errorist attack on our country. >> as the president addressed a stunned nation the third hijacked plane, americans flight 77 from washington to l.a. had been flying undetected for approximately 28 minutes. the faa wasn't focused on that flight. incredibly it was still looking for flight 11 which had crashed into tower one of the world trade center 45 minutes earlier. >> military to boston just had a report american 11 is still in the air headed for washington. >> american 11 is still in the air? >> another definitely aircraft that hit the tower. that's the latest vie. i can try to confirm an id for you, but i would assume he's somewhere over new jersey. >> a hijack.

>> american 11 is a hijack. >> yes. and he's going into washington. kniss could be a third aircraft. >> communication between the faaif a faa, it's air traffic control was a mess. >> immediately passed the word to mission crew manneder he in turn reported to the battle commander. >> okay. american airlines is still airborne, 11 the first guy, he's headed towards washington. okay? i think we need to scramble langley right now and i'm going to take the fighters and chase this guy down. >> the mission crew commander issued and order at 9:23. okay, scramble langley, head them towards the washingtoning area, unquote. >> fighter jets took off from language langley air base, due to lack of information they flew in the wrong direction.

>> other than going towards washington they flew east over the atlantic ocean. >> at 9:27 a.m. 24 minutes after the world new america was under attack, pilot jason dahl on united 93 received the first hijacking warning from his airline. less than a minute later -- hijackers were inside his cockpit. >> boston center asked command center to issue a nationwide cockpit security alert, but such an alert was not issued and a quarter hour later the cockpit in united 93 was breached. can you explain that decision? can any of you explain that condition? >> mr. white was it's senior person at the command center. he might be the best able to do that. >> i wasn't aware. this is the first i've heard of it today. i wasn't in a position that day to have heard that request. i was, have always been under

the assumption that we did issue a verbal warning to the air carriers about cockpit security. i don't know if we -- if we even made a decision or if there was ever a determination made why we shouldn't send a advisory out. >> after hijackers took over flight 93, controllers heard screams and the sounds of a struggle over the radio. this was followed by a second radio transmission with sounds of screaming and some yelling "quett out of here, get out of here." >> ten minutes later there was a third radio transmission from flight 93. >> this is the captain. would like you all to remain seated. there is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport and to have -- >> the controller responded, "united 93 understand you have a bomb onboard. go ahead." the flight did not respond. >> the united 93 -- still hear

cleveland? united 93 united niner-three do you hear cleveland? >> while flight 93 flew on without radio contact, flight 77 with hijackers at the helm closed in on washington, d.c. >> several of the dulles controllers observed a primary radar tart tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed and notified reagan airport. personnel notified the secret service. >> at the white house the secret service rushed the vice president to the president's emergency operation center the p-oc beneath the building. >> just a million things going on at once. literally like a beehive of activity. >> meanwhile, american flight 77 was headed in the direction of the white house. suddenly it made a 330-degree

right turn and began a rapid dissent towards the pentagon. >> at 9:37 a.m. american flight 77 crashed into the pentagon. >> we're look rg at live pictures of the pentagon where there is billowing smoke. we are hearing, again unconfirmed reports that this was the result of a plane crashing. >> that was about 15 20 yards from the point of impact.

there's no way to describe for you the panic that just grips your heart. i was tossed around like a rag doll. i'm on fire, burning. the word terror is correct. >> at the same time in new york, stanley remained trapped on the 81st floor of tower two. >> i saw somebody waving a flashlight all around, around their head. >> all of a sudden coming out of a hole if you like in a wall

wide-eyed and haven't animated waving his hand was a stranger. >> but a collapsed wall of sheet rock separated the two men. >> i reached down and somehow got under his arm or around his neck somehow and heaved him up. he pulled with such force -- >> flew over and i knocked this man over. i landed on top of him. and i reached down and i grabbed this man. i hugged him and i said look you're my guardian angel and i gave this man a kiss. >> this stranger gave me this big kiss and i said i'm brian, and, you know -- i'm stanley, he said. and that's how stanley and i met. >> this guy put his hand lovingly around my shoulder and said, come on, buddy. let's go home. >> as brian and stanley searched for an escape route, hundreds of others were still trapped above the fire in the twin towers.

>> my first question to the chief was can we get helicopters up to the roof? and help any of those people? and he pointed to a big flame that was shooting out of the north tower at the time. and he said to me my guys can save everybody below the fire, but i can't put a helicopter above the fire. >> but with no other way to go many people headed up. people thought they could go to the roof because people went to the roof in 1993. >> civilians were not informed rooftop evacuation was not part of the port authority's evacuation plan. >> when they got to the roof the doors were locked. >> they were not informed action to the roof required a key. the port authority acknowledges it had no protocol rescuing people trapped above the fire in the towers.

>> on the streets, people were leaving the area as fast as they could. >> i saw people running. i saw people fleeing, which is exactly what we wanted them to do, get them out of the area. >> on that day, that brooklyn bridge, that separated brooklyn from manhattan that was the bridge that really came to separate heaven from hell. i know what works differently than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris, to the nose! did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nosebleed and sore throat. i tossed those allergy symptoms out of my party. [ man ] omnaris. ask your doctor. battling nasal allergy symptoms? omnaris combats the cause. get omnaris for only $11 at omnaris.com.

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it was now 9:40 a.m., with the twin towers and pentagon in flame, the presidential motorcade was rushing to a sarasota airport. >> the flight contact was in contact with the president. >> told the president, sounds like we have a minor war going

on here. i heard about the pentagon. we're at war. somebody's going to pay. close quote. >> by the time air force one took off hijackers had been flying united flight 93 for nearly 30 minutes. >> at 9:46 and, again, two minutes later command center updated faa headquarters united 93 was now 29 minutes out of washington, d.c., end quote. >> there was a bomb onboard. >> by 9:49 a.m. the faa had known for more than 15 minutes that united 93 was a possible hijack. three passenger jets had already crashed into american landmarks. still, no one at the faa requested military assistant for flight 93. >> i know that the trade towers and the pentagon was struck and they don't tell the military

command there's a plane turned around headed towards washington? it's incomprehensible. >> do we want to think about scrambling aircraft? >> oh, god. i don't know. >> that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next ten minutes. >> ah, you know everybody just left the room. >> they just dithered for minutes. precious minutes. just not wanting to pick up the phone, when they knew we under a terrorist attack. >> when you listen to the faa tapes, it's just -- incredible. that these people were so incompetent in their jobs. >> it was just -- it was bone-chilling to listen to that recording. >> as the faa attempted to coordinate the crisis in the air, flight 93 had reversed its westerly course. it was now headed towards washington. for six harrowing minutes, the passengers of flight 93 battled

their hijackers for control of the plane. >> at 10:03 a.m., it was all over. united flight 93 crashed in a field in shanksville, pennsylvania. >> okay. there is now on the united 93. >> yes. >> there is a report of black smoke in the last position i gave you. 15 mimes south of johnstown. >> from the airplane or from the ground. >> they're speculateing it's from the aircraft. it hit the ground. that's what they're speculating. speculation only. >> i also want to give you a heads up, washington. >> go ahead. >> united 9-3 information on that now? >> yeah. he's down. >> he's down? when did he land? >> he did not land. >> oh, he's down. >> yes. somewhere up northeast of camp david. >> no one from faa headquarters

requested military assistance regarding united 93 nor did any manager at faa headquarters pass information to the military. >> thank god the passengers on 93 took the plane over. a plane was headed to washington, d.c. faa headquarters knew and didn't let the military know. >> only one set of fighters orbiting washington, d.c. during this time frame. the langley f 16s but the langley pilots were never briefed about the reason they were scrambled. as the lead pilot explained, no one told us anything. we are sure that the notion oweation owes a debt of passion to washington, d.c. their lives saved the lives of countless others. >> at the end of the day the question remain could any of these planes were intercepted by the military before they crashed? >> would it have been physically possible if everything had gone right in terms of communication

and of information and communication of orders for the military pilots to have shot down either the plane that hit the first world trade tower, the plane that hit the second world trade tower or the plane that hit the pentagon? >> you assume that faa told us as soon as they knew. >> right. >> and if that is the case, yes we could shoot down the planes. >> all right. general. [ thunder rumbles ] what is the sign of a good decision? in the world of personal finance it's massmutual. find strength and stability in a company that's owned by its policyholders. ask your advisor, or visit massmutual.com. do you have an irregular heartbeat

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it appears to be what people are already describes as highly sophisticated coordinated attack. >> as the government struggled to respond to the sudden attacks, terrorism experts quickly identify bin laden as the perpetrator. >> i knew immediately it was bin laden when the first headline hit. who else had the motive and who else had the ability? [ chanting ] >> jihad!

jihad! >> by september 11, 2001 osama bin laden al qaeda interests had been attacking american interests for almost ten years. first, they were suspected of hitting the world trade center in 1993. >> we heard an explosion, the building rattled. the whole thing shifted t. was shocking when the world trade center was hit and it was really a tragedy but i don't think many people recognized that this was a harbinger for worse things to come. >> five years later, bin laden's operatives bombed two american embassies in africa killing more than 200 and injury 5,000.

>> president clinton and i have said we will not rest until we find some solution for this terrorist problem. our memory is long and our reach is far. >> after the embassy bombings the clinton white house launched missile attacks at al qaeda camps. but bin laden survived. the clinton administration had other chances to kill bin laden. one was in 1999. >> osama bin laden was visiting a camp in the southern part of afghanistan in kandahar province. a desert camp where there were princes from the united arab emirates and it was an excellent chance. we knew when he was going to be

there. it was a very isolated area, there would be no collateral damage to civilians. >> but the commission learned that foreign policy concerns complicated matters. >> according to cia officials policymakers were concerned it might kill a saudi prince or our senior officials who might be close by. >> i called the director of central intelligence and say i had finally been presented with satellite photography of the facility. and it was very clear to me that this looked like something other than the terrorist camp. it looked like a luxury hunting trip, and i asked him to look into it personally. >> the national security council instead decided to call the government of the united arab emirates, tell them we knew bin laden was in the desert and that we also knew they were hunting and maybe it would be a good idea that they didn't hang

around. >> the decision ultimately was george tenant's and george recommended no action. >> the next time the satellite went overhead all that was left of the camp was a pile of burning garbage. i found it very upsetting that on the most selfish level, that the choice was not to protect my children but to save the head of this arab hunting camp whose family was about to buy some number of billions of dollars of u.s. fighter aircraft. >> then bin laden struck again. in 2000, al qaeda terrorists used a small boat to bomb the "uss cole" refueling in yemen. 17 american sailors died.

>> smart people working counterterrorism cases new early on there was no doubt about it it was an al qaeda operation driven by bin laden. >> in an uproar. essentially the decision was made to put it off to the next administration and not deal with it. >> it wasn't a priority. he hadn't killed enough americans. >> people were focusing on other things. >> doing absolutely nothing on the u.s. as whole was also a response that people took note of. >> no one did anything, off the "uss cole." must have felt made al qaeda feel kind of empowered. >> by the time of the "cole" bombing bin laden's 9/11 plot was well underway. >> hijackers were settling down in america and learning to fly airplanes.

>> lived in rooming houses. lived in motel 6s. >> mindy clineberg who lost her husband in the world trade center presented evidence that presented serious violations. >> i am holding in my hand some of the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. all of these forms are incomplete and incorrect. >> had the i.n.s. or state department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the united states on september 11, 2001. >> while the hijackers made preparations for the 9/11 attack, the white house changed hands. once in office, president bush

decided not to immediately respond to the "cole" bombing. instead the commission learned he'd ordered the development of a long-range plan to eliminate bin laden. >> the whole truth? >> i do. >> thank you very much. second powell. mr. chairman, president bush and all on his team knew terrorism would be a major concern for us and wanted a thorough comprehensive military intelligence financial strategy to go after al qaeda. >> he made clear to us he did not want to respond to al qaeda one attack at a time. he told he was tired of swatting flies. the president says i have no head taens about going after him but i didn't feel that sense of urgency and my blood was not nearly as boiling. >> every morning that summer bush received the president's daily brief, or pdb outlining security threats to the united states. >> isn't it a fact, dr. rice that the august 6 pdb warned

against possible attacks in this country? and i ask you whether you recall the title of that pdb? >> i believe the title was bin laden determined to attack inside the united states. now, the -- >> thank you. >> the pdb. >> no, i -- i would like to finish my point here. >> i didn't know there was a point. >> you asked me whether or not it warranted of attacks. >> i'm asking you what the title was. >> you said that warrant of attacks. it did not warrant of attacks inside the united states. the historical information based on old reporting, there was no new information and it did not in fact warrant of any incoming attacks inside the united states. >> ultimately, nobody in the government was able to stop bin laden's plot.

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msnbc, i'm veronica della cruz. what's happening, a suicide bombing in afghanistan injured 77 u.s. personnel. all non-life threatening injuries. nato says saturday's attack killed two afghan civilians and wounded 25 others. just hours away from a ceremony at ground zero marking the tenth anniversary of the attacks that tumbled the world trade center towers. this event marks the opening of the world trade center memorial. i'm veronica de la cruz and now back to "on native soil." by 9:35 a.m., thousands of people at the world trade center were fighting for their life. brian and stanley were

descending tower two from the 81st floor. on the 31st floor they found a conference room with working phones, but it didn't do much good. >> brian picked up the phone and he's frantic dialing 911. >> he said hold on a moment. you'll have to tell my supervisor. click. so i was on hold. i must have waited 30 seconds before somebody else i don't know if it was the supervisor or not came on. i told them the story as well, and a second person said, well -- >> failure of the 911 emergency system. people were told, hold on. people were told to call back. people were told stay where you are, when that was the worst thing to do. on that day the entire system

collapsed. >> 911 operators were in the dark about the magnitude of the disaster. they were unable to pass along useful information to panicked callers. >> i would have to say 911 was overwhelmed, and should it have been larger should it have been anticipated? yes, it probably should have, but it wasn't. >> to make matters worse, the police department, the port authority and the fire department couldn't share vital information. >> the radios. we didn't have a channel we could communicate with the police department on. >> the way in which the fire department and the police department communicate is different, because generally they have different missions. the best answer is they should have radios that are interoperable so that in emergency, both could be

switched on to the same channel. those radios do not exist today. >> so when the police department helicopter surveyed the situation, the fire department didn't get that information. >> the chiefs in the north tower were forced to make decisions based on little or no information. >> the most critical things in a major operation like this is to have information. we didn't receive any reports of what was seen from the helicopters. it was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper floors or whether the stairwells were intact or not. >> people watching on tv suddenly had more knowledge of what was happening 100 floors above us than we did in the lobby. >> by now, brian and stanley

made it to the first floor of tower two. the two men were told to get away from the building as fast as they could. >> stanley stopped and he looked back at two world trade center. [ heartbeat sound ] >> and i'm looking at brian and said, this building is going down now. >> oh, my god. >> oh, my god! >> oh, my god! oh -- my god -- oh, my god -- >> more explosions -- huge explosion.

>> oh, my god! the whole building collapsed! the whole building collapsed! >> get out of here! >> go! [ crying ]

>> the whole -- it only took ten seconds but it seems to expand in your mind when you're seeing it. a tower we had just exited and where our company was up on the 84th floor. >> and i heard on the radio something i'll never forget, the transmission said, tower two is down. all units evacuate tower one. i couldn't believe it. what do you mean, tower two is down? i mean, it's the world trade center. >> the first tower to be hit was

still standing. port authority cop david lynn was helping evacuees on the 35th floor. >> and now the people i was with were very upset, of course. i just told them we had to keep going, and we started heading down. >> at 10:08 a.m. an nypd helicopter pilot reported that tower one wouldn't last much longer. >> i got down to the fifth floor, while one more flight down, that's as far as we got. and the building started coming down.

>> looks like an onrushing locomotive or an avalanche. i guess my final thoughts were about my family. i thought about my wife, my kids. excuse me. i hoped they would think well of me for what i did. i was very fortunate. when the debris stopped falling -- excuse me -- >> take your time. >> first i thought i had died. i heard nothing.

i saw nothing. then i heard a voice. the voice was who's here? we couldn't see each other. it was totally black. we were alive. we were virtually standing on top of what was left of the world trade center. when i say that, you have to picture a straw in a pantake, and we were in that straw. >> david lynn and a handful of others were standing inside a lone stairwell that had somehow withstood the collapse. >> eventually i remember ladder company 43 coming around the corner. never thought i would be so happy to see firemen. you know? and they came in.

they threw us ropes. >> it's a david lynn was treated for his winds, lee arrived at the trade center to search for his missing son jonathan. >> we walked down the street, and many of the people were still, just moving away from it walking, bleeding, walking up the street. i just had a sinking feeling that we might have a problem trying to find jonathan. >> stanley and i talked for 45 minutes finding out about each other's families and so on. he gave me his personal business

card. i put the card in my shirt pocket. >> he jumped into the cab and this feeling came over me that stanley doesn't exist. he was a guardian angel sent to get me and then i remembered the business card and i reached in my pocket and pulled out the business card and of course, there was a stanley or this is a stanley. it would have been a wonderful story if there was no business card in there, but i knew stanley was real and i put the card back and i still carry it in my wallet. crazy. om another company to us, we even reward you for the time you spent there. genius. yeah, genius. you guys must have your own loyalty program, right? well, we have something. show her, tom. huh? you should see november! oh, yeah?

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new splenda® essentials™. [ kimberly ] when i was 19 i found myself alone with two children and no way to support them. i put myself through nursing school and then i decided to go get a doctorate degree. university of phoenix gave me the knowledge to make a difference in people's lives. my name is dr. kimberly horton. i manage a network of over a thousand nurses, and i am a phoenix. [ male announcer ] university of phoenix is proud to sponsor education nation. because we believe an educated world is a better world. do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? thank you very much. >> as the hearings went on in early 2004, the families learned more about what happened on

september 11th but they also grew frustrated with the lack of cooperation by many witnesses. >> a lot of the hearing ss had people that had clearly done their own investigation with their agencies, and then when they were asked a specific question said they'd have to get back to the commission. >> i will have to get back to you on that. >> aye like to double check it, before i say it here. >> that occurred before i began my tenure. what i know about it is, is after the fact. >> they were not willing to publicly disclose anything that might hold them accountable. >> you just cannot have a mass murder like this that the government wasn't able to stop without having someone held accountable. >> but instead, we got speeches about how we're perfect. we did everything right. nothing could have been done better. >> our anger should clearly be directed and the blame clearly directed at one source and one

source alone. the terrorists who killed our loved ones. >> and that just intensified our anger and drove us on to try harder to get answers. >> more than anything else the families wanted accountability from their government. >> call the hearing back to order. >> then as the hearings neared their conclusion they got it. sadly, from only one man. the man who had been in charge of counterterrorism in both the clinton and bush administrations. >> i welcome these hearings, because it is finally a forum where i can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11. for them who are here in the room, for those who are watching on television, your government failed you. those entrusted with protecting you failed you. and i famed you.

we tried hard but that doesn't matter, because we failed. and for that failure, i would ask once all the facts are out for your understanding and for your forgiveness. >> it was the first acknowledgement that our government had failed. that was what made the apology important to me. >> i was struck by his apology. not because he was apologizing, but because that was the first time i heard anyone apologize or take responsibility for what happened. >> someone had finally just admitted that they made a mistake or said they were sorry. you know, we hadn't heard that before.

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nearly three years after the attacks the commission the families fought so hard for released its final e results on the events of september 11th. >> today we present this report and these recommendations to the president of the united states the united states congress and the american people. >> the commission made a number of recommendations, including tightening u.s. borders, increaseing preparedness before

the next attack. shares information among agencies appointing ta national intelligence director and creating a national counterterrorism center. >> anyone who said that the commission was not going to come up with anything new under the sun, which is one of the things the white house told us which is wrong. because, clearly they did. clearly de didn't have a director of national intelligence and wouldn't have had a director of national symbol sequence if there wasn't the commission. >> on that september day we were unprepared. we did not grasp the magnitude of a threat that had been gathering over a consider period of time. as we detail in our report this was a failure of policy management, capability and above all, a failure of imagination. >> the ground truth about 9/11 is that we blew it. this government blew it and it wasn't just one administration

at fault. >> seeing some of these wonderful, wonderful surviving family members take on the administration and take on the congress and they won. i think they changed the course of history. >> the small group of family members that pushed for the commission to be established and pushed for the 9/11 recommendations that they legislated are now going to push for these reforms to be implemented. >> it's the most important thing that i can do for my wife's memory, is to make sure that she didn't die in vain. >> we close most important by thanking the families who have

lost loved ones on 9/11. you demanded the creation of this commission. you have encouraged us every step of the way as witnesses from your grief you have drawn strength. among the casualties on 9/11 60 were police officers and 343 were firefighters. >> to this day i have no information about what happened to my son and the entire engine company that was lost with him. i continue to seek to find out what really happened to my son on 9/11.

>> we lost our son. we lost our daughter-in-law, and this little 2 1/2-year-old angel. that's what it was. >> even as a child they say you've lost your future. she would have contributed something wonderful to the world and her children would have contributed something wonderful because that's what she was like. >> when brad died, my husband and i lost a son and our dreams for his future, a wedding, a daughter-in-law and grandchildren. >> we have a different family now than we had before 9/11. i have a different marriage now than i had before 9/11. i'm a different person now, and it's not temporary.

it doesn't go away with a band-aid. you live with it the rest of your life. >> it was about 11:30 at night i got a phone call. lee, we have your son over on the side. a stokes basket and my son was in it. he was covered with an american flag. i went over to my son. i knelt down. i spoke to him. i still had to feel him from head to toe to satisfy my own curiosity. then with the help of my son brendan, and some of the men from squad 288 we picked up my son and we carried him up the hill. because of the country we live in forgetting is sometimes easy.

we become complacent. i speak with thousands of people and people say to me, what should we do and i say to them very nicely. i say, i'm not going to pick on you, but how many of you after hearing about the 9/11 commission and those results and that the government wasn't going to maybe act on it, how many of you, and raise your hand called your senator senators, your congressmen in your states and demanded they acted on it? raise your hands. well, you know what the results were. i was lucky if i got one or two. complacency. what can we do as a country? don't say to yourselves, well, that's an issue that happened in new york city. it didn't happen in new york city. it happened in the united states of america. it happened on our soil.