7:59 A.M. American Airlines Flight 11 takes off from Boston's Logan Airport: Boeing 767-223ER flying from Boston to Los Angeles with 23,980 gallons of fuel. 81 passengers, nine flight attendants, two pilots. [Back]

8:13 A.M. Flight 11 is hijacked around this time. One flight controller says the plane is hijacked over Gardner, Massachusetts, less than 50 miles west of Boston. [Nashua Telegraph, 9/13/01] Communication with ground control stops now.

8:15 A.M. Boston Air Traffic Control tries but fails to contact the pilots of Flight 11, even using emergency frequencies. [8:14, Guardian, 10/17/01] A Boston flight controller states of Flight 11, "He won't answer you. He's nordo roger thanks". Nordo means no radio. [8:15, New York Times, 10/16/01, "over the Hudson river", CNN, 9/17/01]

8:20 A.M. Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal. [8:20, CNN, 9/17/01] Flight 11 starts to veer dramatically off course around this time. Note that if a plane goes two miles off course, it should be considered an emergency situation. [MSNBC, 9/12/01] [Back]

8:25 A.M. Boston flight control decides that Flight 11 has probably been hijacked, but they don't notify other air traffic control centers for another five minutes, and don't notify NORAD for about another 20 minutes. ABC News will later say, "There doesn't seem to have been alarm bells going off, traffic controllers getting on with law enforcement or the military. There's a gap there that will have to be investigated." [ABC News, 9/14/01]" [Back]

8:46 A.M. Flight 11 slams into the north tower, 1 World Trade Center. Investigators believe it still had about 10,000 gallons of fuel and was traveling 470 mph. [New York Times, 9/11/02] Approximately 2662 people are killed on the ground between this crash and the crash of Flight 175. [AP, 8/19/02] [Back]

10:28 A.M. The World Trade Center north tower collapses at 10:28. It had been hit by Flight 11 at 8:46. The collapse took only about four seconds. [10:28 (based on seismic data), New York Times, 9/12/01, 10:29, Washington Post, 9/12/01, 10:28:31, seismic records] [Back]