A Mission With No Safe Option
Former Air Force Lieutenant Heather “Lucky” Penney was 26 when she faced an assignment unlike any ordinary flight. Flight 93 had been hijacked and was turning toward Washington, D.C. Military leaders believed they might have to stop it with jets that carried no live missiles and, in Penney’s words, no real weapons for the task. If there was no other way to prevent the attack, the pilots would ram their jets into the commercial aircraft. Penney described it plainly as a suicide mission. The target would be an airliner full of innocent Americans, while the feared next targets included the White House, Congress, and other central institutions of the country.
Flight 93 Turned Toward Washington
Flight 93 was the fourth plane hijacked on September 11, 2001, and the only one that did not reach its intended target. A delay kept it on the ground while the other three planes were already hijacked. After takeoff, the plane flew west for about 46 minutes. Then the hijackers entered the cockpit. Controllers heard a “Mayday” and “Get out of here!” before one hijacker took control and turned the aircraft toward Washington, D.C. That turn forced military leaders to make a decision under extreme time pressure. Penney later said the pilots did not know Flight 93 had already crashed when they received authorization. The information available to the people trying to stop the plane was painfully incomplete.
The Passengers Made Their Decision
Inside the plane, passengers and crew used airphones and cell phones to learn about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They voted to try to retake the aircraft. Todd Beamer’s last recorded words, “Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll,” echoed for more than two decades. After the struggle, the plane rolled and pitched and crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, rather than allow the hijackers to keep control. Flight 93 did not reach Washington. The passengers’ action meant the military pilots would never have to carry out the collision plan, although Penney and the other pilot did not know that at the time. The people aboard had learned that the country was under attack and chose to act.
The Plan Was to Hit the Airliner
Penney recalled that, as she was putting on her G-suit, a pilot she referred to as Sass told her, “I’ll take the cockpit.” His plan was to fly his jet into the cockpit to take out the hijackers and the flight controls. Penney would then ram her jet into the tail of the airliner. The pilots had to assume that the White House, Congress, and other cherished national institutions could be the next targets. They were preparing to sacrifice themselves without knowing that the passengers had already taken action. Penney’s account makes the mechanics stark: one jet for the cockpit, one jet for the tail, and a mission the pilots understood could cost them their lives.
Penney’s Account of What Came Too Late
Penney has also described the mission as a failure in important ways. She said the nation lacked the imagination to prepare, they were not sitting alert, the aircraft did not have live weapons, and authorization came too late to make a difference. She did not know at the time that Flight 93 had already crashed. Later, she credited the passengers without hesitation. “Thank God for the passengers,” she said, because without them, the flight would have reached its target and the military pilots would have been too late. She also said the passengers had been forced to make a choice they never should have faced, but thanked God that they made it. Her account holds both truths together: the military was ready to sacrifice pilots, and the passengers had already acted to stop the hijacking.
The Memorial at Shanksville
The bravery of Beamer and the other passengers and crew is honored at the Flight 93 National Memorial, run by the National Park Service. The site includes the Wall of Names, the Tower of Voices, a visitor center, and the crash site itself. The crash site is treated as a burial ground, and members of the public do not walk on it. Together, those features preserve the names of the people aboard Flight 93 and the place where the airliner came down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
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