SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) – Gordon Felt knew his brother was sitting directly in front of two of the terrorists who hijacked United Airlines Flight 93.
But it “never really hit me,” Felt said, until he walked through the new, immersive visitor center at the Flight 93 National Memorial. There it was, the seating chart with his sibling’s name on it: Edward Felt, first class, second row.
“It kind of came crashing back,” said Felt, whose brother took part in a passenger revolt that brought the plane down in a southwestern Pennsylvania field. “Those feelings that were always there – the emotion, the anger, the sense of loss – really are drawn back to the surface.”
Sitting on a hill overlooking the crash site near Shanksville, the $26 million visitor center complex will be dedicated and opened to the public on Thursday, one day before the annual 9/11 observances in Pennsylvania, New York and Washington. Victims’ family members got a private tour on Wednesday.
Fourteen years in the making, the center uses photos, video, artifacts and interactive displays to tell the story of Flight 93, the only jetliner among the four commandeered by terrorists that failed to reach its intended target on Sept. 11, 2001. Two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York and one slammed into the Pentagon outside Washington. More than 3,000 people died.