06 OCT 2026History
What time did the first plane hit the Twin Towers? 11 September 2001, 08:46 EDT
American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower at 08:46:40 Eastern Daylight Time on 11 September 2001, which was 12:46:40 UTC.
Short answer: American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 08:46:40 Eastern Daylight Time on 11 September 2001. That was 12:46:40 UTC. The minute was 08:46 in New York and 12:46 in UTC.
Why 08:46 is the exact minute
The official 9/11 Commission timeline records the impact of American Airlines Flight 11 at 08:46:40. The aircraft struck 1 World Trade Center, the North Tower. That timestamp is unusually precise for a historical event because investigators could combine air-traffic-control records, radar data, communications and other synchronized evidence.
The answer is sometimes written simply as 08:46 a.m. That is correct at minute precision. The additional 40 seconds matters when comparing the first impact with later events, but a civil clock still places the event in the minute beginning at 08:46.
New York was observing Eastern Daylight Time, or EDT, on 11 September. EDT is four hours behind Coordinated Universal Time, so 08:46:40 EDT converts to 12:46:40 UTC.
What happened next
The first impact was not yet publicly understood as one part of a coordinated attack. At 09:03:11 EDT, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower. The Pentagon was struck at 09:37:46, and United Airlines Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11.
Those separate timestamps explain why the broad question “What time did 9/11 happen?” has more than one answer. If the question means the beginning of the attacks as witnessed in New York, 08:46:40 EDT is the clearest answer. If it means the second impact, which made the nature of the attack unmistakable to a worldwide television audience, the answer is 09:03:11 EDT.
Local time and UTC
- Date in New York: 11 September 2001
- First impact: 08:46:40 EDT
- UTC: 12:46:40 UTC
- Second impact: 09:03:11 EDT, or 13:03:11 UTC
Daylight saving time is important here. Converting the event as if New York had been on Eastern Standard Time would produce a result one hour late. In September, the city was on EDT, UTC−4.
Why records use seconds
Public memory usually preserves a minute. Formal investigations often need seconds. Air traffic control systems and radar records create timelines in which events separated by less than a minute can change the interpretation of what controllers, airlines and defense agencies knew at a given moment.
The 9/11 Commission therefore published a detailed chronology rather than relying on recollection alone. Its report also distinguishes when an aircraft was hijacked, when controllers became aware of the problem, when military authorities were notified and when each impact occurred. Those are different events with different timestamps.
A note on remembrance
A timestamp can establish sequence, but it cannot represent the human scale of the attacks. Nearly three thousand people were killed in New York, at the Pentagon and aboard the four aircraft. The exact time is presented here as a matter of historical record and remembrance, not as spectacle.