Flight 93 National Memorial Museum

The museum at the Flight 93 National Memorial is located inside the National Memorial Visitor Center.

It includes a lot of interesting exhibits and is worth visiting as your first stop at the site. One exhibit shows where the passengers, terrorists, and crew were originally seated, and then where they were after the terrorists herded everyone to the back of the plane after telling passengers (falsely) that one of them had a bomb strapped to his waist.

There are detailed timelines, showing when the other targets were hit, and documenting the 37+ phone calls that came from people on the plane, which provided a lot of details and information about what happened in these crucial minutes. This flight had been delayed by 25 minutes before taking off. Because all the other hijacked planes had crashed already, people making phone calls heard about those crashes from the people they called, including the flight attendants who were able to reach United Airlines, giving them an idea of what would happen if they didn’t fight back.

Several exhibits include quotes from people in western Pennsylvania who saw the plane crash or were early on the scene.

The exhibits of the wreckage are shocking in that the pieces of the plane are so very small and there are so few of them.

There was basically nothing left of this enormous plane; the largest piece of debris found was a 6 foot by 7 foot section of the fuselage. Somerset County Coroner Wally Miller, who a local told me retired earlier this year, was responsible for identifying all the remains. He also kept the site closed until 2005 and in February 2002, the exhibit tells us, met with the families of passengers and crew “as a group to discuss the return of their loved ones remains and personal effects.” This is such a difficult and important job.

There are examples of tribute quilts and things that were left at spontaneous shrines in the area. The famous quote from a tribute quilt is from Captain Stephen Ruda of the Los Angeles City Fire Department in 2003: “A common field one day, a field of honor forever.” There are flags, teddy bears, jewelry, and a number of other items. One of the activities in the junior ranger book is to look for these items and circle the ones the child finds. Some are in the museum and others are down on Memorial Plaza.