SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — On Wednesday President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Former President Donald Trump all helped lead this day of remembrance for the 9/11 anniversary.
All three appeared today at the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania which is about four and a half hours south of Buffalo.
2 On Your Side traveled there the day before to better understand its' significance and to speak with a relative of one of those on board that plane.
Gordon Felt, who is a representative of the Families of Flight 93, told us "There's something very special about this site. This sacred ground. And the closer that people get to sacred ground, you can feel a presence here. You can feel that spirit of heroism."
Felt, who is from the Utica area, says his then 41-year-old brother Edward - a married father of two daughters - was on a business trip aboard that United jetliner.
The passengers had learned from phone calls what happened with planes hitting the New York City towers and the Pentagon in Washington.
And it was later determined the hijacker's target was the U.S. Capitol which was just 125 miles or 20 minutes away by air from where the plane went down.
Felt says "It happened very quickly. At first, we got news that Ed - you know - was gone."
But he says they eventually learned more about what happened as the 40 passengers and crew members set up an attack on the hijackers of their plane.
"Knowing that he was part of that first battle that was won against the terrorists - kinda helps me process the senselessness of what happened that day."
Felt adds "When we first came to this site shortly after September 11th and we saw the crater in the ground, and we could smell the jet fuel, and we saw the destruction, and the death...we also saw people holding up signs and waving flags. That's when it really hit home that this is more than just the loss of a brother....a dearly loved brother that helped to do something extraordinary."
Parts of the memorial were dedicated back in 2011. More have been added since then.
This memorial is designed to give you a much better sense of what happened in the skies above Pennsylvania and in that hallowed ground back on September 11th, 2001.
The now 2,200-acre memorial site, run by the National Park Service, is focused towards the original 50-acre debris field marked by a boulder as the inverted plane traveling 600 miles an hour struck the ground.
The memorial includes polished wall panels inscribed with the names of the 40 passengers and crew members mentioning one as a mother-to-be.
Those panels interlocked to simulate them banding together to battle the terrorists.
National Park Service Ranger Katie Hostetler further explains "Above on a ridge overlooking the crash site is the Visitors Center. The Visitors Center also frames that flight path Those two giant portal walls kind of focusing your eyesight straight ahead - telling the story through time stamps there - what happened during the morning. And then when you open up through that opening you see what happened here in this open field."
The Visitors Center has various exhibits and even recordings from home answering machines of the passengers and crew calling loved ones to say farewell.
There is also a 90-foot Tower of Voices with 40 tuned wind chimes to represent the victims.
Of course that includes Gordon Felt's brother Edward.. Felt says "There was heroism in New York and at the Pentagon and here that day. And I think that it's critical that people visit all three of the sites to get the full picture and the scope of the events."
For more information on the Flight 93 Memorial, you can check with the National Park Service.