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Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 79F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph..
Partly cloudy. Low near 65F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: September 11, 2026 @ 1:05 pm
Peggy Shepler (front), Linda Norris, Kathy Giesey (back) and Kim Shaffer sign condolence books after the 9/11 attacks. The books, donated by J. Paul McCracken and Snyder funeral homes, would be sent to the mayors of New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as United Airlines, American Airlines and rescue workers at the sites of the terrorist attacks.
Charles Noel, Kim Noel Dominick and Hilary Noel display a quilt made by Kim’s grandmother, Agnes Noel. It was originally intended to honor President John F. Kennedy after his assassination, but the family displayed it shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to show their patriotism.
Area businesses displayed messages of patriotism and grief following 9/11.
Ligonier community members attended a Heritage United Methodist Church prayer service for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Gabe Monzo spoke to security guards on Sept. 11, 2001, during a lockdown at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity Township.
Ligonier Scouts were among hundreds who attended a Sept. 16, 2001, candlelight vigil for the victims of 9/11.
AND BELLA MARKOVITZ
Peggy Shepler (front), Linda Norris, Kathy Giesey (back) and Kim Shaffer sign condolence books after the 9/11 attacks. The books, donated by J. Paul McCracken and Snyder funeral homes, would be sent to the mayors of New York City and Washington, D.C., as well as United Airlines, American Airlines and rescue workers at the sites of the terrorist attacks.
Charles Noel, Kim Noel Dominick and Hilary Noel display a quilt made by Kim’s grandmother, Agnes Noel. It was originally intended to honor President John F. Kennedy after his assassination, but the family displayed it shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to show their patriotism.
Area businesses displayed messages of patriotism and grief following 9/11.
Ligonier community members attended a Heritage United Methodist Church prayer service for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.
Gabe Monzo spoke to security guards on Sept. 11, 2001, during a lockdown at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Unity Township.
Ligonier Scouts were among hundreds who attended a Sept. 16, 2001, candlelight vigil for the victims of 9/11.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a Westmoreland County Airport Authority meeting ground to a halt.
Gabe Monzo, the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport’s manager, watched as a maintenance supervisor burst in to say an airplane hit the World Trade Center.
“Nobody thought a whole lot about it other than it might have been an air traffic control situation,” Monzo said.
The meeting continued. Later, that maintenance supervisor brought another update: a second plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.
Immediately, the meeting stopped, and airport officials rushed to figure out what was happening.
They quickly learned that nearby Flight 93 had likely been hijacked, and they prepared for the worst.
The airport called an Alert 3, typically reserved for an airplane crash, which brought mutual aid companies and first responders to the airport. Soon, around 140 first responders were at the airport.
“We were all scared to death. Nobody knew what to expect. Nobody knew when the next ball would drop, and what the situation might be,” Monzo said.
When they learned of the Flight 93 crash, half of them went to assist before turning around when it was clear there wouldn’t be survivors.
Monzo said they started sending people home around 4 p.m.
At the time, no airport personnel had IDs. State police planned to stop anyone without credentials from entering the Unity Township airport, so airport officials borrowed equipment from the township to make IDs. They were the first IDs the staff ever had.
“It was pretty quiet for the next few days. The only one that was flying was the state police helicopter,” Monzo said. “It was pretty eerie.”
The day of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bulletin ran a photo of the smoking World Trade Center with an Associated Press story headlined “US Under Attack.”
Marie McCandless, then-Bulletin editor, wrote the headline herself.
“I never thought I had to write a headline that the U.S. was under attack,” McCandless said. “It was just completely out of the realm of possibility.”
Embedded halfway in the story was a small box titled “Lockdown At Local Airport,” detailing how Arnold Palmer Regional Airport went into lockdown in the wake of the attacks.
Bulletin reporter Mandi Moranelli was in the airport authority meeting to cover it when the lockdown began, McCandless said.
The next day, the Bulletin’s front page was flooded with local news, including additional details on the airport shutdown.
This time, the photo on the front page was local: Monzo speaking to security guards on Sept. 11 during the lockdown.
Greater Latrobe, Derry Area and Ligonier Valley students remained in classes on Sept. 11, but after-school activities were canceled. St. Vincent College also kept students in class, although University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg campus closed for the day.
Kennametal also shut down, according to Chuck Glazer, the public relations coordinator who spoke to the Bulletin after the attacks.
Pat Mahanes, who was executive vice president and chief operating officer of Kennametal on 9/11, told the Bulletin he will never forget what he saw that day — not just on television, but right over the Kennametal building.
That day, Mahanes saw a Kennametal lawyer watching the news in a conference room after the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Mahanes’ first thought was that the pilot may have had a medical emergency. Then the second plane hit.
“The world is changing today,” Mahanes told the lawyer.
After an hour or two, Mahanes said, the state police told him to evacuate the roughly 750 people inside the Kennametal facility, which is right across from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport, because a plane went off its planned course and wasn’t communicating with authorities. The police were worried Kennametal could be a target, Mahanes said.
Mahanes told everyone to evacuate. About 25 minutes later, he left his office and walked through the different buildings in the Kennametal complex, checking to see if anyone was left but finding no one.
He went out to the parking lot — no cars remained except for his own. As he marveled at the swift evacuation, a deafening sound drew near.
Mahanes said he looked up and saw an airplane fly over one of the Kennametal buildings so low it looked like it almost touched the roof.
“It was so low I could read all the numbers and the letters on the plane, and I’m thinking, ‘This thing obviously is going to come down somewhere close,’” he said.
By the next day, Mahanes had learned the fate of Flight 93 and believed that was the plane he saw, he said.
In a timeline of the events of Sept. 11, the National Park Service detailed a pilot’s account of seeing a large plane at 8,000 feet near Arnold Palmer Regional Airport.
Mahanes has since visited the Flight 93 memorial, he said, where the accounts of passengers communicating with loved ones and their determination to disrupt the hijacking made for an emotional experience.
On the Sept. 12 Bulletin front page, the Latrobe United Methodist Church announced a prayer service “in response to the devastating and terrible terroristic events.”
Greater Latrobe Ministerial Association President the Rev. Jeffrey Schock said, “All of our facilities of faith are havens of hope and help when tragedies such as these arise.”
In the days and weeks that followed, the Bulletin chronicled memorial services and community efforts to support those affected by the attacks.
For Monzo, the dedication of the first responders who came to the airport that day has stayed with him.
“They didn’t know what was going to happen. Nobody did,” he said, “They’re all heroes.”
He praised the commitment of volunteer first responders, then and now.
“People sometimes take for granted the volunteers that we have in our region and the people that are willing to come out and do the work that needs to be done,” he said. “Don’t ever take that for granted because these are people that are willing to do the job.”
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