Tragedy's aftermath

One day after terrorists steered airliners into each of New York City's twin World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field, details were emerging about how they commandeered the fates of their 266 captives and potentially thousands of other victims on the ground.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a Wednesday news conference that five people on each of two planes and four people on each of the other two, hijacked the four jets. The hijackers used knives and box cutters, Ashcroft said, and in some cases made bomb threats. In addition, he said, some of the hijackers received flight training in the United States, and what he called "credible evidence" suggested the White House and Air Force One had also been targets of the terrorists.

Two of the doomed Tuesday morning flights originated at Boston's Logan Airport; one originated in Newark, N.J.; and the fourth originated at Washington Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

The first flight, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 out of Boston bound for Los Angeles, crashed into the north WTC tower at 8:48 a.m. Eastern time. At 9:06 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175, also headed from Boston to L.A., plunged into the WTC's south tower.

Then, at 9:40 a.m., American Airlines Boeing 757 left Dulles, en route to L.A., but careened into the western part of the Pentagon military complex, in which 24,000 people normally work. Approximately 200 people are believed to have died in that incident, according to figures released Thursday morning.

Finally, United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying from Newark to San Francisco, crashed near Pittsburgh. All 45 of the people on that plane died, officials said.

Officials said the total death toll from the two World Trade Center plane crashes and the ensuing collapse of the landmark twin towers will probably not be established for weeks.

"The recovery of bodies and the collection of evidence is ongoing at the Pentagon and at the crash site in Somerset County, Pennsylvania," Ashcroft said. "Investigators are working with the National Transportation Safety Board to recover the black boxes from the crash sites. The crime scene at the WTC has been secured but is not yet a crime scene accessible to investigators."

FBI Director Robert Mueller said at that same Wednesday conference that agents all over the country were learning everything possible about the hijackers and their supporters.

In the first 24 hours of the investigation, Mueller said, the FBI had been trying to identify the hijackers on each of the planes and then seeking to find people in the U.S. who had helped them.

"We have, in the last 24 hours, taken the manifests and used those as an evidentiary base, and have talked to many of the families of the victims, and have successfully, I believe, identified many of the hijackers on each of the four flights that went down," he said.

No arrests had been made, as of Wednesday, Mueller said, although the FBI had interviewed a number of people in Florida, Boston and Providence, Rhode Island.

The FBI has set up a Web site for people with any information about the hijackers, or related information about the attacks. That site can be found at http://www.ifccfbi.gov.

Neither Ashcroft nor Mueller would confirm identities of those believed responsible for the attacks or who they suspect may have helped the hijackers accomplish their mission.

"I'll give you the information that we can give you," Ashcroft told reporters at the conference. "However, we will give you only facts that we can confirm. You may be hearing things that we have not told you, but some people have the luxury of speculating. We won't speculate, but we'll only give you confirmed facts."