NEW YORK/WASHINGTON — Twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the number remains almost impossible to comprehend: 2,977 victims killed in a single morning. But as the United States marked a quarter-century since 9/11, another reality came sharply back into focus — the human toll did not stop when the smoke cleared.
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jets in a coordinated assault on the United States. Two aircraft were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City, another struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a fourth crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers and crew fought back.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum puts the official victim toll at 2,977 people from 90 nations, excluding the 19 hijackers: 2,753 people were killed in New York, 184 at the Pentagon, and 40 aboard United Airlines Flight 93.
Those figures make 9/11 the deadliest foreign attack on American soil in modern U.S. history. But 25 years later, thousands of survivors, first responders, workers and residents continue to live with illnesses linked to the toxic dust, smoke, debris and psychological trauma unleashed by the attacks.
The morning America changed
The attacks unfolded with extraordinary speed.
At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower.
At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m.
At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
And at 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed.
In less than two hours, New York’s skyline had been transformed, the Pentagon was burning and the United States had suffered an attack that would reshape its foreign policy, security apparatus and public life for decades.
All 246 passengers and crew members who were victims aboard the four hijacked aircraft died. Another 2,606 victims were killed at the World Trade Center site, while 125 people inside the Pentagon were killed. Together, those figures produce the official toll of 2,977 victims.
Flight 93 never reached its target
The fate of Flight 93 became one of the defining stories of the day.
Passengers and crew learned through phone calls that other hijacked aircraft had already struck New York and the Pentagon. Realizing their own plane was part of the same coordinated attack, they attempted to regain control.
The hijackers ultimately crashed the aircraft near Shanksville at 10:03 a.m.
Evidence gathered after the attacks indicates that the U.S. Capitol was the most likely target, although the White House had also been discussed during the planning of the operation. The National Park Service says Flight 93 was roughly 20 minutes by air from Washington when it went down.
The 40 passengers and crew aboard the aircraft are now memorialized at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Who planned the September 11 attacks?
The operation was carried out by al-Qaeda, the terrorist network led at the time by Osama bin Laden.
The bipartisan 9/11 Commission concluded that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, commonly known as KSM, brought the concept of a large-scale aircraft operation to bin Laden. By late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden and senior al-Qaeda figures had agreed to pursue what became known internally as the “planes operation.”
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Two came from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one from Lebanon. Several of the men assigned to pilot the hijacked aircraft took flight lessons in the United States.
Bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in May 2011.
Al-Qaeda, however, did not disappear. Reuters reported ahead of the 25th anniversary that the organization is far weaker and more decentralized than it was in 2001 but continues to exert influence through affiliates, particularly in parts of Africa and South Asia.
Nearly 3,000 died that day. The health crisis kept growing.
For first responders, recovery workers and people exposed to Ground Zero, September 11 became not only a historical event but a continuing medical crisis.
The U.S. World Trade Center Health Program says more than 96,000 people have been diagnosed with physical or mental health conditions associated with exposure to the dust, smoke, debris and trauma of 9/11.
The impact on New York firefighters has been particularly severe.
The FDNY says more than 600 members have died from 9/11-related health complications since the attacks, on top of the 343 FDNY members killed on September 11 itself. More than 10,000 FDNY members are living with a certified 9/11-related physical health condition.
In September 2026 alone, the FDNY added another 36 names to its World Trade Center Memorial Wall for members who died from illnesses linked to rescue and recovery work.
That continuing toll was formally acknowledged during the 25th-anniversary ceremony in New York, where organizers added a seventh moment of silence dedicated to people who later died from 9/11-related illnesses.
America marks 25 years since the attacks
On September 11, 2026, families again gathered at Ground Zero as the names of those killed were read aloud.
Separate ceremonies were held at the Pentagon and at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Pennsylvania. Across the United States, commemorations marked a quarter-century since an attack that continues to shape American politics, security and memory.
The anniversary also brought newly declassified government records.
The U.S. National Archives announced the release of previously classified material connected to the 9/11 Commission, including a summary of President’s Daily Brief intelligence mentioning al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan during the three years before the attacks, as well as 11 memoranda detailing interviews with senior U.S. national-security officials.
The records add to a historical record that is still being opened to public scrutiny 25 years later.
9/11 changed far more than New York’s skyline
Less than a month after the attacks, the United States and its allies began military operations in Afghanistan targeting al-Qaeda and the Taliban government that had provided the organization sanctuary.
That war would become America’s longest.
One factual point in the Panay News version needs correction: the final U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan was completed on August 30, 2021 — not 2022. The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed that all U.S. forces had been removed by that date.
The attacks also led to sweeping changes in aviation security, intelligence sharing, surveillance and counterterrorism policy. They helped produce the Department of Homeland Security, transformed airport screening and drove two decades of U.S.-led counterterrorism operations overseas.
Their consequences extended far beyond American borders.
The number that doesn’t tell the whole story
The official 9/11 death toll remains 2,977 victims.
That number is important because it represents those murdered as a direct result of the September 11 attacks and does not include the 19 hijackers.
But it cannot capture the full aftermath.
It does not include the firefighters, police officers, construction workers, residents and survivors who became sick years later.
It does not capture families who spent decades dealing with cancer, respiratory disease and psychological trauma.
And it does not measure the wars, security transformations and political consequences that followed.
Twenty-five years later, 9/11 remains simultaneously a historical event and an unfinished story.
The towers fell in less than two hours.
The consequences are still unfolding a quarter-century later.
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