Wikipedia:Today's featured article/September 11, 2011

American Airlines Flight 11 was American Airlines' morning, daily scheduled transcontinental flight from Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles, California. On September 11, 2001, the aircraft flying this route was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists, and deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, as part of the September 11 attacks. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the hijackers forcibly breached the cockpit and overpowered the pilot and first officer. Mohamed Atta, an al-Qaeda member and trained pilot, took over the controls. Air traffic controllers noticed the flight was in distress when the crew stopped responding to them. They realized the flight had been hijacked when Atta mistakenly transmitted announcements for passengers to air traffic control. On board, flight attendants Amy Sweeney and Betty Ong contacted American Airlines, and provided information about the hijackers and injuries to passengers and crew. The aircraft crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 08:46 local time; the impact killed all 92 people aboard. The impact and subsequent fire caused the North Tower to collapse, which resulted in hundreds of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers recovered and identified dozens of remains from Flight 11 victims, but many other body fragments could not be identified. (more...)

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