Tuesday, June 25, 2019
A fellow Granite Farms inmate reminded us that the drive from Media, PA to Ohio passes the
Flight 93 National Memorial, part of the National Park Service, near Shanksville, PA.
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Flight Path Walkway marks the final leg of
the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 |
Flight 93 was hijacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, and while it was on its way to San Francisco from Newark, NJ, other airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2, and into the Pentagon.
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American Airlines Flight 77 crash is noted on the Flight Path |
Once hijacked the plane was turned toward the East Coast. The passengers on Flight 93 began making phone calls and learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Realizing they were going to die anyway, the passengers and crew decided to wrest control of the airplane from the hijackers. The hijackers then crashed the plane at full speed into the ground, where it exploded on impact. It is believed that the target of this flight was the US Capitol building, thus a crash in the city of Washington, DC was averted. The sacrifice of the 40 passengers and crew saved thousands of lives.
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Some of the debris from the crash that was not totally obliterated |
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Tributes from the makeshift memorial that
immediately sprang up after the crash |
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The Flight Path continues past the Visitor Center
to an observation platform |
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Etched on the observation platform glass wall:
A common field one day. A field of honor forever. |
In the distance below the observation platform is the Wall of Names, beyond which is a boulder marking the crash site.
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Looking back at the Visitor Center (dedicated 9/10/2015)
from the observation platform |
The memorial is based on a design called
Crescent of Embrace (2005) by a team led by Paul and Milena Murdoch of Los Angeles. There was immediate criticism of the design because of the crescent shape. It was then modified into a circle.
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The Allée of red maple trees is a circular pedestrian path
leading from the Visitor Center to Memorial Plaza;
in the foreground are some of the 40 sweetgum trees of Memorial Grove |
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The Wetlands Bridge is part of the circular pedestrian path |
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