The spirits of 40 people who died in a Somerset County field have remained with Dolores Veres for a year.
The Charleroi woman has wrestled with the image of what she believes was Flight 93 flying far too close to the ground near her home, minutes before it crashed in Shanksville.
"It's stuck with me," Veres said. "I can't resolve in my mind why we saw it. Their spirits were alive. They're deceased now, but their spirits are still alive."
Dolores and Milan "Link" Veres were sitting in their front yard on Crest Avenue. She had come out of the house shortly after seeing televised coverage of the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the crash of an airliner into the Pentagon in Washington D.C.
The Vereses were talking about the terrorist attacks when they heard a commercial airplane flying overhead and very low. Milan Veres estimated the plane was just 2,000 feet overhead. The plane traveled east, Dolores Veres said.
The Vereses were not the only local residents to view what may have been Flight 93.
Shortly after a commercial airliner struck the Pentagon, Jane Patrick said she and her husband were in their yard on Washington Avenue in Charleroi when they saw an airplane they believe was Flight 93.
Patrick said the silver plane and a white underbelly and was so close it cast a shadow as it passed.
She said it was eerie seeing the plane flying overhead.
"It was so close it seemed like if I was on the second floor (of my home) I could have touched it," Patrick recalled. "I was worried that it might hit the rooftops of some of our houses."
The two Charleroi couples may have seen the ill-fated flight.
Gene Lakin, executive director of the Westmoreland County Airport Authority, said it is conceivable that the plane that Patrick and Veres saw was United Airlines Flight 93.
Lakin said the doomed plane flew within four miles of the Latrobe Airport. The air traffic control tower at Latrobe received a message from Cleveland that Flight 93 was flying over a portion of Westmoreland County.
Because there is no control tower at Rostraver Township, Lakin said it is not possible to determine for sure how close the plane came to the airspace over the Mid-Mon Valley.
