Episode 186: Twenty years ago, on the morning of September 11, 2001, as the world watched in horror, 19 radical Islamist al-Qaeda terrorists launched a group of coordinated attacks using four commuter planes as weapons, hitting several preplanned targets in the eastern United States. Two of the airliners were flown deliberately into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane smashed into the U.S. Pentagon. A fourth plane believed to have been bound for the U.S. Capitol building crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers aboard the flight fought back against the terrorists who’d taken over the flight.

Among the 2977 people who died as a direct result of the attacks, 24 of those were Canadian. As with many other countries, Canada stepped up to help in the immediate aftermath. What follows are details of the initial attacks and then some of the stories from that day and its aftermath.