FBI first responder remembers rushing to Flight 93 crash site on 9/11

PITTSBURGH — On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Special Agent Dave Zacur was working in the Johnstown FBI office, when he heard about the two planes hitting the World Trade Center in New York and another plane hitting the Pentagon in Washington D.C.

Then he got the call.

“One of the local detectives called me and said hey you know there’s a plan down in Shanksville. Well, here we go. And my other two partners and I headed that way,” said Zacur.

When Zacur, who served as an Army medic in Vietnam, got to the abandoned strip mine where the plane went down, the woods near the crash site were still smoldering.

“I guess the one of the first things I did was, I’m hoping there are survivors so you just one, hoping against hope that we could find someone survived but it was obvious that none made it. The thing that struck me the most was there was a distinct odor of jet fuel and human remains. And I was a medic in Vietnam and it took me back to Vietnam,” said Zacur, who said you couldn’t tell that a plane had crashed. “As you and I were talking earlier, someone told me that a 757 plowed into the ground, I would have said you’re crazy. Guess what happened? I had no idea because there’s nothing recognizable at least there at the point of impact, of an airplane, let alone a 757.”

He immediately went to work with the other agents interviewing witnesses.

“I remember one of the interviews. I don’t remember the man’s name, but I remember he said the plane was coming in upside down, I said how do you know it was upside down, and he says the engines were inverted.They were up. I remember there was a massive crane up on the hill and we talked to those guys, and they said that the impact of the plane lifted this piece of equipment,” said Zacur.

For nearly two months, Zacur spent every day at the crash site.

“I remember each day we’d come in and you can see in the sun in the morning when it hit the pine trees, and you can see shards of the plane embedded in the trees. There were wallets. I think there was a passport of one of the terrorists. We found clothing in suitcases. United 93 was carrying mail and there was mail strewn all over the place too. The largest piece I saw was the nose of the plane. That’s the largest piece I saw. Now, there was, we did recover some, I think some of the windows from the plane in that little pond the was back behind the pines that were on fire. But I didn’t see the I guess the landing gear was some place down, on the debris field And the other thing you think about is that after you get over the shock of what happened there now it’s a crime scene. And you have to be so focused now on what we have to do because I don’t think any of this ever went to trial, but you never knew what was going to happen,” said Zacur.

Investigators recovered 90 percent of the plane, and using DNA identified everyone on board. Zacur said one of the most difficult moments was watching the family members of the victims as they visited the crash site for the first time.

“I think it was probably the toughest. The toughest part seeing them come in on the bus and I remember them coming off the bus and you could just see the anguish on their faces, and you wanted to go up and console them and give them a big hug, but you just,” said Zacur, who has returned to the field in Shanksville a couple of times. “It was like akin to walking on Gettysburg, it was a battlefield. And the silence is defying. I mean it’s eerie, but we can’t forget, we can’t forget.”

Zacur said he will never forget the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 who fought back in the skies over Shanksville and prevented the terrorists from hitting the U.S. Capitol or the White House.

“That’s incredible. That when you, I just can’t, I can’t imagine what they were thinking but I’m sure the adrenaline was pumping, and they weren’t thinking about anything else but breaching that cockpit and taking care of those characters,” said Zacur.

Zacur spent 28 years with the FBI. At one point he investigate illegal drug trafficking in South America. Two years, after 9/11, he retired from the FBI.

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