STONYCREEK TOWNSHIP-- On the side of a country road in Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands, there is a makeshift memorial on top of a windy hill to commemorate the passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93.

The sheer beauty of the area, with tranquil pastures and a forest in the distance, makes it difficult to believe that a Boeing 757 crashed at a speed of 580 mph onto a nearby field the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Many people don't realize that one of the four hijacked planes, five years ago, crashed just two hours away from State College.

Lindsay Muzychko (junior-biobehavioral health) said for her, Sept. 11 mostly evokes images of the attacks in New York City, rather than the crash in Pennsylvania.

"When I think of September 11, I think of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center," Muzychko said.

She said it was those images that were so widespread in the media.

The Temporary Memorial of Flight 93 in Stonycreek, run by the National Park Service, attracts more than 125,000 visitors each year.

The memorial stands on a small plot of gravel, about the size of a basketball court, allowing the public to pay their respects to the 40 passengers and crew members who were killed that Tuesday morning.

In the distance, a flag stands to mark the spot where the plane went down. The crash site is only accessible to family members of the victims because it is regarded as the burial site for the victims.

A guardrail runs along the side of the plot, containing prayers and messages of hope scribbled with Sharpies. Next to it, a chain-link fence displays visitors' mementos, from police and fire badges to crosses and license plates from around the country. Forty small angels painted in red, white and blue stand at the back of the plot, each bearing the name of a passenger or crewmember. Captain Jason M. Dahl, Jane Folger, Jeremy Glick ...

The mood at the memorial is uplifting. Passenger Todd Beamer's final words to a phone operator, just before the passengers led their revolt, are etched in stone and written on bumper stickers: "Let's Roll."

Daily volunteer ambassadors provide information to visitors, including details of the theory that a passenger revolt against the hijackers stopped the plane from hitting a monument or building and killing civilians. The passengers and crew made phone calls to family and operators from the plane, who informed them of the attacks on the World Trade Center and guessed the plane was heading toward Washington, D.C.

Volunteer ambassador Emily Jerich said the plane crashed without harming any people on the ground, landing in an open field. She added that the plane was just three seconds away from hitting Shanksville's K-12 school.

"If the school had been hit, it would have taken out a whole generation of people," Jerich said.

It is now five years since the tragedy occurred, and people in the area continue to fulfill the unexpected role that fate handed them.

"There is a sense that we have moved from the immediate tragedy to a time of recovery and feeling," Somerset County Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes said. "But overall the county of Somerset is quite aware that we have a stewardship that we'll have forever."

Julia Davis (freshman-division of undergraduates studies), who lives in DuBois --three hours from Shanksville -- said Flight 93 is present in her mind, along with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"It's a combination, since I live so close," she said.

A permanent national memorial is expected to be complete in 2011. It will contain a 93-foot Tower of Voices with 40 chimes, one for each victim, Jerich said.

Inside the memorial 40 groves with 40 red and sugar maple trees will surround the sacred ground where the plane crashed.

Today a memorial service open to the public will take place down the hill from the temporary memorial. Remarks will be made by Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, Gov. Ed Rendell and Pennsylvania's U.S. Senators Rick Santorum and Arlen Specter.