'Hallowed ground’: A look back at 9/11 attacks and the impact on Shanksville
Here’s a look back at the TribLive’s coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in 2021.
Fate threw them together. Two decades later, the unlikely coalition of Flight 93 family members, residents of Somerset County and the National Park Service that worked for years to preserve the story of what happened aboard that United Airlines jetliner met at the Flight 93 National Memorial, just outside of Shanksville in Stonycreek Township.
• Shanksville remains small, quiet, but forever connected to 9/11
The question is typically answered with a generality — they’re from Pittsburgh, even though they actually make home about 80 miles east. But when a member of the tiny Somerset County community of Shanksville is pressed by a stranger out-of-town to be more specific about where they live …
“They’ll say, ‘Where’s Shanksville?’ And I’ll say, ‘Where the plane went down,’ ” said Robin Lambert.
Often, nothing more needs to be said.
• Teachers rely on Flight 93 Memorial, personal experiences to teach about 9/11
For those who were alive on Sept. 11, 2001, the memories are often vivid. Many remember where they were when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Most remember watching the news, learning of the attacks as they happened.
But today’s students weren’t alive to witness the events as they unfolded. Instead, they learn about the events in classrooms.
Local educators agreed this is one piece of history they can’t simply ask students to read about in a textbook.
• 20 years later, former Shanksville area students recall 9/11
The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, started out like any other for those in the Shanksville-Stonycreek School District.
The yellow building in Stonycreek Township bustled with the start of a new school year as elementary and high school students went about their lessons in the combined building, completed art projects and vied for the Presidential Physical Fitness Award in gym class.
But at 10:03 a.m., everything stopped. There was a loud bang. The school shook.
Frank Monaco was too busy to get emotional on 9/11. Capt. Monaco had been a Pennsylvania State Trooper for more than 25 years when United Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Somerset County, killing 40 passengers and crew members on Sept. 11, 2001.
If Monaco felt anything when he arrived at the site and observed the “big steaming hole in the ground,” it was anger that a terrorist act led to a plane crash that killed innocent people so close to home. But he had seen plenty of death and destruction over his quarter-century on the job and nothing was going to faze him.
• 9/11 served as a call to military service for many Western Pennsylvania residents
Aryanna Hunter, Dan Peters and Barbara Fischer were all 18 years old in 2001. The day before the attacks, Hunter was attending a community college with plans to become an elementary school teacher. Peters was a high school dropout, going nowhere fast. Fischer was already planning to enlist but just as a way to pay for college.
They were three different people, on three different paths, in three different places, who all saw what happened that day and decided to enlist.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.