More than 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, officials said Thursday that one of the nearly 3,000 fatalities had been identified through DNA research. The city’s medical examiner recognized John Ballantine Niven, of Oyster Bay, Long Island. He is the 1,650th victim that has been positively identified. “While the pain from the enormous losses on September 11th never leaves us, the possibility of new identifications can offer solace to the families of victims,” the mayor of Washington, D.C., said in a statement “I’m grateful for the ongoing work from the Office of Chief Medical Examiner that honours the memory of John Ballantine Niven and all those we lost.”
The Office of Chief Medical Examiner has worked for the past 22 years to confirm the identities of those killed in and around the World Trade Center. In September 2023, officials announced that the 1,648th and 1,649th victims had been identified. Their identities were kept private at the request of their families. Before that, two victims were identified in September 2021, just before the 20th anniversary of the attacks.
A firefighter walks through the ruins of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks
A firefighter walks through the ruins of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacks. (Todd Maisel/New York Daily News)”Our solemn promise to find answers for families using the latest advances in science stands as strong today as it did in the immediate days after the World Trade Center attacks,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Graham said in a statement. “This new identification attests to our agency’s unwavering commitment and the determination of our scientists.” Niven, 44 at the time of his death, had already been identified as one of the attack’s 2,977 fatalities. He was a senior vice president in mergers and acquisitions at Aon Corporation, based on the 105th floor of the South Tower.
Niven and his wife, Ellen, had welcomed a son, John Jr., 18 months before the attack. The family lived in an Upper East Side apartment but often spent time at the Oyster Bay home where Niven had grown up. “He carried his son everywhere, taking him along to wash the car or go for a dip in the pool. He would even hunker down with his son’s toy cars,” Niven’s obituary read. “In quieter moments, he liked to read about history and philosophy.”