Fight of the Phoenix

Good morning everyone. It’s 7:15 a.m. in Newark, New Jersey and the date is September 11th, 2001. I’m on my way to Newark Airport so I can catch my flight to the Bay Area of sunny California. I love the west coast. I wish I was going for vacation, but this time it’s for business. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to take my wife and kids out there sometime in the next year, we’ve all been planning on it for a long time. So I arrive the airport and not surprisingly it’s just as busy as it’s always been, but it doesn’t take long for me to get my tickets and get to my terminal. Looks like I’m first in flight on United Airlines flight 93, nonstop from Newark to San Francisco.

So now I’ve passed through airport security and have made it to my gate. Looks like they’re already starting to board, so I’ve made it here just in a nick of time. While standing in line and holding my suitcase I decide to go ahead and give my wife a call. She picks up on the first ring. “You boarded yet?” she asked “gettin ready to.” I responded. “We’re loading up right now and I think we’re supposed to be airborne by 8 o’ clock so kiss the kids for me and I’ll call you once I’m in the air.” “Ok and I love you.” “Love you too.” I replied. I’m on the plane now. It didn’t take much time for us to board because there’s not that many people on this rather large plane. If I had to guess I’d say it’s around 30 people on this plane minus the flight crew.

Now it’s 7:35 a.m. and I take my seat in coach, which is funny because I actually can afford first class seats, but I’m a cheapskate, which is something my wife always picks with me about. To be fair I do break outta my cheapskate ways when my wife and the kids are with me. I mean I do cry about how painful it is, but I’m still less cheap. So after being seated for a few minutes the pilot comes on the intercom and informs us about our flight. This might sound random but he seems like a nice guy, he even told us his name along with the co-pilot. His name is Jason Dahl and his first officer’s name is Leroy Homer. He tells us our flight is gonna be five hours long and nonstop from Newark to San Francisco. Now granted I’m not gonna like the sore butt I’m gonna have by the time the flight’s over, I’m still glad I don’t have to endure a layover.

After captain Dahl’s announcements the flight attendants give us a demonstration of their airborne procedures in case of emergencies. Captain Dahl then comes back on the intercom to let us know that we have a little traffic ahead of us and that we’ll be taking off about 30 to maybe 40 minutes later than expected. Everyone on board, myself included aren’t really bothered by this news, I think we all have ample time. These five hours ain’t going anywhere anytime soon. It’s now been just over 30 minutes and it looks like we’re starting to make headway. Captain Dahl comes back on to inform us that we will be taking off shortly. Sure enough he was right. In just a matter of minutes we started taxing toward the runway. The plane’s engines started gearing up and as we reached the runway and then the aircraft started going full speed ahead. When it reached what seemed like maximum speed it finally lifted off and we are now airborne. The time now is 8:43 a.m.

As we are now climbing our way up through the sunny and clear east coast sky those of us on the left side of the plane have a clear view of the beautiful skyline that is lower Manhattan. We can see all the beautiful locations and landmarks like Broadway, the Empire State Building and of course, the World Trade Center. Our plane is now headed westbound to California. Once we reach our cruising altitude captain Dahl informs us that we can get up and move around. So I get up from my seat and reach for my briefcase packed overhead. I then pull out my laptop and turn it on so I can get a head start on my business trip work.

While I’m working I’m also interacting with some of the passengers around me and they’re all a pretty cool group of people just like me. They all have families like me and some of them are on business trips like me, we laughed at that realization because it made our journey more relatable. A lovely woman near me named Lauren is gonna have her first child with her husband pretty soon. She said they had been trying to have children for a while and now it’s finally happening. This good news really made me smile. I’ve even made some good conversations with a couple of the flight attendants as well. I learned from one of the flight attendants I talked to named CeeCee that she used to be a police officer in the Bay Area. I thought that was very admirable that she became a flight attendant after being dedicated to such a life. I’ve been on this flight for 40 minutes so wrapped up in work and conversation that I forgot to call my wife. I put my cell phone in my briefcase right before boarding and it’s still in there. I better take it out and give her a call, I probably have a bunch of missed calls from her wondering why I haven’t called.

As I reach into my briefcase and pull out my cell, raised voices from the first class cabin of the plane catch my attention. I myself and everyone around me suddenly hears a mix of female screams and male voices yelling in a foreign language, possibly Arabic. Then all of a sudden everyone from the first class cabin comes running to the back of the plane scared and screaming “HE’S GOT A BOMB! HE’S GOT A BOMB!” Everyone in coach is now alarmed and frightened. Many of us start moving further back than we already were and as the rest of the passengers from coach run to the back a man with a red flag tied around his head is seen at the rear of the group pushing them all to the back.

As the passengers start piling up in the back the plane suddenly starts descending rapidly. We all screamed in terror and were knocked to the floor of the plane as the plane was going down, it felt like we were falling out of the sky. After dropping what seemed like a few thousand feet the plane finally stabilized we all started collecting ourselves and climbed into the seats around us. Two men then emerged from the front of the plane wearing red flags around their heads. A third man also emerged from behind the first two and he too was wearing a red flag around his head. The men didn’t look physically imposing but a frightening sight to see was one of them wearing what looked like a bomb strapped around his waist. All three of them are also carrying knives. The men start addressing us in broken English telling us to “sit”, “stay down”, “be quiet” and “don’t move”.

Frightened gossip now begins among us passengers. Everyone who was in first class start relaying to us that there was a man stabbed in first class and that they’ve taken a flight attendant captive up front. The plane is flying low and erratic which has many of us under the impression that the pilots are no longer in control of the aircraft. Everyone is scared to death at the clear site that we are being hijacked. Everyone then starts pulling out their phones or grabbing the phones on the back of the seats and start making phone calls. Some of us call the authorities, others start calling our families. I quickly pick up my cell and call my wife back in New Jersey. She picks up the phone before the first ring is completed, it was as if she was waiting for me to call.

“Honey!” she started while breathing heavy. “Thank God you’re ok. Listen, something has happ-” I cut her off before she can finish and I let her know what’s happening on the plane. “Sweetheart listen to me, our plane is being hijacked by three guys with knives and one of them has a bomb strapped around his waist.” “Oh God no!” she exclaimed. “Not you too, this can’t be happening.” I’m really confused by what she’s talking about when she says “not you too!” Then she gives me some terrible news. “Honey listen to me, two planes just crashed into the World Trade Center. It’s all over the news. They’re saying it’s a terrorist attack.” I can’t believe what I’ve just heard.

I then start telling the other passengers around me about what happened at the towers and many of them are receiving the same news from their loved ones and authorities who they’ve called. One of our passengers who is a medical exec goes to check on the passenger who was stabbed in first class. After being ordered back to coach with the rest of us by the hijackers he tells us that the man who was stabbed is dead. Little by little us passengers can see a tiny bit of what’s going on in first class. Apparently the pilots aren’t flying the plane, but they seemed to be wounded and incapacitated at the front of the plane. We also could see the body of the man who was stabbed and the body of the flight attendant who was taken captive in the front. The rest of the flight attendants say her name was Debbie.

While all of us are sharing info with each other, a fourth hijacker who is apparently flying the plane comes on the intercom to tell us to stay seated and that we are going back to the airport. My heart is racing because for some reason I just don’t believe he’s telling the truth. The rest of the passengers don’t believe him either. While we’re all sharing information with each other and everyone on the ground we all start hearing new reports that there was some kind of explosion at the Pentagon in Washington DC and it’s now in flames just like the World Trade Center. The most disturbing nail in the coffin of info that we receive is all the planes that crashed were hijacked before they crashed. Our ordeal is clearly connected to all of this.

As we’re still sharing all this information with each other the plane starts to descend rapidly again. The rollercoaster drop of the aircraft has us in even more fear for our lives. We could’ve swore that these were our last moments, but then the plane stabilized again. It’s quite clear what’s about to happen to us. These hijackers aren’t taking us back to the airport. They’re gonna crash us into a building, just like what happened at the Trade Center and the Pentagon. We have to do something or we’re gonna die, along with possibly thousands of others on the ground if we don’t do something. The rest of the passengers share my sentiments and they too believe that we have to do something.

While still on the phone with my wife I tell her that we have to do something. She’s reluctant to agree, but she quickly does so, considering everything that has happened so far. I then address a big group of passengers and we all take a vote and decide we want to fight back against the hijackers and try to regain control of the aircraft. The flight attendants have also agreed to assist us. We all gather up in the back and brainstorm a strategy to rush the cockpit and regain control of the plane. We have forks, knives and hot water as weapons, not to mention we all believe that the “bomb” they have is a fake just meant to scare us.

We’ve also discovered that one of our passengers is a trained pilot and another passenger has worked air traffic control. So now we have a offensive strategy and a pilot to help fly the plane if we regain control. We’re gonna wait til we’re over a rural area to rush the hijackers that way they can’t fly us into a building as a last minute resort. This is it, we’re ready to go. We’re gonna call our loved ones and say our prayers before we make our move. I talk to my wife once more to reassure her.

“Hey sweetie. We’re gonna do it, we’re gonna rush the hijackers and try to take back the plane. If I don’t make it out of this alive I want you to know how much I love you and I want you to tell the kids how much I love them.” “You know I will and I love you too” she responded tearfully. I set my phone down in my seat and stand with my fellow passengers. We were 40 ordinary strangers when we boarded this plane over an hour ago, but now we will stand up as one. As soon as the hijacker who was watching us with the bomb around his waist turned away from us to look back at another hijacker we quickly charge towards him in a single file line and jumped on him.

We all punch him, kick him and throw hot water on him as he screams in agony. Once we all get ahold of his “bomb” and rip it apart to discover it’s a fake as the rest of the passengers join us in charging towards the cockpit. On our way to the cockpit the pilot hijacker started rocking the plane back and forth to throw us off balance but we still kept progressing. We then rushed the next hijacker who was guarding the door. We knock him over with the food cart and proceed to punch him and kick him to the ground as well. Once he was down for the count we grabbed the food cart and started using it as a battering ram and began bashing the cockpit door.

As we continued smashing the door we could hear the last two hijackers screaming at each other in fear. They then began to pull the plane downward as if they were aiming for the ground, but we kept smashing the door. Once the door was smashed to where it was damaged enough for us to rip it open we began tearing it down as our aircraft was plummeting toward the earth. We did it! We’ve just barely made it into the cockpit. Now we’ve started a tug of war for the plane’s yoke. We succeeded. We’ve stop them from hitting their target, but now the plane has been turned on it’s belly and is only seconds away from hitting the ground. We saved the lives of the target they were headed for, but we couldn’t save ourselves. It’s no matter though, because in these last moments we saved lives and defeated them. We are going down the way we want to go down, not how they want us to go down. These evil men will die angry because they’ll never take us alive…they’ll never take us alive…they’ll never take us alive.

~~Dedicated to the 40 heroic passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93.