Flight 93 National Memorial

The Flight 93 National Memorial, located near the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, commemorates the lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001, particularly the 40 victims of Flight 93. 

A field in the rural area of Laurel Highlands is now home to several beautiful monuments, designed by Paul Murdoch Architects and Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects, who won an international design contest in 2005 to construct the memorial.

The Tower of Voices, for starters, is a stunning concrete structure that stands 93 feet tall, its height honoring the flight number. The tower is adorned with 40 individual wind chime panels, ranging from 5-feet to 10-feet tall, each with its own pitch to create a harmonious sound when the wind blows. 

At the memorial, you’ll also find a visitors center with information about the Sept. 11th attacks and a self-guided tour. Thoughtful details contribute to the memorial’s emotional weight, including the black granite walkway that follows Flight 93’s path, which is engraved with the timeline of the three other plans that crashed that day in New York City and Washington, D.C. The path leads towards two imposing concrete walls, which are imprinted with designs of hemlock trees, a nod to the hemlock grove at the crash site.

There are also three walking trails at the Flight 93 Memorial. The Allée Trail is a 1.2-mile path that starts near the visitors center and leads visitors along the red maple-lined trail, passing over a bridge to cross wetlands, and ending near the crash site, where you can see a 17-ton sandstone boulder to mark the point of impact. The Western Overlook Trial is shorter, just 0.7 miles, and marks the spot where the families of Flight 93’s victims were first able to view the crash site. Finally, the Trail of Remembrance is a half-mile spur trail that starts near the Memorial Plaza parking lot and ends in the middle of the park.