New York Remembers Victims Of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks On 18th Anniversary

(@FahadShabbir)

New York Remembers Victims of 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on 18th Anniversary

NEW YORK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 12th September, 2019) The US city of New York and the nation on Wednesday marked the 18th anniversary of September 11 terror attacks with a memorial ceremony at the Ground Zero memorial site in Manhattan.

In 2001, terrorists from Al Qaeda (banned in Russia) seized four passenger planes, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon. The fourth jet came down in a field in Pennsylvania after being initially directed toward Washington. Some 3,000 people from 90 countries lost their lives in the terrorist attacks.

The commemoration, which took place near the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, is held every year at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan.

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Bill De Blasio, and former mayor and National September 11 Memorial and Museum Chairman Michael Bloomberg were among those who attended the commemoration.

The ceremony began with an honor guard carrying the American flag, followed by a moment of silence at 8:46 a.m. EDT when the American Airlines (AA) Flight 11 hit the North Tower in 2001.

Following the moment of silence, family members of 2,983 victims of the attacks in 2001 and the bombing of the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993, started reading aloud Names of those killed.

"We love you, and we miss you very much every day," was the common message family members were carrying out while reading the names of people whose lives were taken away in the worst terrorist attack on US soil.

Many individuals were holding flowers and wearing t-shirts with names and pictures of their relatives while attending the memorial ceremony. Some people were breaking into tears as they took the floor.

The Wednesday's reading of the names was paused five times with a moment of silence and tolling of bells to mark the time when hijackers flew United Airlines (UA) Flight 175 into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., then twice, at 9:59 a.m. and 10:28 a.m. to mark the time when each tower fell, to observe the AA Flight 77 hitting into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., and at 10:03 a.m., when UA Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The 9/11 remembrance ritual in New York will be continued later in the day at sunset when the Tribute in Light, an art installation producing two vertical columns of light to represent the Twin Towers, will shine in the sky of Lower Manhattan. The light will fade away at dawn on Thursday.