On September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four planes. They flew two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane, left Newark, New Jersey, bound for San Francisco. Near Pittsburgh, the terrorists overwhelmed the pilots and took control of the plane turning it towards Washington, presumably to crash it into the United States Capitol building.
Passengers and crew members, having become aware of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, voted to fight back. Knowing their fate, they struggled with the terrorists to prevent them from achieving their goal. Sensing that they would be overcome by the passengers and crew, the terrorists crashed the plane into a field on a hillside near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, just 18 minutes from their intended target in Washington.
Today, the National Park Service maintains a memorial at the site, a field of honor forever.
The Visitor Center has a sobering display that recounts the events of that day. Videos of news reports from 9/11 took me back to that morning, when I sat in a conference room with colleagues from my law firm watching intently as events developed. Our country was under attack. Most haunting in the display is an exhibit where you can listen to voicemail messages left for loved ones by the passengers and crew who knew they were going to die.
A platform at the Visitor Center looks out over the field where Flight 93 crashed. Photos of the scene in the Visitor Center show a crater in the shape of a plane after the crash. The plane and its contents were all disintegrated, leaving only fragments of the plane and its passengers and crew.
The National Park Service has erected a memorial on the field where the plane crashed. A long walkway leads to a memorial wall where the names of all forty of the passengers and crew are listed. The day we visited a delegation from the Wisconsin State Patrol conducted a ceremony to honor them.
On a small shelf in the wall leading to the memorial, people leave mementos and tributes.
Each passenger and crew member is named on a separate panel of the accordion-shaped wall, which aligns with the flight path of the plane as it crashed.
A Ceremonial Gate is constructed from hemlock beams. There are forty cut angles in the beams to commemorate the dead.
A massive boulder marks the spot where the plane crashed.
The Tower of Voices, a 93-foot tall tower, has forty wind chimes that make music to honor the forty passengers and crew members who died fighting to prevent the terrorists from crashing the plane in Washington, D.C. Having heard of the crashes at the World Trade Center, the passengers and crew members knew their fate, but they rose up to prevent a greater tragedy in our nation’s capital. On September 11, 2001, this common field became a field of honor forever.
