9/11 Plane attack
by: Lindsey Slagle
The first of the four planes to depart was American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767-200ER. It was 159 feet and two inches long, with a sixteen-foot-six-inch-wide body that allowed for two aisles. The plane made daily flights between Boston and Los Angeles, and when it took off at 7:59 a.m. on the morning of the eleventh, it carried only 81 passengers in its 158 seats. Forty-seven minutes later, it crashed into the North Tower at 440 mph, carrying 9,717 gallons of jet fuel, 14,000 gallons under capacity.
United Flight 175, also a Boeing 767-200ER, was the second. Like American Airlines 11, it was scheduled to fly between Logan and LAX. When United 175 took off at 8:14 a.m., it was even lighter than the American flight: Only 56 out of 168 seats were occupied. When it crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., traveling 540 mph, it had 9,118 gallons of fuel in its tanks.