Field Where Flight 93 Crashed In Somerset County Has Become A Place Of Reverence
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (KDKA) -- Saturday will mark 20 years since Flight 93 was hijacked and crashed in Shanksville, Somerset County.
It's commonly remembered as the "Field in Pennsylvania."
The images from September 11, 2001, are seared into our memory. That's when the field became a place of reverence. For almost seven decades prior, it was part of Tim Lambert's family.
"I would spend time there fishing, running in the woods," Lambert told KDKA.
Then came that fateful day. Lambert is a journalist and was covering everything unfolding. He came home around 1 a.m. on Sept. 12, 2001, to a message from his father on the answering machine.
"I don't know if you saw the video today of the crater of Flight 93, but those trees are ours," Lambert recalls.
He was brought out to the site on his family's land three weeks later.
"You could still smell the jet fuel. So right off the bat, that was a big-time reminder of what had happened in this field," Lambert said.
After the coroner showed Lambert a dime-sized piece of debris, it hit Lambert what was all around him.
"It was like a shutter, like a camera shutter. Then we saw it everywhere. Flight 93 was all around us," Lambert said.
He knew the land was no longer his. He sold it in 2009, and since then the memorial has been able to go back to the field several times. In a recent visit with a victim's family in June, Lambert found remains of the plane still there.
"It broke me for a second. So much emotion welled up. To hold something that big 20 years later, it was just a reminder of the sacrifices made by the 40 people on that plane," Lambert said.
Lambert hopes the land that gave him so many memories as a child can give future generations a lesson in bravery.
"Hopefully, reflect as they look out at that sandstone bolder where the plane went down and ask themselves, "Could I do what they did?'" Lambert said.
He said the field in Pennsylvania will forever be the testing resting place of heroes.