New York City Hall announced on Friday (8) the identification of three more victims of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The confirmation was made by Mayor Eric Adams and the city’s chief corner, based on advanced DNA tests carried out in the rubbed of the World Trade Center (WTC). The victims are Ryan Fitzgerald, from New York, Barbara Keating, from Palm Springs, California, and a woman whose name was not disclosed at the family’s request.
According to Graham, the new identifications were possible thanks to recent advances in genetic sequencing technology, which allow to extract samples from bone fragments that previously did not reveal results. “Almost 24 years after the World Trade Center disaster, our commitment to identify the missing and returning them to their families is as strong as it has always been,” he said.
Barbara Keating, who was 72 years old in 2001, was aboard the 11th of the American Airlines flight 11, which departed from Boston to Los Angeles and was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists from Al Qaeda before reaching the North Tower of WTC at 8:46 am. She had anticipated her travel return to help her daughter after a car accident involving the family. “She really was a very sweet, kind and discreet lady. He left a great emptiness in our community,” he said, according to the The GuardianMary Arthen, Secretary of St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, where Keating was volunteering.
Already Ryan Fitzgerald, 26, worked as an exchange operator on the 94th floor of the South Tower of WTC when Flight 175 of United Airlines, also kidnapped, collided with the building at 9:03 am. The explosions and fire caused by the impacts resulted in the collapse of the two towers shortly later, causing thousands of deaths and leaving more than 1,000 victims without identification for decades.
According to the newspaper The New York TimesExperts warned, in the 2000s, that the destruction caused by explosions and intense heat would make it difficult to recover DNA. For Barbara’s son, Paul Keating, the work of forensic teams is a source of gratitude. “We are talking about people working overtime 24 years later, for us. This is the amazing part. They will not stop until they identify each person,” he said.
New identifications raise 1,653 the number of victims officially recognized among the 2,753 people who died in the attacks in New York. There are still about 1,100 unidentified victims, and the laboratory stores more than 22,000 human fragments recovered from the site.
Mayor Eric Adams stated that, despite the elapsed time, the priority remains. “The pain of losing a loved one in the September 11 terrorist attacks resonates over the decades, but with these three new identifications, we step forward to comforting family members who still suffer because of that day,” he said.
Currently, the names of Fitzgerald, Keating, and 2,981 victims of the 2001 attacks and the 1993 World Trade Center attack are recorded at the memorial installed on Marco Zero in southern Manhattan, which receives annual honors in memory of those who have lost their lives.
