Flight 93 Passengers Passed Under This Sign At NJ Airport On 9/11

NEWARK, NJ — Before the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 boarded their airplane on the day of the now-infamous September 11th attacks in 2001, they walked under a gate sign at Newark Airport in New Jersey. Those passengers would later force the plane down in a Pennsylvania field instead of its intended target – an “act of extraordinary courage” that is still remembered more than 20 years later.

Now, that historic gate sign has undergone a journey of its own.

The Port Authority and United Airlines recently gathered at Newark Airport to formally transfer the sign for Gate A17 to the National Park Service (watch video footage below). It will be displayed at the United Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

The Port Authority preserved the sign after it demolished the old Terminal A at Newark Airport to build a new, modern concourse.

According to the bi-state agency, the sign is an emotional reminder of what happened for the passengers who boarded the ill-fated flight:

“On 9/11, 37 passengers made their way to Gate A17 to board United Airlines Flight 93 to San Francisco. Once the plane took off at 8:42 a.m., passengers on one side of the cabin could look out their windows at the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan a few miles away. That view changed forever just four minutes later … Over the next 83 minutes, the Flight 93 passengers learned of the scale of the unfolding attacks in New York and Washington D.C. through phone calls with loved ones. They realized their flight was also part of the plot. In response, they acted. Together, they fought back against the hijackers, forcing the plane down in a field near Shanksville, PA instead of its intended target.”

Twenty years later, Port Authority staff saved the gate sign those passengers walked under before their act of heroism.

“As we closed the old Terminal A to make way for the new Terminal A, the Port Authority made a deliberate, seemingly obvious choice to preserve the sign, not simply as a physical artifact, but as a lasting tribute to the heroism it has come to embody,” said Aidan O’Donnell, the airport’s general manager.

“Its meaning endures far beyond the structure it once occupied,” O’Donnell said.

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