Effort to replace dead and unhealthy trees at Flight 93 memorial expected to take decades
Officials say it will take decades to replace and revitalize trees at the national memorial in western Pennsylvania to the crew and passengers who died there when a hijacked airplane crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
About 700 dead or unhealthy trees were removed nearly a year ago and work has begun to add topsoil and plan for what is expected to be a lengthy effort to rehabilitate the trees in 40 memorial groves and along a central walkway.
The crescent of groves at the Flight 93 National Memorial commemorate the 40 passengers and crew killed when they acted to force down their airplane hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists before it could be used as a weapon against Washington, D.C. Passengers in the flight from New Jersey to California memorably declared 'let's roll' before moving against the hijackers.
Landscape architect James Mealey said Thursday it may take 40 years before visitors see the fully mature trees, according to the Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown.
Mealey said one issue had been a rushed effort to get the project done. Problems have been attributed to poor soil quality, tree species that did not thrive in conditions at the reclaimed coal strip mine, low quality nursery stock, inadequate irrigation, harsh winters, hungry deer and limited maintenance capacity.
'Obviously, that won't mean that we're planting the last trees in 40 years, but that's sort of how long it takes to establish a landscape of this scale and this complexity," Mealey said. "In terms of the actual, like, replanting, that would take place over the next decade, maybe even into two decades.'
About 2,000 native deciduous trees of various types were planted at the memorial from 2012 to 2016, a key feature of the park's landscape design. The first tree replanting may take place next spring. Money is being raised to pay for the tree revitalization effort.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, when terrorists seized control of four planes. Two were flown into the World Trade Center skyscrapers in New York and the fourth into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
12 hours ago
- Telegraph
How three pizza restaurants predicted Israel's attack on Iran
You can understand why the stress of an all-nighter at the coalface in the Pentagon might lead to an urgent need for carbs, but the next time the world is on the brink of a major conflict, the US Department of Defense might consider sending out for burgers. Their pizza deliveries have become the subject of intense speculation. An account on X, Pentagon Pizza Report, has taken to monitoring the traffic at pizza takeaway spots in Arlington County, Virginia, home of America's military headquarters. And such is the apparent reliability of the so-called 'pizza index', it is now being cited by Open-Source Intelligence sleuths who usually rely on live flight-tracking data, and satellite imagery of troop movements, to spot the early signs of military strikes. On Thursday night, at around 7pm Eastern Standard Time, any establishment slinging dough within three miles of the Pentagon saw a sudden spike in footfall. 'As of 6:59pm ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity.' Only about 10 minutes later, there was a significant drop in footfall in each of these locations. It was as if a gap between meetings had prompted a flurry of takeaway and delivery orders which then tailed off again as work resumed. At 23:55 (by which time most restaurants had closed) one takeaway which stays open until midnight suddenly showed 'busier than usual' activity. 'With minutes left before close District Pizza Palace which is not too far from the Pentagon is experiencing a huge surge in traffic.' Last-minute orders before staff would be forced to resort to whatever was left in the vending machines, perhaps? It's understandable – no one wants a Bounty in a crisis. Five miles away, the Domino's locations near The White House were also experiencing 'above average levels of traffic'. Meanwhile, it was crickets at the local post-work watering holes. Come 10pm and Freddie's Beach Bar, 'the closest gay bar to the Pentagon' had 'abnormally low traffic for a Thursday night. Potentially indicating a busy night at the Pentagon.' And a busy night it was. An hour and a half after the 7pm spike at the pizza restaurants near the Pentagon, explosions were heard in Tehran and Israel's defence minister Israel Katz said the country had launched a ' preemptive strike against Iran.' Asked what 'heads-up' the United States received about the attack, Trump later told the Wall Street Journal: 'Heads-up? It wasn't a heads-up. It was, we know what's going on.' Puerile, perhaps, to use Google's restaurant footfall data to track the ebb and flow of tension in the Pentagon, which houses 24,000 military and civilian employees, and the White House Situation Room, as Israel launched air strikes on Iran. But over the years, pizza delivery patterns in central D.C. have, bizarrely, proven to be an indicator of major geopolitical events. So much so that in an interview in 2010, Wolf Blitzer, who was CNN's military affairs reporter before becoming White House correspondent in 1992, said: 'I always knew there was some sort of crisis going on in the West Wing after hours when I saw the arrival of pizzas. Bottom line for journalists: always monitor the pizzas.' On August 1 1990, pizza orders are said to have spiked as Saddam Hussein prepared to invade Kuwait the following day. When Operation Desert Storm was launched in 1991, Frank Meeks, who owned 59 Domino's franchises in the Washington area, told news outlets his orders soared every time military action was imminent. In 1998, he told the LA Times, there was a similarly busy night during Clinton's impeachment hearings. Meeks claimed that there were telltale signs when a crisis was afoot: the top brass and military analysts took comfort in extra cheese and meat toppings. In December 1998, with Operation Desert Fox (a major bombing campaign against Iraq) underway, 'the White House ordered 32 per cent more extra-cheese pizzas than normal', the Washington Post reported. Meanwhile, some say the pizza theory dates back to the Cold War, when Soviet intelligence services were said to have monitored deliveries, deeming a spike to be a sign the US was on manoeuvres. It sounds far-fetched, although those paying close attention to the recent rising tensions between Israel and Ira n may have learned more from monitoring @PenPizzaReport than the X account of US defence journalists. On April 13 2024, there was a spike in traffic at the capital's pizza restaurants shortly after Iran launched drones into Israeli territory. Google says its live charts showing how busy individual restaurants and takeaways are is based on 'aggregated and anonymised data' from the devices of those who share their location history with the search giant. That, in theory, could include both customers picking up their own takeaway orders, and drivers working for food delivery firms. With less than 8 minutes left to closing time, this Dominos continues to experience very high levels of activity. — Pentagon Pizza Report (@PenPizzaReport) June 13, 2025 The charts themselves offer little detail about the surge in footfall. Did the military top brass send Pentagon interns out to fetch their pizzas on Thursday night? Or did Uber Eats have a particularly busy evening? The Domino's at 2602 Columbia Pike – the closest to the Pentagon, with a 3.8 rating – is an eight-minute drive away. Faster, you'd imagine, on a delivery bike, and a good 50-minute walk. You can't keep the generals waiting for their potato wedges. Who knows what button they might press when they're hangry.
Daily Mirror
17 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
Aviation experts say 'every incident it gets safer' after Air India tragedy
After the tragic Air India Flight 171 crash killed over 200 people, aviation experts are reassuring viewers on This Morning that aviation is still one of the safest ways to travel Aviation experts have spoken out following the tragic crash of Air India Flight 171, which killed at least 241 people on board and eight more on the ground, insisting that air travel remains one of the safest modes of transport. A female aviation analyst appeared on ITV's This Morning, telling viewers that while plane-related tragedies are devastating, they remain incredibly rare. She said: "Of course there is a risk when you go into a metal container that is seven miles above the planet. "There is an element of risk to everything we do, but it is still more dangerous to ride your bike down the street or to get in a car than it is to fly on an aircraft." She continued to defend air travel, adding: "What doesn't make the news is the boring story of the aircraft taking off, flying where it's supposed to, and landing again. We do learn in aviation from the mistakes that have happened or design errors that have happened. Whatever the findings are from this investigation, procedures will be put in place to make sure this can never happen again." Meanwhile, another expert sat beside her insisted: "There's been learning since the dawn of aviation. Things happen, procedures are set in place, design changes are made to prevent it happening again. So every incident, it gets safer." The expert comments come in the wake of one of the worst aviation disasters since the tragic 9/11 terror attacks. Air India Flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, crashed into a residential area in Ahmedabad just minutes after take-off on Thursday (June 12). The aircraft issued a mayday call moments before vanishing from radar, with the captain saying: "Mayday… no thrust, losing power, unable to lift." Eyewitnesses captured harrowing footage of the plane descending nose-up before exploding in a massive fireball. There were 241 passengers on board along with crew members. The crash also claimed the lives of eight people on the ground, including medical students and their family members living in nearby buildings. British national Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, miraculously survived the crash. He has spoken to press from the hospital, saying: "The lights started flickering — green and white — then the plane rammed into some establishment… I saw people dying in front of my eyes. I don't know how I survived." His family in Leicester said they were "devastated" to learn of the crash and shocked that Vishwash made it out alive. He has been treated for facial injuries and was pictured being comforted by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a hospital visit. Former This Morning editor Martin Frizell has paid tribute to a former guest on the show, wellness coach Fiongal Greenlaw, who is feared to have died in the crash along with his husband Jamie Meek. Martin said Fiongal was "vibrant and full of enthusiasm" during his appearance on the ITV show, adding: "Thoughts are with his family and friends and those of his partner Jamie." Investigators are hoping to find out what exactly caused the catastrophic engine failure after recovering a black box from the Air India Flight 171.
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Scottish Sun
Air India crash has highest number of British deaths in a flight disaster since 9/11 terror attacks
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THE Air India crash has resulted in the highest number of British deaths in a flight disaster since the 9/11 terror attacks. A total of 52 British citizens were last night missing, feared dead, after rescue teams recovered more than 200 bodies at the crash site. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 14 Firefighters hose down the scene after the Air India horror crash Credit: Reuters 14 Landing gear from the plane at the scene Credit: EPA 14 The tail of the plane is seen hanging from the edge of a building after the crash Credit: AFP The toll of 67 Brits killed in the 9/11 attacks in 2001 on New York's World Trade Centre was higher. The last major UK air disaster saw 47 people killed in January 1989 when a Boeing 737 attempting an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport crashed on an embankment of the M1 near Kegworth, Leics. In August 1985, a British Airtours Boeing 737 bound for Corfu caught fire on the runway at Manchester Airport, killing 55 on board. But the deadliest air crash in Britain remains the 1972 Staines Air Disaster, when a BEA flight crashed on take-off from Heathrow. All 118 people on board were killed. READ MORE ON AIR INDIA CRASH LEAD UP TO DISASTER I was on doomed jet HOURS before crash - 'nothing' on board was working And in 1988, the Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie terror attack killed 43 British citizens, including 11 on the ground in the Scottish border town. Last night, a team of British air crash investigators was being rushed to the crash scene in Ahmedabad, India, as theories swirled about possible causes of the disaster. They included pilot error, a bird or drone strike, or a freak change in wind direction causing a deadly double-engine stall. Concerns over possible pilot error by experienced Captain Sumeet Sabharwal centred on video of the Dreamliner's plunge. It appeared to show the twin-engine jet's wing flaps retracted — possibly too early — moments before the crash. Pilots and experts said it is vital that the flaps are set to the correct position at take-off to maximise lift. Air India passenger plane 'carrying up to 242 people heading for UK' crashes in fireball near Ahmedabad Airport Wheels and the undercarriage are also supposed to be lifted quickly once the plane is airborne, to reduce drag. But video footage of the crash jet shows its wheels were still down as it began descending. A disastrous strike from a flock of birds is also possible, but not obvious from video footage. Weather may also be a factor, with temperatures at the time of take-off close to 40C (104F). But reports suggested the air was relatively still and there were no signs of freak gusts, either from locals or on the video. The only other possible cause would be a technical fault in one of the most modern and reliable aircraft flying today. 14 December 1988: 43 Brits died in the Lockerbie terrorist bombing Credit: Getty 14 September 2001: 67 Brits died in jet attack on the Twin Towers Credit: Reuters 14 June 2025: 52 UK residents missing in today's crash A man who claimed he was a passenger on the doomed plane on a previous flight hours earlier posted a video appearing to show the air conditioning, TV screens and lights not working on board. Akash Vatsa posted on X that he noticed 'unusual things' during its flight from Delhi to Ahmedabad on Thursday morning. In the footage, he can be heard saying: 'The AC is not working at all. As usual, your TV screens are also not working, neither is the button to call the cabin crew. Nothing is working. Not even the light is working.' Mr Vatsa said he originally filmed the clip to make a complaint to Air India, but shared it online following the disaster to highlight issues with the doomed plane. 14 Since its launch in 2011, the Boeing Dreamliner has had a near- faultless safety record and been involved in no fatal accidents. But teams of Boeing experts were being scrambled in the US last night in a bid to head off safety concerns — which have blighted the company's image in recent years. There are more than 1,100 787s in service, with most major international airlines prizing the model's fuel efficiency and low noise levels. Officials from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau were last night scouring the crash scene for the jet's black boxes, which should provide vital data. FOUR CRASH THEORIES WING FLAPS IN WRONG POSITION VIDEO evidence suggests the flaps were retracted and landing gear down, which would have meant minimal lift and increased drag. One theory is the landing gear was stuck and pilots retracted the flaps to reduce drag or the flaps were faulty, causing the plane to stall. A BIRD STRIKE CRIPPLED ENGINES A BIRD strike could have taken out both of the plane's General Electric engines. In 2021, a Dreamliner aborted take-off in Mexico after birds flew into one of its engines. A study in 2018 found Ahmedabad airport had 'a high potential of bird-aircraft collision hazards'. MISTAKE BY ONE OF THE PILOTS THE 787-8 is highly automated with pilots making key decisions, but human error cannot be ruled out. There was a mayday from the cockpit. Capt Sumeet Sabharwal, a trained flight instructor, had 8,000 hours' experience and his co-pilot more than 1,000. PLANE DIDN'T USE ENOUGH RUNWAY PLANES get less lift on a hot day due to lower air density, so need to go faster. Flight AI171 took off in 40C heat in the early afternoon sunshine. It's suggested the amount of runway used was less than 2,000m when a full plane on a hot day usually needs a run of 2,500m. They record all actions taken by pilots and audio from the cockpit. Lt Col John R Davidson, a former US Air Force pilot and commercial aviation safety consultant, said: 'There are a number of possible scenarios — thrust or engine performance issues, excessive aircraft weight, poor flap configuration — or a more critical failure that affected the aircraft's ability to climb. 'Weather, wind shear or even bird strike can't be ruled out.' Capt Saurabh Bhatnagar, a former senior pilot, said footage showing the plane's descent 'looked like a case of multiple bird hits wherein both the engines have lost power'. He added: 'The take-off was perfect and just, I believe, short of taking the gear up, the aircraft started descending. 'This can happen only in the case the engine loses power or the aircraft stops developing lift.' India yesterday accepted an offer of assistance from the UK's specialist air accident investigation team and a unit was en route. Boeing boss Kelly Ortberg last night said: 'Our deepest condolences go out to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Air India Flight 171, as well as everyone affected in Ahmedabad.' 14 Brit couple Fiongal and Jamie Greenlaw-Meek, who are feared dead, posted this a video from the airport before boarding the doomed flight 14 Also feared dead are British couple Akeel Nanabawa and Hannaa Voraje with their daughter Sara Credit: PA 14 Pilots issued a mayday call in the air Credit: X 14 Huge plumes of black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky Credit: X 14 Video showing Brit survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh walking out of the crash Credit: Twitter 14 People stand near debris at the site of the plane crash Credit: EPA 14 Firefighters work at the site of the plane crash Credit: AFP
