September 11 Photos: The Heart-Wrenching Images Of 9/11 That We'll Never Forget

Twelve years after the Sept. 11 attacks, these images still resonate, reminding of the absolute physical and emotional devastation that so many people experienced that day.

(Many of the photos below contain graphic content.)

In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, United Airlines Flight 175 closes in on World Trade Center Tower 2 in New York, just before impact. (AP Photo/Carmen Taylor, File)

In this Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, United Airlines Flight 175 closes in on World Trade Center Tower 2 in New York, just before impact. (AP Photo/William Kratzke)

In this September 11, 2001 file photo, smoke pours off World Trade Center Tower 1 as flames explode from Tower 2 as it is struck by United Airlines Flight 175, after terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the buildings. (AP Photo/Chao Soi Cheong)

A fiery blasts rocks the south tower of the World Trade Center as the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the building September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

People stand on a dirt mound at the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike as they watch smoke billowing from the remains of the World Trade Center in New York after planes crashed into each of the twin towers Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Gene Boyars)

A person falls from the north tower of New York's World Trade Center Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001 after terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and brought down the twin 110-story towers. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

People hang out of broken windows of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

The south tower of New York's World Trade Center collapses Tuesday Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Pedestrians on Park Row flee the area of the World Trade Center as the center's south tower collapses following the terrorist attack on the New York landmark Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

This 11 September 2001 file photo shows Marcy Borders covered in dust as she takes refuge in an office building after one of the World Trade Center towers collapsed in New York. Borders was caught outside on the street as the cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the area. The woman was caught outside on the street as the cloud of smoke and dust enveloped the area. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

People run from the collapse of one of the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center in this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo. (AP Photo/FILE/Suzanne Plunkett)

Survivors of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks make their way through smoke, dust and debris on Fulton St., about a block from the collapsed towers, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 in New York. (AP Photo/Gulnara Samoilova)

A tennis shoe and debris, photographed one block from the World Trade Center, are coated with dust after the collapse of the twin towers in this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 in New York. Paper records, documents and correspondence from the towers littered the streets following the collapse. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The rubble of the World Trade Center smoulders following a terrorist attack 11 September 2001 in New York. (ALEX FUCHS/AFP/Getty Images)

View of smoke and flames at the Pentagon shortly after a hijacked jetliner was crashed into building, Washington DC, September 11, 2001. The crash was part of a coordinated, terrorist attack on the United States that also felled both towers of the World Trade Center in New York. (Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

Mounted police make their way along an access road leading to the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 through the early morning fog 12 September 2001 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane was hijacked and crashed killing all 45 on board. (DAVID MAXWELL/AFP/Getty Images)

Photographs of missing people from the 11 September 2001 World Trade Center attack sit on a television truck outside Bellevue Hospital in New York 12 September, 2001 where family members and friends stand vigil in hopes of getting information from authorities and help from media exposure. (JOHN MOTTERN/AFP/Getty Images)

A firefighter breaks down after the World Trade Center buildings collapsed September 11, 2001 after two hijacked airplanes slammed into the twin towers in a terrorist attack. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

(Photo by Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

An injured man is tended to after a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. (Photo By: Susan Watts/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

An injured man is tended to after a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. (Photo By: Susan Watts/NY Daily News via Getty Images)

An injured man waits for help as others take refuge in a bank near the World Trade Center towers 11 September, 2001, in New York. (STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images)

An American flag flies in the foreground as one of the World Trade Center towers burns in the background 11 September 2001 in New York. Two hijacked airplanes crashed into the two landmark skyscrapers. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)

People seek refuge inside a bank building after the first tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. (Photo by Corey Sipkin/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

Firefighter Kevin Shea of Ladder 35 lies semi conscious in debris field with Firefighter Ritchie Nogan of 113 standing over him. Shea was the only survivor of his unit. He was carried out by Nogan, two EMS workers and photographer Todd Maisel. (Photo by Todd Maisel/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

This file photo taken on September 11, 2001 shows a man standing in the rubble, and calling out asking if anyone needs help, after the collapse of the first World Trade Center Tower in New York City. (DOUG KANTER/AFP/Getty Images)

7:59 a.m. The four airplanes that were hijacked on 9/11 began taking off at 7:59 a.m. The first to depart was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 that left Boston's Logan International Airport for Los Angles with 92 people on board. At 8:14 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 -- a Boeing 767 with 65 passengers on board -- also left Logan for Los Angeles.

9:37 a.m. Flight 77 crashed into Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. The 9/11 Commission Report tells how passenger Barbara Olson called her husband Ted -- the solicitor general of the United States -- to inform him of the attacks. She reported that the flight had been taken over and that the aircraft was "flying low over houses." A few minutes later, air traffic controllers at Dulles International Airport observed plane on their radar traveling at "a high rate of speed." Officials from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport warned the Secret Service of the aircraft shortly before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

9:03 a.m. The second crash happened at 9:03 a.m., when Flight 175 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. The last communication made with air traffic control was made at 8:42 a.m., but passengers were able to provide details of the flight by contacting their families by phone. Brian Sweeney called his wife, Julie, to tell her the plane had been hijacked, and Peter Hansen told his father, Lee, "I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building."

11:02 a.m. New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered an evacuation of lower Manhattan at 11:02 a.m., alerting everyone south of Canal Street to get out.

10:28 a.m. At 10:28 a.m., after burning for 102 minutes, the north tower of New York's World Trade Center collapsed, killing approximately 1,400 people.

9:31 a.m. In an address from Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, President Bush called the attacks "a national tragedy" and "an apparent terrorist attack on our country." "I have spoken to the vice president, to the governor of New York, to the director of the FBI, and have ordered that the full resources of the federal government go to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act," Bush said. "Terrorism against our nation will not stand."

 

 

Source: huffingtonpost.com