In the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen members of the Al-Qaeda, a network of Islamist extremists, hijacked four commercial airplanes in the United States.
They planned to turn the airplanes into a massive makeshift missile, loaded with people and 11,000 gallons of fuel. In a coordinated attack, three planes struck their targets, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
All three were hit within less than an hour. The fourth plane, believed to be targeted at either The White House or the Capitol, missed at the expense of all the passengers who bravely fought the hijackers back.
Just hours later, thousands of trained professionals and volunteers rushed to the crash sites to help with rescue and recovery efforts not only at the WTC and the Pentagon but also the empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the fourth plane crash-landed.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day. Some 22,000 artifacts of the tragedy, on display at museums across the United States, are reminders of lost lives and stories of survival.
10 /10 Elevator Emergency Sign
Among all the items recovered from the World Trade Center after September 11, 2001, a terrorist attack was a rectangular-shaped elevator emergency sign.
There used to be an emergency button for the fire department at the center of the sign; now, it is just an empty hole. It was found buried among a pile of debris at the Staten Island recovery site at Fresh Kills.
The label “In Case Of Fire, Elevators Are Out Of Service” remains readable. Many of the 99 elevators in WTC were unusable during the attack. A lot of workers were trapped inside.
9 /10 In-Flight Manual United Airlines Flight 93
Flight attendants are trained professionals. They must be prepared for both expected and unexpected circumstances during a flight, which sometimes require them to provide medical treatment and act as security guards.
When onboard, every one of them must carry an in-flight manual to be used as a reference to handle any situation.
However, the challenges were beyond their ability to overcome when hijackers took control of United Airlines Flight 93.
A burned and torn page of the flight and safety manual was also recovered from the plane’s wreckage.