On Sept. 11, 2001, 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda hijacked four airplanes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, a third plane hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C.; and the fourth plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.A total of 2,996 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, including the terrorist hijackers aboard the four airplanes. Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, according to a report by History.com.According to defense.gov, two New York Air National Guardsmen who were at the NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector) ó now the Eastern Air Defense Sector ó in rural Rome, New York, give a glimpse into the military’s role that day. NEADS was tasked with searching for the missing planes and scrambling fighter jets in response to the attacks.New York Air National Guard Maj. Jeremy Powell was a 31-year-old tech sergeant taking part in Exercise Vigilant Guardian when 9/11 occurred. He was the first military person to learn about the hijackings, having taken the initial call from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Boston center. Master Sgt. Stacia Rountree was a 23-year-old senior airman working as an identification technician. Vigilant Guardian was her first major NORAD exercise.Just 10 minutes elapsed between the time Powell took the first call to NEADS about the hijackings to when the first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, hit the North Tower ó not enough time to get fighters into the air. According to the 9/11 Commission’s report, the call from the FAA’s Boston center came into NEADS at 8:37 a.m.Powell said, î8:46 is when I scrambled the first fighters [from Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts], and then 8:53 they were airborne.îBut it was too late to help American 11, which hit the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:47 a.m. The fighters were meant only to shadow potentially hijacked planes, but Rountree said there was discussion of those pilots making the ultimate sacrifice.”In case their weapons were out, and if we would have had to use force, they were discussing whether or not those guys would have to go kamikaze,” she said, meaning some pilots were considering risking their own lives by using their planes to stop hijacked jetliners.From History.com, a fourth California-bound plane ó United Flight 93 ó was hijacked about 40 minutes after leaving Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. Because the plane had been delayed in taking off, passengers on board learned of events in New York and Washington via cell phone and Airfone calls to the ground. Knowing that the aircraft was not returning to an airport as the hijackers claimed, a group of passengers and flight attendants planned an insurrection.According to nps.gov (National Park Service), Flight 93 had two possible Washington targets: the White House and the Capitol Building.One of the passengers, Thomas Burnett Jr., told his wife over the phone, ìI know weíre all going to die. Thereís three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey.î Another passenger ó Todd Beamer ó was heard saying, ìAre you guys ready? Letís rollî over an open line.Sandy Bradshaw, a flight attendant, called her husband and explained that she had slipped into a galley and was filling pitchers with boiling water. Her last words to him were, ìEveryoneís running to first class. Iíve got to go. Bye.îFrom newyorker.com, the passengers rushed the first-class cabin, carrying out what the 9/11 Commissionís report called a ìsustainedî assault. One of the planeís data recorders captured ìloud thumps, crashes, shouts and breaking glasses and plates.î The hijacker flying the plane, as if to throw the assaulters off balance, rocked the aircraft left and right. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the hijackers ìjudged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them.îThe plane roared low across pastoral Somerset County, Pennsylvania, skimming the village of Lambertsville. The plane then flipped over and sped toward the ground at upward of 500 miles per hour, crashing in a rural field near Shanksville in western Pennsylvania at 10:10 a.m.In an interview with CBS News, two Air National Guard pilots, Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville and Heather Penney, recalled the mission to take down Flight 93.”We knew immediately, as soon as we saw the images, that we needed to protect and defend,” Penney said. The duo didn’t have time to arm their jets with missiles to take down the plane if necessary.”We don’t train to ‘take down’ airliners. We never have,” Sasseville said. “We didn’t have any missiles, and we didn’t have combat loads of bullets. We were going to have to hit the airplane and disable it somehow.”Penney said neither of them had second thoughts about flying their F-16s into the plane. “As the military, we don’t send our service members on suicide missions. But it was clear what needed to be done that morning,” she said.What they didn’t know was that the passengers and crew of Flight 93 fought back and drove the plane into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.Sasseville said he thinks about that day every day. “Those on Flight 93 that paid the ultimate price, those are the real heroes,” he said.”Sass and I owe our lives to them,” Penney added. “But that’s also why, when I think of 9/11, instead of being overcome by the trauma and the horror and the tragedy, I’m actually overcome by hope. That the best of who we are was demonstrated on that day. So, in some ways, living my life as normally as possible is the biggest way that we can say that the terrorists did not win.”
