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jitters. American Airlines Flight 77 was not answering his call. “American 77, Indy,” he kept repeating. The controller then called American Airlines operations to see if they could raise the crew. They also had no luck, so the controller asked a different operator to try again. “We, uh, we lost track control of the guy,” said the Indianapolis controller. “He’s in coast track, but we haven’t . . . we don’t [know] where his target is and we can’t get ahold of him. You guys tried him and no response. We have no radar contact and, uh, no communications with him, so if you guys could try again.”
    “We’re doing it,” said the American Airlines operator. But there would be only silence.
     
     
    At 9:00 A.M. on September 11, 2001, there were 4,205 planes in the skies over the United States.
    Just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, high up in Newark, New Jersey’s air traffic control tower, forty-one-year-old controller Rick Tepper was looking out the facility’s large windows when all of a sudden he saw a large explosion at Tower One of the World Trade Center. “Wow! Look at that,” he said, having no idea what had caused it. “How are they going to put that out?’’
    A few minutes later, Tepper received a call on the high-priority “shout line” from another controller at New York Center. “We’ve lost an aircraft over Manhattan,” he was told. “Can you see anything out your window?” But Tepper still had not connected the two events. “No,” he said. “I don’t see anything. But one of the towers, one of the Trade Towers, is on fire.”
    About fifteen minutes later, the “shout line” rang again and this time the controller asked Tepper if he had any idea as to the location of United Flight 175. “Can you see him out the window?” he was asked. In the distance, high above the New Jersey shipyards, Tepper caught sight of the plane as it was heading for Manhattan, traveling north over the Hudson River. It was moving too fast, Tepper felt, and rocking from side to side. Suddenly, its nose began pointing down as if in a dive. Then it began banking left and right, moving ever faster as it began to level off—something he had never seen before.
    In her Manhattan apartment a few blocks from the World Trade Center, Mable Chan, a producer for the NBC program
Dateline,
was getting ready for work when she heard the first reports of the plane crash into Tower One. “I immediately rushed out of the bathroom with a toothbrush stuck in my mouth,” she recalled. “My eyes were wide open and glued to the tube.” Frustratingly, she kept getting a busy signal as she quickly began dialing her office to get her assignment to begin covering the story. “I decided to try sending a computer message to my boss,” she said. “While I was dialing up for connection, I suddenly heard a thunderous engine sound roaring past the window on my right side.”
    At that moment, on the ABC News program
Good Morning America,
correspondent Don Dahler in New York was giving hosts Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson an update on the Trade Center explosion. “It appears that there is more and more fire and smoke enveloping the very top of the building,” he said as the camera focused on the twin towers, “and as fire crews are descending on this area it does not appear that there is any kind of an effort up there yet. Now, remember— Oh, my God!”
    In a flash, a large commercial jetliner, tilted to one side, zoomed across the television screen and smashed into floors 78 through 84 of Tower Two, pushing desks, people, and file cabinets out the windows. Paper began to slowly rain down, sparkling in the sun like confetti. Then, a fraction of a second later, United Flight 175 exploded with the force of a fuel-air bomb, sending superheated flames and dense, midnight-black smoke in all directions. It was 9:02:54.
    “My God!” repeated Sawyer, almost in a whisper. “That looks like a second plane,” said Gibson