Thousands of Boston-area airline employees on Wednesday remembered their colleagues killed in the terrorist attacks on New York City's World Trade Center, offering roses and doves as a tribute.
Twenty-two airline employees died when American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were hijacked from Boston on Sept. 11 and crashed into the World Trade Center. Thousands more people are feared dead in the rubble.
The employees arrived by the busloads, wearing flag pins along with the usual wings on their lapels. A uniform from each lost crew member along with a rose lined the front of a stage at City Hall Plaza.
Singer-actress Bette Midler sang ``Wind Beneath My Wings,'' and several members of the clergy offered prayers and Bible readings.
Sikh, Jewish, Islamic and Greek Orthodox religious leaders met on stage in a gesture of solidarity.
The service culminated in the reading of each employee's name.
As each was read, a rose was placed in a basket which was to be flown to New York yesterday to be left at the World Trade Center site.
``They will take their final flight to ground zero, where they will be at peace, and always within our hearts,'' said the Reverend Richard Uftring, the airport chaplain who led the hour-long service that included the release of 22 doves.
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