Casualties of the September 11 attacks
2,974 victims were confirmed to have died in the initial attacks; this includes Sneha Anne Philip, a doctor, who in 2008 was ruled to have died on 9/11. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office began to add people who died of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site to the official death toll. The first such victim was a woman, a civil rights lawyer, who had died from a chronic lung condition in February 2002. In September 2009, the office added a man who died in October 2008, and in 2011, a male accountant who had died in December 2010. This raises the number of victims at the World Trade Center site to 2,753, and the overall 9/11 death toll to 2,996.
Backstreet Boys
Shortly after returning to the Black and Blue Tour, the group faced a harrowing loss with the occurrence of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. On the night of September 10, the band had completed a sold-out show in Boston, Massachusetts and the following morning Littrell's wife Leighanne had planned on catching a flight back to Los Angeles aboard American Airlines Flight 11, along with set carpenter Daniel Lee, who was returning home to Los Angeles to see his wife, who was due to give birth to their second child. That night, however, Leighanne cancelled her flight after deciding to spend more time with her husband. Tragically, Lee was among 92 people killed when the hijacked plane was crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The next day, during a concert on the next leg of their tour in Toronto, Littrell gave a brief speech on Lee and led the audience in a brief moment of silence for Lee and all the victims of the attacks.