Barbara Keating to be laid to rest 25 years after dying on 9/11

A Massachusetts family is finally laying Barbara Keating to rest, a quarter of a century after she died in the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Keating was 72 and flying home to California when hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Last year, a team of forensic researchers finally identified her remains. This Friday, as the United States marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks, her family will gather for a private service in Framingham, Massachusetts, to bury her next to her husband.

How the family found closure

Her son, Paul Keating, told NPR in an interview that the family had carved her headstone 25 years ago. "We carved the headstone 25 years ago, but she wasn't there, and now she will be," he said. "This feels like, at least to some degree, some closure."

On the morning of the attacks in 2001, Paul Keating was on a business trip in New Jersey. He stood across the water, watching the twin towers burn and collapse alongside crowds of onlookers. It was only later that a phone call delivered the news that his mother had been on the first plane.

Who was Barbara Keating?

Before her retirement, Barbara Keating had led a chapter of the children's advocacy group Big Brothers Big Sisters near Boston. Her family remembers her as a formidable, witty, and highly intelligent woman—a mother of five and grandmother of 12.

"She was tough, funny, very smart, she was fabulous," her son said.

Why so many 9/11 victims remain unidentified

Her burial is a reminder of the quiet, painstaking search that has continued in New York long after the recovery site was cleared. According to city officials, some 40 per cent of the 2,753 people who died at the World Trade Center have still not been identified.

Teams have spent decades sifting through tonnes of debris collected from the site, working up to 60 hours a week. Paul Keating praised the researchers' dedication. "It just means a lot to comb over miles and miles of city blocks of debris for every day, 60 hours a week for 24 years," he said.

The ongoing effort relies on increasingly sophisticated forensic DNA techniques. Just last month, researchers identified another previously unknown victim, a woman whose name is being withheld at her family's request. Her identification leaves roughly 1,100 victims still unaccounted for in New York City.

Dr Jason Graham, the city’s chief medical examiner, described the work as a "sacred commitment" that New York is determined to keep.

"A quarter century after the day that forever changed our world, we are keeping the promise to identify those who died at the World Trade Center in 2001 and return them to their loved ones," Graham said in a statement.

For the Keating family, that promise took 24 years to deliver. But this week, it means they can finally complete the grave they opened a generation ago.