On September 11, United Flight 93 crashed into a field within a few miles of the Grand Midway Hotel. A memorial is being created. As it builds we'll update you on the local related news. Several of these photos below are from the film Coolsville.

Flight 93 Design Faces Opposition
By KIRK SWAUGER The Tribune-Democrat
February 18, 2006

SOMERSET —Authorities are heightening security around the Somerset Courthouse today as protesters are expected to challenge what they still perceive as Muslim symbolism in the design of the Flight 93 National Memorial. Spearheaded by a California writer and inventor, the protesters say they will hand out information and grill the federal Flight 93 Advisory Commission at its quarterly meeting this afternoon. The commission will meet from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in a second-floor courtroom, preceded by a meeting of the Flight 93 Task Force from 1 to 2:30.

Alec Rawls of Palo Alto, Calif., maintains the centerpiece of the design still points toward Mecca, the holy city of Islam. A crescent of maple trees surrounding the crash site already has been modified into a nearly enclosed arc. Critics contend the crescent is a key Islamic symbol that pays homage to the four hijackers who commandeered the jet on Sept. 11, 2001. All 40 innocent passengers and crew were killed when the plane plummeted into a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville. “There are still multiple orientations toward Mecca that are present in the redesign,” Rawls, who will not attend the meeting, said in a telephone interview. “Ultimately, this information will get out. When it does, I think the design will be overturned. The only question is how big a controversy does it have to become before that happens.”

Gordon Felt of Ramsen, N.Y., whose brother was killed on the plane, said officials will listen to what protesters have to say. He added that memorial planners have forwarded Rawls’ assertions to architectural and religious scholars around the country, who have dismissed the claims as not credible. “For this gentleman to besmirch our loved ones by basically inferring we’re trying to create a memorial for the people who violently murdered them is outrageous,” Felt said. “It’s very distracting for our goal – to honor the 40 great Americans who were regular people who gave up their lives in a moment’s notice.”

Sheriff Carl Brown said two additional deputies will be placed in the courthouse to assist the one deputy typically required to operate a metal detector at the front door. Borough police Chief Randy Cox said extra officers will be available as well. “We don’t expect any type of problems,” Cox said. “We’re fairly confident that, if people representing a certain cause do show up, they’ll conduct themselves in the best behavior. That being said, we have taken steps to prepare in the unlikely event additional manpower would be needed for whatever reason.”

Hamilton Peterson, president of the Families of Flight 93, also scoffed at the suggestion that the memorial will honor the terrorists. “I cannot think of a population of people who could be any further away from wanting to honor the extreme, violent fundamentalists,” Peterson said. “I would characterize this as a most unfortunate diversion, not only for (the protesters’) energies but for ours. What’s truly sad is they’re impairing our ultimate, highly patriotic goal by raising their hands in an uninformed, ill-advised misunderstanding of what we’re doing.”

The National Park Service has said Paul Murdoch, the Los Angeles architect chosen to design the memorial, will attend today. Soon after Murdoch’s design was chosen in September from among five finalists and 1,011 entries overall, criticism surfaced about its prominent use of a crescent. Murdoch since has extended the crescent into an arc in an attempt to alleviate some of the concerns, though he repeatedly has denied any symbolic intent.

“There were accommodations made to distance this from being a distraction,” Peterson said. But Rawls believes the crescent is still present and points toward Mecca, a characteristic of Islamic mosques. He added the proposed tower of wind chimes at the entrance to the memorial off Route 30 is shaped like a protruding crescent surrounded by crescents of trees. “Once people realize that what’s being built on the crash site is the world’s largest mosque, in effect, they’re not going to stand for it,” Rawls said. “I don’t think we can convince the (advisory) commission of anything,” he added. “It’s going to change when enough people in this country become aware that it contains the central features of a mosque.”

The Rev. Ron McRae, self-proclaimed bishop of Bible Anabaptist Church near Jerome and an outspoken critic of the design, agreed. “We’ve been hoodwinked,” McRae said. “Murdoch’s playing games with us. He’s just fixed a little to pacify everybody. There’s some serious questions the commission needs to answer. I plan on being there, and I plan on raising some issues with it.”


 
March 18, 2006 11:43 pm

Memorial controversy compels artist to pull crash-site angel

By KECIA BAL The Tribune-Democrat

SHANKSVILLE — When Jennerstown artist Lei Hennesy Owen talks about the 20-foot-tall angel silhouette near the Flight 93 crash site, it always means sharing a dozen other stories. How the angel and her counterparts in New York and the Pentagon brought Owen and her husband together. How the two married just a few feet from the Shanksville angel. How Owen ended up on the Fox News program “Hannity & Colmes.” “She is such a part of our lives,” Owen said. “And she means so much to a lot of other people, too.”



But, in light of recent complaints that the chosen design for the Flight 93 National Memorial contains Islamic symbolism, the Flight 93 angel is on her way out – to do more good, Owen said. “We don’t want her in the middle of all of this,” Owen said. “I still think the design is controversial. I don’t think the changes have addressed all the concerns.”

Owen plans to auction off the Flight 93 angel, and forward the proceeds to about 10 nonprofit organizations – five for soldiers and five for children. “I wanted her to seem like she belonged with children,” Owen said. “I created her to do good.”

In December, architects modified the former “Crescent of Embrace” design to “40 Memorial Groves,” with trees extended around the western edge to make an arc around the crash site. Some critics still oppose the design, saying its centerpiece points toward Mecca and other elements reference the terrorists. Flight 93 crashed into a reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville on Sept. 11, 2001, killing all 40 innocent passengers and crew, as well as the four hijackers.

Los Angeles architect Paul Murdoch, the chosen designer, repeatedly has denied any intent to include Islamic symbolism. Public relations representative Bill Hayworth said Murdoch feels the concerns have been addressed, and he noted what Murdoch wrote in the most recent Flight 93 National Memorial newsletter.

For more than three years, the angel statue has guided visitors toward the crash site. Central City fire Chief Dale Russian remembers a small crowd gathered for the angel’s dedication ceremony. “We were pleased to see that type of imagery,” Russian said. “It was a fitting way to prepare people for the site.” At the feet of the angel, visitors leave trinkets – baby toys, ribbons, miniature murals on stones. An anonymous visitor winterized rose bushes with mulch and plastic, so they could be part of a red, white and blue floral ensemble that blooms in the summer. A small replica of the angel hangs as a quiet and peaceful reminder in the Central City fire hall. “A lot of people think of it as a landmark,” Russian said. “It’s a shame that the statue is leaving, because when it first started, I know (Owen) had trouble even bringing it in. I don’t know why it wasn’t embraced.” Owen said she could not get officials to return her calls.

Joanne M. Hanley, superintendent for the National Park Service’s Flight 93 office in Somerset, submitted a written comment about the auction. “It was never officially a part of the temporary memorial or the memorial project,” she said. “It is a private venture and, we have no comment because we don’t know what the intentions are for the proceeds.” Owen said rumors are circulating that big names – with big money behind them – are interested in the angel. She plans to donate proceeds to the following organizations: Freedom Alliance, the Wounded Warrior Project, Soldiers’ Angels, Families United, Make-a-Wish Foundation of America, St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, Shriners Hospitals and Delivering Angels, as well as one more soldiers support group and another children’s nonprofit organization. Still, the change will be hard for Owen and her husband. David Owen, a truck driver, volunteered to take the angels to New York, Shanksville and the Pentagon, along with the artist who designed them a few months after the terrorist attacks. “I climbed in, and I wasn’t what he expected. That’s the story,” Lei said. “We would never have met any other way.”

The couple married at the statue in Shanksville at sunset on Sept. 11, 2002. “The day was cloudy and black,” she said, “until an hour before sunset.”

Residents know the angel well. Carrie Baumgardner of Stoystown recalls how the angel silhouette near the Flight 93 crash site stirred her patriotic sentiment. “She just looks like a shadow, pointing to Flight 93,” Baumgardner said. A few months after the angel was installed near the crash site, Baumgardner bought a smaller replica of the Freedom’s Angel for her front yard, to remind passers-by. “We are extremely patriotic,” she said. “She means a lot.”

For the Jennerstown couple, she means even more. “I’m not really OK with it,” David Owen said. “I don’t know that I’m ready to say goodbye.”
   



Film stirs emotions

By KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat

SOMERSET — Gordon Felt was understandably apprehensive when he walked into a Universal Studios screening room in New York City for a preview of “United 93.” Having lost his brother aboard the hijacked jet that crashed outside of Shanksville nearly five years ago, Felt knew too well the movie’s tragic ending. Though he and his wife, Donna, were prepared for the violence, they still are refusing to allow their 14- and 9-year-old daughters to see the movie. Not now.

“I was nervous going in,” said Felt, of Ramsen, N.Y. “I thought it was a wonderful movie, but it was a horribly violent and traumatic film to see. It was incredibly painful, but nonetheless necessary.”

Relatives of the 40 innocent passengers and crew members who were killed when the plane crashed into a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township on Sept. 11, 2001, say the film is a grim reminder of the day ordinary Americans extraordinarily fought back against terror. Authorities believe the passengers rushed the cockpit, forcing the four hijackers to plunge the plane into the rolling Somerset County countryside. And a newly released transcript of the cockpit tape reveals a struggle aboard the jet that ends with hijackers’ chants of “Allah is the greatest.”

“It’s not the fiction of Hollywood,” Felt said. “This is the record of events.”

But not all families are ready to relive the pain. While Larry Catuzzi says the film will help with his fund-raising efforts for the Flight 93 National Memorial during an event May 18 in his hometown of Houston, he does not plan to see it anytime soon. “From what I’ve heard, it’s very emotional,” said Catuzzi, a member of the federal Flight 93 advisory commission and task force whose daughter, Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas, died on the plane. “As a family, we’re just not ready to do that.”

While some moviegoers in New York recently yelled “Too soon!” after seeing trailers for the movie, Catuzzi’s son-in-law, Jack Grandcolas, counters the film is overdue despite the relative freshness of what happened. “It offers a silver lining to a dark, gray day: The courage and actions of the passengers and crew,” said Grandcolas, of San Rafael, Calif. “It’s a difficult film to watch for obvious reasons, but it’s also an inspiring film.”

Family members said director Paul Greengrass accurately portrayed what happened in real time on Sept. 11, recreating the doomed flight as it took off from Newark, N.J., and abruptly changed course near Cleveland. Shortly before 10 a.m., the plane was observed flying low and erratically over Route 30 before plummeting into the ground at more than 500 mph. For Grandcolas, the most painful part of the film was watching an actress portray the telephone call Lauren Grandcolas made to him during the flight. Passengers’ families helped with the production, providing Greengrass with detailed backgrounds of their loved ones, even the clothes they wore that day and what they might have eaten aboard the flight. “I think Paul did as good a job as he could,” Grandcolas said.

Felt and Grandcolas said they particularly were intrigued by the scenes of the chaos among government officials and air traffic controllers that day, as three hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and as Flight 93 headed toward Washington. “The movie actually had a lot more of what was going on with the FAA and the military and command centers, which I found fascinating,” Felt said.

Carol Huges of Middletown, N.J., whose brother, Joseph DeLuca, was killed on the plane, was getting ready to attend the movie’s premiere Tuesday night in New York. Huges already had seen the director’s cut. “It was good. It was a lot different than all the other movies,” she said about documentaries previously done on Flight 93.

Hughes said “United 93” showed her brother talking to his father by cell phone and saying, “I love you, Dad.” “Nobody got center stage,” she said. “It showed a little bit of everybody as a group.”

Universal Pictures has pledged to donate 10 percent of the first three days of the film’s gross to the Flight 93 National Memorial, which is expected to be open by the 10th anniversary of the crash. As organizers of the memorial prepare to raise $30 million in private funds, Catuzzi said the movie can provide an impetus. “I think it helps bring back the heroic act of the courage of these people,” he said.






















   

Well, I went and saw "United 93" on Sunday. Wow. It was a good movie, only in the sense that "Schindler's List" was a good movie. You know the story, you know how it ends. It is a gripping tale. It is a propaganda film, but it doesn't make me hate muslims or those who practice Islam. I mean, how many people have died in the name of Christianity? There was an interesting dichotomy, which is what I liked best about this film: at one point, when death was inevitable for all concerned, everyone on the plane started praying. The passengers were saying the Lord's Prayer, and the terrorists were praying to Allah. It is all the same god, right? The "bad guys" won in the end, which doesn't make for a Hollywood ending. The way the film ends was perfect (and I don't think I am giving it away, so...). The plane crashes, game over, blank screen. No other ending is necessary and would have been superfluous. My wife cried throughout, especially at the end. We discussed why it hit so close to home for her. She thinks it is tragic, the way so many people lost their loved ones in senseless acts of violence. She grew up in Windber, where nothing like this ever happens. She likens it to when JFK was shot; you remember where you were, what you were doing, when it happened. I take a more pragmatic approach, being an Army brat; death and terrorism is not a foreign concept to me. My folks lived in Germany in the 80's, when terrorists bombed the PX (post exchange---like a Wal-mart, for you civilians). It just doesn't phase me at all, which is a statement on how desensitized I have become. I would like to think I would have done the same thing. As a buddhist, I am not afraid of death, and would actually welcome it. The brave passengers did what they had to do; they knew what was likely to happen, and they took control of their own fates. Go see it, but realize that there is a conscious manipulation taking place on the part of the film's makers. What you do with that is your choice. I think that the memorial should be fully funded, with a tribute to Islam included in the design. It was not Islam that forced those terrorists to do what they did, it was people like Osama bin Ladin, the cult of personality. That is dangerous, whoever it may be. Remember the David Koresh assassination. Remember Jim Jones. Remember the Spanish Inquisition. That is not my god. Or the god of muslims. Or the god of Judaism. There is only one true god, and (s)he is a god of love, not of the evil men do in God's name.


Honest Regards,
Wm. Andrew Turman

 

My Night Last Night at the Flight 93 Field

-By Blair

The movie United 93 earned $11.14 million it's opening weekend. So Universal Studios, to their credit, pledged 10% of the gross and will give the $1.14 million to the building of the Flight 93 National Memorial out here in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

So, I went to see the United 93 movie. Inside the theater I think, Oh my God, every American should see this film! And they should see it in a theater. I'm so proud that the film was created by artists. It shows the value of the arts. (And I'm glad it was made now instead of in 50 years and into the backdrop for some sanitized love story like that movie Pearl Harbor.) Watching the film, I think, Right now, this hour, this week, Flight 93 is the most relevant work of art in America. It is immediate, it is electric, it is propaganda, as well as riveting and pounding on emotional piano keys in all of us. Everyone from the President down to those conservative ninny radio hosts who shit on artists regularly should be grateful to Hollywood for creating it. It doesn't just reflect the flight, but is current and relevant to the topic of any outsider coming into America's borders and making demands. This is a work where our artist's goals and our leader's goals and the needs of our people have all come together in a unison.

Ken Nacke, brother of Flight 93 passenger Louis Nacke, said of the film and its success, "America speaks."

So, the last frame of footage in the film is of the patch of green grass field the plane is about to hit, out here in a field in Somerset County. So I left the theater and had to drive out to the memorial site right then. I am so compelled to the area, this spot.

So I do it. I do the drive. I pass the large silver angel statue that introduces the last road into the woods to the memorial site. 10:30 PM, out at the Flight 93 Memorial Site I arrive. Again, I can't tell you how many times I have been out here. Its far off from anything, desolate, an unpaved small lot. Familiar fence with flags and helmets and tokens from visitors. The benches. The wood cross. There were lots more photos of the fallen, I don't see them now. The night sky is clad with stars. A crescent moon. Its crystal clear. It gives me chills to stand here.

On the morning of 9-11 I was living along the beaches in Los Angeles. My mother woke me with a phone call, "Quick! Wake up! Turn on the news! We're under attack! We're at war!" (Just two weeks earlier I'd bid on an old hotel property some 3000 miles away in Somerset County, PA, having no idea about the area.) I stepped outside my Los Angeles beach apartment and looked out over the morning view of the Los Angeles basin. I wondered about my immediate future, and wondered if something awful was about to fall from the sky for a follow-up LA attack. My girlfriend that morning was in lock-down at a Minneapolis Airport as all the flights, including hers, now were stopped. She watched the disasters from an airport television.

In the very near future I'd packed up everything I owned and was on the 3000 mile drive to Somerset County. I was shocked to learn the Flight 93 plane came down here, within 20 miles of the old hotel property I'd just bought. The new mayor of Windber drove me out to the crash site for my first time. It was night, just like tonight. I have since come out here many times alone and brought many visitors as well. Its baffling to me how unguarded this place is. There is no fence. One can approach it at any hour and be totally alone, as I have many a time and am here now.

Somehow when I looked out over the city of Los Angeles and wondered about my future it is coincidentally and yet intrinsically tied that I would be 3000 miles away, relocated, and out in this field over and over where the plane came down.

Standing out here now I think, Who hasn't been affected by that day? Who among us can't remember the exact thing they were doing when they first heard the news? Since then, oddly (and I don't know the details), the California man who first set up this web page you are currently on was arrested and deported from the USA for some affiliation to terrorism through the Patriot Act. The new young man who is PA local who currently maintains the web page was a high school student at the time of the attack and brought out here to assist that day as a junior commander with other young men of clearance the very hours the plane came down. My new neighbor was working outside that day and actually watched the plane cruise overhead as it came down. He said it passed over him coming in upside-down. Another friend of mine's aunt lives by the crash site and she claims the plane came so close to her home it rattled all her windows. I feel eerily connected to this flight, as I imagine we all do.

-Oh my God, you're not going to believe this one. I spent so much time sitting out here, with my headlights on and my camera battery plugged in charging, my car battery has gone flat. It's pitch black. There's not even a street light for miles. The roads aren't even paved out here yet. I'm going to have to sleep out here tonight. Who on the entire planet has had to have the experience of seeing the United 93 movie which ends on this field and then had to sleep out here on it? Man, my life is just too weird.

-I can hear frogs everywhere. A distant dog barking. I just saw a shooting star. None of this feels coincidence. There's a little shed here that keeps creaking and making noise as if someone else is in it. I am so full of coffee I won't sleep. I see several shooting stars.

-I sit wide awake for the next ten hours watching the night sky through my car windshield as the Universe slowly changes from the massive dark navy to a light crystal blue with the dawning sunrise. Its actually quite beautiful. At 8 AM someone finally drives by and gives me a jump.




Trial, movie boost interest in 9/11 crash site

By KIRK SWAUGER The Tribune-Democrat

SHANKSVILLE — Joan Taylor was incensed by the insensitive reaction by 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after he was spared the death penalty. So when visiting a lifelong friend in Greensburg last week, the 80-year-old woman from Daytona Beach, Fla., welcomed a chance to pay tribute to the heroes aboard Flight 93. “It’s very emotional,” she said, standing inside the visitors’ center at the Flight 93 temporary memorial. “We were in New York last fall and went to the World Trade Center, and that was emotional. But this is more so because of the bravery of the people on that plane.”

The release of “United 93,” the Moussaoui trial and controversy over a North Carolina congressman’s reluctance to allocate federal funding to buy land for a proposed national park is spurring renewed interest in the Flight 93 National Memorial. Last week, 4,000 visitors made the pilgrimage to the remote reclaimed strip mine where the hijacked plane crashed near Shanksville, four times more than a comparable time a year ago, Flight 93 officials said. In that time alone, visitors came from Washington, New Jersey, North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, Illinois, Colorado, Wisconsin, California and Florida, as well as from throughout Pennsylvania, a guest book at the temporary memorial reveals.

“It’s on a lot of people’s minds,” said Barbara Black, Flight 93 curator for the National Park Service.

As the fifth anniversary of the crash nears and a national fundraising campaign intensifies, organizers believe interest will climb even higher in the months ahead.

Gen. Tommy Franks and former Gov. Tom Ridge, honorary co-chairmen of the fundraising campaign, are among the dignitaries committed to speaking at the anniversary commemoration Sept. 11.

On Thursday, the campaign will hold its first major national fundraiser at a breakfast in Houston, hosted by Astros owner Drayton McClane and Larry Catuzzi, a member of the federal Flight 93 Advisory Commission whose daughter was killed in the crash. “It’s always been remarkable to me how people would come really off the beaten track to the temporary memorial,” Catuzzi said. “Some would say the film was too soon or an exploitation, but I think personally it serves as a great reminder of what happened that day. We so easily forget things that happen – we’re so busy, we’re so involved in our own lives. The film brings back the heroic actions of the passengers.” Once the permanent memorial is completed in 2011, officials estimate it will attract more than 230,000 visitors a year.

Even now, thousands are making the trek to Shanksville, leaving behind mementos and personal notes at a wall of chain-link fence and markers that serve as the temporary tribute. Jonathan Elgart, 36, of Seattle snapped digital photos of the wooden angels honoring Flight 93 passengers and crew Friday morning on his way to visit relatives in New York City. “I’m impressed by the connection people obviously feel for the site and the things that have been left here from all over the country,” he said. “I almost feel like I’m intruding on someone else’s memories.”

Thirty-three passengers and seven crew members were killed, along with the four hijackers, when the plane plummeted into the Somerset County countryside. Passengers are credited with heroically forcing the hijackers to down the plane early by rushing the cockpit, preventing it from reaching its intended destination at the Capitol or White House in Washington. It was the only one of four hijacked planes that did not reach its target that day.

“This is sacred ground,” said Peggy Clancy of Syracuse, N.Y., who stopped by the memorial with her husband, John. “You can’t even begin to describe it.”

John Lashley of Waynesboro, Franklin County, agreed. “The people were very heroic,” he said after visiting the memorial for the fifth time. “Thank God they did what they did.”

 

Published: October 14, 2006
Planners tackling details of Flight 93 memorial

By KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat
SOMERSET — Now that the design of the permanent Flight 93 National Memorial is moving into detailed engineering, developers are turning their attention toward what will be inside.

The federal Flight 93 Advisory Commission is organizing a committee to conduct a yearlong study on interpretive planning for exhibits and other displays. Commission member Jerry Spangler called the interpretive planning “the heart and soul of the project.”

The planning panel will be comprised of representatives from the advisory commission and Flight 93 Task Force, Families of Flight 93 and the National Park Service.

Among considerations will be how to display some of the thousands of mementos left at the temporary memorial. Visitation to the temporary memorial has been skyrocketing amid the recent fifth anniversary of the crash, in which 40 hijacked passengers and crew were killed Sept. 11, 2001. About 100,000 visitors have made the pilgrimage to the site since Memorial Day, up 40 percent from that time last year, said Donna Glessner of Shanksville, a task force member. “This summer has been amazing,” she added.

Families of Flight 93 buys key plot at tax sale
BY KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat

SHANKSVILLE — In a quiet purchase at the Somerset County tax sale exactly six years after the crash of Flight 93, memorial developers have acquired a key piece of land.
The tract could be used for a temporary visitors center and headquarters for the National Park Service.
Families of Flight 93 se-cured the 0.6-acre plot, previously owned by Dennis Mock, for $3,100 Tuesday at the annual tax sale.
The family organization had been trying for months to buy the land and thought it had an agreement in principle, but Mock suddenly fell out of contact, said Patrick White, vice president of the Families of Flight 93.
“In order to preclude anyone else from buying the property, we decided to get it at tax sale,” White said.
“It’s odd it occurred on Sept. 11. I think it’s a good sign as we begin our seventh year on a positive note.”
A house on the property burned years ago, leaving behind only a two-car garage.
More important is its location, just off Skyline Drive in the shadow of the temporary memorial.
White confirmed that the land is being considered as a potential site for the National Park Service to place modular trailers that are being donated to Flight 93 planners by Jamestown National Park.
“It was our first location of choice for the modulars,” said Joanne Hanley, Flight 93 superintendent for the National Park Service.
“I’m so grateful to the families for everything they do to help. They are an amazing partner in all of this.”
The trailers would be used for a temporary visitors center and Park Service offices, which are now in Somerset. The modulars have not yet been received from Jamestown, and Hanley said she is uncertain when they would be placed at their new location.
“We’re very excited,” White said. “It was a rather sudden turn of events.”

Portions of Flight 93 voice recordings permitted at trial
By KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat

SOMERSET — Five years after Deborah Martin and other relatives of passengers and crew on Flight 93 privately listed to cockpit recordings of the final moments on the hijacked plane, the impact of the tape remains vivid.

The recording, never released publicly, can be played for a jury at the first trial in lawsuits filed after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

“What I was left with was the bravery and the heroism of the 40 passengers and crew,” said Martin of Sequim, Wash., whose 20-year-old daughter, Deora Bodley, was the youngest passenger on the plane that crashed near Shanksville. “They stormed the cockpit and did what they set out to do. That’s really amazing.

“It’s very to the point,” she said of the recording. “It definitely left me closer to my daughter emotionally, and actually gave me a sense of the tension and the courage needed to break through that tension.”

In New York, U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ruled that jurors cannot listen to the entire tape, but can hear portions that the hijacked passengers may have heard.

Those segments include voices of one or two of the hijackers announcing they have a bomb on board, and the final four minutes when passengers forced their way into the cockpit in an attempt to retake the jet.
Relatives of the victims were allowed to privately hear the recording at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia.

“I believe it will be a chilling experience for those jurors,” said Patrick White, vice president of Families of Flight 93. “In particular, the last four minutes are very real and raw. Certainly, the suspense and the emotion and the graphic aspects of it will be clear. I think it’s going to be powerful.”
Authorities have said the four hijackers crashed the plane into the reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township as the passengers rushed the cockpit. It was the only one of the four hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, that did not reach its intended target, believed to be either the White House or Capitol in Washington.

Attorneys for the victims’ families have argued that it’s important for jurors to hear the sounds of the frightening final moments in order to determine damages. The families have argued that the cockpit voice recording contains evidence of substantial pain, suffering, terror and emotional distress before the victims died.

A total of 41 cases have been filed against airlines, plane manufacturers, security agencies and the owners of airports, blaming them for letting terrorists take control of planes.

Typically, a jury first determines liability in a case, and then it decides on damages.

But Hellerstein has scheduled the damages phase in six cases to begin on Sept. 24, before any liability has been determined.

He said he took this unusual step in the hopes that more cases might settle out of court once families of victims get a sense of how much money they are likely to get from a jury.

The first trial will assess damages owed to the family of Patrick Joseph Driscoll, a New Jersey man who was on Flight 93.

The September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which Congress set up after the attacks, has paid $6 billion to 2,880 families of those who died, representing 97 percent of the families, the judge said. The fund also has dispensed more than $1 billion to 2,680 injured victims.

Carol Hughes of Middletown, N.J., whose brother, Joseph DeLuca, was killed on Flight 93, said she could not bring herself to listen to the tape, though her husband did.

“My husband said he couldn’t hear too much. He said it’s a lot of noise,” she said. “I didn’t think I could handle it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



CRESCENT IN THE DESIGN?

Theories of Terrorist Memorializing Features in the planned Flight 93 Memorial (the crescent mosque with the star on it and position of the star flag, and the 44 memorial glass blocks on the flight path matching the number of passengers, crew, and terrorists who died.)

Alec Rawls writes:

Last year I learned from Pittsburgh Post Gazette reporter Paula Reed Ward that the editors of the Post Gazette knew about the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace way back in September 2005, and decided as a group not to report it. (See Crescent of Betrayal, download 3, page 108.) For those who are not up to speed, here is graphical proof (for the umpteenth time) that a person facing into the giant central crescent of the Flight 93 Memorial (red arrow) is facing Mecca:
 




Credit Sarah Wells, who found the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com (the source of the superimposed green "qibla" direction for Somerset PA). For more than a year, several other western Pennsylvania newspapers have also known about the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (which remains completely intact in the superficially altered Bowl of Embrace redesign). All have refused to report their own fact checking. This last Monday, the Johnstown Tribune Democrat added to the list of bad behavior.

To force the Tribune Democrat to report on my expose of the terrorist memorializing design, I bought ads, promising conflict at the Memorial Project's upcoming public meeting. Again, they refused to report their own fact checking. In the Tribune story, my claim of Mecca orientation is rebutted by Patrick White, Vice President of the Families of Flight 93, who claims that my charges have been investigated and been found to be untrue and "preposterous," and that's all the Tribune reports. They say nothing about who is right, despite the fact that it is trivially easy to fact-check the orientation of the crescent, and despite the fact that the Tribune's reporter DID fact-check the orientation of the crescent.

The redesigned flight 93 memorial, announced today, still contains all of the features that made it a terrorist memorial. Architect Paul Murdoch's infamous red crescent is still there, still planted with red maple trees, still inscribed in the exact same circle as before, and with the same two crescent tips still intact. Thus the crescent bisector defined by these crescent tips is also the same as before. It still points almost exactly to Mecca, making the crescent a Mihrab (an Islamic prayer station, where the believer faces into a crescent, towards Mecca, to perform his ritual prostrations). The design still incorporates a separate upper terrorist-memorial wall, centered precisely on the red-maple crescent [placing this upper section of wall, and the copse of trees that surround it, precisely in the location of the star on an Islamic flag]. There are still 44 translucent blocks on the flight path to the crash site, matching the total number of dead, instead of just the forty translucent blocks that are dedicated to the forty murdered Americans. Lastly, the Tower of Voices part of the memorial is still an Islamic prayer-time sundial.

-Eric Rawls

FLIGHT 93 CHAPEL
Shanksville, Pennsylvania

STATEMENT OF MISSION

 Flight 93 Memorial Chapel is a spiritual memorial and perpetual tribute in honor of the Heroes of   Flight 93, and all others who perished September 11, 2001.  The founder and Director-Curator is Reverend Alphonse T. Mascherino, an ordained Catholic priest for twenty-six years.

 The Chapel is a secular non-denominational Chapel, and serves as a spiritual refuge and place of meditation and prayer. The Chapel is open to people of all faiths and is available for individual faith groups to worship together under the direction of their respective religious leaders.  Prayer and worship services will be conducted on a regular basis to honor the Heroes who have fallen, to pray for our Nation, our President, public officials and religious leaders.  The theme of the Chapel is One Nation Under God.  Appropriate ceremonies on national holidays will celebrate the religious diversity of America and the unity of the American people.

 The Chapel will present multi-media programs to the public celebrating the Memory of the Heroes of   Flight 93, The Spirit of America, and the theme of One Nation Under God.  A program of lectures and addresses by professionals in the fields of Religion, Education, Psychology and Public Service will be presented.  Chorales, and Concerts by performing groups and visiting Church choirs centered on the theme of the American Spirit, with audience participation are planned in the Chapel and on the Chapel grounds.

The church building was first dedicated in 1902, and is recognized to be one hundred years old. The church was used for services for seventy years. In recent years the building served as a seed warehouse of the Servos Seed Corporation.  The building was purchased privately from the Kurt Servos Family in January, 2002 and is currently under reconstruction as the Memorial Chapel.

Non-profit status for the Chapel is currently being investigated.