8:14 A.M. United Airlines Flight 175 takes off from Boston's Logan Airport: Boeing 767-222 flying from Boston to Los Angeles with 23,980 gallons of fuel. 56 passengers, seven flight attendants, two pilots.

8:37 A.M. Flight controllers ask the Flight 175 pilots to look for a lost American Airlines plane 10 miles to the south. They respond that they can see it. They are told to keep away from it. [8:37:08, Guardian, 10/17/01, 8:37, Boston Globe, 11/23/01] [Back]

8:42 A.M. Flight 175 veers from its official course. [Boston Globe, 11/23/01] A flight controller says of Flight 175, ''... looks like he's heading southbound but there's no transponder no nothing and no one's talking to him.'' [New York Times, 10/16/01] 8:43 A.M. NORAD is notified that Flight 175 has been hijacked. [8:43, NORAD, 9/18/01, 8:43, CNN, 9/17/01, 8:43, Washington Post, 9/12/01, 8:43, AP, 8/19/02, 8:43] This means the controllers working Flights 77 and Flight 93 would have been aware of both Flight 175 and Flight 11's hijacking from this time. [Back]

9:03 A.M. Flight 175 hits the south tower, 2 World Trade Center. Approximately 2662 people are killed on the ground between this crash and the crash of Flight 11. [AP, 8/19/02] F-15 fighter jets from Otis Air National Guard Base are still 71 miles or eight minutes away. The minute Flight 175 hits the south tower, F-15 pilot Maj. Daniel Nash says that clear visibility allows him to see smoke pour out of Manhattan. However, instead of being ordered to New York City, the two F-15's are ordered to hover in a 150-mile chunk of air space off the coast of Long Island. "Neither the civilian controller or the military controller knew what they wanted us to do." But then a few minutes later, they receive orders to head to Manhattan for combat air patrol, and they do that for the next four hours. At no point are these pilots given permission to shoot down any airliners. Nash points out that even if he had reached New York City before Flight 175, he couldn't shoot it down because only the President could make that decision. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02] During this time, President Bush is reading a book about a goat to 18 second-graders. [Back]

9:59 A.M. The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses. It was hit by Flight 175 at 9:03. [Collapses at 9:59:39, US Army authorized seismic study, 9:59:04, seismic records] [Back]