Remembering Northampton’s Geoff Campbell 25 years after he was killed in 9/11
Today marks 25 years since Northampton man Geoff Campbell was killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
Geoff, from Great Billing, was aged 31 when he died after hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 was flown into the North Tower on September 11, 2001.
He was living in New York with his fiancée Caroline at the time and working as a consultant for news agency Reuters.
Geoff had been invited to an event at the Windows on the World restaurant, high inside the North Tower and close to where the plane struck.
His family then endured months of uncertainty before his death was finally confirmed after his DNA was identified on a fragment of collar bone.
Nearly 3,000 people – including 67 Britons – died in the attacks after 19 al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger planes.
Two were flown into New York's Twin Towers, another struck the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in Pennsylvania.
Twenty years after Geoff's death, his father Malcolm and older brother Matt featured in the moving BBC documentary Surviving 9/11, screened in 2021.
Malcolm, a retired architect from Walgrave, previously described how he was walking in the Rhinogs in Snowdonia when he first learned something serious had happened in New York.
He had reached the summit when he received a text from his youngest son Robert, who was in London and worried about his brother.
Speaking for the documentary five years ago, Malcolm said he had returned to the same remote area for every anniversary since the attacks.
He said: “When the first anniversary came round it seemed perfectly natural to go back to the area where I was on that day in the Rhinogs.
“I've been back every year since. It's absolutely remote and I don't see anybody at all.
“I just like to remember what happened and remember Geoff quietly by myself.”
Malcolm said the solitude gave him an opportunity to concentrate on his son and his memories of him.
He added: “It's one time of the year I can concentrate on Geoff, think deeply about Geoff, be upset if I want to be.
“I certainly miss what he would have been now and what he would have achieved.”
■ Surviving 9/11 is available on the BBC iPlayer