Flight 93 families launch award for heroism

Wanted: Selfless heroes.

That’s what the loved ones of the Flight 93 victims are searching for to help keep the memory of the 9/11 passengers who helped take down terrorists by sacrificing their own lives.

The National Park Service memorial to the people who died on United Airlines Flight 93 is hard to find on a map — as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack itself slips deeper into the nation’s collective memory.

Families of Flight 93’s 40 passengers and crew members have started an annual award for heroism. Nominations are now open through the nonprofit group, Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial.

The award aims to reward selfless acts of heroism, but also to educate the public on what happened when those aboard the hijacked plane, bound for San Francisco, discovered that airliners had been flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.

The passengers and crew of Flight 93 then tried to wrest control of the aircraft, which crashed into a field, leaving no survivors — a sacrifice then-President George W. Bush called one of the most courageous acts in U.S. history, believed to have stopped a catastrophic crash into the White House or the Capitol.

The hope is to use the award to connect teachers to the organization’s teaching materials.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3uKY9SU