Ceremonies across New York, the Pentagon, and Shanksville
The United States marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks with memorial services across New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. At Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan, family members and officials gathered to read aloud the names of the 2,977 victims killed in the 2001 strikes. Vice President JD Vance attended the New York ceremony alongside all four living former presidents: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, who appeared with former first ladies. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani attended the gathering at the memorial plaza, where participants observed moments of silence, rang bells, and concluded the day with evening light installations. President Donald Trump led a separate commemoration at the Pentagon near Washington, while another memorial service took place in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The sequence and toll of the 2001 hijackings
On September 11, 2001, 19 Al Qaeda hijackers seized control of four commercial airliners in United States airspace. The coordinated assault began in Lower Manhattan when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center, followed minutes later by a second plane hitting the South Tower. A third hijacked airliner crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, while United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville after passengers rebelled against the hijackers. Both World Trade Center towers collapsed within hours, covering Lower Manhattan in ash and debris. The attacks killed 2,977 people, excluding the 19 hijackers, and injured more than 6,000 others.
- American Airlines Flight 11 strikes the North Tower of the World Trade Center
- A second hijacked airliner hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center
- A third hijacked aircraft strikes the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia
- United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in Shanksville, Pennsylvania
Presidential recollections from the morning in Florida
The anniversary also prompted reflections from journalists and officials who accompanied the presidential delegation 25 years ago. On the morning of the attacks, President George W. Bush had been in office for approximately eight months and was visiting the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota, Florida, for an education event. Reuters correspondent Steve Holland, who jogged alongside Bush earlier that morning, watched television monitors in the press center as the second plane struck the South Tower. Bush was sitting inside a classroom reading a book to schoolchildren when White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card approached him to deliver an update.
A second plane hit the World Trade Center; America's under attack.
Bush subsequently received an intelligence briefing in a holding room and issued an initial statement calling the event a national tragedy before Secret Service personnel evacuated him from Florida.
Declassification of presidential intelligence files
To mark the 25-year milestone, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified 69 previously secret presidential intelligence reports regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The newly published documents outline intelligence assessments that were provided to the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush prior to September 2001. A daily intelligence brief dated September 10, 1998, warned that Al Qaeda could crash an aircraft loaded with explosives into an American city, with analysts at the time speculating about Washington. The 2004 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks previously established that intelligence agencies had alerted senior officials about Al Qaeda intentions before the tragedy. The CIA released the documents to honor the victims and detail its historical counterterrorism tracking.