Two to consult on memorial

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A landscape architect and a public art consultant who worked as competition advisers for the Oklahoma City bombing memorial will play a similar role in the development of a national memorial to honor those who died on United Airlines Flight 93.
The Flight 93 Federal Advisory Commission and Memorial Task Force will meet the newly appointed design competition consultants -- Donald J. Stastny of Portland, Ore.-based StastnyBrun Architects and Helene Fried of San Francisco-based Helene Fried Associates -- at the groups' meetings Friday and Saturday in Somerset.
Also, the task force's fund-raising committee will announce that Ketchum Inc., a subsidiary of Dallas-based Viscern, will serve as a funding consultant, said committee co-chair Rick Stafford.
Flight 93 was the only one of four hijacked planes that did not take a life on the ground Sept. 11. It was en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it made a sudden turn near Cleveland, eventually crashing into a field near Shanksville, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. All 40 passengers and crew members aboard were killed.
Families of passengers aboard the flight say they believe their loved ones fought their way into the cockpit and grappled for control of the plane before it went down. The FBI has suggested that terrorists may have deliberately crashed the plane because of the revolt.
The commission and task force periodically had public meetings to hear updates on the efforts to create a national memorial in Somerset County, a project that could take years to complete.
Fried and Stastny were selected in part because of their experience with the memorial competition in Oklahoma City, said Tim Baird, a co-chairman of the design solicitation committee.
Stastny and Fried will develop the competition's guidelines, oversee the process and help select a jury that will pick the design.
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