How many passengers and crew were on each of the flights involved in the 9/11 attacks?
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Executive summary
Official post-9/11 reporting and memorials record a total of 246 passengers and crew killed aboard the four hijacked airliners: Flight 11, Flight 175, Flight 77 and Flight 93 [1] [2]. Contemporary and reference accounts list the individual onboard counts as: American Airlines Flight 11 — 92 people (81 passengers + 11 crew) [3] [4]; United Airlines Flight 175 — 65 people (56 passengers + 9 crew) [5] [4]; American Airlines Flight 77 — 64 people (58 passengers + 6 crew) [5] [4]; United Airlines Flight 93 — 40 people (37 passengers + 7 crew) [6] [7].
1. Flight-by-flight totals: what the sources say
Contemporary encyclopedias and memorial sites converge on specific counts per aircraft. Britannica’s timeline gives Flight 11 as carrying 81 passengers and 11 crew (92 total), Flight 175 as 56 passengers and 9 crew (65 total), Flight 77 as 58 passengers and 6 crew (64 total) and Flight 93 as 37 passengers and 7 crew (44 total is not stated there; other sources list 40) — see the summarized passenger/crew breakdowns in Britannica and related timelines [5] [4]. Wikipedia’s Flight 11 entry explicitly states 81 passengers and 11 crew for a 92-person total [3]. The National Park Service and Flight 93 memorial material identify Flight 93’s 40 passengers and crew as the basis for that site’s Wall of Names and Congressional honors [7] [8].
2. The headline summation: 246 passengers and crew
Multiple reputable outlets use the round figure “246 passengers and crew” for the four planes combined. Forbes’ retrospective in 2025 and the BBC’s 2025 coverage both state that all 246 passengers and crew aboard the four planes died on September 11 [1] [2]. That aggregate figure is widely cited in anniversary coverage and encyclopedic summaries [9].
3. Where counts differ and why — small discrepancies in public records
Public records and later summaries sometimes present minor inconsistencies about the per-plane breakdown. For example, some Wikipedia pages and memorial pages describe Flight 93 as having “44 passengers and crew” in one lead sentence but elsewhere list 40 names on the memorial wall and in National Park Service material [6] [7]. Britannica’s timeline and the widely cited timelines list Flight 93 as having 37 passengers and 7 crew (which sums to 44), while the Flight 93 National Memorial and other sources honor 40 passengers and crew — this reflects differences in how hijackers are counted, reporting updates over time, and how memorials enumerate victims [5] [7] [6].
4. How hijackers factor into the arithmetic
Some sources explicitly separate “passengers excluding hijackers” from total onboard counts. Timelines note passenger counts that exclude the hijackers (for example, Flight 11 noted as 76 passengers excluding hijackers alongside 11 crew in one timeline entry) while other summaries present totals that include the hijackers [4] [3]. This reporting practice contributes to apparent contradictions in per-plane passenger tallies across outlets [4] [3].
5. Memorial practice and the human record
Memorials and official sites emphasize names and affiliations rather than arithmetic. The National September 11 Memorial & Museum arranges names by affiliation and adjacency requests to honor each crewmember and passenger; Flight 11 crewmembers are inscribed on the North Pool, for example [10]. The Flight 93 National Memorial’s Wall of Names and National Park Service materials list and commemorate the 40 passengers and crew whose actions prevented an attack on the Capitol or White House, a figure used in congressional recognition [7] [8].
6. Best reading of the available sources
Using the sources provided, the most consistent per-plane totals are: Flight 11 — 92 people (81 passengers + 11 crew) [3] [4]; Flight 175 — 65 people (56 passengers + 9 crew) [5] [4]; Flight 77 — 64 people (58 passengers + 6 crew) [5] [4]; Flight 93 — sources give either 40 passengers and crew honored at the memorial or 44 when counting 37 passengers + 7 crew in some timelines [7] [6] [5]. The aggregated figure widely reported for the four flights is 246 passengers and crew [1] [2].
Limitations and note on sources: official memorials, encyclopedias and news outlets sometimes use different conventions about whether to count hijackers within passenger totals and have updated numbers over time; the sources provided reflect those discrepancies rather than a single unified data file [7] [3] [6]. Available sources do not mention a single definitive government table in these search results that lists an unambiguous per-plane passenger-plus-crew tally resolving every small discrepancy.