Navigation

Explore Manhattan lets you pan from Battery Park through the Financial District to City Hall and Tribeca. The 850 m altitude ceiling remains; Tower orbit keeps the towers as its fixed pivot. Aircraft views open paused on the final 2.5 seconds. Drag to pan. Scroll or pinch to zoom. Hold Shift and drag to rotate or tilt; Shift + scroll also tilts. Right-drag rotates and tilts. In Tower orbit or Aircraft 360°, an ordinary drag orbits the focal point.

How the collapses are represented

NIST concluded that aircraft impacts damaged columns and dislodged fireproofing, while multi-floor fires weakened structural systems until collapse initiated. NIST found no corroborating evidence for controlled demolition. The reconstruction follows that documented sequence.

Primary references

• NIST — Towers Investigation FAQs
• NIST NCSTAR 1 — Final Report
• National September 11 Memorial & Museum — Timeline

Map accuracy

The map uses live satellite tiles and geographic coordinates. The Twin Towers are modeled with their square footprints, facade-column rhythm, mechanical bands, roof structures and North Tower antenna. The Marriott and WTC 4–6 establish the 2001 plaza context. Present-day surrounding buildings are drawn from OpenStreetMap. Aircraft lines indicate final approach direction rather than complete forensic tracks. Smoke and fire are world-space volumetric reconstructions informed by the reference footage, not engineering simulations. Both plumes share a consistent east-southeast wind. The South Tower impact is offset approximately 7 m east of its south-face centre; the aircraft attitudes use NIST estimates. Satellite and building tiles are retained in a larger in-memory cache while this page stays open.