victim was a woman, a civil rights lawyer, who had died from a chronic lung condition in February 2002. In September 2009, the office added a man who died in October 2008, and in 2011, a male accountant who had died in December 2010. This raised the number of victims from the World Trade Center site to 2,606, and the overall 9/11 death toll to 2,996.

As of August 2013^[update], medical authorities concluded that 1,140 people who worked, lived, or studied in Lower Manhattan at the time of the attacks have been diagnosed with cancer as a result of "exposure to toxins at Ground Zero". In September 2014, it was reported that over 1,400 rescue workers who responded to the scene in the days and months after the attacks had since died. At least 10 pregnancies were lost as a result of 9/11. Neither the FBI nor the New York City government officially recorded the casualties of the 9/11 attacks in their crime statistics for 2001, with the FBI stating in a disclaimer that "the number of deaths is so great that combining it with the traditional crime statistics will have an outlier effect that falsely skews all types of measurements in the program's analyses."

Evacuation

Most tall buildings in the United States at the time were not designed for complete evacuation during a crisis, even after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. It was also procedural for announcements in the case of high-rise fire safety for individuals to remain in their offices unless they were near the burning floor. However, after it took ten hours to completely evacuate the towers in the 1993 attack, multiple additions were made to the buildings and evacuation plans. Radio repeaters were installed in the towers to improve communication, battery powered emergency lights were installed, and fire drills held. Individuals who evacuated for both the 1993 and 2001 attacks reportedly stated they were better prepared for the 2001 evacuations. At least two individuals who had evacuated in both 1993 and 2001 later reported that they had prepared for a potential evacuation after 1993, by bringing either an item such as a flashlight or an emergency preparedness bag with them.

Both 110-story towers housed three stairwells in the central cores of each. On maintenance floors containing lift and ventilation machinery (such as some of the floors where Flight 175 struck the South Tower), the northern and southern stairwells entered corridors extending north and south to stairwells that bypassed the heavy equipment. The three stairwells―labeled A, B, and C―were as tall as the buildings, with two built to 44 inches (110 cm) in width and the third being 56 inches (140 cm) wide. In the North Tower the stairs were approximately 70 ft apart, compared to the distance of 200 ft between the stairwells in the South Tower.

A map showing the attacks on the World Trade Center; the planes are not drawn to scale.

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, media reports suggested that tens of thousands might have been killed. Estimates of the number of people present in the Twin Towers that morning range between 14,000 and 19,000. The National Institute of Standards and Technology determined that approximately 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks. Turnstile counts from the Port Authority indicate that the number of people typically in the Twin Towers by 10:30 am was 14,154.

Almost all of the deaths in the Twin Towers occurred on floors trapped by the plane impacts, but it is unknown how many people were in those floors when the towers were struck. The available data suggests that between 1,344 and 1,426 people occupied floors 92–110 of the North Tower when American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the skyscraper at 08:46, none of whom survived. Somewhere in the region of 599 to 690 people were present on floors 77–110 of the South Tower when it was hit by United Airlines Flight 175 at 09:03, with only 18 survivors.

In interviews with 271 survivors, researchers in 2008 found that only about 8.6% had fled as soon as the alarm was raised while about 91.4% stayed behind to wait for more information or carrying out at least one additional task (collecting belongings/calling a family member). The interviews also showed that 82% of those who were evacuating stopped at least once during their way down, due to congestion on the stairs, to take a rest, or due to environmental conditions (smoke/debris/fire/water). Another hindrance to the evacuation of the World Trade Center was that as the planes struck, the force of the impact caused the buildings to shift enough to jam doors in their frames and stairwells to become blocked by broken wall boards, trapping dozens of people throughout the buildings, mostly on the floors closer to the impact zones. Communication breakdowns also hampered the evacuation of workers as one survivor recounted calling 911 multiple times from the South Tower only to be put on hold twice, as 911 operators had a lack of awareness about what was happening and were overwhelmed with the amount of calls, at times repeating incorrect information. Communication issues were also seen as first responders were utilizing different radio channels to communicate, their frequencies were overwhelmed or they had been off duty and responded without their radios.

North Tower

Within moments of Flight 11's impact, the Port Authority issued a complete evacuation of the North Tower, an order that only those beneath the 92nd floor were capable of heeding. Nonetheless, the roughly 8,000 people who could descend were left facing a harrowing scenario. Neither tower had been designed to facilitate a mass evacuation, and each of the twins only had three stairwells descending to the ground level. For anyone higher than the 91st floor, escape was impossible, with one victim relaying to 911 after the first plane hit that the stairs were inaccessible for the 106th floor. A computer modeling study done after the attacks, projected that it would take about 1 hour and 27 minutes ± 2 minutes for 8,239 people to evacuate the tower. The modeling also suggested that if Stairwell B had remained intact through the entire building all 1,049 projected survivors could have evacuated with an additional 2 minutes to the total time. At least 77 people were freed on the 88th through 90th floors by a team of Port Authority officers: construction manager Frank De Martini, building inspector Pablo Ortiz, engineer Mak Hanna, environmental coordinator Pete Negron and Assistant General Manager Carlos S. da Costa. Just minutes after the plane crash, emergency responders arrived at the World Trade Center and began organizing teams to assist in the evacuation of the North Tower.

Two survivors are covered in dust after the collapse of the towers.

Many people began to evacuate via the stairs on their own, while others chose to wait for instructions from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Others who chose to evacuate were also pushed into action by loved ones who had been able to contact them. As evacuees descended the staircases in the North Tower, they were directed to descend to the concourse level beneath the World Trade Center complex, where the mall was located. Others who managed to escape credit the "Survivors Staircase," an outdoor staircase that survived the disaster, and World Trade Center workers who knew escape routes. One survivor stated, "Between the 11th floor and the 9th floor, we wound through this maze. When we got to the plaza level we were walking through and there was one emergency light on. There was water up to our calves. All of a sudden there was a voice. We saw someone in a miner hat. He opened the door and said 'Just keep going.'"

South Tower

While people did start voluntarily evacuating the South Tower, the decision to not order an immediate full-scale evacuation – until 12 minutes after the North was struck – was widely criticized in the media. The 9/11 Commission found the delay logical given the context of: no further attack was shown to be in progress; congestion by South evacuees could diminish rescue and evacuation efforts of the actually-stricken North Tower; and danger to precautionary evacuees due to falling debris from the North Tower.

Meanwhile, in the South Tower, almost all of its roughly 8,600 occupants knew immediately that something serious just happened in the building next door. The sound of the crashing airliner was heard by well over 4,000 people. Some who had glimpsed Flight 11 just before it impacted the North Tower thought it was lined up to strike their building, and the fireballs from the crash immediately thereafter were witnessed by countless employees on sides facing the North Tower. The blast shattered windows on the South Tower's 95th floor, while the tower's northern and western façades were battered by debris. As the top of the South Tower became enveloped by the thick smoke pouring southeast, many people witnessed desperate office workers jumping from the tower burning opposite. The disaster in the North Tower was even physically perceived by a number of people in the South Tower. Survivors from the South Tower reported feeling their building shake as the first plane crashed into its twin, and smoke from the North Tower began seeping into the South Tower through ventilation ducts. Those at the same altitude as the fires burning in the North Tower could feel the extreme heat radiating into their floors. Media coverage, phone calls, and word of mouth quickly alerted anyone else to the seriousness of what was happening. Half personally believed their lives were in danger.

Because of what happened to the North Tower, many people in the South Tower chose to evacuate as a precaution. However, the major hindrance to this process was that for the 17 minutes between the impacts of Flight 11 and Flight 175, it had not yet been determined that a terrorist attack was unfolding. The initial assumption by most was that the first crash had merely been an accident, and even those who suspected it was a deliberate attack based on its flying were uncertain. For this reason, the Port Authority in the South Tower did not initiate a full evacuation of the building, instead deciding to spread the word via the South Tower's intercom system and security guards for workers to stay put and remain in their offices. A deliveryman for the South Tower told reporters he decided to leave following the first crash, and on his way out he heard a voice over the intercom declaring that: "The building is secure. The safest place is inside; stay calm and do not leave." Others who ignored the message were met with officials at the lobby who told them to return to their respective floors. In a radio conversation recorded within three minutes of the first impact, the director of the South Tower told his counterpart in the North Tower that he was not going to order an evacuation until given the all-clear by "the boss from the fire department or somebody." This was done in order to avoid overcrowding on the plaza and concourse levels, which was feared would slow the evacuation and rescue operations in the North Tower.

Despite the announcements, thousands continued to evacuate the South Tower. More than 3,500 people were present on-site between the 77th and 110th floors, including at least 1,100 employees of AON Insurance (floors 92 and 98–105) and over 700 people working for Fiduciary Trust (floors 90 and 94–97). Both companies had offices directly across from the North Tower's impact zone, and executives working for the two firms did not hesitate to order an evacuation of their offices immediately following the first impact, allowing more than 80% of the employees from each company to get to safety before the South Tower was struck. Lower down, the offices of Fuji Bank (floors 79–82), Euro Brokers (floor 84) and CSC (floor 87) were also evacuated, the latter of which avoided suffering any casualties in the South Tower. Executives such as Eric Eisenberg, who personally made the decision to evacuate AON's offices, instructed their employees to take the stairs down to the 78th floor Skylobby, where they could take an express elevator to the ground level and exit the building safely. Within a window of 17 minutes, between 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m., an estimated 2,900 people had gotten below the 77th floor of the South Tower, while between 599 and 690 did not.

By 8:57 a.m., officials working for the FDNY and NYPD opined that the ongoing disaster in the North Tower had made the entire WTC complex unsafe and requested that the South Tower be evacuated, advice that took an additional six minutes to be implemented. By 9:02 a.m., an announcement was made gently giving workers in the South Tower the option to leave. Sean Rooney, a victim who worked for AON Risk Management on the 98th floor, was speaking on the phone to his wife seconds before impact, allowing some of the announcement to be heard in the background: "May I have your attention, please. Repeating this message: the situation occurred in Building 1. If conditions warrant on your floor, you may wish to start an orderly evacuation."

Pentagon

An aerial view of the Pentagon following the attacks

Since the Pentagon was struck after the World Trade Center, many who worked there did not think the attack would extend past New York City. A media relations specialist who was working in the building at the time recounted years later that she told a coworker, "This is the safest place to be in the world right now." Another was on the phone with his wife and her sixth-grade class when the plane struck, stating the whole building felt like it had been completely lifted off the foundations. He hung up after stating, "We've been bombed, I have to go" before immediately starting to evacuate. Uncertainty about the type of attack led to many being cautious in evacuating with at least one security guard warning of potential shooters laying in wait, to gun down evacuees.

World Trade Center Hotel

The Marriott World Trade Center on May 15, 2001, approximately four months prior to the attacks

World Trade Center 3 was also known as the World Trade Center Hotel, the Vista Hotel, and the Marriott Hotel. During evacuations of the two larger towers, this 22-story hotel was used as an evacuation runway for about 1,000 people who were evacuated from the area. The guests and others who were evacuated through the hotel were guided by hotel staff through the hotel's bar and outside onto Liberty Street. A policeman was stationed holding the door between the Marriott and Liberty Street, and would periodically hold up the line due to concerns about falling debris or bodies. A paramedic helping in the evacuation process remembered the air being so hot and thick that he had trouble breathing and difficulty seeing, but could hear the PASS device alarms of firefighters that had collapsed and needed assistance.

A majority of the registered 940 guests at the hotel began to evacuate after alarms were raised due to a piece of one of the plane's landing gear landing on the top floor of the pool. Some did not immediately do so, with at least one guest recounting that he woke up to the first plane hitting the North Tower and went back to bed only to be awoken by the impact of the plane hitting the South Tower. He then watched the news and took a shower, got dressed, and gathered his belongings before evacuating after watching the South Tower collapse. The delay was in part to many guests being unable to see the damage done to the North Tower from any vantage point on the grounds of the Marriott.

Surrounding area

United States Coast Guard patrolling the New York Harbor with the impact area of World Trade Center in sight, September 11, 2001.

Once both towers had been struck, the order to evacuate the North Tower quickly spread to encompass not only the entire World Trade Center complex, but most high rise buildings in Lower Manhattan and surrounding areas as well. The evacuation of employees from the North and South towers continued past the plaza and through the concourse. Evacuees from the North Tower were directed through the underground shopping mall, from where they exited the complex onto Church Street. Evacuees from the South Tower were directed elsewhere to prevent congestion; they were sent across the covered footbridge over West Street to the World Financial Center or to 4 World Trade Center and out onto Liberty Street. Not all evacuees were connected to World Trade Centers, with students from Stuyvesant High School, the Borough of Manhattan Community College, tourists, residents of the area with their pets and others, also involved in the evacuation process.

To relieve congestion within the city and clear the evacuees and civilians, boats and ferries were used to further evacuate Lower Manhattan. Some of the boats were a part of the Coast Guard, others were civilian, company or state-owned, that acted independently or after seeking the permission of the Coast Guard, who initially instructed vessels to stand by and then issued a request for all available boats to participate. One participating vessels crew later recounted the call from Lt. Michael Day of the Coast Guard stating; "All available boats....This is the United States Coast Guard…. Anyone wanting to help with the evacuation of Lower Manhattan report to Governors Island." In total the water evacuation of lower Manhattan moved about 500,000 during the day.

Disabled individuals

On the day of the attacks there were a number of disabled individuals in the World Trade Center, and there was a revised evacuation plan in place after the 1993 attack as many had been told to wait for rescuers and some waited up to nine hours. Some like John Abruzzo, a quadriplegic, and Tina Hansen were able to evacuate, as Abruzzo was carried by coworkers from the 69th floor down in an evacuation chair and indicated that it took them about ninety minutes to reach ground level. The chairs were some of the about 125 that were purchased after the 1993 bombing, however there was varying levels of training and communication about them. Others such as Michael Hingson, who was born blind, were able to evacuate from the 78th floor of the North Tower due with the help of his guide dog Roselle.

Survivors

World Trade Center site (Ground Zero) with an overlay showing the original building locations

No one survived in, above, or immediately below the North Tower's impact zone. The highest survivors came from Floor 91. Some 15 people below and on floor 22 survived the collapse of WTC 1, later escaping or being rescued from the rubble.

At least 19 people were believed to have escaped from at or above the impact zone of the South Tower (floors 77 to 85) after it was struck by United Airlines Flight 175 at 9:03 am, the highest coming from floor 98. Individuals escaped from the South Tower impact zone using stairwell A in the northwest corner, the only stairwell left intact after the impact. Investigators believe that stairwell A remained passable until the South Tower collapsed at 9:59 am. Because of communication difficulties between 911 operators and FDNY and NYPD responders, most of them were unaware that stairwell A was passable and instructed survivors above the impact zone to wait for assistance by rescue personnel. Despite the relatively few survivors from the impact zone and above, the 9/11 Commission did bring up the possibility of others who may have descended from the point of impact but were unable to make it all the way down before the tower collapsed and killed everybody still within.

After collapses

An Urban Search and Rescue Task Force German Shepherd dog works to uncover victims at the site of the World Trade Center after the attacks.

After the towers collapsed, only 20 individuals in or below the towers escaped from the debris, including 12 firefighters and three Port Authority police officers. Only 16 individuals who were inside the collapsing North Tower survived and were rescued, and they were all trying to evacuate via stairwell B, located in the center of the building. Four people who were in the concourse area between the Twin Towers survived and either saved themselves or were rescued. Nobody who was in the South Tower at the time of its collapse survived. The last survivor removed from the WTC collapse debris was found in the ruins of the North Tower 27 hours after its collapse.

An unknown number of other people survived the initial collapse, but were buried in air pockets deep beneath the rubble and could not be rescued in time. Some were able to rescue themselves and others from the rubble by climbing through the rubble or digging and listening for sounds of life in order to safely remove the victims from the rubble.

Survivor advocacy

As of September 28, 2008, a total of over 33,000 police officers, firefighters, responders, and community members have been treated for injuries and sickness related to the 9/11 attacks in New York City, including respiratory conditions, mental health problems like PTSD and depression, gastrointestinal conditions, and at least 4,166 cases of cancer; according to one advocacy group "more cops have died of illness linked to the attack than had perished in it".

Former Daily Show host Jon Stewart and others succeeded in pushing for a law passed by Congress in 2015 that permanently extends health care benefits for the responders and adds five years to the victims' compensation program. Stewart's advocacy on the issue continued into 2019. In June of that year, he testified in front of Congress on behalf of 9/11 first responders who did not have proper health care benefits from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. During the testimony he was critical that "Sick and dying, they [first responders] brought themselves down here to speak to no one" and that it was "Shameful" and "...an embarrassment to the country and it is a stain on this institution."

Fatalities

World Trade Center

September 11 Memorial fountain at the footprint of where the North Tower once stood, and the associated museum at left

2,606 people who were in the World Trade Center and on the ground perished as a result of the attacks and the subsequent collapse of the towers. This figure consisted of 2,192 civilians (including eight EMTs and paramedics from private hospital units); 343 members of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY); and 71 law enforcement officers including 23 members of the New York City Police Department (NYPD), 37 members of the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), four members of the New York State Office of Tax Enforcement (OTE), three officers of the New York State Office of Court Administration (OCA), one fire marshal of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) who had sworn law enforcement powers (and was also among the 343 FDNY members killed), one member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), one member of the New York Fire Patrol (FPNY), and one member of the United States Secret Service (USSS). This included a bomb-sniffing dog named Sirius.

The average age of the dead in New York City was 40. The youngest victim was Christine Lee Hanson of Groton, Massachusetts, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl who was a passenger on Flight 175. The oldest was Robert Norton, an 85-year-old retiree from Lubec, Maine who was on Flight 11. In the buildings, the youngest person was 18-year-old Richard Allen Pearlman, a volunteer medic, and the oldest was Albert Joseph, a 79-year-old maintenance worker for Morgan Stanley. Ten pregnant women and their unborn children were killed in the attacks as well.

The Tribute in Light on September 11, 2014, the thirteenth anniversary of the attacks, seen from Bayonne, New Jersey. The tallest building in the picture is the new One World Trade Center.

Other victims included Bill Biggart, a photojournalist; Keith A. Glascoe, an actor; Nezam Hafiz, who played for the Guyana national cricket team; Eamon McEneaney, a Hall of Fame lacrosse player; and Dan Trant, an NBA basketball player.