Twenty-five years after hijackers turned four passenger jets into weapons, Americans paused Friday to remember the 2,977 people killed in the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Ceremonies were held at the three sites that became synonymous with the morning of Sept. 11, 2001: the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the fourth hijacked plane went down. CNBC published a photo collection documenting how first responders and citizens marked the occasion.
What happened that morning
Members of al-Qaida hijacked four airliners. Two were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m., and both skyscrapers collapsed that morning. A third plane struck the Pentagon. The fourth, believed to have been bound for the U.S. Capitol, crashed near Shanksville after passengers tried to retake control of the aircraft.
The death toll of 2,977 spans New York, the Pentagon and the four hijacked planes, and excludes the 19 hijackers. The attacks set off a U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and helped launch a broader “war on terror” that later expanded to include the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Who attended the memorials
At the Sept. 11 memorial at ground zero, the ceremony drew former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with Vice President JD Vance and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. President Trump delivered remarks at the Pentagon ceremony.
For many of those present, the anniversary carried a dual weight: honoring the dead while watching a new generation inherit the memory. Family members read names aloud in New York, a tradition that has anchored the annual observance since the first anniversary. In Shanksville, the ceremony centered on the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, whose revolt against the hijackers prevented the plane from reaching Washington.
A quarter-century of aftermath
The 25-year marker arrives at a different moment for the country than the anniversaries that came before it. The wars that followed the attacks have ended — U.S. troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 — even as the political and security debates they sparked continue. Health consequences also persist: thousands of first responders and survivors have been diagnosed with illnesses linked to exposure at the debris sites, and federal programs for their care remain a live policy issue.
At ground zero, the memorial’s reflecting pools sit within the footprints of the fallen towers, surrounded by the names of those killed. Each year, the reading of those names takes hours. This year, as in years past, the pauses for silence came at the moments the planes struck.
Across the river in Arlington and in the Pennsylvania countryside, smaller ceremonies followed similar rhythms — tributes, prayers and the tolling of bells. The photos published by CNBC capture the range of the day: uniformed officers standing at attention, mourners running their hands along engraved names, and flags flying at half-staff.
The anniversary also brought renewed attention to the first responders who rushed into the towers and the Pentagon, many of whom have since died from illnesses tied to their work at the sites. Their presence at this year’s ceremonies served as a reminder that the attack’s toll has continued to grow long after the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
Source: www.cnbc.com — https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/11/us-commemorates-25th-anniversary-9/11-photos.html
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