Final words from Flight 93
Family members share the painful calls from the passengers who fought back
That Tuesday morning, Todd Beamer's alarm rang at 5:45 a.m. His wife, Lisa, pulled a pillow over her head. The Oracle account manager had to fly to San Francisco for a meeting at the software company. Normally, he would have left the night before, but on Monday, the couple had returned to their New Jersey home from a weeklong company trip to Italy, and Beamer wanted some time with 3-year-old David and 1-year-old Andrew. So he decided to take United Flight 93 the next day--September 11.
In all, 37 passengers boarded the plane at Newark International Airport's Gate 17 that bright, beautiful morning. Thirty-three were headed to the West Coast for business meetings or vacations--or simply returning home. Four had a different agenda. Carrying knives, a quartet of hijackers took control of the plane in midair and began steering it toward another destination--authorities have said the White House or the Capitol were likely targets. Exactly what happened on Flight 93 may never be known. Tapes from the cockpit voice recorder are still being examined. As of now, the best account of the heroes onboard comes from phone calls passengers made to family members, who shared their memories with U.S. News.
Timing is everything, they say, and timing was part of what foiled the hijackers. The Boeing 757 was to depart Newark International at 8 a.m. It pulled away from the gate at 8:01, then sat on the tarmac for more than 40 minutes because of heavy traffic. It finally took off at 8:43 a.m. Because of the delay, passengers learned of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in the midst of their own crisis--and then made their own fateful decisions.
Play to win. In the world of airplane travel, passengers who start a flight as strangers usually end up that way, too. But the extraordinary circumstances of Flight 93 changed that. Passengers and crew members joined together and fought back. In-flight phone calls point to at least five men as key players. They were big men, strong men, men who loved sports. Beamer, 32, 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, was a basketball and softball enthusiast. "He was humble," his wife says. "But he was very competitive. Winning was important to him."
In seat 4D was Mark Bingham, 31, 6-foot-5 and 220 pounds, a public-relations executive who played on his college rugby team, ran with the bulls in Pamplona this summer (and got gored), and once wrested a gun from a mugger. He was fiercely competitive, even in a game of Scrabble. "He had no fear," says Paul Holm, his former domestic partner of six years and a friend. "And he had to win."
Next to him was Tom Burnett, 38, chief operating officer of medical-device maker Thoratec. The father of three small girls, Burnett was a hockey player and onetime high school quarterback. A friend describes him as "exceptionally bright, driven, and competitive."
Jeremy Glick, 31, a salesman for a San Francisco Internet firm, sat in coach. Six-foot-1 and 220 pounds, he skied and golfed, wrestled and practiced judo. "He was very competitive, but he channeled his aggressiveness into sports and business," says his father-in-law, Richard Makely. "Once he was home, he was a very gentle person."
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