SHANKSVILLE — Hundreds of people gathered Friday on the anniversary of 9-11 to remember and honor those killed in the downing of United Airlines Flight 93 in a ceremony next to a new visitor center intended to help keep alive the heroism of passengers and crew.

Relatives of the 33 passengers and seven crew members who died in the terrorist attack read their names as bells also rang on a hill overlooking the crash site.

Flight 93 was headed from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on Sept. 11, 2001, when it was hijacked with the likely goal of crashing it into the White House or Capitol. A passenger revolt ended with it going down in a field about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

“We don’t want our kids to think of this as another plane crash. We want them to know that people chose to save lives at the cost of their own lives,” said Ben Mecham, 39, of Johnstown. He brought his 7-year-old son, Parker, to the ceremony.

His son said the visitor center “is here to honor the people who have died for the sake of the White House and the president and everyone else that was in there.”

“I can’t believe they were brave enough to kill themselves for other people,” he said.

The observance Friday was the first not held at the Flight 93 memorial wall itself, and came one day after the dedication of the $26 million visitor center.

In remarks after the bell-ringing, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the 40 passengers and crew represented “a mosaic of life experiences,” but those differences ceased to exist after the plane was hijacked.

“The passengers did the most American of things: They took a vote. They voted to fight back whatever the cost,” Johnson said.

Calvin Wilson of Herndon, Va., a brother-in-law of Flight 93 co-pilot LeRoy Homer of Marlton, N.J., said the actions of the passengers and crew that day provide America with an enduring lesson.

“Flight 93 will always be a perfect example of how we put our differences aside and work for a common purpose,” he said.

Gov. Tom Wolf said the actions of the passenger and crew “ennobled all of us,” and the keynote speaker, NBC News Chief Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, said they “not only bear repeating but must never be forgotten.”

A Memorial Plaza near the plane crash site consists of a white stone wall that traces the doomed plane’s flight path, with each victim’s name engraved on a separate panel. There still are plans for a 93-foot-tall tower with 40 wind chimes near the entrance of the national park.

More than 1,000 people attended Friday’s observance, and 5,000 to 7,000 were expected to visit the memorial by day’s end, a park service spokesman said.