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Witness to history: Nanty Glo man first on scene of Flight 93 crash

By Matt Churella 7 min read

EBENSBURG -- As a 29-year-old police detective for the Conemaugh Township Police Department in Somerset County, Nanty Glo resident Bubba Fatula was one of the first four local responders to arrive on scene minutes after United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in an abandoned strip mine in Stonycreek Township, about four miles north of Shanksville.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, it was Fatula's turn to take his officer handgun qualification, an annual test officers take to prove they can safely and accurately fire their duty weapons. The gun range officers would normally use was closed, so then-Police Chief Louis "Pete" Barclay took Fatula to a gun range in the woods near Shanksville, not knowing what the day was going to bring, Fatula recalled.

When they finished the qualification and started to leave the area, they received a 911 call that an aircraft had crashed near Shanksville, so they turned around and headed back, Fatula said, adding Barclay was familiar with the location Somerset County dispatchers gave to officers.

Upon arriving there, however, they couldn't immediately find the impact site, Fatula said. After receiving the initial report of an aircraft down, Fatula said he thought it was a two-seater or some other type of light aircraft.

"That's what I was thinking we were going to see, so I was trying to get there quickly in case somebody needed help," Fatula said, adding he grew frustrated with not finding the crash site and decided to jump out of the police car and run through the woods to find smoke, flames or some remnants of an aircraft crash while Barclay continued his search in the car.

Fatula said he ran through the woods "in what felt like forever" before the air filled with dense smoke and he found signs of the crash -- small fires scattered here and there through the woods and little pieces of the aircraft in the debris.

Around that time, Barclay pulled in with his car, and the two were on scene with former Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Patrick "Stu" Stewart and the police chief of another department, Fatula recalled, noting the smoke and jet fuel were overwhelming.

"The smoke was so thick you had to walk into it," Fatula said. "I kept walking into it to figure out, is there a plane here? But the smoke would overtake you, so you had to back out of it, catch your breath and then go back in."

Fatula said he doesn't recall how long they were on scene before other first responders arrived. It could've been 15 minutes or more, he said.

"I remember the local fire company showing up; that was my next memory of who comes on scene," Fatula said. "I remember then, as time went on, other law enforcement agencies, and then before you knew it, in the blink of an eye, it was just covered with people. There were people everywhere."

Bigger than believed

While on scene, the officers received an update from the 911 center, indicating the aircraft was bigger than the original dispatch reported. But they still didn't know the plane was a Boeing 757 or understand the severity of the scene they were on, Fatula said.

Fatula said he remembers looking at Barclay and saying, "Well, where's it at then?"

"It didn't make sense," Fatula said, adding he remembers almost being in an argument with the Somerset County 911 dispatcher, who was now telling officers it was a larger airliner that crashed.

"There's no way; that's not what's in this field. I'm standing here and I'm telling you," Fatula recalled of his conversation with the dispatcher, adding he and Barclay began to question whether they were even in the right spot.

"Are we only in one place that something came off the aircraft, and we're only here and there's a bigger scene somewhere in the woods," Fatula reportedly asked Barclay.

But there was no larger scene elsewhere, and they later found out the Earth swallowed the aircraft, Fatula said.

"It was confusing when you're on scene first and you don't understand what's happening in the world," Fatula said, adding he still wasn't aware of the other terrorist attacks that occurred in New York City and Washington, D.C.

At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the south tower. American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., and United Airlines Flight 93 -- which was heading toward Washington, D.C., with either the White House or the U.S. Capitol being its likely target -- was brought down at 10:03 a.m. in Somerset County.

The flight's data and cockpit voice recorders were recovered from the crash site days later and helped investigators piece together the final moments leading up to the crash, during which the passengers and crew members revolted against the hijackers, attempting to regain access to the cockpit.

"We didn't have the technology that we have today. I couldn't just bring up a phone and put up a video of the news," Fatula said, adding he didn't even have a flip phone on him that day -- only a pager, with a 911 dispatcher giving him information over his radio.

It wasn't until the early hours of Sept. 12, 2001, when Fatula returned home to find a VHS tape on his counter with a note from his wife, Shannon, that said, "watch this." The tape contained recorded footage of the scene Fatula was just on, in addition to coverage of the other attacks.

It was about 1 a.m. when Fatula saw the footage and realized the country was under attack, he said.

"I thought, oh my goodness, do we just go to bed now, are we done being attacked? Is my wife safe? Does she go to work tomorrow? I remember putting all of that together in my head," Fatula said.

25 years later

On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Fatula, now 54 with two kids in their 20s, said he thinks about the family members whose lives were forever changed by that fatal day.

"I'll bet you for 25 years, they've thought, why them? Why that aircraft and on that day, why my kid? Now that I'm a parent with kids who are in their 20s, I couldn't even imagine the pain they must still feel," Fatula said.

Last year, Fatula went back to the crash site for the first time. The site, now developed and maintained by the National Park Service as the Flight 93 National Memorial, looked different from what he remembered of it in 2001, Fatula said.

"It was definitely different for me to see," Fatula said. "I had this vision of what that field looked like that day for all these years, and it looked nothing like that. So, it was weird for me."

What was strange for

Fatula, he said, was walking out on the black granite flightpath walkway that traces the aircraft's final trajectory, leading to an overlook where visitors can view the Memorial Plaza, the Wall of Names and a large sandstone boulder, which marks the impact site behind a restricted area.

"That was weird for me because 25 years ago, I would've stood where that crater was and looked up into those woods and seen the path that it made coming through those trees," Fatula said.

Mirror Staff Writer Matt Churella is at 814-946-7520.

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