County, pennsylvania to visit the flight 93 National Memorial and take a tour of the Visitors Center which details the events of september 11th 2001. The memorial is the final resting place of 40 passengers and crew whose decisive actions prevented four al qaeda hijackers from crashing a United Airline 757 into the likely target, the u. S. Capitol building. This program is just under an hour. Hi. Im Adam Schaefer and im a park ranger at flight 93 National Memorial. Today well take a look inside the flight 93 Visitors Center which was dedicated in september 2015. We are currently standing out at the end of the flight path overlook. So were standing on the shadow of the flight path that flight 93 would have been on just before impact in the ground behind me and the reason were standing here is because this orientation for visitors is central to the design of the Visitors Center itself. The walls of the Visitors Center shield the visitors view of the landscape around us here and the enormity of the landscape and only frame the flight path as you approach the Visitor Center entrance. As youre coming off the parking lot you have to walk the flight path that this plane was on just before it crashed and the tall walls help to frame the last piece of sky that flight 93 passes through before impact here. So one of the first things that visitors notice as theyre walking the flight path from the parking lot to our Visitors Center is the timestamps that are embedded in the ground. This timestamp represents the first plane striking the north tower in new york city this morning at 8 46. The second timestamp as you look down the flight path just a little bit further represents the second plane hitting the south tower. We have some geese flying overhead here. The third time stamps going to represent American Airlines flight 77, and if you continue beyond the Visitors Center down to our Memorial Plaza where the names of the passengers and crew are listed, continuing to walk the flight path, just beyond the wooden gate that prevens the average visitors from going on to the crash site, the last possible piece of granite that has been laid here before you step over on to the crash site is the time stamp for United Airlines 93. In 2002 Congress Passes legislation and the president signs into law the flight 93 National Memorial act designating flight 93 National Memorial as a unit of the National Park system and the National Park service. From that point forward, a federal Advisory Commission was appointed to oversee a design, Management Plan for the site as well as the boundary for this memorial and so that was the beginning of the memorial that has taken shape around us. Were stilz not finished with the memorial. There are still a few missing components to the memorial landscape here that we are continuing to add on to, but the majority of the memorial camian line this past year with the dedication of the Visitors Center, the Learning Center and the walking trails that extend from this complex down to the crash site at the Memorial Plaza. The Memorial Plaza itself and the wall that bear the names of the passengers and crew is in white marble and so were looking down over top of that wall from the flight path. Its a continuation of the flight path just before the impact site and the crash site that we protect here. The National Park service protects over 42 acres of ground south of this black wall that you see laid out in front of us. That is the Northern Boundary to the crash site and debris field of flight 93, and so visitors when they leave the Visitors Center can drive or they can walk these trails down to the Memorial Plaza. Its a quarter mile stretch from our visitors shelter that you see from the left out to the flight path wall. Thats the shortest walk and that walk is there because iters seshl essentially protects the airfield and it allows the opportunity to get close to that landscape and to go and pay their respects or leave tributes to the passengers and crew of flight 93. So these tall walls are the Visitors Center, and its sometimes confusing for visitors arriving because it doesnt stand out as a building. They do appear as walls, and the design was based around answering the basic question of where did the plane crash since thats a common question that we receive on flight 93 and because the landscape here is reclaimed mine, its very open sky and very open, sweeping landscape here, its very easy for visitors to become disoriented to locating where flight 93 crashed and so the architect paul murdoch, paul murdoch architects out of los angeles designed the Visitors Center around the orientation of the flight path. And as you turn youre looking down the flight path and you can progress down the pathway here as you pass through the first opening, the entrance to the Visitors Center will be on your lefthand side, but what hes trying to draw the visitor out to is the flight path overlook and when you pass through the second wall, the landscape reopens to your field of vision where you can take in the entire landscape only after hes oriented you though to the flight path and the crash site. So were going to go inside the Visitors Center, but i wanted to just stop here and show you the texture of the walls that appear throughout the memorial on some of our structures. You are going to find this looks like wooden beams which are indicative of some of the barns and older buildings found in southwestern pennsylvania, but it also is a tiein to the Hemlock Grove of trees which was impacted when flight 93 crashed here on september 11th, and so some of the angles that you see here are sort of catch the angles of the eastern hemlock, the branches and the leaf structure and youre going to see that mimicked again in some of the cuts that you see in the sidewalks as we approach in, and you will see it throughout the glass on the thread of glass as well as in the ceiling tile here. So lets take a walk inside and well take a look at the exhibit space that just opened in september 2015. The first panel that you come to on the side here is entitled an ordinary day. Each wall that you come to within the Visitors Center has a black panel that gives you an overview of what each wall will cover, but it was very important to give visitors here especially if they didnt experience september 11th, everyone thinks back to the bright blue sky that there was and so it was important to place people in the context of Somerset County and the area around shanksville, pennsylvania, since this is more of an unfamiliar story, new york city is quite familiar to a number of people, and so as you get progress through the timeline of events you will see that it places you at the three attack sites from that day. So there is some foreshadowing that takes place here, but it places you in arlington, at the pentagon, and it places you in the believed attack site, flight 93 which is the United StatesCapitol Building and so the artifacts that you see behind the case are going to take you to those three places. Youll see theres a Business Card from one of the people that was working for a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald gist showing the routine business as usual aspect of that morning. A military cap from the pentagon as well as a wall plate hanging over an office that would have identified somebodys specific office. The piece that stands out to me the most that i share with people is a lot of people dont realize this is on the evening of september 11th, every year there is a congressional barbecue that the president hosts, and this year it was on september 11th for 2001, and so the members of congress were invited to the white house where they were going to enjoy a couple hundred pounds of tenderloin were being served that was on the menu and after the events began to unfold that morning and they realized they were evacuating washington, d. C. And the barbecues, of course, canceled. A lot of the food that was prepared for this barbecue was sent across to the rescue workers and to provide support at the pentagon. The invitation came to us from a staffer and his son planning to attend the barbecue that evening. So when you first come inside the Visitors Center youll notice that theres these tall black walls and the pattern is very similar to the walls on the exterior of the Visitors Center. When the flight 93 crashes here the thousands of gallons of jet fuel that incinerate on impact scorch 80 to 100 hemlock trees. This black against the wall here is symbolic of the charring of those trees and so hes tying you back to the story constantly as youre moving through the site. So if whether you recognize that or not theres usually questions that come up from visitors about, you know, either the coloration or the angles and it always allows us to tie it back to the story. This wall takes you right into thrusts you right into the events of september 11th and whats happening in new york city initially and so in the center of this exhibit space we have rolling footage and it cuts between different networks. It shows the global aspect of that morning. We have a breaking news story to tell you about. Apparently, a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Center here in new york city. It happened just a few moments ago, apparently. We have very Little Information available at this time. Youre looking at obviously very disturbing live shot there and that is the World Trade Center and we have unconfirmed reports that a plane has crashed into one of the towers. There was an impact. Another one another plane just hit oh, my gosh another plane has just hit another building and flew rid into the middle of it. Explosion. Its right in the middle of the building. We just saw another one apparently go. Another plane just flew into the second [ speaking Foreign Language ] the other thing in the background, you have an image that shows the statue of liberty from new jersey. Should shot is actually taken a number of days after september 11th, but it shows you the smoke thats just still hovering over the city in lower manhattan. The artifacts that were selected for this case were done so very specifically to represent the three sites again and place people at those sites so you have for example, from new york city, you have some of the cutlery from windows on the world. Those are on loan from us from the National September 11th memorial and museum. You have pieces of limestone that were part of the collapsed pentagon and then whats unique here is you have miniature statue of freedom which as people will recognize the u. S. Capitol building is adorned with a 19foot tall version of freedom. Its a little over 19 feet. The architect of the capitol at the time was allen hantman and allen showed up a little before 9 00, i believe, and his story, of course, hes tuning into this news footage about whats happening in new york city, but hes also preparing that morning for a meeting to raise funds for a u. S. Capitol Visitors Center and thats sort of what his morning begins like and as things unfold they learn about the pentagon being attacked and then they are told that about ten minutes out theres this rogue plane thats inbound for wi washington, d. C. Allen hantman later learns that the immediate threat has passed because this plane has crashed in pennsylvania somewhere. And so he later comes here in 2012 and this specific statue of freedom, this desk model of freedom was on his desk that morning. He leaves the statue of freedom in one of the niches that are found at the Memorial Plaza where you will see where visitors have left other tribute items in the path and underneath that he left an architect of the capitol letterhead. He left an official letter and in that letter we have a copy of that and it reads this model of the statue of freedom that stands atop the dome of the United StatesCapitol Building is left with deep respect at the final resting place of the heroes of flight 93. Those that sacrificed their lives here on september 11, 2001, saved mine and those of many thousands of others at the u. S. Capitol building as well as the historic symbol of our democracy known around the world. We have come to shanksville, pennsylvania, to pay our respects and express our deep gratitude of those souls who will never be forgotten. So we cover the leadup or the buildup to september 11th with the time line that takes you through the establishment of al qaeda. Theres a little piece about bin laden, but we very specifically placed it on a rail so you have to get close to this wall in order to be able to read more about this. We did this specifically knowing that some people would not care to and would choose not to step up to the rail and know more about this, and we did this out of sensitivity, as well for the many family members that often visit the site. So after visitors come from this wall, they will turn around and theyre faced with a map of the United States and this is depicting the nearly 4500 aircraft that are in the air that morning and potential threats to the United States that morning and so what was important about this wall was showing just the chaos of trying to sort out correct, factual reports that were coming out from erroneous ones. The other important thing about this wall, though, is it gives you the diagram of flight 93. Flight 93 was a boeing 757 200 and if we get closer here you can see this is where the passengers and crew were ticketed on the morning of september 11th and so the diagram at the end shows you exactly where the passengers were seated, the terrorists, where they took position on the plane in first class that morning and one of the crew members would have been seated. The objects, the artifacts that we used to represent are we have a boarding plaass from hil marsen on flight 93 and toshida kuge woho was on the way to japan. One of the things visitors look at this diagram how underseated flight 93 was and one of the major changes that has occurred since september 11th, there are fewer flights. For example, United Airlines typically flew this flight three times a day from newark to San Francisco and so this plane would have been capable of carrying 182 passengers and of course, that morning theyre ticketed with 33 passengers and seven crew. Thats minus the four twoists th terrorists that were ticketed in the plane. A total of 44 people are going to take off from newark that morning and four of them are not planning, of course, to arrive in San Francisco, but the 33 passengers that are planning to make it to San Francisco that morning are expecting to arrive around a little after 11 00 local time. So well go around the corner to the next exhibit wall. So the next wall that you come to shows flight 93. Its airborne at this point after being delayed over 20 minutes. Flight 93 takes off at 8 42 and its going to begin its gradual climb out of newark airspace. Of course, if youve ever left from newark you realize that the airport is right across the skyline from the World Trade Center and this is four minutes before American Airlines flight 11 is going hit the north tower. Flight 93 gets airborne and climbs out of newark airspace and it will begin its trip for San Francisco and so this gray that you see on the map represents the routine flight across the state of pennsylvania and you can see are barely into ohio when the four terrorists that are on this plane are going to take control of flight 93. Theyre going to incapacitate the first officer and the captain. Captain dolan and first officer homer and theyre going to begin the turn flight 93 around for heading toward washington, d. C. At 9 28 is the approximate time of flight 93. The four will get up from their positions and theyre going to rush the cockpit. This is a gray area. There are some details about this that we just dont know exactly how they took over the plane. We do know from what was recovered at the site that they were carrying knives or box cutters of some type. They did threaten the passengers and crew that were on this plane with a bomb which is later learned to be a faux bomb and after they seize control of the cockpit there is a dip in altitude which gives us the indication when its taken over. If youre following this on the flight data recorder the plane is going to dip a couple hundred feet which is fairly significant. It would have been noticed by air Traffic Control and then the plane becau