Park service leases office space to work on Flight 93 memorial

SOMERSET, Pa. (AP) -- The National Park Service has leased an office in western Pennsylvania near the crash site of United Flight 93 that will serve as the staging point for a national memorial.
The federal General Services Administration has signed a three-year lease for an office in Somerset, about 15 miles from the reclaimed strip mine where the flight from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco crashed, killing the 40 passengers and crew and four hijackers.
"We needed to have an office closer to where the planning and designing and all the meetings are happening," said Joanne Hanley, the park service's coordinator for the memorial.
Though her office is at Fort Necessity National Battlefield in Fayette County, Hanley estimated that she spends at least 80 percent of her time on Flight 93 issues. The office in Somerset is expected to open in October.
The park service is spearheading plans for a national memorial to the flight, which went down about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. President Bush has ordered that the design be completed and delivered to the Interior Department and Congress by 2005.
Families of passengers aboard the flight say they believe their loved ones rebelled against hijackers by fighting their way into the cockpit and grappling for control of the plane before it went down. The FBI has suggested that terrorists may have deliberately crashed the plane.