Students release balloons to mark Sept. 11

Senior Toni Payton, right, releases a balloon with others during a "We Have Not Forgotten" commemoration at Horizon Science Academy Toledo in West Toledo.

Students at the downtown branch of Horizon Science Academy released 300 balloons today from the infield at Fifth Third Field to mark the 12th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The red, white, and blue helium-filled balloons that filled the skies above the stadium honored the victims of the attacks and the children of the men and women who were killed and grew up without a parent, said Anna Stewart, community outreach director for the charter school.

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The balloons were released shortly after 8:46 a.m., the same time 12 years when the hi-jacked American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.

Six-hundred students at the charter school's location on West Sylvania Avenue in West Toledo released 300 balloons at 9:03 a.m. to coincide with the second plane hitting the skyscraper and 9:45 am, 450 students at the school's Springfield Township location released 300 balloons at 9:45 a.m., which is when the Pentagon was struck, and then 500 students at the company's Michigan Math and Science Academy in Centerline, Mich., released 300 balloons at 10:10 a.m., the time Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field.