Some memories fade with time. Others stay with us so clearly that even decades later, we can remember the room, the television screen, the voices around us and the exact feeling that something had suddenly changed.

For me, September 11, 2001 is one of those memories.

I was nine years old. After school, I went to my grandmother’s home, something that was completely normal for me at the time. She was watching RTL Klub, where a South American romantic period drama set in the 19th century was playing. It was an ordinary afternoon. Nothing suggested that within minutes we would be watching one of the defining events of modern history unfold live on television.

Then a message appeared at the bottom of the screen: a plane had crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Soon afterwards, the programme was interrupted. The channel switched to live coverage from the United States.

I still remember the burning tower. I remember sitting there with my grandmother, both of us watching without really understanding what we were seeing. Like millions of people around the world, we first thought it might have been a terrible accident.

Then the second plane appeared. We watched live as it crashed into the other tower. Even at nine years old, I understood that this was no longer an accident. Something enormous was happening.

Twenty-five years later, those images are still incredibly clear in my mind. I can remember the television screen, the smoke above Manhattan and the feeling that the world had suddenly become a much more frightening place.

For an entire generation, September 11 became more than a date.

It became a dividing line between the world before and the world after.

A Beautiful Morning in New York

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 began with clear skies over the eastern United States. People went to work. Children went to school. Tourists walked through Manhattan. Office workers arrived at the World Trade Center. Thousands of passengers checked in for flights across the country. Four commercial aircraft were preparing to fly from the East Coast to California. They were ordinary flights filled with ordinary people: business travellers, families, holidaymakers and flight crews.

Among them, however, were 19 members of al-Qaeda, the terrorist organisation led by Osama bin Laden. The attacks had been planned for years. Several of the hijackers had lived in the United States and received flight training there. Within less than two hours, four passenger aircraft would be turned into weapons. And the world would never look quite the same again.

Flight 11 – The First Impact

American Airlines Flight 11 left Boston Logan International Airport at 7:59 a.m. and was heading for Los Angeles. There were 11 crew members, 76 passengers and five hijackers aboard the Boeing 767. Not long after take-off, the hijackers took control of the aircraft.

One of the first people to warn the outside world was flight attendant Betty Ong. She managed to contact American Airlines and calmly explained that something was seriously wrong. The cockpit was not responding, passengers had been injured and the aircraft appeared to have been hijacked.

At 8:46 a.m., Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, striking floors 93 to 99. The explosion sent flames and thick black smoke high above Manhattan. Everyone aboard the aircraft was killed. Inside the tower, the damage was catastrophic. The impact destroyed the emergency stairways around the crash zone, leaving many of the people above it trapped.

On television, however, nobody yet knew the full story. News channels rushed to Manhattan. Cameras focused on the burning skyscraper. Reporters spoke about a possible accident. Some wondered whether a pilot had lost control or whether there had been a serious technical failure. It was a reasonable explanation. For seventeen minutes.

Flight 175 – The Moment the World Understood

United Airlines Flight 175 had also left Boston and was also travelling towards Los Angeles. There were nine crew members, 51 passengers and five hijackers aboard. By this point, television cameras were already filming the burning North Tower.

Then something appeared in the sky behind Manhattan. At 9:03 a.m., Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, striking floors 77 to 85. Millions of people watched it happen live. That was the moment when everything changed. There could no longer be any talk of an accident.

The United States was under attack.

For viewers in Hungary, it was already afternoon. The first aircraft struck at around 2:46 p.m. Hungarian time. The second hit at around 3:03 p.m. For those of us watching thousands of kilometres away, the images hardly looked real. A passenger jet flying directly into a skyscraper seemed like something from a Hollywood disaster film. Except there was no film set. No special effects. No second take.

This was happening in real time.

Flight 77 – The Attack Reaches Washington

While the world focused on New York, another hijacked aircraft was heading towards the American capital. American Airlines Flight 77 had taken off from Washington Dulles International Airport at 8:20 a.m. Its destination was Los Angeles. There were six crew members, 53 passengers and five hijackers aboard. After taking control of the aircraft, the hijackers turned it back towards Washington.

At 9:37 a.m., Flight 77 crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.

The Pentagon was, and remains, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense. Everyone aboard the aircraft was killed, along with 125 people inside the building. By now, the symbolism of the attacks was impossible to ignore. The World Trade Center represented American economic power. The Pentagon represented American military power. The attackers had not chosen their targets by chance. Across the United States, aircraft were ordered to land. American airspace was effectively shut down.

But one hijacked flight was still in the air.

Flight 93 – The Flight That Never Reached Its Target

United Airlines Flight 93 left Newark, New Jersey, at 8:42 a.m. It was heading for San Francisco. There were seven crew members, 33 passengers and four hijackers aboard. Its departure had been delayed, and that delay turned out to be extremely important. By the time the hijackers took control of the aircraft at around 9:28 a.m., the attacks in New York had already taken place. Passengers and crew members began calling relatives and people on the ground. Through these conversations, they learned what had happened to the other flights. They understood that their aircraft was probably not being hijacked in the traditional sense. It was going to be used as a weapon. Faced with that knowledge, a group of passengers decided to fight back.

At around 9:57 a.m., they began trying to reach the cockpit. The struggle lasted for several minutes.

At 10:03 a.m., the hijackers deliberately crashed the aircraft into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Everyone aboard was killed. The aircraft had been heading towards Washington, D.C. Evidence examined by the 9/11 Commission suggests that the United States Capitol was the most likely target, although the White House had also been considered during the planning of the attacks.

The passengers of Flight 93 could not save their own lives. But by fighting back, they almost certainly prevented another attack in Washington. Their final actions became one of the most powerful stories of courage connected with September 11.

Inside the Towers

In New York, meanwhile, thousands of people were trying to escape the World Trade Center. The scenes inside the towers were chaotic, frightening and often heroic. Office workers moved down staircases while firefighters climbed upwards carrying heavy equipment. Police officers, paramedics and emergency workers rushed towards danger while almost everyone else was trying to get away from it. Many of them knew very little about what was happening above them. They simply knew that people needed help.

At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed.

It had been hit just 56 minutes earlier. The entire building disappeared into a massive cloud of dust, smoke and debris. People ran through the streets of Lower Manhattan. Cars, emergency vehicles and entire city blocks disappeared under a grey layer of dust. Then, at 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed as well. In less than two hours, the Twin Towers — two buildings that had helped define the New York skyline for decades – were gone.

Among those killed were 343 members of the New York City Fire Department, 23 New York City police officers and 37 Port Authority police officers. Many had entered the towers knowing that their job was to help others escape. They never came back out.

Behind the Number 2977

The official death toll from the September 11 attacks was 2977 victims, excluding the 19 hijackers. Of these, 2 753 people died in New York, 184 were killed at the Pentagon and 40 passengers and crew members were killed aboard Flight 93. The victims came from around 90 countries. These figures are important.

But numbers can also make tragedy feel distant. Behind the number 2977 were 2977 individual lives. People who had made plans for the evening. People who had families waiting for them. People going on holiday. People travelling to weddings. People starting another ordinary day at the office. Some had just arrived for work. Some were having breakfast. Some were on their way across the country.

Parents said goodbye to their children that morning expecting to see them again later. None of them could have known that an ordinary Tuesday would become one of the darkest days in modern history. That is why September 11 cannot be remembered only through images of aircraft, fire and collapsing buildings. Before anything else, it was a human tragedy.

Who Was Behind the Attacks?

In the hours and days that followed, investigators began one of the largest criminal investigations in history. The FBI worked with authorities in the United States and abroad to identify the people responsible. The 19 hijackers were members of al-Qaeda. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Egypt and one was from Lebanon.

The attacks had been organised by al-Qaeda under the leadership of Osama bin Laden. Their consequences would shape world politics for decades. Less than a month after September 11, the United States and its allies began military operations in Afghanistan, where the Taliban government had provided protection to al-Qaeda. The attacks also changed the everyday experience of millions of people.

Airport security became much stricter. Intelligence agencies were reorganised. Governments introduced new counter-terrorism measures. For younger generations, removing shoes at airport security, restrictions on liquids and intensive passenger screening may seem completely normal.

Before September 11, air travel looked very different.

September 11 and Hungary

The attacks took place thousands of kilometres from Hungary, but their political consequences reached Europe almost immediately. Hungary had joined NATO on March 12, 1999, together with the Czech Republic and Poland. This meant that when the attacks happened in 2001, Hungary was already a full member of the Alliance. On September 12, NATO members agreed that if the attacks had been directed from abroad, they would fall under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. Article 5 is built around one of NATO’s central principles: an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all.

When evidence later confirmed that al-Qaeda had organised the attacks from abroad, Article 5 was formally applied. It was the first time in NATO’s history that Article 5 had been invoked. Hungary therefore stood together with the United States and the other NATO allies in the response to September 11. For those of us watching from Hungary that afternoon, New York felt very far away.

Historically, however, the consequences of that day quickly reached us too.

A Tragedy That Continued for Years

September 11 did not truly end on September 11. After the towers collapsed, rescue and recovery workers searched the ruins of Ground Zero for weeks. The clean-up operation continued for months.

The dust that covered Lower Manhattan contained dangerous substances, and over the following years many firefighters, police officers, construction workers, volunteers, survivors and local residents developed serious health problems. Respiratory diseases, cancers and other illnesses connected with exposure to the World Trade Center site continued to take lives long after 2001.

For the 25th anniversary in 2026, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum added a seventh moment of silence to its annual commemoration. The new moment honours those who later died from illnesses connected with the attacks and their aftermath. It is a powerful reminder that for many families, September 11 was not a tragedy limited to one terrible morning.

Its consequences continued for years.

Twenty-Five Years Later

A quarter of a century has now passed. here are adults today who were born years after the Twin Towers fell. For them, September 11 belongs to documentaries, museum exhibitions, photographs and school lessons. For those who watched it happen, the distance feels much smaller. When I think of September 11, I do not first think of political speeches, military operations or international relations.

I see my grandmother’s television.

I see the message appearing at the bottom of the screen.

I see the burning tower.

And then I see the second aircraft approaching.

Twenty-five years later, I can still remember that moment with extraordinary clarity. New York has changed since then. One World Trade Center now rises beside the place where the Twin Towers once stood.

At the 9/11 Memorial, two enormous reflecting pools occupy the footprints of the original towers. The names of the victims are cut into bronze panels around them.

The space is quiet.

That silence says almost as much as the memorial itself. Every September 11, families gather there and the names of the victims are read aloud. And when darkness falls, two beams of light rise above Manhattan as part of the Tribute in Light. For a few hours, they create the shape of something that is no longer there. Perhaps that is why the memorial remains so moving. It does not try to replace what was lost. Instead, it makes the absence visible.

September 11 changed international politics. It changed aviation. It changed security. It led to wars and political decisions whose effects can still be felt today. But twenty-five years later, perhaps the most important thing is not to remember only how the world changed.