WASHINGTON – Universal Pictures will donate $1.14 million toward a memorial to the passengers and crew who perished aboard United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 – addressing concerns of a lawmaker who has blocked legislation to buy land for the project, a group representing the families said yesterday.

The donation from Universal, which last week released “United 93,” a film about the flight, brings to $9 million the private donations raised for the memorial. Organizers hope to raise $30 million to build the memorial near Shanksville, Pa., where the plane crashed.

The studio had promised to contribute some proceeds from the film to the memorial, which is expected to cost about $58 million to build.

Hamilton Peterson, president of Families of Flight 93, told the Associated Press yesterday that Universal had committed the money to the project.

The flight was en route to San Francisco from Newark, N.J., when the hijackers took over, probably with the goal of crashing the plane into the White House or the Capitol. Instead, the plane went down in Pennsylvania – apparently after passengers rushed the cockpit – killing the 33 passengers, seven crew members and four hijackers on board.

For the past two years, Rep. Charles Taylor, a Republican of North Carolina, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the Interior Department, has blocked funding to buy property for the memorial. He has expressed concerns that the project would not receive sufficient private funding and the federal government would be asked to pick up the tab.

“We’re optimistic once we have the chance to get him additional facts about our fund-raising success to date, that he may have a different perspective,” said Mr. Peterson, whose father and stepmother died in the crash.