Original subtitles

Mtv.

Narrator: September 11, 2001.

The world stops as america is hit by a catastrophic attack.

What I remember is crying.

It was just so horrific.

I just said to myself, I can't believe this is happening.

Narrator: Almost 3,000 people die.

Thousands more are injured.

I mean, a number of americans were killed in this thing.

It was horrific.

Narrator: How could a terror attack of this scale happen?

You start to wonder, where was the ball dropped?

Our intelligence community had never

Conceived that hijackers would use the plane as a missile.

Narrator: Now, through the people who were there.

The screaming and the yelling.

That's a level of chaos I will never be able to describe.

Narrator: And those involved at the highest level.

The national security advisor, the vice president, and I

Met and decided that I should run the crisis out

Of the situation room.

Narrator: A series of catastrophic failures

Are revealed.

As in-depth analysis, investigative reports,

And declassified documents expose crucial errors.

If this memo had been prioritized,

We may have been able to disrupt this plot

Before it ever even happened.

Narrator: Intelligence failings.

Why did the cia not say there was

A terrorist heading your way?

Narrator: And gaping holes in defense.

The us air defense system had never envisioned

This kind of an attack.

It became a terrible guessing game.

Where were these planes going to hit?

Narrator: 10 fatal mistakes that together lead to the horror

And tragedy of 9/11.

There's this moment when you think,

How did you all miss this?

By not telling people, they allowed the attack to happen.

It's a perfect storm of mistakes,

Oversights, and missed opportunities.

Any one of which may have changed the outcome.

Narrator: New york's twin towers.

From the moment they are built, they epitomize everything

The united states stands for.

They represented american prestige,

American dominance, and american projection of power

Across the world.

The twin towers essentially, define the new york skyline.

You clearly knew exactly which city

You were looking at when you saw their silhouette

On the horizon.

Narrator: But in 1993, their iconic status

Led to the towers being targeted in a bomb attack.

The first step on the road to 9/11

Is not treating this attack as a warning of things to come.

These towers were symbolic of western capitalism.

And made a superb target just waiting to be hit.

Narrator: February 26, 1993.

At 12:18 pm, a 1,500-pound truck bomb

Rips through the public basement car park

Directly below the twin towers.

Firefighter joe torrillo is one of the first on the scene.

Basically, half of the underneath

Of the towers from the level one to level six were all the way

Blown down.

Almost in one huge crater.

With thousands of trucks, thousands of vehicles

Crushed like pancakes.

Narrator: The blast crater is 150 feet

Wide and several stories deep.

Six people die and more than a thousand are injured.

But it's clear the terrorists were hoping

For a much higher death toll.

When the bomb detonated, they thought that it would blow

Out some of the major support columns

Underneath the north tower.

And the building would fall on top of the south tower

And bring both buildings down.

They intended to have mass casualties.

Contemplating a number of up to 250,000.

Narrator: In the weeks that follow,

The attack is revealed to be the work

Of an extremist islamic cell.

And its leader, ramzi yousef is tracked down and imprisoned.

Terrorism had come to main street usa.

America had a new enemy.

The role that this particular event

Played in a larger scale effort was

Not appreciated at that time.

Narrator: The speed with which the fbi

Tracks down the attackers reassures

Both the public and government.

The fact that they were able to piece together

What happened so easily probably, led

To a false sense of security.

That our law enforcement was capable of handling

This threat.

For the fbi, the attack in 1993

Was a symbol of a less than top notch sophisticated

Terrorist organization.

Narrator: But treating the bombing as

An isolated incident means the bigger picture is missed.

The fact that the first world trade center bombing failed

Didn't mean that it was not worth attacking again

And again to bring it down.

Narrator: Eight years later, ramzi yousef's uncle

Khalid sheikh mohammed is accused of being

A senior member of al-qaeda.

He is later charged over the 9/11 attacks.

Had the first attack on the twin towers

Been recognized as part of a much larger pattern

Of radical terrorism, america might have been

Better prepared for the sheer size of the threat

That was looming.

Al-qaeda's thinking early on was

Terror on a catastrophic scale.

We knew al-qaeda existed by then.

We knew they were a threat.

I don't think we recognized the extent

To which they were a threat.

Narrator: Dismissing the 1993 bombing as a one-off

Is the first mistake in the series

Of missed opportunities and errors

Of judgment that leads to 9/11.

But a second more critical mistake, the failure

To pass on key intelligence, leaves the door to america

Wide open to the 9/11 terrorists.

Two of these hijackers who we had tracked around the world,

Who we knew were really bad guys were

Coming to the united states.

And our own security agency was not told about it.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: On January 4, 2000, the cia receives intelligence

That two men with extremist links

Are attending a suspected al-qaeda

Summit in kuala lumpur.

They are nawaf al-hazmi and khalid al-mihdhar.

Two of the future 9/11 hijackers.

They were involved in a meeting

In malaysia that appeared to be a terrorist planning meeting.

We didn't know what they were planning,

But we knew they had been there.

Narrator: Al-mihdhar has family links to al-qaeda.

So the cia puts him under surveillance.

They broke into his hotel.

Photographed his passport.

And subsequently filmed the details of the meeting he had.

Narrator: Al-mihdhar's passport contains

A multiple entry us visa.

Due to expire in just three months.

It's a clear indication that a man with extremist links

Has the means to legally enter america.

The intelligence community had identified them

As people wanting to come to the united states.

So this should have set off alarms.

Narrator: In fact, in the hours after the discovery

Of al-mihdhar's passport, the potential threat is flagged.

Doug miller, an fbi officer working with the cia,

Tries to pass the intelligence onto the fbi.

But his memo never leaves the cia.

Miller thought the information was of such high value,

It should be passed onto the fbi.

And was, to say the least, surprised that it was not.

Narrator: Just 10 days later, on January 15, 2000,

Al-mihdhar and al-hazmi arrive together in the us.

Despite entering under their real names,

They're not picked up.

Under every rule that we had the fbi should have been told.

And they would have been arrested.

And perhaps, the attack would have been revealed.

Narrator: Had the cia immediately informed the fbi

Of the possibility of men with links

To extremists traveling to the united states, al-mihdhar

And al-hazmi could have been stopped long before 9/11.

Had the cia shared this information with urgency, had

The fbi put these people on a no fly list, at the very least,

American airlines flight 77 would not have been hijacked.

I think that if we had found one of them

That they wouldn't have gone ahead with it.

Narrator: The cia's failure to pass on key intelligence

Means the two extremists enter the united states

20 months before 9/11.

But its decisions by the fbi that allow them to plan

Their terror attack undetected.

We didn't put the dots together.

We didn't put things together that told us the story.

Narrator: On September 11, 2001, the most deadly terror attack

In us history shocks the world.

What I remember is crying.

It was just so horrific.

And so beyond a scale that you could ever have imagined.

Narrator: As the investigation into 9/11 unfolds,

It becomes clear two of the hijackers

Had been plotting their deadly attacks while openly

Living in the united states.

The failure of federal and local police to pick them up

Can be traced to an operational decision made by the fbi.

When they closed down an investigation into a man

With close links to the hijackers.

The file is closed.

He is no longer a suspect.

And he is free to go about his business.

Narrator: San diego, September 1998.

Three years before 9/11.

The fbi puts a saudi graduate student under surveillance.

His name is omar al-bayoumi.

He was seen as a potential terrorist suspect

Because of his association with the arab community

In san diego.

There are suspicious packages coming into his building.

People are meeting in his building.

Narrator: In February 2000, al-bayoumi

Meets the two future hijackers, nawaf al-hazmi

And khalid al-mihdhar, in a cafe in culver city, los angeles.

But the meeting is missed by the fbi.

By '99, al-bayoumi's file has been closed.

Why?

Narrator: Just months before he meets the future hijackers,

The inquiry into al-bayoumi is terminated.

Reports suggest the fbi thought

He may have actually been an agent to the saudi government.

So when al-hazmi and al-mihdhar arrive in la,

No one is watching.

The fact that he connected with other individuals that

Are known to be involved in terrorism.

If the investigation continued, that's

Going to get you to think ok.

Wait a minute.

He's connected with them somehow.

Who are these guys?

Narrator: Closing the investigation

Into his activities on us soil meant

The fbi missed a vital link to two of the 9/11 hijackers.

And the chance to uncover their plans.

Al-bayoumi was associating with two people

Who had terrorist connections.

If the fbi had joined up the dots,

Al-bayoumi, al-mihdhar, and al-hazmi

Would have been a lot higher on the fbi's wanted list by 2001.

Narrator: But this isn't the only missed opportunity

To plug gaps in us security.

In the months leading up to 9/11,

A potential hole in aviation security

Is highlighted by an incident on an internal us flight.

The incident should have been a major warning signal.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: November 19, 1999.

Just under two years before 9/11.

Two saudi men are detained for suspicious behavior

On an america west flight.

These men are on a flight from phoenix to washington.

And while they're on the flight, a passenger said one of them

Attempts to enter the cockpit.

Narrator: Shortly afterwards, the plane touches down in ohio.

And the crew's concerns are reported to the authorities.

After the plane lands, the fbi detains these individuals

And interviews them.

Narrator: Under questioning, one of the suspects

Says he was just looking for the restroom.

Even though a witness had claimed

He was trying to enter the flight deck.

And they were questioned for four hours.

What's unusual about this case is that the saudi government

Got involved.

Narrator: Both men deny any wrongdoing.

And claim they're being discriminated against

For their arabic background.

Because of accusations of racial profiling,

The investigation is closed soon after.

Narrator: The two men are released with an apology

From the airline and first class tickets to washington dc.

But the incident highlights the fact

That passengers could access flight decks relatively easily.

Given the importance of security on aircraft

And federal aviation rules, these kinds of actions

Would have certainly been a cause for concern.

Narrator: But it's only after 9/11

That the number of air marshals in the us

Is increased from just 33 to several thousand.

And new regulations on cockpit doors and large passenger

Aircraft now require them to be heavily reinforced

And have more secure locking systems.

Narrator: A lack of fbi scrutiny allows terrorists

To plan atrocities on us soil.

And investigations after 9/11 reveal four of the 19 hijackers

Are pilots.

And they qualified in the united states.

And I remember hearing this thinking, wait.

What?

They were trained here in the us?

And, of course, you think, how does this happen?

Narrator: The fact that nothing was

Done to stop them suggests the fbi wasn't

Seeing the bigger picture.

But one agent did.

And his warnings were missed.

Turning an oversight into one of the biggest mistakes

In the countdown to 9/11.

If the phoenix memo had been looked at,

9/11 may not have happened.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: July 10, 2001.

Two months before 9/11.

Arizona fbi agent kenneth williams

Sends a memo to the new york federal

Bureau and fbi headquarters.

It describes an unusually high number

Of islamic students seeking training

In the us aviation industry.

Williams suspects they have been radicalized.

His report becomes known as the phoenix memo.

The phoenix memo is an example of the fbi doing exactly

What it should have been doing.

Which is connecting the dots.

The phoenix memo pieces together a larger picture.

And suggest that osama bin laden is sending people to infiltrate

The us civil aviation industry.

Narrator: The report contains details

Of suspected al-qaeda terrorist activity within us aviation.

And how to stop it.

Williams identifies al-qaeda as a clear

And present danger to the us.

He is looking ahead to a threat

That might occur in the future.

And giving recommendations for what the fbi

Needs to do to prepare for this threat.

Narrator: Williams suggests the fbi makes

Links with us flight schools.

And that visa requests from overseas students

Wanting to study aviation in america

Are flagged to the bureau.

But the urgency of the memo is missed.

This memo wasn't flagged as having high priority.

It gets lost in the ordinary course of business in the fbi.

Exacerbated by the fact that the fbi had a fairly

Archaic internal system.

It wasn't followed up on at all.

In fact, it didn't get--

I don't think it got all the way to the top.

Narrator: Williams later testifies he passed

The memo to his superiors.

In the expectation it would be passed up the chain of command.

In 2002, he is taken off the case.

And has since retired from the bureau.

It was, perhaps, a failure of fbi leadership

Not to identify as a higher priority,

The threat from al-qaeda.

Narrator: Had the phoenix memo been seen by the right people

In the fbi, terrorist activity within us aviation

Would have been investigated.

I think the phoenix memo had the capacity to really make

A difference in what happened in 9/11

Because it was forward-looking.

It offered a big picture perspective.

And it also offered specific things

That the fbi could do to be prepared to identify

This threat before it occurred.

Narrator: In the run up to 9/11, a new and lethal

Terrorist threat is overlooked.

Lack of communication between agencies

Allows extremists to enter the us.

And the fbi misses crucial clues to terrorist activity

On american soil.

But on the day itself, there's still a chance to reduce

The impact of the attack.

But us defenses are caught off-guard.

Unable to respond until it's too late.

There was no contingency planning

For the kind of airspace security operation

That 9/11 required.

Narrator: From start to finish, the 9/11

Attack on the united states lasts just over two hours.

And during that time not a single hijacked plane could

Be located in time to stop it.

Because us air defense is unprepared.

And fighter jets are scrambled far

Too late to make a difference.

It seemed to us that day, like a damn long time

Until we could get aircraft up.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: By the end of the cold war,

It is assumed the united states is no longer under threat

Of attack on home soil.

So resources and funding to air defenses are cut.

During the cold war, we were able to get

Fighter planes up over every american city

Relatively quickly.

Because we anticipated soviet bombers coming.

After the fall of the soviet union,

That air defense system was significantly reduced.

Narrator: On the morning of 9/11,

The us air defense on the eastern seaboard

Consists of just a handful of battle-ready jets.

At 8:37 am, air traffic control reports the first hijacking.

Air traffic controller: Hi, boston 17u.

We have a problem here.

We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards new york.

Narrator: Recordings of communications

From northeastern air defense command, neads,

Reveal air traffic control immediately

Requests us fighter jets to locate the plane

And escort it to safety.

Neads controller: This is huntress

With an active air defense scramble for blip 2-5 and 2-6.

Narrator: But as 9/11 unfolds, it becomes clear the aging air

Defense systems aren't capable of effectively

Tracking the hijacked planes.

The radar system was, very much, outdated

And was not really turned to tracking internal flights.

Narrator: Neads is dependent on information

Being relayed from civilian aviation authorities.

The boston center passed information to the faa.

The agency responsible for monitoring internal flights.

Then they had to contact the neads base

In rome, in new york state.

Which then tried to trace the plane.

Narrator: Then the hijacked aircraft disappear

From its tracking system.

One of the things that the hijackers did

Was to turn off the transponders.

These were the signaling devices used

To track the position of those planes

By air traffic controllers.

Which meant these planes became ghosts.

Narrator: By the time two fighter

Jets are finally scrambled, it's too late for the north tower.

Worse.

The second plane isn't far behind.

[explosion]

Neads controller: Another one just hit the building.

Wow.

Wow.

That one hit it hard.

That one hit the world trade.

The whole building just about came apart.

Holy smokes.

Narrator: The neads recordings reveal

The chaos as the third hijacking is reported.

Neads controller: Stand by please.

I've got a report that it dropped off radar over indiana.

Neads controller: United 175.

Neads controller: Excuse me. Negative.

That's not correct.

That's american 77 that dropped off the radar.

Narrator: Followed quickly by a fourth.

Neads controller: We just had another report.

United 93.

They heard screaming on the frequency

And the people have a bomb on board.

Narrator: At 9:24 am, two more fighters are scrambled.

Neads controller: Scramble langley.

Head them towards the washington area.

Neads controller: Roger that.

Narrator: Outdated systems, budget cuts, and lack

Of coordination with civil aviation

Means us air defense is caught off guard.

A problem made worse by delays in critical decision-making

At the highest level.

Until the second crash, everyone assumes

These are standard hijackings.

That the planes will land and negotiation will follow.

These hijackers are suicide bombers.

They don't want to live.

You cannot negotiate with them.

So the issue is no longer, how do you save the passengers?

It's how do you save those in the buildings

That the hijackers want to destroy using the plane?

Frankly, we had never contemplated

Shooting down an airliner filled with americans.

Narrator: The only ones who can authorize the takedown

Of an american plane are the president

And the defense secretary.

But there are communication breakdowns.

And no emergency procedure to issue the command to shoot.

[typing sounds]

On the morning of September 11, president bush

Is told about the attacks on the twin towers.

I mean, the president was talking to a group

Of kids in florida, in school.

And his aide, andy card, whispers in his ear.

Mr, president, the united states is under attack.

[camera shutters]

He finished reading that paragraph or whatever.

Because he didn't want to alarm everybody

Until he knew what was going on.

Around about 9:30, he's ferried off to air force one.

Narrator: In the white house, senior staff

Are scrambling to get the situation under control.

The national security advisor condi rice, the vice president

Dick cheney and I met and decided that they

Should go to the bomb shelter.

And that I should run the crisis out of the situation room.

Narrator: The intelligence situation is chaotic.

The president is now on his way to air force one.

Vice president cheney is in the white house bunker.

And defense secretary donald rumsfeld is in his office,

In the pentagon.

Total confusion.

Confusion at every level of government.

They didn't know whether this was just the first step.

There was a lot of government speculation.

It became a terrible guessing game.

Where were these planes going?

What were they going to hit?

Was chicago under attack?

Or what about los angeles?

Narrator: Just minutes later, at 9:37 am,

The third plane hits the pentagon.

We were talking to people in the pentagon

On the video when the plane struck.

You could tell on the video that something had happened.

And eventually, the smoke was coming

Into that conference room.

Narrator: The heart of the us military has been attacked.

Worse.

A fourth hijacked plane is still at large.

And no one knows where it's headed.

There was a sense of foreboding

And dread among my team.

Because we thought that one of the airplanes that was still up

Might come and blow up the white house.

Narrator: It's clear the plane must be stopped

Before it reaches its destination.

And that needs clearance from the highest

Level of government.

But donald rumsfeld is missing after the pentagon attack.

And communication links to air force one and president bush

Are patchy, at best.

Air force one had gone to the highest

Altitude it could get to.

Given they didn't know what the nature of the attack was

And they had to protect the president at all costs.

So the telephone link was problematic.

Narrator: At 45,000 feet, just two of the phone lines

On air force one are still working.

And they are intermittent.

Time is running out.

Rumsfeld not being around and the president being 45,000 feet

Above the ground meant that taking that command decision

Became incredibly fraught.

Narrator: Over an hour after the first plane hit,

Communication is finally good enough for the president

To issue the shoot down order.

The word was then given to the pentagon.

That if a situation is developing where you see

A hijacked jet and it looks like it's going to hit a target,

You have the authority to shoot it down.

Narrator: This order is without precedent.

But in the end, it makes no difference.

They never were able to use that authority

Because it was too late.

Cheney's authorized to do that around about 10 past 10.

By which time, the last flight has actually crashed.

Narrator: Had better emergency protocols and communication

Systems been in place, it's possible the hijacked planes

Might have been stopped before, yet, more lives were lost.

There were mistakes made, quite clearly.

They were made because of operational issues.

Because of communication breakdowns.

Because of the bureaucracies that were involved.

Narrator: The result is that three of the planes

Reached the terrorists' intended targets.

The fourth is only stopped by the bravery

Of its passengers and crew.

The greatest loss of life comes from the first two strikes

On the twin towers.

But it's not the impact that ultimately destroys them.

Some experts have questioned whether issues

With fireproofing may have made the towers unexpectedly

Vulnerable to fire damage.

The fireproofing actually wasn't applied properly

To some of the steel elements.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: At the moment of impact with the twin towers,

The two aircraft are less than an hour into their journeys.

The hijackers had chosen the flights very carefully.

What they wanted were long-haul flights because they wanted

The fuel tanks to be full.

Making the planes more effective bombs.

Narrator: Each aircraft carries around 9,000 gallons

Of jet fuel.

On impact, it ignites instantly.

Just gallons and gallons of fuel just pouring

Through all of the shafts.

Pouring through the emergency staircases.

And this allowed the fire to spread more rapidly.

Narrator: The towers' vulnerable steel skeleton has been

Covered in fireproof material.

But some experts believe this basic fire

Protection may have been compromised

Long before the attack.

They used a new method of fireproofing.

However, this material that they were using was relatively new.

If it's applied to rusted steel,

As was the case in some of the areas of the twin towers,

It's less likely to stick properly.

Narrator: Inspections in early 2000

Found that throughout the buildings

Huge sheets of fireproofing had fallen away.

And when the jets hit, the fireproofing

Is further compromised.

Large parts of the steel structure

That should be protected are now exposed to the raging blaze.

Fireproofing for a building the size of the twin towers

Is meant to last at least two hours.

However, these fires were very large and very unpredictable.

As these steel beams heat up, the floors start to sag.

And they are pulling the outer edges in.

And eventually, they sag so much that the floors just drop out

And they pull the entire structure in on itself.

You hear this echo.

And it was bending steel.

You could hear like this eerie, kind of, bending.

It always reminds me of the sound that you

Hear in the hull of a ship.

When you hear that steel going through the ocean.

Narrator: At 9:59 am, 56 minutes after impact,

The south tower collapses.

As the floors start to fail and just

Drop on top of each other, the weight

Is building up from the top onto the lower floors.

[screaming]

[crying]

I started running.

And I realized I had about 10 seconds left to live.

And as I'm running, the building's

Coming down in what we call a pancake-type of collapse.

One floor hitting the floor below.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And as each floor's hitting the floor below,

It's puffing air out like a fireplace bellows.

And it, kind of, lifted me off my feet

And I was flying through the air.

At that point, I was in the middle of all these fires.

And I was hoping that I would suffocate to death

Before I burned to death.

It really felt like you're in the middle of a volcano.

And I thought the earth was just going to break apart.

Because it was just so much--

So much.

Everything being pulverized around you.

And everything went to complete darkness.

Narrator: Half an hour later, the north tower follows.

The speed of collapse of these buildings was astronomical.

The north tower took 11 seconds and the south tower

Took nine seconds.

[sirens]

One moment, they were there and the next, they were rubble.

And to just disappear in that amount of time, it's insane.

Narrator: Had the fireproofing still been in place,

The towers might not have collapsed as rapidly.

Buying precious extra time for rescue and escape.

That day was destruction and death.

But on a level unlike anything else.

In that moment, in just a couple of hours,

Thousands of people died.

Narrator: On 9/11, the death toll at the world trade center

Was catastrophic.

But investigations reveal flaws in both planning

And safety procedures that slowed evacuation

And caused confusion.

Many believe a different approach

Could have saved lives.

My belief is that life safety is always lowest on the totem

Pole in design of buildings.

And certainly it plays itself out,

I think, in the twin towers.

[explosion]

Narrator: In the months and years

Leading to the September 11 attacks, a string of errors

Leads to disaster.

But on the day itself, failures in both design

And safety procedures inside the twin towers

Add to the mistakes costing, yet, more lives.

You could see people hanging from the edges,

From the cracks in the openings waving.

And, like, looking at you like, "help me."

[typing sounds]

Narrator: On the morning of the attacks,

17,400 people are inside the twin towers.

Most are safely evacuated.

But more than 2 and 1/2 thousand people die.

[sirens]

When the planes hit the towers, almost all access

To emergency stairwells is severed.

And nearly 2,000 people are immediately trapped.

I'm watching people.

They're waving to me as if to say come up and get us.

We can't take it no more.

If you were at a floor that was above where the planes hit,

Those people didn't have much of a chance.

Narrator: Just 18 people above the south tower impact site

Find a way down.

Each tower had three emergency staircases

Within the center core of the building.

Narrator: The impact of the planes

Takes out all three emergency routes in the north tower

And two in the south tower.

Incredibly, having such a small number

Of staircases in a building 110 stories high is legal.

As the towers were being constructed in 1968,

A new building code was issued.

This allowed the number of stairwells

In each of the twin towers to be reduced from six to three.

They tried to maximize on as much rentable space

As they can.

I don't think three emergency staircases

Were enough for a building that was meant to house over

Tens of thousands of people.

Even if you added one extra staircase in this building,

It just wouldn't have been enough to save people that day.

Narrator: After the first impact, with no way out,

Everyone above the crash site in the north tower is trapped.

The main structure is holding.

So there's still time for the people below the 93rd floor

To start to evacuate.

But in the south tower, which has not yet been hit,

No evacuation order at all is issued at this point.

The first messages in the world trade center

Were stay in place.

And some people were told to stay in their offices

When they should have been heading for those stairways.

Narrator: Then at 9:02, just one minute before the south tower

Is hit, there's a second announcement.

Telling people to evacuate.

But it is too late.

Of the hundreds of people above the 77th floor

In the south tower, only those who ignored

The stay in place instruction make it.

The people who started going downstairs

And didn't turn back, they survived it.

Had you told people from the onset, everybody evacuate

Everywhere, could you have saved lives?

Yes.

Narrator: After the second tower is hit,

The rest of the world trade center complex is evacuated.

But a decision made two years before 9/11

Contributes to the chaos.

And new york's finest are among those it goes on to effect.

I lost so many of my friends.

Some of these friends that I knew

Were only a couple of feet away from me.

[typing sounds]

Narrator: In 1999, the new york emergency

Operations center is set up in building 7

At the world trade center.

It is responsible for the coordination of all the city's

Emergency services in the event of a major disaster.

All the various agencies were coordinated in that site.

And they could talk to each other.

The idea was they could make sensible decisions

As to what to do and in a unified manner.

Narrator: But many of new york's officials

Warn against this very high profile location.

It would have been a better choice to put it elsewhere

Because the world trade center

Had already been under attack once.

They actually put them right in the middle of the biggest

Target in new york city.

Narrator: Just two years after the move to building 7,

Those fears become reality.

Less than an hour before the twin towers collapse,

The emergency operations center is evacuated.

All the people that work in the office of emergency

Management who are supposed to be coordinating

The incident in the twin towers

Had to vacate their own offices.

So they became totally ineffective.

Narrator: In the most deadly attack

New york has ever faced, coordination between

Its emergency services is almost non-existent.

[sirens]

Just after 10:00 am, a police helicopter

Radios in a terrifying warning.

They saw the north tower rocking back and forth.

And they radioed down that they, kind of,

Surmised that the buildings might actually collapse.

A lot of police officers were able to get out of the tower

Because they heard that.

The firefighters and the fire commanders,

From what I understand, did not have that information.

Narrator: With no access to police communications,

Firefighters in the tower keep climbing.

Unaware of the coming disaster.

They had a different system of communication.

And they weren't interoperable.

They didn't talk to each other.

And a lot of them were killed because of that.

Narrator: Had the emergency operations center been fully

Functional and communication links centralized,

The chaos of the emergency response

Might have been avoided.

And fewer lives lost.

Instead, 403 new york first responders die on 9/11.

Firefighters and police officers basically

Sacrificed their lives.

But this was the greatest rescue effort

Ever undertaken, under the worst possible conditions.

And I don't think they would ever

Do anything different, again.

That's just what we do and that's

What people expect of us.

Narrator: The 9/11 attacks left 2,973 people dead

And many more injured.

It also opened the world's eyes to a new terror.

Al-qaeda had declared war on america, but america had

Not declared war on al-qaeda.

That might have been a mistake.

I mean, the number of americans were killed in this thing.

It was horrific.

The attack on the soil of the united states was horrific.

What it did to our whole posture, our whole psyche.

You ask anybody where they were on that day

And they'll tell you.

Because it's seared in the memory.

Narrator: No single mistake allowed the horrific events

Of September 11th to take place.

But together, they paved the road to disaster.

The biggest oversight was the lack of communication.

When you have a lack of communication,

Opportunities are missed.

And when that happens, we could very well

See events like we saw on 9/11.

Narrator: Now, two decades after the 9/11 attacks,

They are mistakes no one wants to make again.

The strategies of terrorist organizations historically

Have morphed.

They look for weakness.

So one should anticipate that they're looking

To game whatever security system is in place.

If there's any silver lining to 9/11,

It's that it exposed the ways in which

Our intelligence community and our national security approach

Was obsolete.

It showed all of the places

That we need to change and adapt in order

To confront the new threat.