Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan on Tuesday in what President Bush called "an apparent terrorist attack on our country."
About an hour after those crashes, an explosion forced the evacuation of the Pentagon in Washington and a fire erupted on the Washington Mall. Another fire was reported at the State Department.
The White House and other government buildings were also evacuated. In Chicago, the Sears Tower was evacuated.
Witnesses told CNN that a helicopter circled the Pentagon and disappeared on the other side of the building shortly before the explosion and fireball.
The Federal Aviation Administration shut down all airports in the country.
Bush, in Sarasota, Florida, where he was to speak on education reform, cancelled those plans.
"Today we've had a national tragedy," Bush said from Sarasota, Florida, where he had been reading to children at Emma E. Booker Elementary School.
He described the incidents as an "apparent terrorist act."
The president said he was returning immediately to Washington and had authorized a full investigation to find those responsible.
Harrowing images
Shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday morning a plane smashed into the northern tower of the World Trade Center. About 20 minutes later, the second plane hit the southern tower, the harrowing images transmitted live on television.
As television cameras transmitted the aftermath of the first crash, smoke and flames billowing from near the top of the northern tower, the video captured a second plane slamming into the southern tower.
The horrific images of the second crash were caught in live video. At about 10 a.m., the south tower disappeared behind a huge plume of billowing smoke, apparently indicating part of the building collapse.
Witnesses said they saw people jumping from the building before the collapse.
The New York Port Authority said it had closed all bridges and tunnels into the city.
Sources told CNN that one of the planes was an American Airlines Boeing 767 that had been hijacked after take-off from Boston.
Tons of debris
The scene on the ground was chaotic, witnesses said.
Sean Murtagh, a CNN vice president, was in an office near the World Trade Center towers at the time of the first crash. He witnessed the crash.
Murtagh said he saw the plane "teetering back and forth, wingtip to wingtip" before the plane smashed into the side of the building.
Jeanne Yurman witnessed the explosion that followed the crash.
"At first it was like leaflets," she said, describing the debris that fell to the ground. "There was tons of debris and it continues to fall out." |
