Somerset County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 74,129. Its county seat is Somerset. The county was created from part of Bedford County on April 17, 1795, and named after the county of Somerset in England. The county is part of the Southwest Pennsylvania region of the state.
Somerset County comprises the Somerset, PA micropolitan statistical area, which is included in the Johnstown–Somerset, PA combined statistical area.
Stonycreek Township is a township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. The township takes its name from the stony creek, which flows through it and represents its western boundary. The stream takes its name from the rocky bed over which it flows for a great part of its course. Its Indian name was Sinne-Hanne or Achsin-Hanne. Hanne means a stream and especially a swift mountain stream. The population was 2,087 at the 2020 census.
Stonycreek Township garnered global attention during the September 11 attacks when United Airlines Flight 93, intended to strike the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., crashed into a field near downtown after civilian passengers on the flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport rebelled against the flight's al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers.
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers planned to crash the plane into a federal government building in the national capital of Washington, D.C. The mission failed when the passengers fought back, forcing the terrorists to crash the plane in Shanksville in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, preventing them from reaching al-Qaeda's intended target, but killing everyone aboard the flight. The airliner involved, a Boeing 757-200 with 44 passengers and crew, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California, making it the only plane hijacked that day not to be a Los Angeles–bound flight.
Forty-six minutes into the flight, the hijackers killed one passenger, stormed the cockpit, and struggled with the pilots as controllers on the ground listened in. Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the East Coast, in the direction of D.C.
The Flight 93 National Memorial is a memorial built to commemorate the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which was one of four aircraft hijacked during the September 11 attacks in 2001. The memorial is located in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, with the vast majority in Stonycreek Township, and with a small portion in Shade Township. It is 78 miles (126 km) southeast of Pittsburgh, 122 miles (196 km) west of Harrisburg (the state capital), and 226 miles (364 km) west of Philadelphia.
A national memorial was created to honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93, who stopped the terrorists from reaching their target by fighting the hijackers. A temporary memorial to the 40 victims was established soon after the crash. The first phase of the permanent memorial was completed, opened, and dedicated on September 10, 2011. The design for the memorial is a modified version of the entry Crescent of Embrace by Paul and Milena Murdoch.
Shanksville is a borough in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. It has a population of 199 as of the 2020 U.S. census. It is part of the Somerset, Pennsylvania Micropolitan Statistical Area and is located 78 miles (126 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 226 miles (364 km) west of Philadelphia.
Shanksville garnered global attention during the September 11 attacks when United Airlines Flight 93, bound from Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco, crashed in adjacent Stonycreek Township after its passengers rebelled against the flight's al-Qaeda terrorist hijackers. It was the only one of the four hijacked planes that failed to reach the terrorists' intended target.
Shade Township is a township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,452 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area.