Timeline For October Following The September 11 Attacks - Thursday, October 4, 2001

Thursday, October 4, 2001

• The official count of bodies found at the site of the World Trade Center is 380; 321 have been identified.
• Reagan National Airport opens in the morning with limited service for the first time since September 11.
• In the morning, President Bush speaks to the Emir of Bahrain (which hosts the U.S. 5th Fleet). He then speaks to the president of Poland, goes to the State Department to announce additional food aid to Afghanistan. He has lunch with members of Congress, then goes to the Department of Labor to announce his intention to extend unemployment benefits in the 13 most-affected states by an additional 13 weeks.
• The New York City comptroller, Alan Hevesi, states that the cost to New York from "the crash, the attack, the calamity, the murder" is already $45 billion and will reach $105 billion over the next two years.
• It is reported that a Russian jetliner en route from Tel Aviv to Siberia with 77 passengers exploded in mid-air before plunging into the Black Sea. All flights from Ben-Gurion Airport were grounded in response (it is later confirmed to have been accidentally shot down by a Ukrainian missile).
• British Prime Minister Blair tells the House of Commons they will be given incontrovertible evidence of Osama bin Laden's involvement, which includes direct ties with three of the hijackers over the past year, though some evidence will remain concealed.
• U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld meets with President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. He also announces air drops of humanitarian food aid in Afghanistan.
• Pakistan says they have seen evidence against Osama bin Laden from the British House of Commons strong enough to support an indictment.
• A Nashville newspaper reports that the Greyhound bus attacker was a drug addict with a history of erratic behavior.
• 3:30 p.m. EDT: At a White House press briefing, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson states that a 63-year-old Lantana, Florida resident was admitted to a hospital on Tuesday with non-contagious pulmonary anthrax. The British-born outdoorsman is the only known case, and the FBI, HHS, and CDC state that there is no evidence to support that this would be an act of bioterrorism (he dies later that day). See 2001 anthrax attacks for later developments, showing that this was an act of terrorism.
• In a White House briefing, Ari Fleischer says that the U.S. has no intention of making all their evidence against Osama bin Laden public which would jeopardize their ongoing investigation, and a few minutes later, says that the Bush administration believes it is important to be forthright in sharing information with the American public.