SV students part of Flight 93 webcam event
CRANBERRY TWP — The Flight 93 Memorial is about 100 miles from the township, but students at Haine Middle School on Friday were able to ask questions directly to the National Park Service employees there.
The school in the Seneca Valley district was one of several chosen to participate in an interactive broadcast that the Park Service provided this year for the first time. The program called “Action to Honor” included an all-day broadcast from the memorial that was available online. Students in the middle school also tuned in.
The memorial near Shanksville in Somerset County commemorates the fourth and final plane crash caused by the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. Sunday is the 15th anniversary of the attacks.
During the 50-minute program, park staff gave a presentation detailing what happened before, during and after terrorists hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 that day.
The plane took off from Newark, N.J., and was bound for San Francisco. Some believe the hijackers intended to crash it into the U.S. Capitol Building or the White House. However the plane’s takeoff was delayed, which allowed some of the passengers to get word about the two planes crashing into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington.
They planned a “revolt” while in the air and caused to plane to crash in a field, causing zero deaths of people on the ground.
“They were 40 individuals who didn’t sit idly by, who stood up and took action,” one of the park service presenters said.
Also speaking was Ken Nacke, whose brother Louis “Joey” Nacke was one of the passengers on the plane. His brother is celebrated for helping to disrupt the hijacking, but also for being a beloved friend and family member.
“It’s amazing what 40 people did in 30 minutes, but Flight 93 was not the defining moment of their lives,” he said.
About 40 sixth-grade students along with teachers Stacy Harding and Victoria Hinchee participated in the program and were able to ask questions of the memorial’s staff through a webcam.
Student James Nguyen asked what would have happened to the country if the plane had made it to its destination. The staff responded that it would have led to more deaths, and it could have badly disrupted the federal government’s ability to function.
Following the program, several students said they enjoyed the “online field trip” and would be interested in visiting the memorial in person to learn more. “It was really cool how we could see the people and visit the memorial from the classroom,” Georgia Denton said.
Colin Clark said that the students learned about the attacks in social studies class, but the program gave more detail and was able to show photographs and artifacts from the memorial.
“It was great that the national park service was able to set up something like this right from Shanksville,” he said.
The crash caused a crater in a field that was once a mine. In the years since it has been filled in and planted with wildflowers. Volunteers have also planted more than 50,000 new trees on the property, to replace the many hemlock trees that were killed.
The park service has kept the more than 60,000 tributes that were erected or sent to the site by people from around the world. Some are on display at the memorial, while most are stored in the Iron Mountain facility in northern Butler County.
A permanent memorial was opened last year, but it is not finished. There also are plans for a 93-foot stone “tower of voice” that will have tubes and chimes that will make sounds from wind.
In recognition of the 15th anniversary of the attacks, Seneca Valley students observed a moment of silence Friday and wore red, white and blue.
Harmony Fire District also flew a large American flag at the district’s secondary campus using a ladder truck.
