Former vice president Joe Biden met his successor Mike Pence on Friday at an annual event in Manhattan honoring the victims of the 9/11 terror attacks, AFP reported. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks carried out by al Qaeda, in which two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City.

Another plane hit the Pentagon just outside Washington, DC.

At the event on Friday, Biden and Pence bumped elbows and chatted briefly. Neither of the two gave official remarks as the Ground Zero ceremony’s speeches – pre-recorded this year due to coronavirus measures – are generally reserved for family members of victims.

A two-minute silence was observed at 8.46 am (1246 GMT), the time the first plane hit one of the Twin Towers.

Interestingly, President Donald Trump didn’t attend the event in his native New York, instead, he travelled to Shanksville, Pennsylvania some 300 miles to the west of New York, where an airliner crashed after the passengers tried to wrest control from the Al-Qaeda hijackers.

The president and First Lady Melania Trump listened in silence as the names of the 40 passengers and crew killed aboard Flight 93 were read out — with two bells tolling after the reading of each one.

Biden, who is the Democratic presidential nominee will travel to Shanksville, but there was no chance of the rivals crossing paths.  Trump was due to leave well before Biden and his wife Jill arrive at the site.

Neither of these appearances are expected to feature political showmanship, as the 9/11 ceremonies are traditionally “free of rhetoric, dedicated to paying tribute to victims” of the attacks, according to Robert Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia University.

The choice of the venue, however, is important from a political standpoint. Pennsylvania is an important state to win in the presidential election.

Long a Democratic stronghold and Biden’s home state, Pennsylvania swung narrowly to Trump in the 2016 election, helping him secure his surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Polls show Trump and Biden nearly even in Pennsylvania, and Democrats hope to win the state back in the November 3 vote.