John P. O'Neill - Head of Security at the World Trade Center - 9/11 hero

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John P. O'Neill - Born John Patrick O'Neill February 6, 1952 Atlantic City, New Jersey, U.S. Died September 11, 2001 (aged 49) New York, New York, U.S. Cause of death Collapse of the World Trade Center Nationality American Occupation FBI special agent, World Trade Center security head John Patrick O'Neill (February 6, 1952 – September 11, 2001) was an American counter-terrorism expert, who worked as a special agent and eventually a Special Agent in Charge in the Federal Bureau of Investigation until late 2001. In 1995, O'Neill began to intensely study the roots of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing after he assisted in the capture of Ramzi Yousef, who was the leader of that plot. He subsequently learned of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and investigated the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and the 2000 USS Cole bombing in Yemen. Partly due to personal friction he had within the FBI and federal government, O'Neill was pushed out of the Bureau in 2001. He became the head of security at the World Trade Center, where he died at age 49 in the collapse of the south tower during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

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O'Neill was killed on the day of the attacks, and his remains were recovered from the World Trade Center site on Friday, September 21, 2001.[12] According to eyewitnesses, O'Neill was coordinating the evacuation efforts on one of the top floors with disregard to the threat to his own life; he was last seen on the 49th floor shortly before the South Tower collapsed. He is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Mays Landing, New Jersey

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