American Airlines Flight 11 was a passenger flight which was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. They deliberately crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, killing all 87 people aboard plus the hijackers, and an unconfirmed number in the building's impact zone. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 767-223ER, was flying American Airlines' daily scheduled morning transcontinental service from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California.
Fifteen minutes into the flight, the hijackers injured at least three people, killed one, forcibly breached the cockpit, and overpowered the captain 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 was no longer responding. They realized the flight had been hijacked when Mohammad Atta mistakenly transmitted his 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. Many in the streets witnessed the strike; Jules Naudet and Pavel Hlava captured the impact on video. Wolfgang Staehle had a webcam set up that captured the impact through a series of photographs. Before the hijacking was confirmed, news agencies began to report on the incident and speculated that the crash had been an accident. The impact and subsequent fire caused the North Tower to collapse, 102 minutes after the crash, which resulted in hundreds of additional casualties due to the collapse of the tower. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers recovered and identified dozens of remains from Flight 11 victims, but many body fragments could not be identified.
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