United Airlines Flight 93

United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on board, as part of the September 11 attacks. It crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, after the passengers and crew attempted to retake control of the plane in an uprising. All 44 people on board were killed, including the four hijackers. The aircraft involved, a Boeing 757-222, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California.

After a slight delay due to heavy traffic, the aircraft took off 42 minutes behind schedule. Forty six minutes into the flight, the hijackers killed a passenger and stormed the aircraft's cockpit. The captain and first officer struggled with the hijackers, which was transmitted to Air Traffic Control. Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the east coast, in the direction of Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, considered principal instigators of the attacks, have claimed that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol Building.

In the cockpit, the pilots who might have survived the initial attack may have tried de-activating the autopilot in order to hinder the hijackers, while the hijackers held a flight attendant hostage in the cockpit (possibly killing her). Several passengers learned from phone calls of the suicide attacks that had already been made by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Many of the passengers and some of the flight attendants then organized a brief assault to retake the cockpit and overpowered at least two hijackers (possibly killing both), and began to breach the cockpit. Once it became evident that the passengers might gain control, the remaining hijackers intentionally crashed the plane into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, about 65 mi southeast of Pittsburgh and 130 mi northwest of Washington, D.C.. A few people witnessed the impact, and news agencies began reporting the event within an hour.

Of the four aircraft hijacked on September 11 – the others were American Airlines Flight 11, United Airlines Flight 175, and American Airlines Flight 77 – United Airlines Flight93 was the only aircraft that did not reach its hijackers' intended target. A temporary memorial was built near the crash site soon after the attacks. Construction of a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011, and a concrete and glass visitor center (situated on a hill overlooking the site) was opened exactly four years later.

Hijackers
The hijacking of Flight93 was led by Ziad Jarrah, a member of al-Qaeda. Jarrah was born in Lebanon to a wealthy family and had a secular upbringing. He intended to become a pilot and moved to Germany in 1996, enrolling at the University of Greifswald to study German. A year later, he moved to Hamburg and began studying aeronautical engineering at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In Hamburg, Jarrah became a devout Muslim and associated with the radical Hamburg cell.

In November 1999, Jarrah left Hamburg for Afghanistan, where he spent three months. While there, he met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in January 2000. Jarrah returned to Hamburg at the end of January and in February obtained a new passport containing no stamped records of his travels by reporting his passport as stolen.

In May, Jarrah received a visa from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, arriving in Florida in June 2000. There, he began taking flying lessons and training in hand-to-hand combat. Jarrah maintained contact with his girlfriend in Germany and with his family in Lebanon in the months preceding the attacks. This close contact upset Mohamed Atta, the tactical leader of the plot, and al-Qaeda planners may have considered another operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, to replace him if he had backed out.

Four "muscle" hijackers were trained to storm the cockpit and overpower the crew, and three accompanied Jarrah on Flight93. The first, Ahmed al-Nami, arrived in Miami, Florida, on May 28, on a six-month tourist visa with United Airlines Flight 175 hijackers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri. The second Flight93 hijacker, Ahmed al-Haznawi, arrived in Miami on June8 with Flight11 hijacker Wail al-Shehri. The third Flight93 muscle hijacker, Saeed al-Ghamdi, arrived in Orlando, Florida, on June 27 with Flight175 hijacker Fayez Banihammad.

On August 3, an intended fifth hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, flew into Orlando from Dubai. He was questioned by officials, who were dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he intended to become an illegal immigrant as he was using a one-way ticket. He was sent back to Dubai, and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia.

Flight
The aircraft involved in the hijacking was a Boeing 757-222, registration delivered to United Airlines in June 1996. The airplane had a capacity of 182 passengers; the September 11 flight carried 33 passengers, the four terrorists, and seven crew members, a load factor of 20 percent, considerably below the 52 percent average Tuesday load factor for Flight93. The seven crew members were Captain Jason Dahl (43), First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr. (36), and flight attendants Lorraine Bay, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, CeeCee Lyles, and Deborah Welsh.

Boarding


At 5:01 a.m. on the morning of September 11, Jarrah placed a cell phone call from Newark to Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, in Boston. This call was apparently to confirm that the attacks were ready to begin. The four hijackers checked in for the flight between 07:03 and 07:39 Eastern Time. At 07:03, Ghamdi checked in without any luggage while Nami checked in two bags. At 07:24, Haznawi checked in one bag and at 07:39, Jarrah checked in without any luggage. Haznawi was the only hijacker selected for extra scrutiny by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). His checked bag underwent extra screening for explosives, with no extra scrutiny required by CAPPS at the passenger-security checkpoint. None of the security checkpoint personnel reported anything unusual about the hijackers.

Haznawi and Ghamdi boarded the aircraft at 07:39 and sat in first class seats 6B and 3D respectively. Nami boarded one minute later and sat in first class seat 3C. Before boarding the plane, Jarrah made five telephone calls to Lebanon, one to France, and one to his girlfriend, Aysel Sengün, in Germany, to whom he'd sent a farewell letter the day before. He said "I love you" three times, then hung up when she asked what was up. He boarded at 07:48 and sat in seat 1B. The aircraft was scheduled to depart at 08:00 and pushed back from gate A17 at 08:01. It remained delayed on the ground until 08:42 because of heavy airport congestion. The three other hijacked flights all departed within fifteen minutes of their scheduled times. By the time Flight93 became airborne, Flight 11 was four minutes away from hitting the North Tower and Flight 175 was being hijacked; Flight 77 was climbing normally and was nine minutes away from being hijacked. By 09:02, one minute before Flight 175 hit the South Tower, Flight 93 reached its cruising altitude of 35000 ft.

With the attacks unfolding, air traffic officials began issuing warnings through the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS). Ed Ballinger, the United flight dispatcher, began sending text cockpit warnings to United Airlines flights at 09:19, 17 minutes after he became aware of Flight 175's impact. Ballinger was responsible for multiple flights, and he sent the message to Flight93 at 09:23. Ballinger received a routine ACARS message from Flight93 at 09:21: "Good morning...Nice clb (climb) outta EWR [Newark Airport]." The message commented about the sights from the cockpit and the weather, and was signed off with the initial, "J.", indicating it came from Jason Dahl, who knew Ballinger. At 09:22, after learning of the events at the World Trade Center, LeRoy Homer's wife, Melody Homer, had an ACARS message sent to her husband in the cockpit asking if he was all right. At 09:24, Flight93 received Ballinger's ACARS warning, "Beware any cockpit intrusion – two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center". At 09:26, after the pilots twice checked in with a routine altitude and weather report to an air traffic controller at the FAA's Cleveland Center, Dahl wrote a hasty, misspelled ACARS reply: "Ed cofirm latest mssg plz-Jason". At 09:27:25, as the aircraft was crossing into eastern Ohio airspace, the flight crew responded to a routine radio call from a Cleveland air traffic controller, who told them to watch for another plane twelve miles away and two thousand feet above them. They said contact was negative and they were looking. This was the last communication made by the flight crew before the hijacking.

Hijacking
The hijacking began at 09:28. By this time, Flights 11 and 175 had already crashed into the World Trade Center and Flight77 was within nine minutes of striking the Pentagon. The hijackers on those flights had waited no more than thirty minutes to commandeer the aircraft, most likely striking after the seat belt sign had been turned off and cabin service had begun. It is unknown why the hijackers on Flight93 waited 46 minutes to begin their assault. According to passengers and crew, the hijackers tied red bandanas around their heads and sprang from their seats. The evidence is that they attacked the pilots by at least 9:28:05, as the flight cruised at 35,000 feet over eastern Ohio, the plane abruptly dropped 685 feet. At 09:28:17, eleven seconds into the descent, Cleveland heard a man scream into the cockpit radio: "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" A second raspy shout went, "Hey! Get out of here!" Cleveland Air Traffic Controller John Werth didn't know the source of the call he heard, and he could only make out what he heard as "just some gruttural, gruttural sounds." He responded into his mic, "Somebody call Cleveland?", before he noticed Flight 93's rapid descent and heard at 09:28:50 screams from the cockpit along with made another transmission, an even more desperate and garbled refrain: "Hey! Get out of here! Get out of here!" While the commission made no conclusion as to whether it was Dahl or Homer shouting the distress, Melody Homer identified her husband as the man who was shouting. The flight dropped 685 ft in half a minute before the hijackers stabilized the aircraft at 34,315 feet, and soon began climbing southeast. Of the four hijacked aircraft on 9/11, Flight93 was the only aircraft that broadcast a distress call. It is likely that because the pilots had been warned of the WTC hijackings and to beware of a cockpit intrusion, when they came under attack, they purposely pressed on the talk button of the radio microphone, so sounds of the struggle in the cockpit will be heard by FAA ground controllers and by pilots of planes on the same radio frequency. Werth believed it wasn't just a call for help, but a warning. During the next two minutes, Werth made seven attempts to contact Flight 93, with no reply, while other controllers moved nearby flights out of the way.

It is unknown how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit and the exact time at which Flight93 came under the hijackers' control cannot be determined. Officials believe that the hijackers assaulted the cockpit and moved the passengers to the rear of the plane at the same time to minimize any chance that either the crew or the passengers would interfere with the attack. The other hijacked flights were taken by five-man teams, but Flight93 had only four hijackers, leading to speculation of a possible 20th hijacker. The 9/11 Commission believed that Mohammed al-Qahtani was the likely candidate for this role, but was unable to participate as he had been denied entry into the United States one month earlier. With many passengers and crew saying in phone calls that they saw only three hijackers, the 9/11 Commission believed Jarrah remained seated until after the cockpit was seized and passengers were moved to the back of the aircraft before closing the first-class curtain and then took over the flight controls out of sight of the passengers.

The cockpit voice recorder began recording the final thirty minutes of Flight93 at 09:31:57. At this moment, it recorded Jarrah speaking with a halting command of accented English and breathing and panting heavily, apparently from exertion, perhaps from a struggle, "Ladies and gentlemen: here the captain. Please sit down, keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit." The commission believed Jarrah tried to make an announcement to the passengers, but pressed the wrong button, sending the message to Cleveland controllers; Mohamed Atta had made the same error on Flight 11. Werth understood the transmission, and tried to keep the hijacker pilot talking, responding, "Calling Cleveland center, you're unreadable. Say again, slowly." He sent a new text warning message to Flight 93: “High Security Alert. Secure Cockpit.” Werth asked other pilots in his sector to tail Flight 93, to keep eyes on the hijacked plane.

At 09:32:08, immediately after Jarrah claimed to have a bomb on board, the sound of breaking glass was heard as Jarrah, sounding increasingly agitated, screamed in English, "Don't move! Shut up. Come on, come. Shut up! Don't move! Stop! Sit, sit, sit down! Stop!", while a wounded man, believed to be Dahl, was heard moaning. Next came the sounds of a seat being adjusted. Jarrah continued shouting, "Sit, sit, sit down! Sit down!" Another hijacker chimed in at 9:32:54 in English: "Stop!" At 9:33:09, the wounded man pleaded, "No more," as a hijacker simultaneously ordered, "Sit down!" In Arabic, a hijacker said, "That's it, that's it, that's it", then switched to English: "Down, down!" Jarrah shouted, "Shut up!" A radio call from air traffic controller John Werth interrupted the rant: "We just, ah, we didn't get it clear...is that United Ninety Three calling?" At 9:33:34 a.m., after several unexplained clicking noises, a hijacker recited the Basmala. Then someone said, "Finish, no more. No more!" A hijacker shouted, "Stop, stop, stop, stop!" The man pleaded, "No! No, no, no, no!" He repeated this four more times. A hijacker ordered, "Down! Go ahead, lie down. Lie down! Down. Down. Down!" The hijackers' orders of "Down, down, down!" and the desperate pleas of "No more...no more", continued for the next twenty five seconds, until at 09:34:27, a woman, thought to be first-class flight attendant Debbie Welsh, is heard being held captive in the background and is heard pleading, "Please, please, please..." A hijacker shouted, "Down!" The woman pleaded, "Please, please, don't hurt me." The hijacker said, "Down!" and again the man said "No more." The woman cried out, "Oh, God!" A hijacker again repeated, "Down, down, down!" and Jarrah said, "Sit down!" Another hijacker (or possibly the same) said "Shut up!" At 09:34:38, the sounds of a warning bell indicated Jarrah was trying to disconnect the autopilot to change the plane's destination. A knock on the cockpit door by another hijacker was answered by Jarrah saying in Arabic, "One moment, one moment." At 09:35:03, the shouting continued: the man said, "No more." Then, Jarrah shouted, "Down, down, down!" As Jarrah instructed the autopilot to turn the plane and head east at 09:35:09,, the man begged, "No,no,no,no,no,no..." Jarrah said, "Sit down, sit down, sit down! Down!" The other hijacker confusingly said, "What's this?" in Arabic. Jarrah, still talking in English said, "Sit down! Sit down! You know, sit down!" The wounded man was seemingly touching the controls, against Jarrah’s protests, including possibly disengaging the autopilot. It is also possible that rather than the hijackers pressing the wrong button, Dahl purposefully pressed a button so that the hijackers’ announcements to passengers would instead by heard by air-traffic controllers. The woman spoke again at 9:35:24 apparently asking the wounded man who was now choking, "Are you talking to me?" A hijacker shouted, "Down, down, down, down!" and ten seconds later, the woman pleaded for her life, "I don't want to die!" A hijacker again said, "No, no. Down, Down!" The woman repeated, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die." The man said "No" twice more while the hijacker again said "Down" six more times. The woman begged again, "No, no please." The "sound of a snap" reverberated in the cockpit as the woman sobbed "No!", and her crying continued as she was heard to struggle with the hijackers for less than a minute before being killed or otherwise silenced. At 09:37:06, Jarrah said in Arabic, "That's it. Go back," then in English, "Back." He said "That's it!" in Arabic again, then in English again to the man, "Sit down!" At 09:37:36, the other hijacker said in Arabic, "Everything is fine. I finished." Jarrah pulled back the control wheel and brought the plane into a climb, reaching 40,700 feet at 9:39, two minutes after Flight 77 impacted the Pentagon. He dipped the wing and began a left turn, first heading south and then southeast, completing a sharp U-turn, pointing Flight 93 in the general direction of Washington, DC, before beginning an uneven and uncommonly rapid descent. Werth seeing the turn on his radar screen, moved westbound planes out of the way to avoid mid-air collisions. He called Flight 93 again and again, at one point saying, "Ah United Ninety-Three, if able, ah, squawk 'trip', please."

Air traffic controllers overheard Jarrah say, in a much calmer and more measured voice, "Ah, here's the captain: I would like you all to remain seated. We have a bomb aboard, and we are going back to the airport, and we have our demands. So please remain quiet." Werth unsuccessfully tried to engage him: "Okay. That's ninety three calling?", and then, "United ninety three. I understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead." Jarrah pushed forward on the yoke, and the plane descended sharply, at a rate of 4,000 feet per minute. Werth another text warning message to Flight 93 at 9:40: “High Security Alert. Secure Cockpit. Two airliner hit NY Trade Center. And 1 aircraft in IAD missing. And one in EWR missing...too. UAL 175/93 missing.” A minute later, he sent the same message again, with the following addition at the end: "UAL 175/93 found." Based on this, the hijackers could have learned of the successful attacks on the World Trade Center. Passengers and crew began making phone calls to officials and family members starting at 09:30 using GTE airphones and mobile phones. Altogether, the passengers and crew made 35 airphone calls and two cell phone calls from the flight. Ten passengers and two crew members were able to connect, providing information to family, friends, and others on the ground.

Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row 4. Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb. He also said a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers. He told her to call the authorities, then hung up. During his second call to her, Burnett said the stabbed passenger was dead; he checked for a pulse but found none. It is believed that passenger Mark Rothenberg was the victim. Rothenberg was the only first class passenger who didn't make a phone call after the hijacking. Rothenberg was seated in 5B, and Haznawi sat directly behind him in 6B. On Flight 11, Satam al-Suqami in seat 10B attacked passenger Daniel Lewin, who was seated directly in front of him in 9B. One assumption is that Haznawi attacked Rothenberg, unprovoked, to frighten other passengers and crew into compliance. Alternatively, Rothenberg may have attempted to stop the hijacking and confront the hijackers. Burnett's wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane.... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission." He began asking her for information about the attacks, interrupting her from time to time to tell the others nearby what she was saying. Then he hung up. In his next call, Burnett, who had been informed of the attack on the Pentagon, said he was putting together a plan and that "a group" were helping him. He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something." An unknown flight attendant attempted to contact the United Airlines maintenance facility at 09:32:29. The call lasted 95 seconds, but was not received as it may have been in queue. Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called the maintenance facility at 09:35:40 from row 33. She reported the flight had been hijacked by men with knives who were in the cockpit and had pulled closed the curtain in first class, which was emptied of passengers. They claimed to have a bomb and had killed a flight attendant, possibly the woman heard on the voice recorder in the cockpit. The manager described Bradshaw as "shockingly calm".

Mark Bingham called his mother at 09:37:03 from row 25. He reported that the plane had been hijacked by three men who claimed to have a bomb. Then the connection was lost. Jeremy Glick called his wife at 09:37:41 from row 27 and told her the flight was hijacked by three dark-skinned men who looked "Iranian", who'd put on red bandanas, stood up and yelled and ran into the cockpit, wielding knives. Glick said that the pilots weren't heard from after that. One of the hijackers had a red box that he said contained a bomb. Glick remained connected until the end of the flight. Glick, also aware of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, said "three guys as big as me" were considering attacking the hijacker with the bomb. He told his wife that the hijackers had just knives and no other weapons. He joked about attacking the hijackers with his butter knife from the in-flight breakfast. He reported that the passengers voted whether to "rush" the hijackers. Glick said he was going to leave the air phone off the hook while the group of passengers tried to implement their takeover. The United air traffic control coordinator for West Coast flights, Alessandro "Sandy" Rogers, alerted the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Herndon Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, that Flight93 was not responding and was off course. A minute later, the transponder was turned off, but the Cleveland controller continued to monitor the flight on primary radar. The Herndon Center relayed information on Flight93 to FAA headquarters. Joseph DeLuca called his father at 09:43:03 from row 26 to inform him the flight had been hijacked. Todd Beamer attempted to call his wife from row 32 at 09:43:48, using four calls in rapid succession from the airfone. The first three calls didn't connect. Two were to an At&T 1-800 number. Another was to his home. Finally, he successfully reached the GTE-Verizon call center in Chicago, where a company representative-overwhelmed by the information he provided-transferred the call to her supervisor, Lisa D. Jefferson. Beamer said the plane had been hijacked by three men and two were now in the cockpit. He said one of the hijackers had a red belt with what looked like a bomb strapped to his waist and the other two had knives. The two had entered the cockpit and closed the door behind them. The hijackers ordered everyone to sit down. The flight attendants were standing and the hijackers ordered them to sit. One attendant (possibly Lyles) sat next to Beamer and provided him with information. Although the curtain was closed by the hijacker with the bomb, Beamer said he saw two people on the floor of first class, though he couldn't tell whether they were dead or injured. Relaying a description possibly from Lyles, Beamer said that the flight attendant told him she was pretty sure it was possibly the pilots. When the hijackers veered the plane sharply south, Beamer briefly panicked, exclaiming, "We're going down! We're going down!" In the background, Jefferson heard screams and loud gasps. Muffled screams from the cabin were heard inside the cockpit. The plane leveled off briefly at an altitude of 19,100 feet, and temporary climbed to 20,500 feet in the next minute. Jefferson heard the screaming stop and Beamer regain his composure, saying, "No, wait. We're coming back up. I think we're okay now." The plane's descent continued, but at a slower rate. At 09:40, horn sounds indicatied the hijackers were repeatedly having trouble with the autopilot and were fiddling with a green knob. "This green knob?" one of the hijackers asks the other in Arabic. "Yes, that's the one." At 09:41:56, the wounded man, in a moaning tone, said, "Oh, man!". Flight 93 continued to descend more than 20,000 feet from a peak of 40,700 feet between 9:39 and 9:45 a.m. The plane finally stabilized by 9:46 a.m. before Jarrah, apparently worried that they were losing altitude too quickly, jerked the plane's nose upward, than began another more gradual descent. At 9:45 a.m., with the plane's descent to eastward continuing, a hijacker discussed with Jarrah on whether to open the cockpit door to the other two hijackers. The hijacker said, "How about we let them in? We let the guys in now." Jarrah acknowledged by saying, "Okay." The hijacker asked again, "Should we let the guys in?" Jarrah answered, "Inform them, and tell him to talk to the pilot; bring the pilot back", possibly referring to Homer, suggesting that Homer may have been forced from the cockpit and was one of the people lying on the floor, but was possibly still alive. At 09:45;57, Jarrah whispered the Shahada. Werth tried to reach the cockpit by radio, to no reply. At 9:48 a.m., the flight reached 19,000 feet. Two minutes later, 16,00. A United employee in San Francisco sent an ACARS message to the flight at 09:46, "Heard report of incident. Plz confirm all is normal." Several people on board said the hijackers never tried to stop them from using Airfones. DeLuca's traveling companion, Linda Gronlund, called her sister, Elsa Strong, at 09:46:05 and left her a message saying the plane was hijacked by "terrorists who say they have a bomb". She expressed her love, and gave her the combination to her safe.

Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles, sitting on the other side of row 32, across the aisle from Beamer, called her husband at 09:47:57 and left him a message saying the plane had been hijacked. Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called her husband at 09:50:04 and told him she was heating water to throw at the hijackers. She said the hijackers were wearing red bandanas and carrying knives. She told her husband that they just passed over a river. She thought it was the Mississippi River but as the flight never made it west of Cleveland, it was probably one of the three rivers that intersect at Pittsburgh, most likely the Ohio. Passenger Lauren Grandcolas called her husband twice, once before takeoff and once during the hijacking. He missed both her calls. Grandcolas attempted seven more calls in the next four minutes, including one to her sister Vaughn, but none of them connected for more than seven seconds. Waleska Martinez called a friend's Manhatten office but the call didn't go though. Her friend Marion Britton called her friend, Fred Fiumano, at 09:49:12. Fiumano recalled, "she said, 'We're gonna. They're gonna kill us, you know, We're gonna die.' And I told her, 'Don't worry, they hijacked the plane, they're gonna take you for a ride, you go to their country, and you come back. You stay there for vacation.' You don't know what to say – what are you gonna say? I kept on saying the same things, 'Be calm.' And she was crying and... screaming and yelling." She then shared her phone with Honor Elizabeth Wainio. Wainio called her stepmother at 09:53:43 and concluded, four and a half minutes later, by saying, "I have to go. They're breaking into the cockpit. I love you." At 9:53 a.m., the hijackers in the cockpit, having either overheard or sensed that the passengers were preparing a revolt, suggested using the plane's fire axe, to intimidate the passengers and blunt a counterattack. "The best thing: The guys will go in, [you] lift up the [unintelligible word], and they put the ax into it. So, everyone will be scared." After some confusion among his collaborators, a hijacker explained that should hold up the axe to the peephole of the cockpit door, "Let him look through the window. Let him look through the window." Jarrah dialed in the VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) frequency for the VOR navigational aid at Reagan National Airport at 09:55:11 to direct the plane toward Washington, D.C. Bradshaw, on the phone with her husband, said "Everyone is running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye." Beamer told Jefferson that he and a few passengers were getting together and were planning to "jump" the hijacker with the bomb. Beamer recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in. Beamer requested of Jefferson, "If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them." After this, Jefferson heard muffled voices and Beamer answering, "Are you ready? Okay. Let's roll." These were Beamer's last words to Jefferson.

During the hijacking, Flight 93 passed within 1000 ft (instead of the normal 2000 ft) of a NASA KC-135 returning from a microgravity flight over Lake Ontario. NASA pilot Dominic Del Rosso recalled how odd the silence on the radio was that morning.

Passenger revolt
The passenger revolt on Flight93 began at 09:57, after the passengers voted on whether to act. By this time, Flight77 had struck the Pentagon and Flights 11 and 175 had struck the World Trade Center towers. It is unknown how many passengers and crew took part in the revolt, as is the precise battle plan they developed. Burnett, Glick and Beamer spoke directly of retaking the plane, and Bingham, who once tackled a mugger, fit Glick's description of "three guys as big as me". Other passengers who probably took part were Louis J. Nacke II, who was a weight lifter, Richard Guadagno, an enforcement officer trained in hand-to-hand combat, William Joseph Cashman, who had served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division, and studied martial arts, his friend Patrick Joseph Driscoll, who had served four years aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer during the Korean War, and Alan Anthony Beaven, a Scotland Yard prosecutor. Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw said that the passengers were getting hot water out of the galley and ended her last call to her husband by saying she needed "to go" because everyone was making their move, and flight attendant Cee Cee Ross-Lyles was a former police officer. Other possible participants include Lauren Grandcolas and Linda Gronlund who were trained emergency medical technicians with Gronlund having a brown belt in karate, Gronlund's companion Joseph DeLuca, Toshiya Kuge (久下 季哉) who was a linebacker, and Honor Elizabeth Wainio who told her stepmother she "had to go" when the revolt started. The passengers probably might have considered taking control of the aircraft and landing it safely with the use of passenger Donald Freeman Greene who had a license to fly small planes and passenger Andrew Garcia, an air traffic controller with the Air National Guard. They also might have commandeered a serving cart to use as a weapon, especially to breach the cockpit. The hijackers in the cockpit became aware of the revolt at 09:57:55, when they heard sounds of fighting and yells from the cabin, Jarrah exclaiming, "Is there something? A fight?" Another hijacker shouted "Yeah!" in repsonse. Apparently, a third hijacker fled from the first-class section and shut himself in the cockpit. Sounds of a fight and a man's screams reverberated off the plane's cabin walls. Jarrah yelled in Arabic, "Let's go guys!" and recited the takbir twice, pausing to say, "Oh, guys!" and recited the takbir again. Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance, causing the plane to rock it wings. As a result, the plane left its Washington, D.C. course.

Edward Felt dialed 9-1-1 from his cell phone from the rear lavatory of the aircraft seeking information at 09:58, when the plane was barely at 5,000 feet. His call was answered by dispatcher John Shaw, and Felt was able to tell him about the hijacking before the call was disconnected.

CeeCee Lyles called her husband once more from a cell phone and told him about the hijacking and that the passengers were forcing their way into the cockpit. The struggle outside the cockpit continued with grunts and yells. At 09:58:44, Jarrah yelled, "Oh Allah! Oh Allah! Oh, the most gracious!" Eight seconds later, a hijacker outside the cockpit, shouted "Stay back!" in English, but the passengers continued their assault and at 09:58:55, a passenger, most likely Burnett, shouted "In the cockpit! In the cockpit!" A flustered Jarrah yelled at another hijacker in the cockpit to hold against the door at 09:58:57, "They want to get in here! Hold [the door], hold from the inside! Hold from the inside! Hold!" Jarrah wagged the plane's wings more sharply, but to no avail. The passengers continued their assault, at 09:59:09, a passenger yelled "Stop him!" The hijacker outside the cockpit shouted, "Sit down!" and repeated this two times. At 09:59:18, a horrified Jarrah, realizing how many passengers were taking part, exclaimed "What?! There are some guys. All those guys." A passenger yelled "Let's get them!" at 09:59:20, as again the hijacker outside the cockpit said, "Sit down!" A passenger, believed to be Bingham, shouted, "Get ’em! Get ’em! C’mon! C’mon!" The fight continued, as Jarrah and a hijacker exclaimed "what?!" several times over the noise. The other hijacker in the cockpit said, "Trust in Allah, and in Him." The hijacker outside the cockpit insisted, "Sit down.", but a violent struggle was heard to ensure the hijacker was heard screaming, as the sound of the passengers attacking him was heard. Jarrah changed tactics at 09:59:52 and began pitching the nose of the airplane up and down.

The plane started to climb again, as the hijackers disengaged the autopilot and took manual control. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of crashing, screaming, thumps, snaps and the shattering of glass and plates. In a period of five seconds, the hijacker outside the cockpit made three shouts of pain, was heard screaming, before the scream abruptly cut off. The passengers may have killed at least one or two hijackers guarding the cockpit door. Andrew Garcia connected with his wife for only one second before the call dropped. He spoke her name: "Dorothy."

At 10:00:06 a.m., as the plane flew at 5,000 feet, and the passengers reached the cockpit door, the hijackers in the cockpit realized they would never reach their target. Discouraged, a hijacker said in Arabic, "There is nothing [we can do]!" According to the stress of the recorders, the hijackers were terrified, not just from the mob of passengers and crew assaulting them, but from the realisation they would fail in their mission. Five seconds later, he asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" Another hijacker responded, "No! Not yet! When they all come, we finish it off!", then again said, distressed, "There is nothing!" At 10:00:14, as the plane climbed again, a passenger, possibly Burnett, screamed, "Ah! I'm injured!" At 10:00:22, Jarrah exclaimed, "Oh Allah! Oh Allah! Oh gracious!" Jarrah once again pitched the airplane up and down. A passenger, possibly Burnett, shouted, "In the cockpit! If we don't, we'll die!" at 10:00:25. At 10:00:37, a frantic Jarrah tried a new tactic, toggling the yoke forward and back, making the jet rise, then dive, then rise again. He repeatedly pitched the plane's nose up and down, and instructed a hijacker to help him with the controls, switching between Arabic and English, he commanded: "Up, down. Up, down, in the cockpit." He then addressed Ghamdi by name, "Up, down. Saeed, up, down!" Sixteen seconds later, a passenger, possibly Burnett, yelled, "Roll it! Roll it!", possibly referring to using the food cart. The voice recorder captured the sound of the passengers using the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door,catching loud sounds of plates and glass crashing all round. Around this time, a pilot in a small plane spotted Flight 93 streaking toward him at 8,000 feet, its landing gear down, flying erratically, banking hard left, than hard right, rocking its wings.

With Jarrah still alternately pitching and rocking, the plane began to rise once more at 10:01. He ceased the violent maneuvers at 10:01:00 and recited the takbir twice. He then asked another hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" The other hijacker responded, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down!" At 10:01:11, Jarrah yelled in desperation for Ghamdi to cut off oxygen to the cabin, "Saeed! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen!". Then was even more clatter-crashes and grunts and shrieks and snaps. Defiant, the passengers kept coming and Jarrah resumed his erratic flying, calling out "Up, down. Up, down". A hijacker called out confused, "What?" and Jarrah repeated, "Up, down." At 10:01:58, a crashing noise was heard as the battering of the cart against the door stopped and a passenger, possibly Burnett yelled "We’re going in!". Another passenger shouted "Shut them off! Shut them off!" followed by numerous metallic clicking sounds. At 10:02:14, another yelled, "Go! Go! Move! Move!" and at 10:02:17, a passenger, possibly the New Zealand–born Alan Beaven shouted in idiomatic Kiwi English, shouted "Turn it up!" The cockpit recorder implied some struggle for control seem to ensure as a hijacker, possibly Ghamdi, yelled, "Down! Down! Pull it down! Pull it down!" His cries were drowned by a passenger who said, "Down! Push, push, push, push, push!" and another passenger, shouting "Pull it up!" At 10:02:33, Jarrah made a desperate plea in Arabic, screaming "Hey! Hey! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me!", possibly referring to the plane's yoke. At 10:02:42, a grunt was heard that was apparently Glick's judo grunt, and a passenger yelled, "Pull up! Get her up!" One of the passengers' shouting was recognized as the angry tone of Nacke. A hijacker, possibly Ghamdi, yelled "No!" over the sound of breaking glass. The airplane plummeted into a nosedive at 10:02:49, and the yoke turned hard to the right causing the plane to fly sideways at 10:02:55, before turning completely inverted. At 10:03:02, amidst grunts, screams and loud noises, a hijacker, possibly Ghamdi, began shouting the takbir, his cries drowned out by a passenger shouting "No! Oh my god." The last sound was the hijacker whispering the takbir from a distance, his words cut off mid-sentence when the plane crashed, into an empty field in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes' flying time from Washington, D.C. The last entry on the voice recorder was made at 10:03:09. The last piece of flight data was recorded at 10:03:10. There is controversy among some family members of the passengers and the investigative officials as to whether the passengers managed to breach the cockpit before the plane crashed. The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that "the hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them." Many of the passengers' family members, having heard the audio recordings, believe the passengers breached the cockpit, with some interpreting the audio as suggesting that the passengers wrestled with the hijackers for control of the yoke.

Crash
At 10:03:11, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed coal strip mine known as the Diamond T. Mine owned by PBS Coals in Stonycreek Township in Somerset County. The only known witness to the actual crash, and the last one to see United 93 airborne, was Stoney Creek resident Nevin Lambert, who reported that he saw the plane upside down as it crashed to the ground in 45 degree-angled nosedive. The National Transportation Safety Board also reported that the flight impacted at 563mph (906km/h, 252m/s, or 489 knots) at a forty-degree nose-down inverted attitude. The impact left a crater eight to ten feet deep (3m) and thirty to fifty feet wide (12m). The coroner ruled that everyone on board who was still alive at the time of the crash died instantly of blunt-force trauma. Many media reports and eyewitness accounts said the time of the crash was 10:06 or 10:10;  an initial analysis of seismographic data in the area concluded that the crash occurred at 10:06, but the 9/11 Commission report states that this analysis was not definitive and was retracted. Other media outlets and the 9/11 Commission reported the time of impact as 10:03, based on when the flight recorders stopped, analysis of radar data, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmissions.

Kelly Leverknight, a local resident, was watching news of the attacks when she heard the plane. "I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down. It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there. Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke." Another witness, Eric Peterson, looked up when he heard the plane, "It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets. You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side. There was a great explosion and you could see the flames. It was a massive, massive explosion. Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud." Val McClatchey had been watching footage of the attacks when she heard the plane. She saw it briefly, then heard the impact. The crash knocked out the electricity and phones. McClatchey grabbed her camera and took the only known picture of the smoke cloud from the explosion. In September 2011, shortly before the 10th anniversary of the attacks, a video of the rising smoke cloud filmed by Dave Berkebile (who had died by 2011) from his yard $2 1/2$ miles away from the crash site was published on YouTube.

A Air National Guard Lockheed C-130 Hercules piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Steven O'Brien which had earlier witnessed American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, saw black smoke barreling from an open field on the left hand side of the Hercules. O'Brien's flight was 17 miles from the crash site. His flight observed the smoke within 1 minute 37 seconds of the crash of Flight 93.

The first responders arrived at the crash site after 10:06. Cleveland Center controllers, unaware the flight had crashed, notified the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) at 10:07 that Flight93 had a bomb on board and passed the last known position. This call was the first time the military was notified about the flight. Ballinger sent one final ACARS message to Flight93 at 10:10, "Don't divert to DC. Not an option." He repeated the message one minute later. The Herndon Command Center alerted FAA headquarters that Flight93 had crashed at 10:13. NEADS called the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center for an update on Flight93 and received notification that the flight had crashed.

At 10:37, CNN correspondent Aaron Brown, covering the collapse of the World Trade Center, announced, "We are getting reports and we are getting lots of reports and we want to be careful to tell you when we have confirmed them and not, but we have a report that a 747 is down in Pennsylvania, and that remains unconfirmed at this point." He followed that up at 10:49 by reporting "We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning, north of the Somerset County Airport, which is in western Pennsylvania, not too terribly far from Pittsburgh, about 80 miles or so, a Boeing 767 jet. Don't know whose airline it was, whose airplane it was, and we don't have any details beyond that which I have just given you." In the confusion, he also erroneously reported a second hijacked plane heading for the Pentagon after the crash of the first.

Vice President Dick Cheney, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center deep under the White House, authorized Flight 93 to be shot down, but upon learning of the crash, is reported to have said, "I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane."

Aftermath
Flight 93 fragmented violently upon impact. Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater. Investigators found very light debris including paper and nylon scattered up to eight miles (13km) from the impact point in New Baltimore. Other tiny aircraft fragments were found 1.5 mi away at Indian Lake. Jarrah and al-Ghamdi's passports were recovered from the crash site. All human remains were found within a 70-acre (28 ha) area surrounding the impact point. Somerset County Coroner Wally Miller was involved in the investigation and identification of the remains. In examining the wreckage, the only human body part he could see was part of a backbone. Miller later found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains totaling about 600 lb, or eight percent of the total. The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact. Investigators identified four victims by September 22 and eleven by September 24. They identified another by September 29. 34 passengers were identified by October 27. All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so fragmented that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed. Death certificates for the 40 victims listed the cause of death as homicide and listed the cause of death for the four hijackers as suicide. The remains and personal effects of the victims were returned to the families. The remains of the hijackers, identified by the process of elimination, were turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as evidence.

Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. They located the flight data recorder on September 13 and the cockpit voice recorder the following day. The voice recorder was found buried 25 ft below the crater. The FBI initially refused to release the voice recording, rejecting requests by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and family members of those on board. They later allowed the relatives of Flight93 victims to listen to the recording in a closed session on April 18, 2002. Jurors for the Zacarias Moussaoui trial heard the tape as part of the proceedings and the transcript was publicly released on April 12, 2006. As of 2021, the audio recording has not been made available to the general public. Only family members, investigators, and those involved in related court cases had listened to its content and the various pitches and inflections. Several portions of the tape were publicly released on September 9, 2016, including the high pitch noise on the plane, Jarrah's announcements, sound of breaking glass and the final seconds of the tape, which stop at the moment of the crash.

All passengers and crew on board Flight93 were nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2001. Congressman Bill Shuster introduced a bill to this effect in 2006, and they were granted on September 11, 2014. The obverse of the Medal is inscribed with "A common field one day, a field of honor forever" and "Act of Congress 2011". The reverse of the Medal features 40 stars (in honor of each of the passengers and crew), a sentinel eagle clasping laurel branches, the western front of the U.S. Capitol, and the inscription "We honor the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who perished in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001. Their courageous action will be remembered forever."

Beamer's final words, "let's roll," became a national catchphrase. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey changed the name of Newark's airport from Newark International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport and a flag now flies over Terminal A's Gate A17.

Flight number "93" was discontinued by United Airlines after the hijacking. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 93 and 175 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated.

Possible targets
Since it never reached a target, the exact place intended to be hit by Flight93 has never been decisively confirmed. Before the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden told 9/11 planner Ramzi bin al-Shibh to advise Mohamed Atta that he preferred the White House over the Capitol as a target. Atta cautioned bin al-Shibh that this would be difficult, but agreed to include the White House as a possible target and suggested they keep the Capitol as an alternative in case the White House proved too difficult. Eventually, Atta told bin al-Shibh that Jarrah planned to hit the Capitol. Atta briefly mentioned the possibility of striking a nuclear facility, but relented after the other attack pilots voiced their opposition. Based on an exchange between Atta and bin al-Shibh two days before the attacks, the White House would be the primary target for the fourth plane and the Capitol the secondary target. If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.

Immediately after the attacks, there was speculation that Camp David was the intended target. According to testimony by captured al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, U.S. officials believed the White House was the intended target. A post-9/11 interview with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and bin al-Shibh by Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda said Flight93 was heading for the Capitol. The 9/11 Commission Report cited the actions of the crew and passengers in preventing the destruction of either the White House or the Capitol. According to further testimony by Sheikh Mohammed, bin Laden preferred the Capitol over the White House as a target. Salim Hamdan, bin Laden's driver, told interrogators he knew the flight was heading for the Capitol.

Fighter jet response
A fighter pilot based at Andrews Air Force Base, Billy Hutchison, claimed that while in the air he spotted Flight 93 on his scope and planned to first fire his training rounds into the engine and cockpit, and then ram the airplane with his own jet. His account was published in Lynn Spencer's book Touching History. John Farmer, Senior Counsel to the 9/11 commission, pointed out that this would have been impossible, as Hutchison's squadron was not in the air until 10:38, almost 30 minutes after Flight 93 had crashed. When the 9/11 commission asked Hutchison why he gave this false claim he refused to give an answer and stormed out of the room.

Two F-16 fighter pilots from the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard, Marc Sasseville and Heather "Lucky" Penney, were scrambled and ordered to intercept Flight 93. The pilots intended to ram it since they did not have time to arm the jets; this was in the days before armed jets stood ready to take off at a moment's notice to protect the capital's airspace. They never reached Flight 93 and did not learn of its crash until hours afterwards.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) stated to the 9/11 Commission that fighters would have intercepted Flight93 before it reached its target in Washington, D.C., but the commission disagreed, saying that "NORAD did not even know the plane was hijacked until after it had crashed" and concluding that had it not crashed it probably would have arrived in Washington by 10:23. The 9/11 Commission Report stated that NEADS fighters pursued Delta Air Lines Flight 1989, a flight thought to be hijacked. The commission found that NORAD and the FAA gave inaccurate testimony.

Memorials
A temporary memorial formed from spontaneous tributes left by visitors in the days after the attacks at the crash site. Foundations across the country began to raise money to fund a memorial to the victims within a month of the crash.

Two years after the attacks, federal officials formed the Flight93 National Memorial Advisory Commission responsible for making design recommendations for a permanent memorial. A national design competition was held to create a public memorial in the Pennsylvania field where Flight93 crashed. The winning design, "Crescent of Embrace", was selected out of a pool of 1,011 submissions on September 7, 2005. The site plan features a large crescent pathway with red maples and sugar maples planted along the outer arc. This design ran into opposition over funding, size, and appearance. Republican Congressman Charles H. Taylor blocked $10million in federal funds toward the project as he saw it as "unrealistic". Republican Congressional leaders later persuaded him to acquiesce to political pressure and began approving federal funds. The proposed design has also attracted critics who see Islamic symbolism in the crescent design. On August 31, 2009, an agreement was announced between the landowners and the National Park Service to allow the purchase of land for $9.5million. The memorial area with a white marble Wall of Names was dedicated on September 10, 2011, the day before the 10th anniversary of the crash. A concrete and glass visitor center was opened on September 10, 2015 on a hill overlooking the memorial, with both the visitor center and the Wall of Names being aligned with the flight path and the final piece, the "Tower of Voices", was dedicated during a ceremony on September 9, 2018.

CeeCee Lyles was one of the flight attendants on board. In 2003, a statue of Lyles was unveiled in her hometown of Fort Pierce, Florida, which has since gained national recognition as one of the many monuments to the attacks. On August 9, 2007, a portion of U.S.219 in Somerset County, near the Flight 93 National Memorial, was co-signed as the Flight 93 Memorial Highway. At the National September 11 Memorial, the names of the victims of Flight93 are inscribed on Panels S-67 and S-68 at the South Pool.

On the sixteenth anniversary of the crash, Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the memorial: "Without regard to personal safety, they [the victims] rushed forward to save [our] lives... I will always believe that I and many others in our nation's capital were able to go home that day and hug our families because of the courage and sacrifice of the heroes of Flight93."

Nationalities of the victims on the aircraft
The passengers (excluding the hijackers) and crew were from: