How many bystanders died on 911

Al-Qaeda hijacked four aircraft, each with the aim of crashing into a prominent American landmark. A total of 2, were killed in the attacks , along with the 19 hijackers. Of those, were on the four planes, 2, were in the World Trade Centre and the surrounding area, and were at the Pentagon. Most deaths were civilians, but firefighters, 71 law enforcement officers and 55 military personnel were also killed.

United Airlines flight struck the South Tower 17 minutes later. Even an astronaut on the International Space Station took some. Street scenes chart escalating horror as people stare and weep at the burning skyscrapers, then run from the dust cloud billowing through lower Manhattan after one of them crumbles.

Flames shoot from the windows of the Pentagon, a global symbol of military might that proved vulnerable to an attack by a handful of Islamic militants. A father and son are seen walking to the Brooklyn Bridge, which was used by thousands of pedestrians to get out of lower Manhattan following the World Trade Center attack. On the day of the attacks, New York City firefighters died in the twin towers. At least more have since died from illnesses related to their work at the site.

A fallen piece of metal is seen on the ground in lower Manhattan after hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center. Many who fled the towers recounted hazardous journeys down dust-choked stairwells packed with people.

Meanwhile, rescue operations were also underway at the Pentagon , where people died. It will be in business tomorrow. A military helicopter departs after dropping off personnel at the Pentagon on September 12, In the years after the attack, people who spent time near ground zero would begin to die as a result of long-term illnesses stemming from toxic dust.

A destroyed Manhattan subway station entrance is seen near ground zero on the evening of September 12, An unidentified New York City firefighter walks near ground zero after the collapse of the twin towers on September 11, An unidentified man walks on an ash-covered street in lower Manhattan after the collapse of the twin towers. In the years that followed, thousands of first responders and local residents would seek treatment for cancer and other health conditions stemming from their exposure to ground zero.

Much of the toxic dust was pulverized concrete. In this photo, people walk across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn on September 11, By then, they'd seen the collapse of both World Trade Center towers. An unidentified New York City firefighter walks away from ground zero after the collapse of the twin towers on September 11, In the years following the attack, comedian and former "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart became a prominent advocate for better health care for the first responders.

In , Congress permanently extended the victims' compensation program. It may be dangerous to get out of an elevator, but when you're trapped inside during a disaster, you need that option. Dave Bobbitt, an elevator supervisor at the World Trade Center for the Port Authority, says it was a difficult decision. Several years ago, a friend of Bobbitt's had plunged to his death in another high-rise while trying to escape from an elevator.

Anthony Savas, 72, a construction inspector for the Port Authority, was trapped in an elevator at the 78th-floor elevator lobby of the north tower when the nose of the first jet struck the building 18 floors above. He pounded his fists on the doors.

He heard Savas banging from inside the elevator. The 6-foot-2, pound Meerholz and another man tried to force open the elevator doors with their hands. The doors opened just 2 inches. Inside, Meerholz saw Savas, white-haired, calm, unhurt, wearing a uniform and holding a walkie-talkie. Savas said he had radioed for help. A few minutes later, three Port Authority colleagues came upon Savas. Two of the men sat back-to-back, put their feet in the 2-inch crack and pushed.

The door would not budge. Savas told his colleagues to move on, that firefighters would rescue him later. Savas did not survive. USA TODAY based its estimate of at least dying in elevators on interviews with survivors, victims' families and emergency personnel, as well as photographs, videos and architectural plans.

The information was analyzed in a database. The death toll could have been as high as , although the exact number of deaths cannot be known with certainty. Most deaths occurred in the express elevators in both towers that went from the lobbies to the 78th floors and in the elevators near the top floors of the buildings.

Sixty-four of the twin towers' elevators had cables that ran through the floors devastated by the hijacked planes, and the cables were likely destroyed. Forty-eight of these 64 elevators had no known survivors. Even in the elevators where people escaped — mostly because the doors happened to be open at the moment of impact — they left behind a large number of people who were burned to death or were killed when the buildings collapsed.

The loss of life was almost completely inside the south tower's 10 giant express elevators, which were shuttling evacuees from the 78th floor to the ground floor after the north tower was hit. Only four people survived. The four survivors — two each from adjacent elevators — were in elevators that plunged and were stopped by the emergency brakes 6 to 10 feet above the lobby floor. About 40 people died in those two elevators.

Doomed passengers called loved ones from two other south tower express elevators stuck near the 12th floor in one case and the 19th floor in another. The express elevators in the north tower had eight survivors in two elevators. In the other eight express elevators, nobody is known to have lived. People who escaped from elevators high in the buildings saw people left behind burn to death and some elevators plunge to the ground. The only other passenger, artist Vanessa Lawrence, got out.

I jumped out, fell to the floor and looked behind me. I saw the elevator disintegrate in a ball of flames and fall down the shaft. There was a big hole in the ceiling above the elevator.

I saw the cables fold up as if they'd become detached. It took no more than two seconds. That empty elevator probably plummeted 14 floors into a pit on the 77th floor. Wertz and Lawrence evacuated safely down the stairs, as did 18 other people from the 91st floor. Cantor Fitzgerald tax lawyer Harry Waizer, 50, was alone in a burning elevator that performed as it was programmed to do in an emergency: It returned to its lowest floor — the 78th — and opened its doors.

He walked the rest of the way down. Rescue attempts were underway when the buildings collapsed. Firefighters from Ladder 4 and Engine 54 — which shared a firehouse at 48th Street and Eighth Avenue — used the Jaws of Life tool to rescue people trapped in an elevator in the south tower lobby.

The firefighters died when the tower collapsed at a. Their bodies were found near an elevator and their Jaws of Life.