By: Todd Spangler
Associated Press
SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - Friends and family of the victims
of United Flight 93 privately shared their grief and memories
at the crash site Tuesday, a day before a public ceremony
marking the one-year anniversary.
Preparations for Wednesday's event were put on hold for
two hours as the nearly 500 people walked on the grassy
field in western Pennsylvania to remember their loved ones,
who investigators believe overpowered the hijackers and
prevented the plane from reaching its target.
Reporters and the public were barred from the site, where
44 people died - including the four hijackers - when the
plane went down Sept. 11 just outside Shanksville.
Family members later described the gathering as a healing
way to remember the passengers and crew.
The gathering was "solemn and sad, and yet celebratory,"
said Alice Hoglan, 52, of Los Gatos, Calif., whose son,
Mark Bingham, was killed. "It was very healing.
It was almost a joyful event for me."
"The most important thing to me is that we do not forget,"
said Hamilton Peterson of Bethesda, Md., who lost his
father and stepmother in the crash.
Some of the relatives and friends were making their first
visit to the site, about 70 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Several spoke about the natural beauty of the site,
against the backdrop of a tree line, and said it was a
fitting resting place.
"It was such a place that was so much about my brother,
that there was actually a comfort in it," said Lori Guadagno,
of Jacksonville, Fla., whose brother, Richard, died.
No formal ceremony was held, but Somerset County coroner
Wallace Miller spoke to the group and some mourners said
words of remembrance. The families were permitted to walk
on the site, which has been enclosed in a security fence.
On Wednesday morning, organizers expected some 20,000
people to attend a public memorial in a field a few hundred
yards away from the crash site.
At 10:06 a.m., the time the plane crashed, a bell will toll as
the name of each victim is read. Scheduled speakers were
to include homeland security chief Tom Ridge, who was
Pennsylvania's governor at the time of the crash, and
Sandy Dahl, the wife of Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl.
President Bush was expected to visit privately with families
at the crash site Wednesday afternoon.
United Flight 93, which was headed from Newark to
San Francisco, was the only one of four flights hijacked
Sept. 11 that did not take a life on the ground. Investigators
believe it was headed for a target in Washington when it
turned east near Cleveland. They believe it was brought
down when people on board confronted the hijackers.
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