Flight 93: The Story, the Aftermath, and the Legacy of American Courage on 9/11
Tom McMillan
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 1493009346
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 have earned their rightful place among the pantheon of American heroes. Flight 93 provides a riveting narrative based on interviews, oral histories, transcripts, recordings, personal tours of the crash site, and voluminous trial evidence made public only in recent years. There also is plenty of chilling new detail for readers who think they know the story of the flight. Utilizing research tools that were not available in the years immediately after the crash, the book offers the most complete account of what actually took place aboard United 93 – from its delayed takeoff at Newark International Airport to the moment it plunged upside-down at 563 miles per hour into an open field in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
after takeover, 83–89 hijacker commands, 84–85 news reports, 117, 118 passenger revolt, 100–105 phone calls from passengers/crew, 85–92, 93–95, 96–99, 101–2 takeover by hijackers, 81–83 tickets for hijackers, 51–52 United Airlines Flight 175, 71–74 US Capitol building, 46, 196–99 Veitz, Louis, 131–32 VF Corp., 139–40 videos, martyrdom, 44–45 Wagner, Chuck, 167 Wainio, Elizabeth, 56, 60, 98, 102, 211 Wainio, Sarah, 177 Walker, Tom, 168 Wall of Names, 178, 180, 183, 184. See also
and very relaxed. We were talking about each other and how much we loved each other, and she wanted me to raise the kids right.” Reports of a third plane crash, this one near Washington, DC, caused yet another spike in tension among the passengers and crew in the back of the aircraft. Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. and the news spread quickly, adding a new dimension to the panic. The carnage was no longer limited to the Manhattan skyline. The country’s military nerve center
kept rocking the wings as the plane dipped below 5,000 feet, determined to knock his assailants off balance and disrupt the attack. The passengers were still outmatched, weaponless, and at the mercy of a suicidal pilot; but they had strength in numbers and maybe even momentum on their side. Jarrah knew it. “There are some guys,” he said to Ghamdi. “All those guys.” “Let’s get them!” one of the male passengers shouted. At 9:59:50 a.m., Jarrah changed tactics and began pitching the nose up and
Purbaugh, working a blowtorch at the Rollock scrap metal company on a hill overlooking the strip mine—just his second day on the job—was the closest witness to the crash site. He stared in disbelief as the plane whizzed over his head and made its final fatal dive into the open field. “The plane was not shot down,” the FBI’s Wells Morrison said bluntly. “It did not explode. It flew into the ground.” The evidence to support his claim was overwhelming—from the flight data recorder, which charted
the first few years were pretty traumatic for me,” Lyz told me. “I can grasp more things many years later, but it’s almost like I have a post-traumatic obsessive compulsion with the violence. Grief changes. You learn to deal with the grief. A lot of my healing was not to think of the violence but to think of the person I loved and all the good things he left me with.” Foremost among them was a daughter, Emerson, who was three months old at the time of the crash. They have visited the memorial