WATCH | Americans mark 25 years since 9/11 attacks amid grief, reflection

Twenty-five years after the deadliest attack on US soil, Americans paused on Friday to commemorate the nearly 3,000 people killed when hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania — and to wrestle with the consequences of September 11 that reverberate to this day.

In New York, family members of the victims joined Vice-President JD Vance and four former US presidents at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. The ceremony began, as always, at 8.46am with a moment of silence to remember the shocking instant when American Airlines Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

Shortly after, victims’ family members began reading aloud the names of all 2,977 people who died on September 11, as well as the six people killed in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, a sombre recitation that will last for hours.

Other moments of silence, marking when the other three aeroplanes crashed and the two towers collapsed, followed. For the first time, a seventh silence will be observed to honour the thousands who have died since 2001 from illnesses tied to the toxic dust that poisoned the air for months afterward.

In Arlington, Virginia, senior military leaders gathered amid heavy rain early on Friday to watch the unfurling of an American flag at the west side of the Pentagon where American Airlines Flight 77 hit, killing 184 people in all. President Donald Trump is expected to speak at a ceremony there.

Mourners will also hold a ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at the crash site where passengers brought down one of the four hijacked jetliners, United Airlines Flight 93, that had been headed for Washington.

The attacks shaped generations of Americans who lived through the day or grew up in its aftermath, influencing US foreign policy, domestic politics and public attitudes towards security.

But for many whom the attacks directly affected — the victims’ families, first responders and rescue workers — the anniversary is a tribute to the lives lost on a clear blue day a quarter century ago and the heartbreak that followed.

Caroline Ogonowski’s father, John, was the captain of Flight 11, which took off from Boston 47 minutes before striking the North Tower.

Ogonowski, now 39, had her first baby this year and named him after her father. She brought him to her father’s grave last week and was attending a memorial ceremony in Boston on Friday.

“This year, there’s this new sadness in knowing that they won’t ever get to know each other,” Ogonowski, who has worked in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance, said in a phone interview. “My father will never know his grandson.