Final words from Flight 93
Family members share the painful calls from the passengers who fought back
At 9:56 a.m., Flight 93 asked the Federal Aviation Administration to change its destination to Reagan National Airport in Washington. A minute later, the FAA approved, according to Flight Explorer, a firm that tracks such communications.
During his 15-minute call, Jeremy Glick told his wife that they had taken a vote and they were going after the terrorists. He told her he loved her. "Hold the phone, and I'll be back," he said. She couldn't bear it and handed the phone to her father. "I heard two sets of screams," Richard Makely recalls. "I presumed the first set was taking place when they attacked the people. They were rushing the cockpit. It was a chorus of screams and yells. And then, there was a second set a minute or so later. It was a little after 10."
Lisa Jefferson heard Todd Beamer say, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll." He put the phone down. She heard commotion. No one returned to the phone. She stayed on until the line went dead.
Minutes before the crash, Eric Peterson of Lambertsville, Pa., saw the 757 flying extremely low, maybe 300 feet from the ground. It suddenly careened downward. "We could see more of the top side of the plane than the underside," he said. It's unclear who was at the controls. At 10:10 a.m., the plane went down in the green grass of an inactive strip mine in Shanksville, Pa., leaving a vast black crater.
Thirteen days after the crash, President Bush invited the Flight 93 families to the White House. The event wasn't heavily publicized. In the East Room, Bush said the plane could have been gunning for the White House. He and his wife spent time with each family. "He hugged me and shook hands," says Robert Weisberg, Lou Nacke's father-in-law. "He was very emotional." About 100 staffers lined a hallway. They thanked the families for their lives.
Lisa Beamer has received many calls and letters from people who feel indebted to the Flight 93 heroes. A woman whose eighth-grade son was on a field trip to the White House told her "she owed Todd and the other passengers because her son was still alive." That's a comfort. "Even if my life is still really bad right now," Beamer says, "someone else's life isn't because of what Todd and the other passengers did. They acted courageously and showed they were people of character even under the most difficult circumstances. It is something for us all to look to and strive for, not just in times of trial, but all the time."
Nor will Beamer herself give in to fear. Pregnant with a third child, she flew United's Newark-to-San Francisco flight last week--now called Flight 81--for a meeting to set up a foundation in Todd's name.
Heroes in the sky
Because United Flight 93's takeoff was delayed, the passengers had time to learn of the terrorist attacks in New York. That extra time enabled them to plan and launch their own attack to thwart the hijackers.
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