One passenger had been a stewardess. On the phone with her husband, she spoke calmly, as if all her disaster training had kicked into action. One of the callers spoke as if he were dealing with a problem at the office.
Another was a pilot. He'd never flown a jumbo jet, but he would try. If the others could get him into the cockpit, he would do his best. He would need a lot of hand-holding from the air controllers, he said - as if he'd get his chance to work a miracle.
Kathi, a nurse, now spends most of her time describing the last minutes of Flight 93 to visitors and recording oral histories from everyone involved in the events that followed the plane's crash. Some 385 of these accounts have been compiled so far. Two men at a nearby scrap heap felt a large shadow passing overhead just before the crash.
Assuming that many Americans would want to visit the site, some in Shanksville decided to be part of the remembrances. "There needed to be a point of human contact," Kathi said.
More than 125,000 people have come to the still largely barren site every year. They and their children leave an assortment of tributes: religious medals, crosses, toy cars, dolls and peace signs. Schoolchildren built benches for the visitors, engraving them with the names of the 40 passengers.
As part of the memorial, there will be a walkway approximating the final descent of the plane. Visitors will be able to walk where the plane struck the ground. There will be wind chimes and a 93-foot "Tower of Voices."
From the day of the crash, this land has been consecrated - hallowed and preserved as a memorial to those who voted, perished and rolled into history.
C. Fraser Smith is senior news analyst at WYPR-FM. His column appears Sundays in The Sun. His e-mail is fsmith@wypr.org.
