A day of remembrance
• Americans are reflecting on the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 — a day that changed the world. Events commemorating the solemn occasion took place across the US.
• President Donald Trump delivered remarks at the Pentagon this morning, hailing American heroism and tying the anniversary to the ongoing war with Iran, saying “we’re being tested today.” All living former presidents attended a ceremony marking the anniversary in New York.
• Earlier this week, New York City released reams of previously undisclosed records about air quality following the attacks, showing city officials at the time knew conditions were unsafe. This year, a new seventh moment of silence was held during the NYC commemoration ceremony for the thousands of people who died from diseases linked to toxic exposure at the World Trade Center site.
• In this minute-by-minute timeline, CNN reconstructed how news of the attacks unfolded.
We’ve wrapped up our live coverage. Read through the posts below for more on how the country marked 25 years since the 9/11 attacks.
How Americans commemorated the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks
On this solemn day, Americans are marking the 25th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed after four commercial airplanes were hijacked and crashed in three US locations. Countless more were injured and suffered deadly health consequences in the years following.
World leaders issued statements and posted video messages, joining in remembrance with US officials and Americans attending ceremonies across the country.
Here’s how the day unfolded:
In New York: The annual ceremony on the plaza where the Twin Towers once stood was attended by Vice President JD Vance and all four living former US presidents — George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Family members read the names of those who died in the attacks and seven moments of silence were observed, marking the exact times key events of 9/11 occurred. A new moment was added this year to honor those who have died of health issues related to toxic exposure at the World Trade Center site.
Later in the day, Mayor Zohran Mamdani spoke at an interfaith memorial service, recalling New Yorkers’ resilience and willingness to help one another after the attacks.
At the Pentagon: President Donald Trump marked the anniversary at the Pentagon alongside first lady Melania Trump. The president called the attacks a “moment of immense and horrible evil” that forced the nation to unite against terrorism. He also tied the anniversary to the ongoing war with Iran, saying “we’re being tested today.” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Dan Caine and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also spoke.
In Pennsylvania: Family members read the names of the passengers and crew of United Flight 93, which crashed in a field near the borough of Shanksville on 9/11. Two bells chimed during the ceremony and there was a wreath-laying at the Flight 93 memorial.
Calls to action: The widow of a 9/11 victim called on Trump to address Saudi Arabia’s alleged support of the attacks and implored Vance to take her message to the president. While 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, Saudi Arabia has consistently denied any government involvement in the attacks. In a separate moment, another victim’s relative called on the Trump administration to release government files that some people believe hold evidence of Saudi Arabia’s alleged role.
Devastating health effects: New York City this week released more than 170,000 pages of previously undisclosed records about air quality following the attacks, showing city officials at the time knew conditions around Ground Zero were unsafe despite repeated public assurances. Cancers among enrolled first responders and survivors were up 900% in the last decade, a health program said.
CNN’s Logan Schiciano, Adam Cancryn, Rebekah Riess, Leigh Waldman, Elizabeth Wolfe, Maureen Chowdhury, Adrienne Vogt, Elise Hammond, Nic Andersen and David Williams contributed to this report.
Justice Kavanaugh, then a Bush aide, remembers grief and unity
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh offered an inside-the-White House account of the attacks to a group of students, telling his audience that the immediate aftermath of 9/11 led not only to grief but also unity.
Kavanaugh was a White House attorney at the time in President George W. Bush’s administration. He recalled chaotic scenes of Secret Service agents evacuating the White House. “It’s seared in my memory — I don’t forget much from that day — seared in my memory, the Secret Service agents saying, ‘run, sprint,’” Kavanaugh said, noting fears at the time that the White House would be targeted by another plane.
He also remembered Bush’s ceremonial first pitch weeks later at Game 3 of the World Series.
The Supreme Court will be considering several appeals this fall tied to the 9/11 attacks. In one, the families of victims who have court judgments against the Taliban are attempting to access $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets. Another series of appeals deals with former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision in 2024 to revoke plea agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other defendants accused of plotting the 9/11 attack.
What happened during the brief exchange between Mamdani and Giuliani at Ground Zero
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was seen shaking hands with former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who helmed the city during the 9/11 attacks, at a ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks. Recently, Giuliani said “it offends” him that Mamdani would attend the commemoration.
The moment lasted just a few seconds.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, walked over to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to shake his hand during Friday’s 9/11 Memorial Ceremony at Ground Zero.
The brief moment was caught by cameras and reaction was swift on social media, with some praising Mamdani for showing grace to the man who just a few days prior had compared him to 9/11 hijackers and said his presence at the memorial ceremony would be offensive.
Aides to the mayor said Mamdani and Giuliani “exchanged pleasantries,” and that Giuliani told Mamdani that the job of being mayor was hard.
Giuliani became a symbol in the aftermath of 9/11 for his leadership of the city. Since then, Giuliani has descended into right-wing conspiracies and election denialism, but Friday’s exchange appeared to offer a brief pause on the political rancor of the past weeks.
An aide to Giuliani said the former mayor told Mamdani he was “praying for him.”
Speaking briefly with reporters after the event, Mamdani declined to share what the former mayor had said to him.
Mamdani recalls New Yorkers' resilience and willingness to help each other after attacks
In the moments of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, people in New York and around the world remember the images of smoke and destruction, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said today.
“The towers rising against a perfect blue sky, boats in the harbor, and then the violence of the attacks. A sight so jarring, so unnatural, that even 25 years later it still shocks the body,” Mamdani said, speaking at an interfaith memorial service at St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and National Shrine.
But people also remember how New Yorkers helped each other and the resiliency that came in the aftermath, he said.
St. Nicholas was the only house of worship that was destroyed on September 11. Before the attacks, it stood in the financial district for 85 years, according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It officially reopened in 2022.
Mamdani said the memory of that morning is “never far away” at St. Nicholas.
“When this building was little more than a crater filled with rubble, you dug deep in every conceivable way,” the major said. “You found the strength to rebuild. You found the strength to renew. You found the strength to recover.”
Zelensky calls for support against Russia the way NATO allies backed US after 9/11 attacks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences to the families of those killed and to survivors of the September 11 terrorist attacks on their 25th anniversary.
“It’s a special and important day today, the day of strong people and the day of big tragedy,” he said in a remote interview from Canada with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria at the YES Forum in Kyiv, adding that Ukrainian citizens, including a New York firefighter of Ukrainian descent, were among those who died that day.
Zelensky highlighted how, following the deadly attacks, NATO invoked Article 5 – which states that an armed attack against one member of the alliance is an attack against them all. It was the first and only time Article 5 has been invoked. In the weeks following the attacks, NATO agreed to measures including intelligence sharing and increased security for US facilities and those of other allies on US territory. In October 2001, NATO launched its first anti-terror operation, with aircraft helping patrol the skies over the US.
But Kyiv has been left to bear the response to Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine largely alone, Zelensky said, reiterating past calls for security guarantees in the face of the war with Russia.
“Can we compare it to the way in which the world, the whole world united around that tragedy of 9/11, 25 years ago? I think the answer is…it cannot be compared.”
9/11 survivor still searching for the "angel" who saved her life
Twenty-five years after the North Tower collapsed, Emma Gaitan still searches for the stranger she believes was her “angel” that day.
Originally from Ecuador, Gaitan worked 18 years at the World Trade Center for the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council. She survived the 1993 bombing, and on September 11, 2001, she was on the 82nd floor of the North Tower when the first plane struck.
“It was just confusion. It was fear,” she recalled.
As workers evacuated, Gaitan considered returning for her purse, which held her keys and identification. “I’m going to die here,” she thought. “They are not going to find me because I don’t have my pocketbook with my IDs.”
A coworker grabbed her wrist and stopped her. She followed him and descended dozens of floors passing firefighters carrying heavy equipment upward.
Once she reached the lobby, she says her legs gave out. Then a man appeared.
Gaitan escaped across the Brooklyn Bridge, but says she still lives with fear and trauma.
Every night, she takes her bag into the bedroom and keeps shoes and water nearby. “I think, ‘what if I have to run?’” she said. Even sudden noises and sirens can transport her back to the tower.
She said the events of that day led her to retire early. But she never stopped hoping to find the man who carried her to safety.
“I want to say thank you and give him a hug,” she said. “Wherever you are, if you see me or you recognize me, thank you so much.”
He was flying back to the US when the pilot said a plane had hit the Twin Towers
On September 11, 2001, Randall Rocke was on a return flight to the United States, flying over the Atlantic Ocean, when the pilot announced that a plane had hit the Twin Towers in New York City.
The pilot “was choking up,” Rocke recalled, and the passengers went quiet. They could hear “how distraught he was. You know, you could hear it in his voice,” he said.
After the initial stunning silence, an outburst followed.
As it became clear with the pilot’s subsequent announcements that multiple planes had hit different parts of the United States and the country was under attack, “people got very loud; some people were crying,” Rocke said. “It was quite a shock for everyone.”
The US airspace shut down and Rocke’s flight was returned to Europe, landing in Amsterdam.
Through his local contacts, Rocke was able to secure accommodation for himself and his colleague but returned to the airport every day to check on the possibility of return flights.
“Thousands of people were stranded there,” he told CNN. “Most of them were sitting on the sides of all the hallways or even on the floor if all the seats were taken.”
Rocke recalled sitting in at the airport bars watching the news to understand what was going on in his country.
While out and about in Amsterdam, Rocke said the locals treated him and his colleague with a lot of kindness.
“We were not allowed to pay for cab rides, several restaurants refused our attempts to pay for meals, hotel room costs were reduced,” he said. “They would approach us, like at restaurants, to talk with us, to find out things.”
“I’ll never forget that feeling — for one moment in the midst of a horrible tragedy, the world seemingly was with us and ready to support us,” he told CNN.
Rocke, now 77, still remembers the details of that day vividly.
On Wall St. when the towers were hit, her physical and mental scars have lasted decades
Elizabeth Nolan was working less than a mile from the Twin Towers on Wall Street when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. She and her coworkers watched on TVs in the office as the second tower was hit, and they soon heard that the Pentagon had been struck as well.
Before she evacuated the office, she called her mother as she tried to grasp what had just happened.
“I thought I was going to die and said goodbye and told her to put my brother on the phone and told him where some of my important things were and to let our mom know everything was fine,” she told CNN.
Nolan, whose father and maternal grandfather had met working construction on the Twin Towers, returned to her Wall Street office less than a week later. She said she still remembers a “horrible smell” in the air and countless missing-person flyers. “I cried going to and coming home from work for months.”
Nolan also recalled getting nosebleeds when she returned to work, a symptom reported by many first responders and neighborhood residents. It wasn’t the only impact on her health. In her late 30s, Nolan said, she had to get a complete hysterectomy as a result of uterine cancer, which she said is documented as 9/11-linked in the World Trade Center program.
“Not a day goes by where I don’t think about what I saw and wonder if eventually 9/11 will kill me years later,” she said.
For Nolan, now 50, the enduring effects go beyond the physical. She is afraid of loud noises, she said, and struggles with crowds and high office floors. She worries about knowing where exits are and having an escape plan, just in case. She had to leave a job at 7 World Trade Center because working in the area was too upsetting.
Nolan still thinks about the scale of the tragedy, and the marks it left on the city and countless people around her. But she also described how people quickly came together after that day, in a way she had never seen before.
“Strangers were consoling one another and neighbors who never got to know one another were checking in and to see if their family members were okay,” she said. “I hope, in my lifetime, I see a kind unity again without the tragedy attached.”
9/11 was a moment that "splits time," Burgum says at Pennsylvania memorial
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the 9/11 terrorist attacks is one of the moments in history that “splits time.”
“We remember the world before that moment, and then the world changes after that moment,” he said at an event this afternoon in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The Shanksville event commemorates the site where United Flight 93 crashed into a field after passengers fought hijackers, preventing them from using the plane in another attack.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and others gave remarks at the memorial site and a student choir sang songs.
“As a former governor, I’ve got great appreciation for the leadership that Josh is delivering here, and it’s fantastic your words today, just terrific,” Burgum, who’d held North Dakota’s top elected office, said.
The Trump Cabinet member then said the United States needs to prevent another such terrorist attack from happening again, namely preventing terrorist groups from having nuclear weapons. The military today is “facing threats far bigger, far bigger than four airplanes,” he said.
“So I especially want to give thanks to our military that’s here and abroad today because they’re doing the work to try to make sure that we never have another 9/11 again,” he said.
Burgum and the other speakers talked about the heroic actions of the people aboard Flight 93.
“If they had not taken the courage to do what they did, our world would be very different than it is today,” Burgum said.
How bonds between people shaped the 9/11 Memorial
The creation of New York City’s 9/11 Memorial required persistent advocacy and careful attention to design. CNN speaks with one of the architects that helped create a place that holds 3,000 names about how its structure was thoughtfully crafted.
A former FDNY firefighter died just days ago from illness related to his 9/11 response
As smoke blackened the Manhattan sky and a veil of toxic dust rained down on the city, New York City Fire Department Lt. Gerard Reilly joined hundreds of other first responders rushing into the crumbling World Trade Center 25 years ago.
Just eight days ago, on September 3, Reilly died at the age of 75 from an illness related to his exposure to hazards during rescue and recovery missions at Ground Zero, his family told CNN.
“His passing is another painful reminder that, 25 years later, we continue to lose the heroes who answered the call on September 11, 2001,” Congressman Mike Lawler, who represents New York’s Hudson Valley, said in a Facebook post.
Reilly is among more than 600 FDNY members who have died and thousands who have fallen ill after they responded to the attack at the World Trade Center and the rescue and recovery effort that followed, according to the World Trade Center Health Program. The catastrophic collapse of the Twin Towers created long-lasting fires and massive dust clouds that blanketed the surrounding blocks with ash, debris and harmful particles of asbestos, metal, concrete and glass, the program said. Many of those who responded to the site breathed in the toxins and carried them on their hair, skin and clothes.
Reilly, known also as “Jerry,” retired just over a year after the attack, according to the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York. He had served for 21 years.
“His service and sacrifice will not be forgotten,” the firefighters association said in a post on Facebook.
Public service appeared to be central to Reilly’s life. He had been actively involved in the Rotary, Lions and Elks clubs, Knights of Columbus, and he volunteered with organizations that feed people in need, including Meals on Wheels. He also had been a member of the Hillcrest Fire Company No. 1 in Rockland County, New York.
“Jerry could always be counted on to lend a helping hand,” said the Nanuet-West Nyack Rotary Club, which identified Reilly as a longtime member. “He could make you laugh with his stories and remind you of all there was for which to be grateful.”
Reilly leaves behind his wife, Regina, his children Gerard and Lisa, his five grandchildren and a loving network of family and friends, according to his obituary.
“He will be remembered not only for his commitment and courage as a firefighter, but also for the kindness, strength, humor, and love he brought to his family and those around him,” his online obituary reads. “His memories will remain in the hearts of everyone who knew and loved him.”
Former FAA worker who was in the sky on September 11 drove 14 hours to get home
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Michael Jessie was sitting in the jump seat of a regional jet going from Newburgh, New York, to Atlanta. As part of his job as an aviation safety inspector for operations for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Teterboro Flight Standards District Office in New Jersey, Jessie routinely observed flights in the cockpit to make sure regulations and procedures were being followed.
But this day turned out to be far from routine.
Jessie said the plane began taxiing around 8:45 a.m. ET, around the same time that the North Tower of the World Trade Center was hit in New York City.
When the announcement came that US airspace was being closed, “the captain, who had not been born when I first started flying, turned to me and asked if I’d ever heard of anything like this before,” he told CNN. “I replied, ‘Never. Ask the controller what is going on.’ The air traffic controller replied with a vague ‘terrorist activities.’”
The captain and dispatcher decided to divert to Augusta, Georgia. Once they got on the ground, Jessie found out the scope of the attacks.
“I sensed that the airspace probably wouldn’t open any time soon,” he said, and he was able to rent a car and start a 14-hour drive back home.
The following morning, Jessie was at Newark International Airport for an emergency security briefing.
Jessie, now 71 and living in Plainfield, New Jersey, retired from the FAA in 2019.
Before becoming pope, Rev. Robert Prevost warned about "revenge" in post-9/11 remarks
Ten days after 9/11, the future Pope Leo XIV cautioned against “revenge” while also linking the attacks on the Twin Towers to poverty and injustice.
Rev. Robert Prevost made his remarks about September 11 a few days after he had been chosen to lead the Order of Saint Augustine, a Catholic religious order of friars and nuns spread across the globe.
“The violence that the world witnessed in the United States last week is a tragic reminder of a series of problems that are growing throughout our world,” he told members of his order during a Mass at the Basilica of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome on September 21, 2001.
“Hatred and violence will only grow as long as people continue to be forced to live in extreme poverty, oppressed by so many forms of injustice. Every day, 24,000 die in the world because of hunger. All around us, people live in despair and hopelessness,” he added.
The man who would go onto become the Catholic Church’s first American Pope urged his religious order to focus on peace and reconciliation as their response to the attacks.
His comments on 9/11 are being published in a book, “Freedom Under Grace,” a compilation of his writings as leader of the Augustinians, which will be released in English on Tuesday.
During his remarks in 2001, Prevost also pointed to the creation of a new province of the Augustinian order in Nigeria, which he described as significant “given the growing tensions between Muslims and Christians in so many parts of the world.”
Pastry chef Norberto Hernandez's daughter honors her "gentle giant"
Catherine Hernandez honored her father, Norberto Hernandez, whose death in the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attacks prompted her to become a New York City Police officer.
Her father was a pastry sous chef at the Windows on the World, the legendary restaurant sitting atop the North Tower on the 106th and 107th floors. The restaurant offered unparalleled views of New York City from its floor-to-ceiling windows. In its heyday it was the highest-grossing standalone restaurant in the country, attracting diners from around the globe.
“My father was a gentle giant, protected everyone. He didn’t care who you were, if he was there, [you] needed help — he was a protector. And my father loved like no other that I ever met,” she said at the 9/11 memorial today.
Norberto Hernandez is believed by some to be the man seeing falling from the burning tower in the now famous AP photos of the 9/11 attack. However, that has been disputed and some claim the photo of the falling man showed Jonathan Briley.
25 years later, one woman is still searching for the baby she rescued on 9/11
Elba and Tony D’Aiuto were working for the Jersey City Police Department on 9/11, when Elba was handed a baby from one of the ferries arriving from Manhattan.
The baby was having difficulty breathing, and after clearing his airway, she handed him to an EMT to take away in an ambulance.
Twenty-five years later, Elba D’Aiuto said and her husband are still searching for that baby.
Hear their story:
Elba and Tony D’Aiuto were working for the Jersey City Police Department on 9/11, when Elba was handed a baby from one of the ferries arriving from Manhattan. The baby was having difficulty breathing, and after clearing his airway, she handed him to an EMT to take away in an ambulance. 25 years later, they are still searching for that baby.
Timeline: How the 9/11 attacks unfolded
Twenty-five years after four hijacked planes were used to carry out the deadliest terrorist attack on US soil, CNN’s Jason Carroll looks back at the tragic events of 9/11, minute by minute:
Heroic people aboard Flight 93 "exhibited some of the best of humanity," sister says
During the hijacking of United Flight 93, 27-year-old Elizabeth Wainio used some of her final moments to call her stepmother and say, “They’re getting ready to break into the cockpit. I have to go. I love you. Good bye,” according to the National Park Service.
Shortly after, passengers on Flight 93 fought the plane’s hijackers and the aircraft crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, thwarting an intended attack, likely on the US Capitol.
Today, Elizabeth Wainio’s sister, Sarah, visited the site where a memorial honors their heroic actions. Wainio, who was on the board that worked to erect the memorial, said she has a complicated relationship with the site, but she hopes it can be a place for families to feel connected with loved ones and for people to learn about the attack.
“Because of the magnitude of the loss on land in New York, I have a lot of fears that it would be easy for Flight 93 — through storytelling and time — to maybe not be as big of a part of our written history or our recorded history,” Wainio said.
It’s difficult for her to comprehend that there are now younger generations of Americans “who don’t have this memory emblazoned in their head.”
State Department posts about bounties for info on key al Qaeda leaders
On the 25th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US State Department posted about rewards offering up to $10 million for information on “key al Qaeda leaders.”
“Bombing U.S. embassies. Attacking U.S. troops. Killing innocent civilians. Help stop these terrorists. Submit your tip,” the department’s Rewards for Justice Program said in a post on X.
The post specifically calls for information on eight individuals who the State Department said “are senior leaders with al-Qa’ida (AQ), which utilizes Iran as a safe haven to execute violence against the United States and its allies.”
Al Qaeda carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The department said in its post that those who submit tips could be eligible for the rewards and relocation.
Using tragedy of 9/11 to spread hate does not honor victims, last speaker says
The man who concluded the reading of names at the memorial event in New York City, who said his father died in the 9/11 attacks, condemned anyone who would use the anniversary to “spread hate.”
“The one parting thing I want to leave everyone with is that you do my dad’s legacy and the legacy of all these victims no honor by using this tragedy to spread hate,” he said.
He said the attacks are a tragedy and all the names of the victims matter, no matter their race or religion.
New moment of silence observed for those who have died of 9/11-related illnesses
Following the reading of names, a new, seventh moment of silence is being held at the 9/11 memorial at ground zero in New York City, acknowledging the thousands who have since died from diseases linked to the World Trade Center site.
New York City released more than 170,000 pages of previously undisclosed records Tuesday, showing city officials at the time misled the public about air quality around ground zero. More than 57,000 responders and survivors enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program have been diagnosed with cancer. As of March 2024, nearly 7,000 people enrolled in the program have died.
