09/13/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10127

HEROES OF FLIGHT 93

On September 11^th, 2001, four passenger jets were hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists. Two of those planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. A third hit the Pentagon. More than three-thousand men, women, and children from more than ninety countries were murdered. Another forty-four people were killed when United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

"We believe those passengers on this jet were absolute heroes," said Robert Mueller, director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. They thwarted an attempt by the hijackers to fly the plane to Washington, D-C. There, the hijackers intended to inflict hundreds of casualties and destroy a national landmark, possibly the White House or the U.S. Capitol building.

Flight 93 departed Newark, New Jersey, at 8:42 a.m., September 11^th, 2001. Within the hour, four terrorists hijacked the aircraft. Passengers were ordered to remain seated.

The passengers were mostly Americans of many races, religions, and backgrounds. But there were also citizens of foreign countries. They included Toshiya Kuge, a Japanese college student. "He longed to come to America," his mother said. "Perhaps he liked the freedom."

Using cell phones, the passengers soon learned of the suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Tom Burnett, a businessman from San Ramon, California, told his wife, "we're going to have to do something."

The passengers decided to retake the plane. The odds against them were appalling. The hijackers were armed. They had stabbed the pilot and co-pilot and were at the controls of the plane. They claimed to have a bomb. Todd Beamer, an account manager from New Jersey, told a telephone operator that he and his fellow passengers had decided to fight back. "You ready?" he asked a fellow passenger. "Okay," he said, "let's roll."

The last moments of flight 93 are preserved on an audio tape that records the sound of a desperate battle. Authorities believe that the passengers overcame the hijackers but were unable to prevent the plane from crashing.

By their heroic resistance, the passengers of Flight 93 probably prevented a catastrophe. And they won an important victory in the war against terrorism. "Flight 93 redefined sacrifice for me," said President George W. Bush. "And if a handful of people will drive an airplane into the ground to save either me, or the White House, or the Congress, you know others in our country will make the sacrifice to save us down the road."