with though supreme court back in session, we have a special web page to help you follow the court. go to c-span.org and select supreme court near the top of the page. you'll see a calendar for this term and current supreme court justices. watch oral arguments we've aired and recent c-span appearances by supreme court justices at c-span.org. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. tonight on c-span3, it's american history tv in primetime with our original series" american artifacts." first we learn about the

hijacked plane that crashed in pennsylvania on 9/11 while touring the flight 93 national memorial located just outside of shanksville, pennsylvania. that's followed by a look at documents related to the freedom of information act. then we tour the "uss wisconsin" to learn about the battleship's history throughout world war ii and the gulf war. and later, a look at the home of a 19th century jewish family who were the first to live in norfolk, virginia. each week, america history tv's american artifacts visits museums and historic places. next we travel to somerset county, pennsylvania, to visit the flight 93 national memorial and take a tour of the visitors center which details the events of september 11th, 2001. the memorial is the final resting place of 40 passengers and crew whose decisive actions prevented four al qaeda hijackers from crashing a united

airlines 757 into the likely target, the u.s. capitol building. this program is just under an hour. >> i'm adam shaffer and a park ranger at flight 93 memorial. today we'll take a look inside the flight 93 visitors center which was dedicated in september of 2015. we're currently standing out at the end of the flight path overlook. so we're standing on the shadow of the flight path that flight 93 would have been on just before impact in the ground behind me. and the reason we're standing here is because this orientation for visitors is central to the design of the visitors center itself. the walls of the visitors center shield the visitors' view of the landscape around us here and the enormity of the landscape. and only frame the flight path as you approach the visitors

center entrance. and so as you're coming off the parking lot, you have to walk the flight path this plane was on just before it crashed. and a tall walls help to frame the last piece of sky that flight 93 passes through before impact here. so one of the first things that visitors notice as they're walking the flight path from the parking lot to our visitors center is the time stamps that are embedded in the ground. this time stamp represents the first plane striking the north tower in new york city that morning at 8:46. the second time stamp as you look down the flight path represents the second plane hitting the south tower. we have some geese flying overhead here. third time stamp is going to represent american airlines flight 77. and if you continue beyond the visitors center down to our memorial plaza where the names of the passengers and crew are listed, continuing to walk the

flight path, just beyond the wooden gate that prevents the average visitors from going on to the crash site, the last possible piece of granite that's been laid here before you step over onto the crash site is the time stamp for united airlines flight 93. in 2002, congress passes legislation and the president signs into law the flight 93 national memorial act designating flight 93 national memorial as a unit of the national park system and national park service. from that point forward, a federal advisory commission was appointed to oversee a design. management plan for the site. as well as the boundary for this memorial. and so that was the beginning of the memorial that has taken shape around us. we're still not finished with the memorial. there's still a few missing

components to the memorial landscape here that we're continuing to add on to. but the majority of the memorial came online this past year with the dedication of the visitors center, the learning center and the walking trails that extend from this complex down to the crash site at the memorial plaza. the memorial plaza itself and the wall that bear the name of the passengers and crew is in white marble. and so we're looking down over top of that wall from the flight path. it's a continuation of the flight path just before the impact site and the crash site that we protect here. the national park service protects over 42 acres of ground south of this black wall that you see laid out in front of us. that is the northern boundary to the crash site and debris field of flight 93. and so visitors when they leave the visitors center can drive or

they can walk these trails down to the memorial plaza. it's a quarter mile stretch from our visitors shelter that you see on the left out to the flight path wall. that's the shortest walk. and that walk is there because it essentially protects the crash site and debris field but allows visitors the opportunity to get close to that landscape and to go and pay their respects or leave tributes to the passengers and crew of flight 93. so these tall walls are the visitors center. and that's sometimes confusing for visitors arriving because it doesn't stand out as a building. they do appear as walls. and the design was based around answering the basic question of, where did the plane crash? since that's a common question that we receive here at flight

93. and because the landscape here is reclaimed mine. so it's very open sky. it's very open sweeping landscape here. it's very easy for visitors to become disoriented, to locating where flight 93 crashed. and so the architect paul murdock. paul murdock architects out of los angeles designed the visitor center around the orientation of the flight path. and as you turn, you're looking down the flight path. and you can progress down the pathway here as you pass through the first opening. the entrance to our visitors center will be on your left-hand side. but what he's trying to draw the visitor out to is our flight path overlook. and when you pass through the second wall, the landscape reopens to your field of vision where you can take in the entire landscape only after he's oriented you, though, to the

flight path and the crash site. so we're going to go inside the visitors center. i wanted to stop here and show you the texture of the walls that appear throughout the memorial on some of our structures. you'll find this looks like hand hyun wooden beams which are indicative of some of the barns and older buildings found in southwestern pennsylvania. but it's also a tie-in to the hemlock grove of trees which was impacted when flight 93 crashed here on september 11th. and so some of the angles that you see here are -- sort of catch the angles of the eastern hemlock. the branches and the leaf structure. you'll see that mimicked again in some of the cuts that you see in the sidewalks as we approach

in. and you're going to see it throughout the glass and in the ceiling tile here. so let's take a walk inside and look at the exhibit space that just opened in september of 2015. the first panel that you come to on the side here is titled "an ordinary day." and each wall that you come to within the visitors center has this glass panel that gives you an overview of what each wall is going to cover. but it was very important to give visitors here, especially if they didn't experience september 11th, everybody thinks back to the bright blue sky that there was. and so it was important to place people in the context of somerset county and the area around shanksville, pennsylvania. since this is more of an

unfamiliar story, new york city is quite familiar to a number of people. and so as you progress through the timeline of events, you'll see that it places you at the three attack sites from that day. so there is some foreshadowing that takes place he but it places you in arlington, at the pentag pentagon. it places you at the believed attack site of flight 93 which is the united states capitol building. and so the artifacts that you see behind the case are going to take you to those three places. you'll see there's a business card from one of the people that was working for a subsidiary of canter fitzgerald, showing the routine business as usual aspect of that morning. a military cap from the pentagon, as well as a wall plate that was hanging over an office that would have

identified somebody's specific office space. i think the piece that's stands out to me the most, the story that i like to share with people because a lot of people don't realize this is on the evening of september 11th there was -- every year there's a congressional barbecue that the president hosts. and this year it was on september 11th for 2001. and so the members of congress were invited to the white house where they were going to enjoy a couple hundred pounds of tenderloin were being served on the menu. after the events began to unfold that's morning, and they realized they were evacuating washington, d.c., and they had barbecue is, of course, canceled, a lot of the food that was prepared for this barbecue was sent across to the rescue workers and to provide support at the pentagon. the invitation came to us from a staffer and his son planning to

attend the barbecue that evening. so when you first come inside the visitors center, you'll notice there's these tall black walls. the pattern is very similar to the walls on the exterior of the visitor center. when flight 93 crashes here, the thousands of gallons of jet fuel that incinerate on impact scorch 80 to 100 hemlock trees. this black against the wall here is symbolic of the charring of those trees. and so he's tying you back to the story constantly as you're moving through the site. so whether you recognize that or not, there's usually questions that come up from visitors about, you know, either the coloration or the angles. and it always allows us to tie it back to the story.

this wall takes you right into -- thrusts you right into the events of september 11th and what's happening in new york city initially. and so in the center of this exhibit space we have rolling footage. and it cuts between different networks. it shows the global aspect of that morning. >> we have a breaking news story to tell you about. apparently a plane has just crashed into the world trade center here in new york city. it happened just a few moments ago apparently. we have very little information available at this point in time. >> you're looking at, obviously, a very disturbing live shot there. that is the world trade center. we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers. >> -- what caused it or if there was an impact. >> another plane just hit. >> oh, my gosh. >> another plane has just hit another building. going right into the middle of it. an explosion. my god, it's right in the middle of the building.

>> we just saw another one apparently, though, another plane just flew into the second tower. >> the other thing in the background you have an image that shows the statue of liberty from new jersey. this shot is actually taken a number of days after september 11th, but it shows you the smoke that's just still hovering over the city in lower manhattan. the artifacts that were selected for this case were done so very specifically to represent the three sites again. and place people at those sites. so you have from the, for example, from new york city, you have some of the cutlery from windows on the world. so those are on loan to us from the national september 11th memorial and museum. you have pieces of limestone that were part of the collapsed

pentagon. and then what's unique here is you have miniature statue of freedom, which, as people will recognize, the u.s. capitol building is adorned with a 19-foot tall version of freedom. it's a little over 19 feet. the architect of the capitol at the time was alan hantman, and alan showed up that morning, a little before 9:00, i believe, and his story, of course, he's tuning in to this news footage about what's happening in new york city. but he's also preparing that morning for a meeting to raise funds for a u.s. capitol visitors center. and so that's sort of what his morning begins like. and as things unfold, they learn about the pentagon being attacked. and then they're told about ten minutes out, there's this rogue plane that's inbound for washington, d.c. so the evacuation begins of the

u.s. capitol building. and alan hantman later learns that the immediate threat is passed because this plane has crashed in pennsylvania somewhere. and so he later comes here in 2012 and this specific statue of freedom, this desk model of freedom, was on his desk that morning. he leaves the statue of freedom in one of the niches found at the memorial plaza where you'll see where visitors have left other tribute items in the past. and underneath that, he left on architect of the capitol letterhead, he left an official letter. and in that letter, we have a copy of that. it reads, this model of the statue of freedom that stands atop the dome of the united states capitol building is left with deep respect at the final resting place of the heroes of flight 93. those who sacrificed their lives here on september 11th, 2001,

saved mine and those of many thousands of others at the u.s. capitol building, as well as the historic symbol of our democracy known around the world. we have come to shanksville, pennsylvania, to pay our respects and express our deep gratitude of those souls who will never be forgotten. so we cover the lead-up or build-up to september 11th with a timeline that takes you through the establishment of al qaeda. there's a little piece about bin laden. but we very specifically placed it on a rail so you have to get close to this wall in order to be able to read more about this. we did this specifically knowing that some people would not care to -- and would choose not to step up to the rail and know more about this. and we did this out of sensitivity as well for the many family members that often visit the site. so after visitors come from this

wall, they're going to turn around and they're faced with a map of the united states. and this is depicting the nearly 4,500 aircraft that are in the air that morning and potential threats to the united states that morning. and so what was important about this wall was showing just the chaos of trying to sort out correct, factual reports that were coming out from erroneous ones. the other important thing about this wall, though, is it gives you the diagram of flight 93. flight 93 was a boeing 757-200. and if we get closer here, you can see, this is where all of the passengers and crew were ticketed for on the morning of september 11th. and so the diagram at the end shows you exactly where the passengers were seated. the terrorists, where they took

position on the plane in first class that morning. and where the crew members would have been seated. the objects, the artifacts that we used to represent our -- we have a boarding pass from hilda marson who was the oldest person on the flight. and to a flyer headed back to japan. one thing they notice when they look at this diagram is how underseated flight 93 was. and one of the major changes that has occurred since september 11th is there's been a number of aircraft mergers. there are fewer flights, for example, united airlines typicaltypica typically flew this flight three times a day from newark to san francisco. so this plane would have been capable of carrying 182 passengers. and, of course, that morning,

they are ticketed with 33 passengers and 7 crew. that's minus the 4 assist terr that were ticketed in the first class section of the plane. total of 44 people are going to take off from newark that morning. and four of them are not planning, of course, to arrive in san francisco. but the 33 passengers that are planning to make it to san francisco that morning are expecting to arrive around a little after 11:00 local time. so we'll go around the corner to the next exhibit wall. the next wall that you come to shows flight 93. it's airborne at this point after being delayed over 20 minutes. flight 93 takes off at 8:42. and it's going to begin its gradual climb out of newark air space. of course, if you have ever left from newark, you realize that's the airport is right across the skyline from the world trade

center. and so this is four minutes before american airlines flight 11 is going to hit the north tower. flight 93 gets airborne. it climbs out of newark air space and it's going to begin its trip for san francisco. and so this gray that you see on the map represents the routine flight across the state of pennsylvania and you can see they are barely into ohio when the four terrorists that are on this plane are going to take control of flight 93. they're going to incapacitate the first officer and the captain, captain dolan and first officer homer. and they're going to begin the turn, flight 93 around for heading towards washington, d.c. at 9:28 is the proximate time of the takeover. the four hijackers seated in first class are going to get up

from their positions, and they're going to rush the cockpit. this is a gray area. there are some details about this that we just don't know exactly how they took over the plane. we do know from what was recovered at the site that they were carrying knives or box cutters of some type. they did threaten the passengers and crew that were on this plane with a bomb, which is later learned to be a faux bomb. and after they seize the control of the cockpit, there's a little bit of a dip in the altitude which really gives us the indication when the plane is taken over. so if you're following this on the flight data recorder, the plane is going to dip a couple hundred feet, which is fairly significant. it would have been noticed by air traffic control. and then the plane, because of being on autopilot, is going to come up to its assigned cruising

altitude around 35,000 feet. the plane is going to manually be flown in a bank until it is -- so there's this steep bank and it's going to continue to climb up to about 40,000 feet in altitude before it reaches its heading. the terrorists are going to use the heading of 120, which is going to take them back to washington, d.c. and you can see that draws a pretty straight line. and the idea was from the tactics that they were using, they were planning to lock on to, when they were within range of reagan airport, they were going to lock on to the airport to help draw them in closer to washington, d.c. so the diagram that you see now depicts the change from the time of the hijacking from where the passengers and the crew would have been originally seated.

and so you can see by the yellow blocks indicated on the diagram, the passengers and crew, wherever they were originally ticketed, they've gotten up from their seats, and they've moved to the back of the aircraft. and these represent seats where phone calls, where air phone calls would have been placed from on board the flight. so we know that there were 37 attempted phone calls. we don't know if that represents all of the phone calls because there were some cell phone calls made, but most of the calls during the portion of the flight after the time of the hijacking were placed from air phones. these are satellite-based phones that passengers would have used their credit cards to swipe. and it leaves an excellent record for us now looking back to know that these calls were attempted. we know who they called, and -- or who they attempted to call if the calls weren't connected. and we are able to go back to

either transcripts or in some cases, we have the actual recording of some of the calls that were left on answering machines. and so these blocks represent the area of the aircraft where these calls are being placed from. and you can see from the timeline that is just to the right here how the passengers and crew from their phone calls and from what we've been able to gather from different phone calls, a plan is being formulated to do something about their situation. they are learning very quickly in the early calls about the takeover that has occurred on other aircraft. and that the world trade center, as well as the pentagon have been struck by aircraft. and so what they are being told is, by the terrorists on their flight, is that they're going back to the airport to have demands met, which was common

strategy being applied in reverse. and what i mean by that is, the faa developed what is known as common strategy for people in the airline industry in hijack situations. and it was really how you should respond. and so some of the passive responses in years past is what a lot of the crew members would have been taking with them on board the plane that morning and how to respond to the hijacking initially. because of these phone calls and the knowledge of what they are deal with, the planes after they're being hijacked, allows them to develop a completely new strategy while they're in the air that morning. and that strategy is that they are going to attempt to retake control of this aircraft. we learn that the passengers and crew took a vote from the back of the plane to do something.

that they would not sit idly by and wait for something else to happen that they themselves were going to take action on board flight 93. and so that is best illustrated then in the center of this exhibit space where you are actually viewing the information that has come back from the flight data recorder. so this is the first box that's recovered out of the ground here at the crash site of flight 93, two days after the crash. but it allows the visitor to basically see exactly how flight 93 was flying in the final six minutes when they implement the plan of fighting back and trying to regain control of flight 93. the terrorists are going to manipulate the controls to make it difficult for the passengers and crew to gain access to the cockpit. so that's provided by the national transportation safety

board. at the top, you'll see the cockpit voice recorder is the narrative is across the top. so you can see in realtime what is unfolding on the cockpit voice recorder in the front of the plane where there's four microphones that capture the voices in and around the cockpit space. and that is paired up with how the plane is flying in these final moments. and as we approach 10:03, you're going to see the plane is going to actually come up on a 90-degree angle. the left wing is going to rise up. and as it does that, it's going to hold that for about a second and then it's going to rock over on to its back side, and the plane is going to come down and crash at 10:03:11 here in the fields just beyond the walls of the visitor center.

so as we leave this wall and we turn to the next wall, it was very important to try and give visitors, especially if they have never flown before, they've never really been on a 757 before, the idea or the sense of being compressed into the space of a single aisled aircraft. so flight 93 and american airlines flight 77 that hits the pentagon are both this model aircraft. the planes that crash at the world trade center are 767s, so they are twin aisle aircraft. but it was important to give visitors the sense of being at the back of the aircraft where a lot of those phone calls took place. and at this space, we give visitors the opportunity to listen to three of the four

recorded phone calls that were placed from on board flight 93. >> passenger lauren grancolis phoned her husband jack at 9:39 a.m., about 11 minutes after the hijacking began leaving this message on their home answering machine. >> honey, are you there? pick up, sweetie. okay. well, i just wanted to tell you i love you. we're having a little problem on the plane. i am totally fine. i just love you more than anything. just know that. and, you know, i, you know, i'm comfortable and i'm okay for now. it's a little problem, so i'll -- i just love you. please know. tell my family i love them, too. bye, honey. >> this is the answering machine

in california that is capturing the message that she's just left for her husband jack who is at home that morning but because of the time differential being three hours different from the eastern seaboard, he's still in bed. and so he doesn't awaken when she makes the phone call and leaves the message for him. >> passenger linda gronlund phoned her sister elsa leaving this message on her home answering machine. >> elsa, it's lin. i only have a minute. i'm on united 93, and it's been hijacked by terrorists. they say they have a bomb. apparently they've flown a couple of planes into the world trade center already and it looks like they're going to take this one down as well. i just wanted to say i love you,

and, i'm going to miss you. and please give my love to -- i just love you, and i just wanted to tell you that. i don't know if i'm going to get a chance to tell you that again or not. all my stuff is in the safe. the safe is in my closet in my bedroom. the combination is 0913, and then it should -- and maybe pound and it should unlock. i love you. i hope i can talk to you soon. bye. >> flight attendant c.c. lyles phoned her husband lorne at 9:47 a.m., about 19 minutes into the hijacking levering this message on their answering machine. >> hi, baby.

baby, you have to listen to me carefully. i'm on a plane that's been hijacked. i'm on the plane. i'm calling from the plane. i want to tell you i love you. please tell my children that i love them very much. and i'm so sorry, babe. i don't know what to say. there's three guys that hijacked the plane. i'm trying to be calm. we're turned around and i heard that there's planes that's been flown into the world trade center. i hope to be able to see your face again, baby. i love you. bye. >> so if we walk around from this wall, we're going to go around to the next wall. and it's going to take you right here to shanksville. right outside of shanksville to where the plane impacts into the edge of a reclaimed mine site. and if you look to the top, the 911 phone caller that lives only

about half a mile or less from where we're standing, this is a little snippet of her call. flight 93 is going to impact at 563 miles per hour inverted, upside down. and this case is really meant to give you the sense of fragmentation that takes place when flight 93 crashes. and so if we get a little close eyou can take a look at some of the pieces recovered here. these are average size pieces that's were found all across the site. from the point of impact and southward. so you have a lot of wiring. 757s is made up of over 60 miles of wiring. and so very common thing to find. bolts and riffets. over 600,000 bolts or rivets holding this plane together when it impacts. this just shows you how finite this large locomotive weighted

piece of equipment has become after it hits the ground here. you can see some of the bluish gas or smoke coming out of the crater from the jet fuel that incinerates on impact here. what i think a lot of people are oftentimes amazed by is the pieces are so fragmented and small here, but the majority of the aircraft has been absorbed into the ground here. and so it's not until later when they begin excavating the crater and looking for evidence here that they'll start to uncover more and more of flight 93. that's represented maybe best visually on the camera by this bronze mock-up. this sort of represents the edge of where mining had ceased. and so this is really the southern edge of a very large open surface mine that had been active up until the mid-'90s. flight 93 is going to crash just

before the edge of the treeline here. it's actually crashing in an area that would have been the soil would have been removed for a period of time until the coal had been removed, and this would have been backfilled. much softer that morning than had it crashed in a hard field where the soil hadn't been removed. and then this area here where the trees, the hemlock grove exists today. this would have been a natural stand of trees across here. and so when the jet fuel incinerates that morning with the explosion from crashing into the ground, the fireball is going to continue on a trajectory that the plane had been traveling, and the jet fuel being toxic now because the plane is inverted, is going to come off of -- because it's stored -- the three tanks. the fuel is going to continue on

the trajectory of the plane and actually engulf this area with flame impingement. that's best captured by the state police that morning. around 11:30 that morning, corporal jeff braid from the pennsylvania state police is with the aviation division is going to be airborne as they arrive here. and they're going to capture some aerial footage of the site. initially, they don't know what they are looking at as far as where the plane impacts. they are going to land their helicopter. they're going to be briefed. and then they're going to return that afternoon and get some closer footage of the impact site. and this is -- this footage really can clearly show you where this whole 757 impacts the

ground. this is the vertical tail stabilizer you see up above and the fuselage, where it would have impacted. of dourks was inverted so it would be impacting the ground this way. it shows the scorching of the trees that are represented by the black walls of the visitors center. there's so much debris that is embedded in these hemlock trees because it's on the trajectory of the flight path that whenever the decision is made to cut down the burned trees, that they send those trees through a wood chipper and the woodchip pile remains here on the site. it never left. it was part of the effort to ensure that there was proper care taken for the remains and that no remains would leave the site unless they were going for identification and return to family members. you see some of the response out of the community that begins

after flight 93 crashes here. this is rick king, the assistant fire chief out of shanksville. and there's a quote that captures sort of the moment and what that must have been like for responders that were coming here that morning. thal mcclatchey's photo has been captured many times but this is the quote underneath captures the moment for her when she takes this picture. this also represents the state response. you have governor tom ridge arriving. he's the governor of pennsylvania at the time. of course, he'll eventually be promoted when president bush creates the department of homeland security as the secretary of the department of homeland security. and, of course, the media immediately wants to know about

this plane crash. with what's happened in new york city and what's happened at the pentagon, there is an immediate thirst for knowledge and understanding about why this plane has crashed here. what investigators are looking for and sort of what the experience has been. the media is going to be pushed out of -- away from the site within the first hour or so of being here. and so there's a press conference that's established very near where the first 911 phone call is going to be received. and this is a really great place to sort of transition, i think, to the next wall behind us. this quote here is taken from the special agent in charge, but it shows the methodical nature that all of the investigators that came to flight 93 to this crash site were going to apply for the 13 days that they were going to be combing over the

site. and so if we move to the next wall, what you see over here is -- this is a tactile that visitors can touch but it's representational of the flight -- the cockpit voice recorder that they're searching for. this crime scene becomes so important in those early hours and days after september 11th because this flight does not hit its target. and because of that, investigators are able to comb through the debris field here and more easily get to any evidence that's going to shed light on who carried out the attacks, how they accomplished the attacks and whether or not -- if there were other attacks that we needed to be aware of. and so they are hoping to be able to sift through the debris here at the crash site of flight 93 in order to answer a lot of those questions. and it's here, one pittsburgh

fbi agent says that they were driving the 9/11 investigation because of the evidence they were able to recover here at this site. and so this flight -- this cockpit voice recorder are popularly coined the black boxes. of course, you are looking at this. it's orange. this is how they are loaded into the tail section of the aircraft. and they are designed to be able to survive up to 2,000 degrees fahrenheit for a period of about 30 minutes. and withstand a large amount of g-force from an air to ground crash. and so they were very hopeful they would find these boxes. and the reason we know so much about what happened on flight 93 is because these boxes are excavated out of the ground. what you come to here is a television monitor that takes you through the methodical nature of combing through the

ground, sort of the linear approach that they take to picking up aircraft debris that may be obstructing the view of any evidence that might be laying underneath it or on the ground. so they begin sifting through the debris and categorizing plane parts from evidence and personal effects that are recovered here. and the fabulous thing about this exhibit and some of the other exhibits that we have here in the visitors center is, as captured by oral history. so you can pick up the wands and you can listen to the voices of the investigators themselves describe to you the importance of the site. you can hear what it was -- how important it was the moment they discovered the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. you don't have to hear from a ranger why it's important.

you can hear from the people themselves tell you that were here combing through the site. what you are looking at right now is the suntrust bank card recovered here that sheds the light on the financial trail of al qaeda. and so it's a really important piece of evidence that's recovered here on the ground. but you can see they're sifting through the dirt that's being excavated out of the crater here and very carefully sort of raking through that's ground. basically using -- they're on their hands and knees going through a lot of the debris that's here. and a big part of that is also the recovery of human remains. the ability to be able to identify everybody that boarded this aircraft. and so the end of the exhibit space here, what you're seeing is somerset county coroner wally

miller and his role here. this is his scene, but he's going to have a federally dispatched team that comes here. demort stands for disaster mortuary operational response team. but they're going to assist him with the recovery of the human remains here. what a lot of visitors ask us about the crash site here is about the remains. is about this being a final resting place because we use that term generally. but from the moment of impact, about 92% of the remains, it's estimated, were unrecoverable. they're scattered across this site and were never recovered. it's believed that about 8% of the remains of the people on board flight 93 were recovered. and a percentage of that 8% was actually identifiable that could be returned to family members.

and the remaining unidentified remains were then brought back and reinterred here at flight 93. so this is both traditional and nontraditional burial ground. and we treat the crash site as such. protecting over 42 acres of ground south of the memorial plaza. so you're looking at some of the pieces that were recovered from flight 93 itself. you see a seat belt latch. and some of the silverware that would have been possibly used in first class. and a portion of a manual. if you come up from that, you'll see, these are some of the larger pieces that's were recovered of flight 93. more interestingly, the piece to the front is the nose number for flight 93. so this is a number that would have been used by the specific airlines. so there's a nose number and a tail number. the nose number is specific to the airline company itself. and then the tail number is

what's used by faa to identify pla planes, like your license plate that you have on your car. the top piece that you're looking at comes from the vertical tail stanlizer. that's the only other place that would have adorned the side of the plane where you have red, white and blue. over here we have some examples of some of the personal effects recovered from the site. notably, richard guidagno's -- he worked for the united states fish and wildlife service. but that's his law enforcement badge which was recovered here at flight 93. you have todd beamer's employee identification badge that he carried with him on the plane. and colleen frazer, her driver's license that was recovered here at the crash site. the driver's license is a

facsimile. we'll come along this side where this is all about the passengers and crew of flight 93. the idea here is, it's much like the portraits hanging on your wall at home. if you have family photos hanging. there's a central photo where each of the 40 passengers and crew were identified. and then there's an unmarked photo, secondary photo that sort of captures them with other people in their lives, other family members and friends or captures a snapshot, a moment in time from their life that was really special to their family or friends. this piece here in the center is the cap of the purser, which would have been the flight attendant carrying for first class on flight 93. this hat was a signature piece, though, worn by deborah welsh.

and debbie would regularly wear this sailor style cap when she went to work. and this is one of the photos we have of her wearing that hat. and if you pan just above that photo, you'll see debbie with her dalmatian. she absolutely loved. and so then if you come down to the screen here, we can go and we can look at debbie welsh. and there's a bio that will cover her -- a little bit about her life and who she was. you can come over and look through additional photos. we see her with her dalmatian. but you can scroll through. she loved to fly. and she loved to -- she was known for sometimes taking some of the leftover airline meals

home with her. she lived in new york city. and would take those home and distribute those to some of the homeless or people that were in need. and she'd see >> she would see that they were distributed and used. and i'm sure that didn't go with airline policy. but this is her with her husband. the beginning of her career. over here you have items that belong to first officer leroy homer. he was a graduate of the united states air force academy. and his luggage tag from united airlines. >> also has marion britain that is traveling with martinez.

they were traveling for the u.s. census bureau. he is a 21 year veteran of the census bureau but this is the bronze medal he received for exceptional service. i think the other neat piece that we have here, this is the congressional gold medal that was struck for flight 93 and then in 2003 that was presented here on set 11th to the site for the actions of the passengers and crew in flight 93. so you have both sides represented there. and it's important to say that each site, each of the september 11th sites, new york city and the pentagon also have congressional gold medals that represent their sites specifically and this is the one that represents flight 93.

so if we turn around to the wall behind me this is has been drawn to the site within hours after the time of the crash over the last 15 years. at the top you have a quote that was written on a tribute piece left here at the flight 93 crash site at one of the early temporary memorials and if we come over here to the exhibit case, the words you saw at the top of the exhibit case are on this photo of a quilt that had been stitched together by suzy bird in california and wrote these words and at an early

planning meeting and with this memorial this quote was sort of identified as really a preamble to a larger mission statement to what the memorial will become here. when we came to the outside of the visitor center and you're walking the flight path as you did in the beginning that's where it comes from is a tribute item that was left here in this fields as a tribute and at the temporary memorial and permanent and rescue workers that responded at all of the sites and representing not just rescue

workers but the military and also a connection here with people that leave military items and then down at the end, we also have items that were left here by the people that responded here. this is the shanksville fire department. a code that would have been left. the original gnat coat, you can see it pictured on the wall covered in ice. at the back of the exhibit case and assistant fire chief rick king's fire helmet and some of the other shields that would have been at the front of responding fire departments that responded to the crash here at flight 93. a piece in the center here, it is a montage of various people and times throughout the history

throughout the site since the crash and for the very moment when family members were coming here for the first time and leaving plowers and things themselves to visitors beginning to come here for the first time as well and pay tribute to the actions of the passengers and crew. you have shifting periods from the early days to the dedication of the permanent memorial in 2011 at the memorial plaza and the wall that bears their names which you see in the video here building up to the dedication of the visitor's center that we're standing in in 2015. so at the conclusion this is the final wall and it captures the nearly 2,000 lives that were lost that day as a result of these attacks including flight 93 and they are segmented out by the different locations and in

the center there was three screens that capture the three memorial sites. because this is an unfolding story we did not talk about post september 11th and the world that is continuously changing and of course there are events tied to international terrorism that have you be folded since that time and so the learning center which we passed on our way into the site say place where we're continuously going to be looking to expand on this story since september 11th and it's a place where we can talk about the legacy of flight 93 as well as the continuing story from these events and so we thought it was important to stop here and pay tribute to all those that lost their lives as well as show the three memorial sites where you can go and learn more about the individual stories at those locations.

>> flight 93 national memorial represents a lot about what makes america a pan tsaic country. and citizens of the globe even. it shows that you can make a difference no matter how big or how small and no matter where your at. and in a short period of time too. it shows human nature at its best and worst moments together it shows that every day people can come together for the betterment of humanity and what

you see illustrated here is people not sitting by and watching but actively becoming involved citizens in an event that unfolded to them. in a sense the passengers and crew of flight 93 were living in a post september 11th world long before any of us knew what that was. they were living it in the skies overhead and it's important to take the lessons of the people aboard the plane and i tell students that are coming here think about how you utilize 30 to 30 minutes out of your every day life and what you can do with that time. maybe you can repurpose that time and maybe it's something as simple as helping somebody carry

their groceries and picking up garbage. it's often a challenge to the visitors that come here, a, it's a chance for self-examination and a lot of visitors ask themselves would they be able to do this themselves ifs they were put in the position and it's a question nobody can answer unless they're faced with the same situation and it's one that people often ask themselves. this weekend on american

history tv on cspan 3. saturday morning at 9:00 eastern. >> the british empire and it's common wealth lasts for a thousand years. >> we're live for the 33rd international churchill conference in washington d.c. focussing on the british prime minister's contemporaries. british historian authors of masters and commanders how four titans won the war in the west. 1941 to 1945. later on saturday at 7:00, state senator jose menendez and phil collins talk about the alamo at the 2016 texas tribute festival in austin. >> the medical ris of my impression at that time were that this group o