Flight 93 families want end to controversy

Anticipating more protest against the Flight 93 National Memorial design during a meeting today in Somerset, family members of some of those aboard the flight held a news conference Friday in Pittsburgh defending the maligned memorial.

"Rather than standing pat and being quiet, we're standing up and saying, 'Enough,'" said Patrick White, vice president of the Families of Flight 93.

Family members, who will be attending today's quarterly meeting of the Flight 93 Advisory Commission and Flight 93 Memorial Task Force, said they wanted to set the record straight on the design controversy once and for all.

Some contend that the design of the memorial at the crash site in Stonycreek, Somerset County, includes several Islamic elements, most notably a walkway lined with red maple trees that they believe is a red Islamic crescent.

Those detractors, including Thomas Burnett Sr., whose son Thomas Burnett Jr. was among the 40 passengers and crew killed in the crash during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, also believe the memorial orients toward Mecca, where Muslims face to pray.

Burnett, who is one of several sponsors of a petition against the memorial that has more than 5,000 signatures, said he's sending surrogates to today's meeting to speak on his behalf.

White said he and other family members decided to hold the news conference so that there would be a "clear record going in" to the meeting where they stand.

"We stand on the cusp of moving forward at a very rapid pace where progress will be seen on the site that hasn't changed in nearly seven years," said White, whose cousin Louis Nacke II was aboard the flight.

In fact, the families were set to sign closing papers yesterday afternoon for 930 acres -- about 75 percent of the land needed to build the memorial, which will be a national park.

The family members reiterated what they have said time and again -- that Islamic symbolism is present nowhere in the design. The "crescent" referred to in the original design was tweaked to become more of a circle with two breaks where the plane crashed into the ground.

They added that the design fits with the topography of the land.

The partners in the memorial process have even consulted academics in mathematics and religion who all agree there is nothing to the dissenters' claims.

"Their findings all agree that people looking for controversy will find it if they look hard enough, regardless of the evidence," said Gordon Felt, president of the Families of Flight 93, whose brother Edward Felt died on the flight.

More than 1,000 designs were whittled down to five by the first jury, made up of design professionals, family members and community members.

A second jury selected the design from among those final five.

Sandy Felt, Edward Felt's widow, was on the second jury.

She said during yesterday's news conference that while not everyone voted for the design that was chosen, all of the jury members reached a "consensus" that it should move forward.

Sandy Felt said that the issue of the crescent shape came up during discussions because of a public comment card submitted.

Jurors were not willing to dismiss the design because of the name, "Crescent of Embrace," or the shape.

"There's no particular ownership of this shape," she said. "... We felt confident with the notion that the void in the embrace was representative of loss."

But Burnett, reached by phone in Minnesota, vehemently disagreed. He said a consensus was not reached, that he was among six people who voted against it and that he raised serious questions about Islamic symbolism.

"I spoke out about the symbols and tried to explain to them that the Islamists had been using those symbols for hundreds and hundreds of years," Burnett said. "... It's very pretty, but it doesn't belong there where we lost 40 American heroes, including my son Tom."

The family members said large changes to the design are out of the question, although alterations are expected as the conceptual drawings become schematic plans.

"I would be wary of making major modifications to a memorial that was selected using the process that was used," Gordon Felt said. "We can't satisfy everybody all the time."

He added the allegations are "quite hurtful to think we would want to create a memorial to those who murdered our loved ones."

But Burnett said he's hurt, too.

"I consider it an insult to my son Tom and the other 39 that died at the hands of those Islamists, and quite frankly I don't understand why people wouldn't want to figure out how and why this design got this far," he said.

No other family members have publicly denounced the design as Burnett has. He believes others are out there but are afraid to speak.

Burnett said he'll never give up.

"I'm not going to give up this fight because these people don't think much beyond their noses and they've got their heads in the sand, and they feel that once it's going along they're going to let it keep going," he said.

But the family members backing the design are just as steadfast.

"The controversy has not had any impact on our moving forward," Gordon Felt said.