America’s 250th: The first victory in the war against terror, the brave souls of Flight 93

On the morning of September 11, 2001, a day which most Americans alive at the time will never forget, al-Qaeda terrorists made four commercial airliners into instruments of catastrophic destruction. Most will recall the horror of the black smoke over New York City and the explosion and ring of fire at the Pentagon caused by three of the planes. But there was a fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, where 33 passengers and seven crew members fought and sacrificed their lives to prevent the plane from hitting a third target believed to be the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The terrorists had what they believed to be an airtight plan. With their box cutters, knives, red bandanas and mock explosives, they were sure that the unarmed crew and passengers would cave in before them. Although these tactics worked on three of the four planes, they failed on the fourth: United Airlines Flight 93.

A forty-two-minute takeoff delay from Newark Liberty International because of ground congestion threw the hijackers’ coordination and schedule out of whack. When four of them made their way into the cockpit at 9:28 a.m. to subdue the crew and push the passengers back, those on the ground had already been in communication with Flight 93.

Over three dozen calls were made by phone from the seat backs and from cell phones to operators and loved ones. The callers pieced together the facts and understood the gravity of the situation. When word came through about the Twin Towers and the Pentagon that the general belief was the plane was headed for the Capitol in Washington, D.C., it was obvious to those on board Flight 93 that this was no normal aircraft hijacking.

Armed with that knowledge and courage, the forty people in the rear of the cabin became a united front. It was very much in the American democratic tradition that these ordinary citizens put it to a vote as to whether they would resist. The verdict, like the defenders of the Alamo, was unanimous.

They were a mixed group – a former cop, a rugby player, a wildlife officer, a college athlete of days gone by, and flight attendants. The hijackers wanted victims; in the spirit of the Alamo, they got resistance and the defeat of their mission.

With nothing but plastic utensils, hot water from the galley, and sheer will, they readied themselves. One of the passengers, Todd Beamer, after a prayer with an operator, said the words we know: “…Okay. Let’s roll.”

At 9:57 a.m., the first battle in the War on Terrorism began. For six minutes, the plane was filled with the rush of passengers and the sound of a metal food cart being driven at the cockpit door. The recorders picked up thuds, crashing dishes, shouts and the panicked screams of the men inside. The terrorist pilot tried to unbalance them by throwing the nose of the plane up and down, but it did not stop them.

Realizing the door was about to give way, the hijackers in a panic decided to bring the plane down. At 10:03 a.m., Flight 93 went down in an inverted crash in a field at Stonycreek Township outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at more than five hundred miles an hour. There were no survivors.

It was only eighteen minutes’ flying time from Washington when Flight 93 hit. That sacrifice put an end to any attack on the Capitol and saved the lives of thousands.

The spirit of Flight 93 and Shanksville reminds one of the Alamo, another desperate situation where people banded together and put duty and sacrifice ahead of survival. In much the same way as the defenders in Texas made their sacrifice when faced with impossible odds, the souls on Flight 93 made a similar choice. Unknown to them at the time, however, was the special place in history where their choice would be forever enshrined. That place, where the spirit of honor, dedication, sacrifice, courage and willingness to sacrifice their lives all for a noble cause is revered and preserved.

^#1 In honor of the celebration of America’s 250th Birthday, the Ole Seagull is writing a column a month, through June 30, 2027, on a lesser-known historical fact about her, her leaders, or history. The anniversary of that fact will be in the month the column is written and the headline for the column will be preceded by “America’s 250th.”