Over Pennsylvania · 11 September 2001 · Passengers and crew of United Flight 93
Let’s Roll
Forty ordinary Americans learned what the hijackers had done with the other planes, took a vote, and charged the cockpit. Flight 93 never reached Washington.
The moment · 09:57 · 11 September 2001
The passengers have voted. Sandy Bradshaw has boiling water from the galley. Todd Beamer sets down his Airfone. They run up the aisle toward first class and the cockpit door. The hijacker at the controls throws the jet hard left and right. They keep coming.
Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.Todd Beamer, as heard by Airfone operator Lisa Jefferson
United Flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco on a clear Tuesday morning, more than 25 minutes late. That delay changed everything. By the time hijackers stormed the cockpit over Ohio, both towers of the World Trade Center had been hit. Thirty-three passengers and seven crew learned the truth by phone, understood their plane was a weapon aimed at Washington, and decided to stop it.
Wheels up, late
Heavy morning traffic holds Flight 93 on the ground. The Boeing 757 lifts off from Newark more than 25 minutes behind schedule, bound for San Francisco. Captain Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer are in the cockpit, with five flight attendants in the cabin. There are 33 passengers in a jet built to seat 182. Four minutes later, the first hijacked airliner hits the North Tower in New York.
A warning from the ground
United dispatcher Ed Ballinger, tracking 16 transcontinental flights, starts sending his own warning to their cockpits: beware any cockpit intrusion, two aircraft have hit the World Trade Center. It reaches Flight 93 at 09:24. Two minutes later Captain Dahl types back that he wants to be sure he read it right: “Ed, confirm latest mssg plz.”
Mayday
Forty-six minutes into the flight, later than on any other hijacked plane that day, the four hijackers in first class storm the cockpit over eastern Ohio. The jet drops about 700 feet. Air traffic controllers at Cleveland Center hear a pilot call “Mayday” over the sounds of a fight. Thirty-five seconds later he is still fighting.
Flight 93 cockpit, heard by Cleveland CenterHey get out of here, get out of here, get out of here.
Headed for Washington
A hijacker tells the passengers to sit down because there is a bomb on board. He turns the autopilot to the east, climbs to 41,000 feet and steers for Washington, later keying in the code for Reagan National Airport. At 09:41 he shuts off the transponder. Cleveland Center tracks the jet on primary radar as it turns southeast. In the cabin, the passengers and crew are herded to the back.
Flight 93’s route on 11 September 2001: east from Newark, turned back over Ohio, down near Shanksville. National Park Service (map cleanup by National Park Maps). They learn the truth
From the Airfones in the last rows, 13 passengers and crew make 37 calls. Tom Burnett asks his wife Deena if she has heard about other planes; she tells him two have flown into the World Trade Center. Mark Bingham calls his mother. CeeCee Lyles tells her husband she has heard about the towers. Within minutes they know this is no ordinary hijacking. Their plane is a missile.
We have to do something
Jeremy Glick, a former national collegiate judo champion, tells his wife Lyz that he and other men are planning to rush the hijackers, and that the passengers are voting on it. Burnett tells Deena a group of them is getting ready to do something. Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw tells her husband they are boiling water to throw on the hijackers before rushing them.
Let’s roll
Todd Beamer has been on an Airfone with GTE supervisor Lisa Jefferson since 09:44. He has told her what is happening, asked her to tell his pregnant wife he loves her, and prayed the Lord’s Prayer with her. He says he and some others are planning something. Then she hears him speak to the people around him.
Todd Beamer, on the open Airfone lineAre you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.
Everyone’s running up to first class
The passengers and crew hang up and charge. Elizabeth Wainio tells her stepmother they are getting ready to break into the cockpit. The cockpit recorder catches the assault through the door: “In the cockpit! In the cockpit!” The hijacker pilot rolls the jet, then pitches it up and down. Plates and glasses smash. The fight goes on. A passenger shouts, “In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die!”
Sandy Bradshaw, ending her call to her husbandEveryone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.
They never reached Washington
The hijackers judge the passengers only seconds from overcoming them and give up on their target. They turn the control wheel hard over and dive. The airliner rolls onto its back and strikes an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 563 miles per hour, at 10:03:11. Washington is about 20 minutes’ flying time away. Eighteen minutes earlier, the entire U.S. Capitol had been evacuated for the first time in its history.
Among the forty
Oracle account manager from Cranbury, New Jersey, a Wheaton College graduate with two young sons and a third child on the way. He kept an open line to an Airfone operator, prayed with her, then turned to the others: “Let’s roll.”
Minnesota native, chief operating officer of the heart-pump maker Thoratec and father of three daughters. His calls to his wife Deena brought the news of the World Trade Center aboard. He told her a group of them was getting ready to do something.
Former national collegiate judo champion and University of Rochester graduate from Hewitt, New Jersey, father of a three-month-old girl. He told his wife Lyz the passengers were voting on whether to storm the cockpit, and that he was going to rush the hijackers.
Eleven-year United flight attendant from Greensboro, North Carolina, mother of two toddlers and married to an airline pilot. She calmly reported the hijacking to United, then helped the passengers prepare, boiling water to throw on the hijackers.
By the numbers
In pictures
Watch, listen, see
Films, photographs and first-hand accounts from across the web. Each opens in a new tab.
The memorial’s own film on the flight, the calls home, the revolt and the field near Shanksville.
National Park Service
Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson recalls her call with Todd Beamer, ten days after the attack.
CBS News
On the 20th anniversary, President Bush honors the forty at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
George W. Bush Presidential Center
The seating chart and a minute-by-minute log of the 37 calls made from Flight 93.
National Park Service
The memorial’s detailed timeline of 11 September, from takeoff in Newark to the field in Shanksville.
National Park Service
Chapter one of the Commission’s report, built from the calls, radar and cockpit voice recorder.
The 9/11 Commission Report
The NTSB’s analysis of the radar track and recovered flight data, down to the final second.
National Transportation Safety Board
President Bush’s address of 8 November 2001, which ended with Todd Beamer’s words.
George W. Bush White House Archives“We will, no doubt, face new challenges. But we have our marching orders: My fellow Americans, let’s roll.”
President George W. Bush, Atlanta, 8 November 2001
After
The FBI recovered both flight recorders from the field. The 9/11 Commission found that the hijackers meant to crash into the Capitol or the White House, and gave its verdict in one sentence: “He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93.”
In 2009 Congress placed a plaque in the Capitol honoring the forty, whose sacrifice “may have saved the U.S. Capitol from destruction.” Congress awarded them a Congressional Gold Medal in 2011 and presented it in the Capitol in 2014. Beamer, Bingham, Burnett and Glick shared the 2002 Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
The field is now the Flight 93 National Memorial, created by Congress in 2002. Forty marble panels of the Wall of Names stand along the final flight path, a boulder marks where the plane came down, and the 93-foot Tower of Voices holds a wind chime for each of them.
Primary sources
- The 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1: “We Have Some Planes.” National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004.
- Phone Calls and Seating Chart; September 11, 2001 Timeline. Flight 93 National Memorial, National Park Service.
- Flight Path Study, United Airlines Flight 93. National Transportation Safety Board, 19 February 2002.