Fireball and smoke after a plane strikes a WTC tower, New York

Plane impact on a World Trade Center tower in New York on September 11, 2001 — the threat CIA analysts warned about as early as 1998

The photo captures the instant a hijacked plane slams into one of the World Trade Center towers: a fireball erupts from the building while a thick plume of black smoke billows over the New York skyline. The Brooklyn Bridge is visible in the foreground, with the second, still intact tower and its antenna standing nearby. This scene embodied the very threat that, according to declassified documents, CIA analysts had warned officials about as early as 1998.

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