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Keeping Flight 93 in memory

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Times Staff Writer

The passengers and crew of the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 -- which crashed in rural Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001 after hijackers apparently lost control of the aircraft -- will be memorialized by a park and monument at the site of the crash, designed primarily by the Los Angeles firm of Paul Murdoch Architects.

Details of the winning design were unveiled Wednesday afternoon in Washington, D.C., the city that is believed to have been the intended target of the Flight 93 hijackers.

When the memorial is built, visitors to the crash site, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, will be greeted by a 93-foot circular tower. Within the tower will be 40 wind chimes, one for each passenger and crew member on the flight. The tower will be covered by white glass mosaic tiles, and the inside will be blue to evoke the sky. The tower will be “illuminated as a beacon” at night, according to the project’s website.

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Each victim also will be remembered closer to where the plane went down with individual groves of mixed maple trees. The 40 groves will form a band of vegetation that will define the site’s central bowl, said Warren T. Byrd Jr., a partner in the landscape architecture firm of Nelson Byrd Woltz, which was brought into the process after Murdoch’s bid was selected as one of five finalists.

A walkway to the crash site, which also will be accessible by car, will extend along the route the flight took. It will be lined with maples and illuminated after dark.

The park is also a cemetery -- the victims were incinerated in the crash -- and only the families of victims will be allowed access to the central part of the site, called the “sacred ground.” That area will be planted with seasonal wildflowers and low-maintenance grasses.

In comments to the Washington Post, Paul Murdoch characterized the design as both “open” and “focused,” with much of the terrain between the tower and the area where the plane came down to remain untouched, although he said additional trees will be planted to give definition to fields and views.

Members of the public will be allowed to leave remembrances at a black slate wall and plaza, separated by a 12-foot moat from the sacred ground. The names of the 40 victims will be engraved, in alphabetical order, on a band of translucent white marble.

A visitor center will feature exhibitions and artifacts, including the temporary memorial currently at the site. Visitors will able to leave written tributes.

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The Flight 93 National Memorial will be on National Park Service land, and the federal government has pledged $1 million for the project. The state of Pennsylvania is contributing $10 million.

But most of the funding -- estimated between $30 million and $58 million, including land acquisition -- is to be raised privately. Partners in the project include the Flight 93 Advisory Commission, the Flight 93 Memorial Task Force, the Families of Flight 93 and the Park Service.

The Post reported comments from some of the relatives of the crash’s victims who attended the unveiling of the plans: “I think it is going to give a warmth to the families with the knowledge that the tranquillity of the sacred ground will be preserved,” said Ben Wainio, whose daughter Elizabeth was one of the victims.

“This design managed to capture the spirit of the time and of the place in Pennsylvania, and also what happened on that flight -- the spirit of facing death and taking over the plane,” said Gerald Bingham, whose son, Mark, was killed in the crash. Gerald Bingham was a member of the jury that selected the Murdoch design.

Hamilton Peterson, president of the Families of Flight 93, an organization that has advocated construction of the memorial, told the Post that “optimistically” speaking, groundbreaking could occur in a year or two. He said he also would seek more federal funding for the facility.

More than 1,000 entries were received for the two-stage architectural competition. The first stage, launched on Sept. 11 a year ago, was open to members of the public as well as professionals.

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Flight 93 was en route to San Francisco from Newark, N.J., when it was hijacked. The official 9/11 commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to wrest control of the cockpit from them.

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