As Americans mark the milestone of 25 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, ceremonies will be held in the morning and in the afternoon in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the site where Flight 93 crashed.
The hijacked plane careened to the earth after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit.
In all, the attacks by al-Qaida militants killed 2,977 people, including many financial workers at the World Trade Center in New York City and firefighters and police officers who had rushed to the burning buildings trying to save lives.
Many loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed will join dignitaries and politicians at commemorations Friday in New York, at the Pentagon and in Shanksville.
The Shanksville ceremony is typically marked by moments of silence, the reading of names and the laying of wreaths to honor the victims of Flight 93.
The attacks reverberated globally and altered the course of U.S. policy, both domestically and overseas. It led to the “ Global War on Terrorism ” and the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and related conflicts that killed hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians.
While the hijackers died in the attacks, the U.S. government has struggled to conclude its long-running legal case against the man accused of masterminding the plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The former al-Qaida leader was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later taken to a U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but has never received a trial.
In the years since the attacks, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars providing health care and compensation to tens of thousands of people who were exposed to the toxic dust that billowed over parts of Manhattan when the twin towers collapsed.
More than 140,000 people are still enrolled in monitoring programs intended to identify those with health conditions that could potentially be linked to hazardous materials in the soot.
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