American Airlines Flight 11 was the first hijacked airplane of the September 11 attacks. It crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The American Airlines airplane was a Boeing 767. It was scheduled to fly from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport. Fifteen minutes after takeoff, the hijackers forced their way into the cockpit. One of the hijackers was a trained pilot. He took the controls of the aircraft and flew it into the North Tower. The hijackers were members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda.
All 92 people on the airplane died in the crash—11 crew members and 81 passengers; 5 of them were hijackers. The time of the crash was 08:46 Eastern Daylight Time. Many people in the street saw the crash. A few people were able to capture the moment of impact; Jules Naudet, a French cameraman who was filming a movie, and Pavel Hlava, a Czech immigrant. Additionally, a webcam set up by Wolfgang Staehle at an art exhibit in Brooklyn that took pictures of Lower Manhattan every four seconds, and a newscamera that was left on the ground also captured the crash. The crash and the fire that started right after it made the North Tower collapse within 102 minutes. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and injured thousands of people. It left a profound mark on American history and changed airport security.