SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A sculptor is honoring the victims on board United Airlines Flight 93 with a replica of a statue he created for rescuers killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Rip Caswell, of Portland, Ore., donated a scaled-down version of his 12-foot bronze "Strength of America" to Shanksville, a hamlet of 245 people near the crash site.
The statue depicts a man rising from the rubble of the World Trade Center clutching a lantern, representing truth and justice, Caswell said.
The statue lists the names of 579 rescue workers who died in the attacks and includes a helmet with the badge number of Eugene Whelan, an Oregonian who was a New York firefighter killed in the World Trade Center collapse.
Caswell said the statue could also easily represent the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93, who have been hailed as heroes in what some have called the first battle in America's war against terrorism.
"The people in the plane made a huge difference and that strength is what I've tried to portray," Caswell said.
United Flight 93, which was headed from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, was the only one of four flights hijacked Sept. 11, 2001, that did not take a life on the ground.
Investigators believe it was headed toward a target in Washington, D.C., when it turned east near Cleveland. They believe it was brought down when people on board confronted the hijackers.
Somerset County officials have collected more than 10,000 items, ranging from buttons to laminated poems to painted rocks to uniforms, for possible use in a permanent national memorial for Flight 93.