Eric Hartono: Remembering Indonesian Victim on September 11 Attacks in New York

RRI.CO..ID, New York City – The United States marked the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on Friday, September 11, 2026. The attacks targeted several locations across the country, including the World Trade Center (WTC) twin towers in New York City.

The attacks began when two commercial airliners were hijacked by men affiliated with Al-Qaeda and crashed into the two towers. The structural damage caused by the impacts led to the collapse of the two buildings one after another shortly afterward.

"September 11th was a horrific act of terror. A day of immeasurable loss," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a video released on the city government’s social media accounts on Friday.

The attacks killed 2,996 people, including the 19 hijackers, and injured thousands of others. The death toll does not include thousands of people who later died from illnesses and other causes linked to the attacks. At least 102 countries lost citizens in the attacks, including Indonesia.

Eric Hartono was born in Jakarta on December 23, 1981, as the fifth child of Samadikun Hartono, an Indonesian businessman who once headed the Modern Group. The group began as an official Indonesian agent for Japanese photography company Fujifilm in 1971 and later expanded into various sectors, including property and financial services.

Samadikun, as quoted by The New York Times in 2002, wanted his children to receive the "best possible education". He therefore decided to send them to the United States, including Eric.

Eric initially attended Temple Christian High School in Portland, now known as Mannahouse Christian Academy. The Times reported that he lived with Lily and Martin Sudarma, who had immigrated to the United States from Indonesia in 1971.

After graduating from high school, Eric moved to Boston, where he attended the now-defunct Newbury College. His uncle, Yosef Renyut, told Indonesian news website Liputan 6 of SCTV TV network in 2001 that Eric later attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as a computer science student in 2000.

"After he graduated, I wanted him to come back and continue my business," Samadikun told The Times. However, it seemed that God had other plans for him.

In September 2001, according to The Times and Legacy.com, Eric traveled to Boston to visit his girlfriend, Luvena Katherine Kusuma, and to transfer his credits from Newbury College. He then returned to Los Angeles aboard United Airlines Flight 175.

Nearly half an hour into the flight, the aircraft was hijacked by five men affiliated with Al-Qaeda, who deliberately crashed the plane into the WTC's South Tower. All 56 passengers and nine crew members aboard the flight were killed, including Eric, who was 19 years old and just a few months away from his 20th birthday.

Though Eric’s remains were reportedly never recovered, his name is today inscribed at the National September 11 Memorial, a memorial at the site where the twin towers once stood. Names of all those who died in the attacks are inscribed around the memorial pools, where the Find a Grave website identifies Eric’s name on panel S-4 of the memorial.