Flight 93 Memorial

Flt. 93 National Memorial Design — GETTY IMAGES/Chip Somodevilla

Sisters Theresa Cooke and Germaine Wilson, sisters of UA 93 co-pilot LeRoy Homer, listen to Milena Murdoch, wife of the design's winning architect, Paul Murdoch, right, while looking at a model of the Flight 93 National Memorial, Sept. 7, 2005. The memorial consists of several elements.

Tower of Voices

The Tower of Voices is one of several elements to the memorial. It will be tall enough to be seen from the highway, and heroically marks the entry to and exit from the memorial site. It will feature 40 wind chimes presenting a living memory in sound of the 40 passengers and crew members.

The Bowl

Visitors to the Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County, Pa., will pass through high walls framing an entry courtyard and leading to an overlook of the field of honor and crash site below. The field of honor, or Bowl, is a large, existing landform roughly circular in shape that forms the heart of the memorial and park.

Memorial Groves

A walkway lined with Red and Sugar Maple trees leads visitors along 40 memorial groves, around the field of honor to the crash site. These maple trees are indigenous to the woodlands of the Pennsylvania Laurel Highlands.

Sacred Ground

The Sacred Ground is the focus of the Bowl. Here is where a grove of Hemlock trees absorbed the impact and inferno of the crash. A white stone slab on axis with the flight path provides entry to the Sacred Ground for ceremonies or visits by families of the passengers and crew. A concrete wall will hold a band of polished white marble inscribed with the 40 names.

Sacred Ground

Visitors will be able to approach the edge of the crash site at the Sacred Ground plaza.

Entry Portal

The Entry Portal is approached through a clearing of trees on a black slate plaza marking the flight path. High textured concrete walls frame the sky where Flight 93 descended to the crash site. The walkway leads visitors through the first wall into a plaza featuring Red Maple trees and through a second portal to give their first look at the expanse of the Bowl and the crash site below.

Entry Portal

The ceremonial gate for family members occurs along the flight path. The wall to the right side holds a folded band of white marble engraved with the names of the 40 passengers and crewmembers.

Western Overlook

The Western Overlook contains floor slabs of the mining operation buildings that were located here and will remain to evoke the memory of the structures. A meandering path will allow visitors to access this area. One foundation within the bowl clearing marks the location where the families first viewed the crash site below.

A piece of Wisconsin craftsmanship will be part of a Sept. 11 memorial in Pennsylvania. The Southeast Wisconsin chapter of the American Firefighters Motorcycle Club commissioned a memorial stone that will rest in Shanksville to honor the passengers and crew of United Flight 93. The motorcycle club will escort the stone to Shanksville.

Local firefighters, including members of the American Firefighters Motorcycle Club from Southeastern Wisconsin and Chicago, leave Mound Cemetery in Racine, Wis., on Sept. 5, 2006, to begin a memorial escort of a stone commemorating the victims of United Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001.

Temporary Memorial

A flag honoring those who died on United Flight 93 in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, flies over visitors at the temporary memorial close to the crash site near Shanksville, Pa., on Aug. 23, 2006. The temporary memorial is open from dawn to dusk.

Visitors at the Flight 93 Memorial site in Shanksville, Pa., on Aug. 24, 2006. The memorial is situated near the Flight 93 crash site and honors the memory of those who died on that plane on Sept. 11, 2001. Visitors have left more than 25,000 mementos at the memorial site.

Tom Weigle and Gary Norris, employees of DLS Inc., a landscaping company, work to put the finishing touches on a new memorial created to honor the Flight 93 plane crew, Aug. 24, 2006. The memorial is located behind the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel on the outskirts of Shanksville, Pa.

A visitor to the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel views biographies of the 40 victims of Flight 93, Aug. 24, 2006. The memorial, located on the outskirts of Shanksville, Pa., is situated about five miles from the Flight 93 crash site and honors those who died on that plane on Sept. 11, 2001. The chapel holds letters sent by statesmen from all over the world and reportedly receives an average of 120,000 visitors a year.

The Flight 93 Memorial Chapel is seen amid cornfields on the outskirts of Shanksville, Pa., on Aug. 24, 2006. The memorial is situated about five miles from the Flight 93 crash site and honors the memory of those who died on that plane on Sept. 11, 2001.

An American flag hangs on a chain link fence surrounding the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa., June 20, 2006. A permanent, 2,200-acre national memorial is scheduled to open at the crash site in 2011. Design features will be integrated with the preserved landscape.

A plaque and makeshift memorial stand on March 10 2002, at a site overlooking the field where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001.