The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 1

On The Internet www.LATIMIS.com WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 CoevKicHTJOOicctiosPAG.s SO Signaled Areas Higher JL 1 o) iliU 11 vuuUun LbUvJ ULnMUNj Thousands Dead, Injured as Hijacked U.S. Airliners Ram Targets; World Trade Towers Brought Down I i .1 i sv. Tragedy: Assault leaves Manhattan in chaos. Three of the flights were en route to one to San Francisco. President Bush puts military on highest alert, closes borders and vows to 'find those ByMATEAGOLD and MAGGIE FARLEY TIMES STAFF WRITERS NEW YORK In the worst terrorist attack ever against the United States, hijackers struck at the preeminent symbols of the nation's wealth and might Tuesday, flying airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and killing or injuring thousands of people.

As a horrified nation watched on television, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan collapsed into flaming rubble after two Boeing 767s rammed their upper stories. A third airliner, a Boeing 757, flattened one of the Pentagon's five sides. A fourth jetliner crashed in western Pennsylvania. Authorities said the hijackers might have been trying to aim the plane at the presidential retreat at Camp David, the Capitol or other targets in Washington. The assaults, which stirred fear and anxiety across the country and evoked comparisons to Pearl Harbor, were carefully planned and coordinated, occurring within 50 minutes.

No one claimed responsibility, but official suspicion quickly fell on Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden. Unexplained was how the terrorists boarded the jets and overpowered the crews. Federal law enforcement sources said the FBI conducted searches and served subpoenas, some in south Florida. One official said agents were investigating the pos-Please see ATTACK, A10 More Insido THE NATION Terrorists deftly penetrated the airport security system, possibly with help from ground crews. A3 Preliminary evidence indicates that Osama bin Laden is behind the carnage, U.S.

officials say. A14 Attacks threaten the underpinnings of the nation's prosperity and raise specter of global recession. CI NEW YORK CITY Terrorists struck New York's World Trade Center towers at their most vulnerable spot. A4 WASHINGTON Pentagon employees were watching news of the New York disaster when their nightmare hit. A16 SOUTHLAND Work, play, routine came to a halt.

Disneyland shut, but a Los Angeles City Council election went on. A29 THE EDITORIAL PAGES Buildings collapsed, but democracy stands. Now, Americans must refrain from blaming groups for individuals' evil acts. B8 A brutal war comes home to Americans, and we speak no longer of victims, but of casualties. B9 7 11 00050 11 11 6 APphotos CARMEN TAYLOR via KHBS KHOG-TV United Flight 175, above, heads for the south tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, then explodes on impact while the north tower burns from an assault about 20 minutes earlier.

I1 New York, a Day of Fire Real Test for Bush in Weeks to Come IK- 7 ij Center, thousands struggled to escape. Some were lucky and fast enough to find elevators still functioning. Others walked and crawled and groped their way down hundreds of stairs. "People were screaming and things were flying everywhere. There's blood, there's glass, there's everything.

You get to the point that you're so scared you're not even scared," said stockbroker John McKeehan. "This is as close as I've ever gotten to war." Many, no one yet knows their number, could not escape, blocked by fire or fear. Experts said blazing jet fuel inside the towers would have driven temperatures to be 1 Ii 1" I yond 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt steel, which it did, and hot enough to kill, which it did as well. Some people, unable to withstand the flames, jumped or were sucked out into the high empty air, their bodies tumbling like dolls all the way to the ground. At 8:45 a.m., Walter Lipiak had just unlocked the door to Cosmos Service America on the 89th floor of the north tower, the first to be struck and the second to collapse.

He still had his key in the lock when the explosion rocked the building, sending him flying across the office, crashing into a desk. As other workers arrived, he made them lie on the floor and covered TV commentator and author Barbara Olson calmly told her husband before the phone went dead about 9 a.m. A few minutes later came a second call from her Los Angeles-bound American Airlines jet. "They've huddled all the passengers and crew into the back of the plane," Ted Olson remembered his wife saying. She said they were armed with "knives and cardboard box cutters." Once again, the connection was lost.

Moments later, her husband the U.S. solicitor general saw with the rest of the world what had become of the plane. With 64 aboard, the Boeing 757 had plunged into the side of the Pentagon, not far from Olson's Justice and Fear them with towels. Then he gathered them up and herded them toward the stairwell, which was locked. Police arrived, unlocked the exit, and Lipiak's people joined what would become a throng on the route down.

Four floors below, Geoffrey Hei-neman, managing partner of a law firm on the 85th floor of the north tower, had taken an early train from his home in Garden City, N.Y., because it was "a special day," his oldest son's birthday, "and I wanted to get home for the party." The firm's offices take up more than half the 85th floor, with spectacular views of New York Harbor Please see DESCENT, A8 Department office, where he took the two calls. There were others who would call from the skies too, including a flight attendant, a mother of four who called her husband from San Francisco-bound United Airlines Flight 93. Those few voices offer a glimpse into the last moments of 266 passengers and crew members aboard four California-bound jets in America's worst terrorist attack. Although the FBI has yet to authorize the release of the flight manifests, a few names and their stories surfaced from the smoke and ashes Tuesday. One of television comedy's more creative minds, David Angell, an Please see VICTIMS, AIM A Chilling Voice From the Sky: 'Our Plane Is Being Hijacked5 Scene: For those who survived the Trade Center explosions, a terrifying scramble to escape death.

By GERALD1NE BAUM and PAUL LIEBERMAN TIMES STAFF WRITERS NEW YORK-People likened it to a bomb, to midnight, to a volcano and, finally, when the air was choked with soot and smoke, to hell. In the aftermath of the explosions Tuesday morning that shook the twin towers of the World Trade Associated Press Women embrace as the World Trade Center bums. Both towers collapsed within two hours of the first hit by a hijacked jet. 'I By RONALD BROWNSTEIN and DOYLE McMANUS TIMES STAFF WRITERS WASHINGTON-The greatest challenge any American president can face is war and George W. Bush, who won the presidency at a moment of peace and prosperity, is abruptly facing a sterner test than anyone expected.

I Bush's initial response after an awkward day during which, because of security concerns, he was out of sight on several military bases was a brief statement pledging "to find those responsible and to bring them to justice." I "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," Bush said, warning countries such as Afghanistan that they can no longer count on U.S. restraint. But the real test of the new president's leadership will arrive in the weeks to come: Can he unify the nation in grief and anger? Can he choose an effective military response? And can he find ways to prevent another attack from occurring? The test will be all the more daunting for Bush, who entered the White House with little experience in foreign and military issues and whose first steps on the interna-Please see BUSH, A24 Passengers: Some victims phone from planes. Among the dead are a TV producer, an actress, a commentator. ByROBERTJACKSON, PAULBROWNFIELD and GEOFFREY MOHAN TIMES STAFF WRITERS They had time to glimpse their fate, and precious seconds to tell of it.

Unlike the victims inside the World Trade Center, these casualties of Tuesday's terror had an idea what was coming. "Our plane is being hijacked,".