25 Interesting Facts About 9/11

1. After 9/11, the Masai tribesmen of Kenya donated 14 cows to the US to help with the aftermath of 9/11. To the Masai, the cow equals life.

2. On 9/11, when all transport out of the city was shut down, boat owners managed to transport over 500,000 people from Manhattan Island in an amazing act known as the “9/11 Boatlift”

3. On September 11th, 2001, Officer John Perry was at police headquarters filing his retirement papers when he was notified about the first airplane striking the first tower. He rushed to the scene to assist with rescue operations and was killed when one of the towers collapsed. He was the only off-duty officer killed on 9/11.

4. On 9/11, after the first plane hit the North Tower, people in the South Tower wanted to leave but were advised by an announcement to stay at their desks. Some of those who tried to leave anyway were turned back by security in the building before the exits. About 1,120 of them died.

5. After 9/11, the Queen of England authorized the Coldstream Guards to break protocol and play the US national anthem during the Changing of the Guard, giving some comfort to Americans stranded in London due to airport closures.

6. During the aftermath of 9/11, Search and Rescue dogs found so few living people, that it caused them great stress because they believed they had failed. Handlers and Rescue workers had to regularly hide in the rubble in order to give the rescue dogs a successful find, and keep their spirits up.

7. On 9/11 two jet fighters took to the air without live ammunition, knowing that to prevent the hijackers from striking their intended targets, the pilots might have to intercept and crash their fighters into the hijacked planes, ejecting at the last moment.

8. Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, was also against a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. He was assassinated two days before 9/11, after warning of a major terrorist attack set to happen in the United States.

9. The company that owned the World Trade Center had scheduled a meeting for 9/11 on the 88th floor of tower 1 to discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack, but rescheduled the night before because one participant could not attend.

10. Tania Head, a well-known 9/11 survivor, faked being in the South Tower during the attacks and served as President of The WTC Survivors Network before people found out she was lying. She was not even in the United States during the attacks.

11. Operation Yellow Ribbon was commenced by Canada to handle the diversion of civilian airline flights in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001. Canada took in 255 diverted flights from the US on 9/11 and then the Canadians fed the diverted passengers.

12. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community collected 11,170 pints of blood (enough to help save 30,000 lives) in honor of the 9/11 victims.

13. An investment bank which lost 75% of its employees in 9/11 sued American Airlines for negligence in allowing terrorists on board, and won $135 million.

14. Scientists were monitoring whale stress levels by analyzing their poop and found that their stress plummeted immediately following the 9/11 attacks. It turns out this was due to all the ship traffic being halted which quieted the oceans of low frequency noise which whales use to communicate.

15. A guide dog calmly led her owner and 30 other people down 1,463 steps out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 despite the confusion, smoke, and noise around them. After descending over half the distance, they passed the firemen who were heading up, who the dog stopped to greet. Once safe, the dog then helped a woman who was blinded by the debris.

16. The only American not on Earth during 9/11 was astronaut Frank L. Culberston, who recorded the event from the ISS. He later learned that the pilot of the plane that struck The Pentagon was Charles Burlingame, a classmate of his from the US Naval Academy.

17. Al-Qaeda initially planned to target nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but decided against it, fearing things could “get out of control.”

18. 9/11 caused an extra 1600 people to die in automobile accidents because they switched their travel plans from flying to driving.

19. Ben Sliney, chief of air-traffic-control operations at the FAA’s command center in Herndon, Virginia, gave the unprecedented order to ground 4,000-plus planes across the nation and redirect any in the sky to the nearest airport. It was his first day on the job.

20. Sky News UK initially reported that “the entire eastern seaboard of the United States has been decimated by a terrorist attack” on 9/11.

21. The names on the 9/11 Memorial are arranged by relationship, instead of alphabetically, in order to preserve the bonds of family and friendship, and to show the connections between people who changed each other’s lives that day.

22. The only plane allowed to fly on 9/11 after the attacks was a plane from San Diego to Miami delivering anti-venom to a man bitten by a highly poisonous snake. It was accompanied by two jet fighters.

23. Leaders that vehemently denounced the attacks included the Presidents of Egypt, the Palestinian Authority, Libya, Syria, Iran and Pakistan. The sole exception was Saddam Hussein, who said that “the American cowboys are reaping the fruit of their crimes against humanity.”

24. The US government paid an average of $1.8 million to the families of the victims of 9/11.

25. The first firefighter to die on 9/11 was hit by a jumper.