Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Tim and Dawn Cunningham, of West Haven, Conn., comfort each other as bells ring in remembrance of the victims of Flight 93 yesterday in Shanksville, Somerset County. Mr. Cunningham served as a volunteer at Ground Zero in New York City Click photo for larger image. More coverage: President comforts families with hugs, greetings at Flight 93 site Photo Journal: Remembering Flight 93

In 2001, a plane crashed into a field here, hitting the ground at 580 miles per hour.

In 2011, a formal memorial will stand, granting permanence to the memory of 40 passengers and crew members who fought to regain control of the plane from four hijackers.

But five years? That's just the half-focused perspective between grief and closure, between recovering land and scorched terrain. Thousands arrived yesterday near the United Flight 93 crash site, rolling their cars into gravel parking lots, bowing in silence at a prayer ceremony, listening to a program of speakers, many still waiting for clarity.

Just after 8:30 a.m., a father held his 2 1/2-year-old son, Everett, and they looked at a glass box -- representing 1 3/4 miles of local topography, modeled with balsa wood. The display explained what would come: a $58 million, 2,200-acre national memorial, nestled into the open landscape.

The boy pointed at the green pinpricks dotting the model. "What are those?" he asked. "Those are trees, buddy," said his father, Ed Lata, whose wife's grandmother, Hilda Marcin, died in the crash.

Five years after 9/11, visitors are still caught between beauty and horror. In the background: dense mist framing the horizon. In the foreground: the dented treeline, scorched by the original Flight 93 fireball. To the south of the site: enlarged artist renderings of the future area, with detailed descriptions of the red and yellow flowers to be planted. To the north: a beige field, a line of TV satellite trucks and two construction cranes.

When the anniversary event began at 9:30 a.m., with family members and spectators bundled in jackets, those speaking reached for the proper terms of remembrance. Already, Flight 93 has inspired two movies, a lineup of books and the pervasive "let's roll" ethos. Five years allowed for a look back.

"In this place, we're inspired by a light, a light of patriotism, the story of human courage that was Flight 93," said retired Gen. Tommy Franks, now an honorary co-chair of the Flight 93 National Memorial Campaign.

A lineup of politicians followed. Gov. Ed Rendell mentioned the $10 million the state recently committed to the memorial project. U.S. Rep Bill Shuster thanked the Flight 93 passengers, mentioning that he'd been in the Capitol Building -- the plane's likely target -- on the day of the attacks. Sen. Rick Santorum compared the crash site to other historic sites in the state -- those formed by moments in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

"Great battles and great struggles have occurred here in Pennsylvania," he said. "But this is an unusual battlefield."

Five years has allowed the site to evolve with complications and emotions. At the current, makeshift memorial, a 40-foot fence creates a lattice of threadbare T-shirts and news clippings and hats, tokens of both crash victims and survivors. Yesterday's wind cut through the open area, whipping at the 40 American flags planted in the ground, plus the German flag for Christian Adams, a passenger from Germany, and the wind chimes left for Richard Guadagno, another passenger.

Family members had flocked to the field hours and days after the crash. They'd returned the following year, for an anniversary, and they'd assembled thereafter in Shanksville for meetings and small remembrances.

The fifth anniversary begat the largest assemblage; former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge delivered yesterday's main speech, and speakers thanked corporate partners like Outback Steakhouse and Universal Studios, and media liaisons printed paperwork explaining fundraising goals.

"But you know," said Glen Zykofsky, whose father, John Talignani, died in the crash, "I still remember smoke rising up from the ground."

This anniversary was stuck between immediacy and history. A darker shade of grass has grown atop the smoldering rubble from 2001, yet Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller, in his last thorough sweep of the area two months ago, found 20 pounds of airplane debris. The crater created by the crash has been filled in, yet Mr. Miller still views the area as "a cemetery." Ninety-two percent of all remains, he said, could not be recovered.

"Debris," Mr. Miller added, "still falls out of the trees."

Midway through the morning ceremony, a bell placed behind the white speakers' tent tolled 40 times, once for each victim on board. Many of the 300 family members in attendance stood, silent.

"The passengers and crew of Flight 93 are truly an emblem of courage," Mr. Rendell said later. "They stood in solidarity, so others would receive salvation. They said, 'Let us give this moment all we can ... So it was five years ago in this field that lives were lost so lives could be saved."

He then addressed the family members: "Five years is not enough to ease your pain," he said, "nor has it eased our country's respect for your loved ones. We will long remember them, and we will long honor them."

That formal honor, for now, remains a concept. One year ago, those overseeing the memorial selected a design team. Current projections call for a 2011 ribbon-cutting. By that point, a tower of wind chimes will greet visitors. A field of white crocus and camassia and Indian blanket flowers will colorize the current drone of faint green. And a near-full circle of maple trees will train attention at the empty spot: the crash site.

"It's right over that chain-link fence," said Jeff Reinbold, project manager from the National Park Service.

He pointed to his right, some 300 yards away, where five years earlier an airplane had crashed into the ground. He then turned back to the artists renderings, angled on a four easels. The third of those pictures provided a timeline of the geography: what the land looked like in 2001, what it should look like in 2011, and how it may appear in 2076.

"By then," Mr. Reinbold said, "these trees will mature a bit. Things will be thicker, and grow in. It will all be a little more natural."