On the last call of his life, Todd Beamer announces that he and other passengers will thwart one of the 9/11 terrorist plots.
On the morning of September 11, 2011, Beamer boarded United Airlines flight 93 to San Francisco, California to attend a meeting.. He then plans to fly back to New Jersey at the end of the day so he can be with his pregnant wife and two young sons. But everything changed when al-Qaeda terrorists took control of the plane.
As scheduled, Beamer Flight 93 took off from Newark International Airport, New Jersey, at 8:00 a.m. but was delayed 42 minutes due to overcrowding and congestion on the runway. The plane had seven crew members and 37 passengers, including four hijackers: Ahmed al-Nami, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmad al-Haznawi and Ziad Jarrah.
Todd Beamer, who led the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 against four hijackers on September 11, 2001. Image: Wikimedia Commons.
At 8:46 a.m., four minutes after Flight 93 took off, another American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. At 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower.
At the time, Beamer and the other passengers on Flight 93 were unaware of these events. At 9:28 a.m., Al-Nami, al-Ghamdi, al-Haznawi and Jarrah, armed with knives and cutters, stormed into the cockpit and overpowered the captain and co-pilot. They wrestled with the terrorists and a pilot said “Mayday”, an emergency signal, sent to the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center. The flight suddenly dropped nearly 210 meters in altitude.
When the Cleveland Center tried to contact the plane, they heard a hijacker, likely Jarrah, make a chilling announcement at 9:32 a.m. “Ladies and gentlemen! This is the captain, please sit down and stay where you are. We have bombs on board. So sit still,” he said..
Two minutes later, the plane changed course. Those on the ground quickly realized that the plane had been hijacked and that it was no longer heading for San Francisco. At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. Plane 93 was heading towards the same city, likely targeting the US Capitol.
The flight attendants and panicked passengers on Flight 93 used their on-board phones to call their loved ones. They are informed of the plane crashes in New York and realize their hijacking is more likely linked to a much larger conspiracy.
Beamer also called during the chaos. At 9:42, he called AT&T and his wife, but both could not connect. Finally, he called the operators of GTE Airfone, which provided the in-flight phone service, and was connected to Lisa Jefferson, the GTE Airfone operator in Oak Brook, Illinois.
Jefferson talked to Beamer for a total of about 13 minutes. Beamer explained the hijacking situation and told Jefferson that he and other passengers, including Mark Bingham, Jeremy Glick and Tom Burnett, were planning to fight four terrorists. Flight attendants like Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles also intended to attack the cockpit with boiling water cans and heavy objects.
“If I can’t come back, call my family and tell them how much I love them,” Beamer told Jefferson.
The last thing Jefferson heard Beamer say over the phone was a question he said to his “teammates” as he headed toward the cockpit: “Are you guys ready? Okay, up! (Let’s roll) “.
The “attack” of the group of passengers began at 9:57 a.m. The hijackers tried to sway the plane to stop them, but the passengers and crew members did not flinch. Through the cockpit voice recorder found later by authorities, they could be heard shouting “Stop him!” or “Let’s catch them!”.
At 10:02 a.m., one of the hijackers said “Drop it!”, as reported by the 9/11 Commission. “The hijackers still took control of the plane, but they probably knew the group of passengers would overtake them in seconds,” the report reads.
At 10:03, the plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. All on board, including crew members, passengers and four terrorists, were killed. In total, 19 hijackers killed about 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.
The site of the plane crash near the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Image: Wikimedia Commons.
United Airlines Flight 93 was about 20 minutes from Washington when it plunged into a field. It was later revealed that US Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the plane to be shot down if it entered the capital’s airspace, in order to prevent similar damage to the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. .
When Cheney learned the plane had crashed near Shanksville, he said, “I guess an act of heroism just happened on that flight.”
While Americans were grieving and mourning the great loss of both material and human lives, some people saw a ray of hope when they heard about the heroes on Flight 93. Thanks to them, sorry. deaths have been reduced.
Todd Beamer became one of the most famous heroes on the flight, especially with the saying “Let’s roll!”.
A post office in New Jersey and a high school in Washington are named after him. His alma mater, Wheaton University, also opened a student center in his honor. His wife, Lisa, wrote a book about the two’s lives, titled with the last two words Beamer said: “Let’s roll!”.
Plane wreckage at the scene. Image: Wikimedia Commons.
Share in an interview with the newspaper Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Not long after he passed away, Lisa said she and her three children keep his image in their hearts and always remember that motivational quote.
“My kids say the same thing,” Lisa said. “When we were about to go somewhere, we said ‘let’s roll.’ That’s what we got from Todd,” she said.
Vu Hoang (According to ATI)
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