Friday, September 11th 2026 - 21:21 UTC
The ceremony held Friday at Ground Zero in New York for the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks included a seventh moment of silence for the first time, dedicated to those who died later from illnesses and injuries linked to the attacks. Organizers said it will become a permanent part of the annual event.
The six preceding moments correspond to the key points of that day: the impact of a plane into each of the Twin Towers, the collapse of both, the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field. The first was observed at 8:46 a.m., the time the first aircraft struck the North Tower.
The attacks, carried out by al Qaeda using four hijacked commercial airliners, killed 2,977 people: 2,753 in New York, including 343 members of the city fire department; 184 at the Pentagon; and 40 at Shanksville. During the ceremony, relatives read out one by one the 2,983 names inscribed at the memorial, which include the six people killed in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. The reading ended shortly before 1 p.m.
Vice President J. D. Vance attended along with the four living former presidents: Republican George W. Bush, who was in the White House in 2001, and Democrats Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, together with state and city officials. Under the organizers' rules, public officials do not deliver speeches.
