The aircraft – which officials believe the hijackers meant to crash into the U.S. Capitol – was overtaken by passengers and crashed in a field in western Pennsylvania at the site of the new memorial.
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Fourteen years after people on board the hijacked United Airlines flight forced the plane into the ground as terrorists aimed it towards Washington, their story is on display for the hundreds of thousands of visitors who come to central Pennsylvania each year to visit the Flight 93 National Memorial.
In displays using facts and information pieced together in the subsequent investigation, family members of those lost on 9/11 hope visitors will understand the full impact of the actions of their loved ones.
But on Thursday, a new monument to their bravery opens, with the dedication of the Visitor Center at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
Gordon Felt, whose brother was aboard the plane, says the visitor center “tells an incredible story of heroism”.
It is midway through the exhibit, at the fifth panel, that visitors get to listen to Ms. Gronlund, as well as two other voice mail messages left by flight attendant CeeCee Lyles, and passenger Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas. They also honor those who died at the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
“I’m on United 93 and it’s been hijacked by terrorists who say they have a bomb”, passenger Linda Gronlund, calling her sister Elsa, begins matter-of-factly.
Friday is the 14th anniversary of the attacks.
A memorial at the Pentagon opened in 2009, and the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, an the site of the World Trade Center, opened in 2011. “You know maybe there will be dreams that they’ll take on”, said Debby Bborza, Flight 93 family member.
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And involved they have been, from a lengthy and hard process of acquiring the land at the site, to the design of the $26 million Visitors Center, to the stock of coffee cups and t-shirts respectfully sold in the gift shop.
