Mark Wahlberg has reflected on the "gut punch" of emotions he feels on the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, after narrowly avoiding becoming a victim of the atrocity himself. Wahlberg, 55, and Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane, 52, were both booked onto American Airlines Flight 11, the doomed plane that left Boston's Logan Airport and flew into the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, killing all 92 passengers on board.
Wahlberg and MacFarlane both cheated death through separate, life-saving coincidences involving a change of travel plans and a hangover.
Wahlberg's last-minute change of plans
Just days before the attack, Wahlberg changed his itinerary and flew to Toronto instead after a friend asked him to view his film at the Toronto Film Festival, a decision that spared his life. Al-Qaeda hijacker and ringleader Mohamed Atta, 33, along with four other terrorists, took control of the aircraft and flew it into the tower at 8.46am local time.
Wahlberg was later criticized for suggesting that events would have unfolded differently had he been on board. "If I was on the plane with my kids, it wouldn't have went down like it did," he said at the time. "There would have been a lot of blood in that first class cabin and then me saying, okay we're going to land somewhere safely, don't worry."
He later apologized for the remark. "To speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with, and to suggest I would have done anything differently than the passengers on that plane was irresponsible," he said. "I deeply apologize to the families of the victims that my answer came off as offensive; it was certainly not my intention."
As the world marked the 25-year anniversary of an attack that killed almost 3,000 people, Wahlberg took to Instagram to reflect on his brush with death. "This anniversary is always a gut punch of emotions... words just can't say it all," he wrote, alongside a video of a waving American flag.
MacFarlane's hangover and a travel agent's mistake
MacFarlane missed Flight 11 by mere minutes after a night of celebrations at his alma mater, the Rhode Island School of Design, left him hungover. A travel agent had given him an incorrect departure time of 8.15am instead of 7.45am, and he arrived 10 minutes too late to board.
In 2003, MacFarlane reflected on the "sobering" experience of learning how close he had come to dying. "It was a very close call for me. The only reason it hasn't really affected me as it maybe could have is I didn't really know that I was in any danger until after it was over, so I never had that panic moment," he said. "After the fact, it was sobering, but people have a lot of close calls; you're crossing the street and you almost get hit by a car... This one just happened to be related to something massive. I really can't let it affect me because I'm a comedy writer. I have to put that in the back of my head." He quipped that drinking had "saved my life."
The Backstreet Boys connection
Backstreet Boys member Brian Littrell's wife, Leighanne, was also originally booked onto the flight but canceled her ticket the night before to spend more time with the singer. However, the band's crew member and carpenter, Daniel Lee, was among the 92 victims killed aboard the flight. Lee had been flying home from Boston to be with his wife, Kellie, for the birth of their second daughter. Two days later, Kellie gave birth to the child, naming her Allison Danielle Lee in his memory.
The attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people
Nineteen Al-Qaeda operatives hijacked four airliners on the nearly cloudless autumn day in 2001. Two of the jets slammed into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers, causing the skyscrapers to collapse and killing 2,753 people. A further 184 people died when another hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, while 40 passengers and crew were killed when those aboard United Airlines Flight 93 fought back against hijackers, sending the plane crashing into an empty field in Pennsylvania.
In the years after the attack, the death toll in New York rose to 2,996 as a result of harm caused by exposure to dust at Ground Zero, and thousands more still suffer long-term health problems, including emergency service workers who took part in the rescue effort.
Osama bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda in 1988 and admitted to orchestrating the attacks. He went into hiding immediately afterward and was hunted by the United States and its intelligence partners for a decade before being killed in his home and buried at sea.
A 25th anniversary marked by controversy
New York commemorated the 25th anniversary with a ceremony marked by controversy over President Donald Trump's absence and right-wing outrage over the attendance of the city's first Muslim mayor. Trump instead paid his respects at the Pentagon rather than joining the New York event, where hijacked planes destroyed the World Trade Center and killed most of the 2,977 total victims of the day.
Vice President JD Vance and Trump's four living predecessors, Republican George W. Bush, who was in office during the attacks, and Democrats Joe Biden, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, gathered at the Ground Zero site in lower Manhattan. Bereaved family members read out the names of all those killed, with a bell tolling to mark major moments of the attack.
Terry Strada, widow of victim Tom Strada, criticized Saudi Arabia during the ceremony, accusing it of complicity in the attacks, and denounced the former presidents in attendance. "You are missed more with each year that passes, but how can it be 25 years and still we have no justice for the role that Saudi Arabia played in your murder?" she said in unscripted remarks broadcast live worldwide.
