Flight 93 National Memorial

By Melanie Brezniak Eastern Region, USDA Forest Service Twenty years have passed since the 9/11 attacks, yet there’s a feeling of permanence in a hemlock grove that stands where so many lives were lost that day in southwestern Pennsylvania. Here, the Flight 93 National Memorial draws visitors to the grove’s almost cathedral-like canopy. But for hemlocks to endure at this site, bearing witness to history, it takes the teamwork of partners led by the National Park Service (NPS). Among those partners is the Forest Service and their behind-the-scenes role defending the lofty hemlock from a tiny yet formidable threat — hemlock woolly adelgid. Flight 93 was the last of the four hijacked planes to take off on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. When reports of the other flights began to reach Flight 93’s passengers and crew, a group attempted to take back control of the plane before it was crashed by the hijackers in a field near Shanksville, PA. This group’s heroism prevented the plane from reaching what was likely a Washington target.   Dedicated in 2011 and administered by the NPS, the Flight 93 National Memorial includes the 38-acre crash site and encompasses over two thousand acres. With the reforestation effort taking place on this former mining site, about half of those acres are now forested. While the larger memorial includes a mix of tree species, at its core is an 11-acre grove of almost all hemlock trees. This grove was standing when the plane made impact 20 ...