Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial volunteers, along with five Davey Tree Expert Company staff members, spent six hours Saturday pruning 1,500 trees in the park’s Memorial Groves.
The groves are dedicated to the 40 passengers and crew of United Flight 93, who struggled with terrorist hijackers who planned to use the aircraft in an attack on the nation’s capital on September 11, 2001.
The plane crashed into a nearby field, killing everyone aboard.
The 24 volunteers participated in what Keith Newlin, Western Pennsylvania National Parks deputy superintendent, called the first such tree pruning.
Each grove contains 40 trees, including sugar maple, white oak and elm.
Lining the inside of the park entrance road from the visitor center complex to the Memorial Plaza, the trees create a living memorial.
Corona Tools donated pruning shears used to inspect, prune and remove cut branches from the trees.
The effort not only improves the groves’ appearance, it will increase the trees’ survival rates, park officials said.
