Flight 93 crash victims honored for ‘great courage’
Flight 93 crash victims honored for \'great courage\'
Twenty-five years after 40 passengers and crew members aboard United Airlines Flight 93 lost their lives fighting back against hijackers during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, thousands gathered at the Flight 93 National Memorial Park in Shanksville on Friday to honor those who died when the plane slammed into the ground at 10:03 a.m.
The morning observance was held at the Memorial Plaza near the Wall of Names, which is inscribed with the name of each passenger and crew member who died when the plane went down in the empty field in Somerset Township.
Nearly 3,000 people died and thousands more were injured in the 9/11 terror attacks, when terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes, crashing two into the World Trade Center in New York and one into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va.
Investigators have long credited those onboard Flight 93 with preventing the aircraft from reaching its intended target, believed to be the U.S. Capitol.
Among those who attended the morning ceremony were Karen and Jay Russ of New Jersey. Karen Russ’s uncle, William Joseph Cashman, 60, of West New York, boarded Flight 93 in Newark with Patrick Joseph Driscoll to go hiking in Yosemite National Park.
An ironworker, Cashman had helped construct the World Trade Center.
“Twenty-five years later, I come here and I look at the wall and it still hurts,” said Russ. “You feel the loss, you look at all the names and you think about the lives they could have had, had they lived.”
Friday’s 25th anniversary service included multiple moments of silence. The first moment of silence was at 8:46 a.m. to mark when hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower. The second moment of silence was at 9:03 a.m., marking when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower.
The third moment of silence happened at 9:37 a.m., when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The final moment of silence was observed at 10:03 a.m. – the moment Flight 93 crashed into the field.
The observance concluded with parents, children, siblings, and other loved ones reading the names of the victims.
The reading of each name was punctuated by the ringing of the Bells of Remembrance.
Gordon Felt, whose brother, Edward Felt, was killed aboard Flight 93, said it is critical to keep telling the story of the passengers who fought back against the hijackers.
“Flight 93 is a story of great courage. It’s a story of 40 individuals, most of who didn’t know each other that morning, but at 9:28 when the hijackers struck, they were put in a position where they had to make some decisions pretty quick,” said Felt.
Because Flight 93 took off from the Newark, N.J., airport late, the passengers – who used seatback AirFones to talk to loved ones – learned that planes had struck the World Trade Center and realized the hijackers aboard their plane planned to crash their plane into a target.
“That delay gave our loved ones something that passengers and crew members on the other flights didn’t have: They had time to plan and they had information,” said Felt, who called the passengers “citizen soldiers” and noted the group took a vote and decided to fight.
“I still feel the loss, the incredible loss and pain, the potential of who he could have been even more so than who he was, the loss of the time he could have spent with his children, the loss of time they could have had with their father.”
He finds some comfort at the Flight 93 Memorial.
“When we first came on this site, it was a site of violence. But over the years it’s transformed; the land has healed. It’s perhaps a metaphor for all of us to a degree, and this beautiful memorial has been built, so it’s a place for the public to come in perpetuity to learn the stories of 40 individuals, so there is peace of mind. But in the end my brother is still gone.”
Sheryl Stoll of Columbus, Ohio, and her daughter, Marisa Stoll, of Dallas, Texas, paused in front of the section of the wall bearing the name of Sheryl Stoll’s cousin, Flight 93’s pilot, Capt. Jason M. Dahl. A bouquet of flowers and a hand-written note had been placed on the ground.
Dahl had swapped his schedule to fly Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco so he could take his wife to London for their fifth wedding anniversary.
“We were very close,” said Stoll. “He loved flying. He always wanted to be a pilot. From the time he was a little boy, he built model airplanes. He got his pilot’s license before he got his driver’s license. He was 14 when he got his pilot’s license.”
The memorial’s afternoon ceremony featured remarks from keynote speakers, youth musical performances, and a wreath-laying ceremony at the Wall of Names, where the victims of Flight 93 are memorialized.
Among the morning visitors were 25 sailors from the USS Somerset, which incorporates about 22 tons of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center and cast into the ship’s keel and bow.
Every deck features mementos of Flight 93, including a dedicated passageway leading to a Memorial Room inscribed with the names of all 40 victims.
Said HM2 Nia Williams of Indianapolis, who serves aboard the USS Somerset, “Being able to com here and see what we’re representing and what this ship stands for is so important and meaningful. That (the Somerset) is a remembrance of the courage and sacrifice of the (Flight 93) passengers is amazing. It’s my first ship, and it’s special.”
Also during the service, the Rev. Matthew Deal of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Somerset, prayed for the Flight 93 passengers and their loved ones, and urged attendees to live courageously.
“We honor them best not by our words, but by our commitment to remembering who they were, caring for the families thy loved, upholding the values they lived by, and calling to mind their deed, which will live in perpetuity,” said Deal. “We best honor their memories by living our lives by the virtues for which they gave theirs: courage, fearlessness, patriotism, fidelity, faith. And so we pray that their sacrifice will not only be remembered, but serve as a model for all of us who honor, cherish, and still mourn them to this day.”
A quarter of a century after Sept. 11, more than 100 million Americans — over 25% of the U.S. population — were either not yet born or too young to remember the attacks, and Karen Russ worries that the heroic and selfless efforts of the passengers and have faded.
“I do think that for younger people, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal, that they’re removed from it,” she said. “I don’t want people to forget. Every time I fly, when I sit in a seat, I think about Uncle Billy and I think about how would I react, what would I do if I was in his situation. I can’t imagine. They are ordinary people in an extraordinary situation, and they met the moment.”