Flight 93 National Memorial is a monument to the passengers and crew who died during a terrorist hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 . The memorial stands in Somerset County, in southwestern Pennsylvania , a state in the northeastern United States. The plane crashed in a field there after passengers had tried to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. United States President George W. Bush signed legislation in 2002 to establish the memorial. The site opened to the public in 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the crash. The memorial was completed in 2018.
Background.
United Airlines Flight 93 left Newark International Airport, in New Jersey, at about 8:40 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001. The flight was headed for San Francisco , in California, on the Pacific Coast of the United States. There were 44 people on the plane. Four terrorists, part of a plot in which three other planes were hijacked, took over the plane about 45 minutes after takeoff. Two of the other planes were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City , and a third crashed into the Pentagon Building near Washington, D.C. , the capital of the United States. In total, the four attacks killed about 3,000 people, including the 19 hijackers. They were the worst acts of terrorism ever carried out against the United States.
Investigators determined that after Flight 93 was hijacked, passengers learned of the other attacks through telephone calls with loved ones. A number of passengers rushed the cockpit in an attempt to regain control of the airplane from the hijackers. Afraid that the passengers might succeed, the hijackers crashed the plane into a field shortly after 10 a.m. Everyone aboard the plane was killed. Authorities believe that the terrorists had planned to crash the plane into the White House or the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.
The memorial
honors the flight’s passengers and crew, who saved lives by preventing the plane from reaching its intended target. In September 2002, President Bush signed legislation to establish a national memorial at the Pennsylvania crash site of Flight 93. A team of designers led by the Los Angeles architect Paul Murdoch created the plan for the memorial. The first phase of the Flight 93 National Memorial opened in September 2011, for the 10th anniversary of the crash. This phase included a memorial plaza and a wall of names honoring passengers and crew. The second phase, completed in 2015, included a learning center, which has exhibits describing the plight of Flight 93.
The memorial, completed in 2018, features a tower with 40 metallic wind chimes, symbolizing the passengers and crew who died in the crash. The site also includes 40 Memorial Groves. Each grove contains 40 trees, for a total of 1,600 trees standing in a semicircle facing the crash site.
