Families of those who were aboard United Flight 93 when it crashed in a rural Somerset County field were gathering Thursday morning to mark the 24th observance.
The ceremony is expected to start at 9:45 a.m. in the Memorial Plaza at Flight 93 National Memorial. It will last about 30 minutes and include a couple speakers, ringing of the Bells of Remembrance and the reading of the 40 names of the passengers and crew on the airplane.
United Flight 93 crashed in what was a rural Stonycreek field at 10:03 a.m. Sept. 11, 2001, after being hijacked by terrorists in a coordinated attack. Those aboard fought back to take control of the aircraft after learning other hijacked planes crashed into targets in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Flight 93 was the only plane hijacked that day that did not reach its intended target, believed to be the U.S. Capitol Building.
I’m at Flight 93 National Memorial in Somerset County for the 24th observance of Sept. 11, 2001 for @TribLIVE. It’s a chilly morning but warming up quickly under a cloudless sky. The Moment of Remembrance starts at 9:45. pic.twitter.com/TKckVvOD5d
— Renatta Signorini (@ByRenatta) September 11, 2025
The program is being broadcast live on the memorial’s YouTube page.
Park officials said visitation at the site remains strong. Between 2021 and 2024, the Somerset County memorial saw an average annual visitation of 374,540 people, according to National Park Service statistics. That’s about two and a half times as many average annual visitors — 141,830 — between 2007 and 2010, years before the permanent memorial was finished.