Tewksbury Announces 9/11 Memorial Service

TEWKSBURY, MA — The Town of Tewksbury has announced details for a memorial service of the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The memorial service will begin at 8:30 a.m. on the grounds of the 9/11 memorial located at the corner of Main and Chandler Streets. The service will begin with first responders marching from Town Common to the memorial.

Two hundred and six Massachusetts residents were killed in the attacks, including Tewksbury residents Peter Allan Gay and Peter Paul Hashem.

On the morning of Thursday, Sept. 11, 2001, four coordinated attacks by al-Qaeda took the lives of thousands. Four planes were highjacked and used as part of the attack. Two of the planes originated out of Boston’s Logan airport that morning -- American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center.

A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, originating out of Dulles, crashed into the Pentagon, while United Airlines Flight 93, originating from New Jersey, and then diverted by hijackers and headed for Washington, DC crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to regain control of the aircraft.

Main Street will be closed to vehicle traffic for approximately a half hour.

Image by DodgertonSkillhause via Morguefile