Fighter pilot reflects on would-be 9/11 suicide mission

[Dial H For Hero]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/fighter-pilot-reflects-911-suicide-mission/story?id=79898230

As the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks were unfolding, then-Air Force Lt. Heather Penney was given a mission to intercept hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 before it reached Washington, D.C. The rookie F-16 pilot said she believed she would not come back from that mission.

"[I remember] how crystal blue the skies were that day," she told ABC News Live anchor Linsey Davis. "There are so many moments that I remember with such clarity that I can touch, taste, feel hear, smell every detail from that day. But what strikes me the most, because of how omnipresent it was throughout the entire day was the deep, clear blue skies."

At first, Penney said it wasn't immediately clear that an airplane had been deliberately flown into the World Trade Center. When the second plane hit, "that's when we knew that our nation was under attack."

She went to arm her aircraft, but there wasn't enough time. She and another pilot, Marc Sasseville, had to get in the air.

"We did not have missiles. We were on a suicide mission. And in order to be able to take any airliner down, Sass would ram his aircraft into the cockpit where the terrorists were, to destroy the flight controls," she explained. "I would take the tail by ramming my jet into the tail of the aircraft, I would aerodynamically unbalance the airplane and tip it over so it would crash straight into the ground by targeting both ends of the aircraft. It was our plan to prevent any additional casualties."

(excerpt)

[NH Ethylene]

1. I've always thought perhaps the plane was shot down.

And that the government concealed it because of the fallout from such an act. The idea that the hostages took over and then intentionally (and heroically) aimed it into the ground seemed less likely to me, frankly.

So this is revealing to me. And the storyline it suggests makes a lot more sense than passengers agreeing to kill themselves with a nosedive.

Flight 93 passengers attempted to retake the plane, and in the struggle, the aircraft crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

[dflprincess]

3. I agree with you.

If the Air Force didn't shoot the plane down they need to explain why. It would have been horrible but had to bee done.

There's a line at the end on "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence" something liked "When truth conflicts with the legend, print the legend."

I think that's what we have here.

[JHB]

4. They didn't "agree to kill themselves in a nosedive." They tried to take back control of the plane

They'd already learned about planes being flown into buildings, so knew they'd all end up dead if they didn't do something.

When they tried the terrorists -- already prepared for a suicide mission -- sent the plane into a nosedive. Even if the passengers did take back the cockpit, they weren't able to pull out of it.

[NH Ethylene]

5. This makes sense.

On edit - I think the hostages intentionally crashing the plane may have been put out there in the early days and it stuck in my mind. Looking at websites about it now, I see accounts such as the following:

Worried that the passengers would soon break through to the cockpit, the hijackers made the decision to crash the plane before reaching their final destination. At 10:02 a.m. a voice was recorded saying, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.” The airplane then rolled onto its back and plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour.

Another article linked to below shows I'm not the only one who remembers the early story:

Sasseville didn't end up intercepting Flight 93 because the passengers devised their own plan to take it down. The plane ultimately crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. But those passengers averted a fourth attack.

[Champp]

8. Because Republicans were in charge, and controlling info

I don't trust very much at all of what they and the "official" 9/11 reports say. The Republicans have a long track record of lying to Americans, and I don't think 9/11 somehow became an exception to that deeply ingrained GOP habit of lies.

[lastlib]

2. My understanding has always been that the struggle

between the hijackers and the passengers sent the plane into a nosedive. Seems possible that nobody actually had control of it. Just a suspicion--like everybody else, i have no solid facts to support it.

[NH Ethylene]

7. I think you are right.

I just read this, and see that the early story was revised as the facts came in:

Worried that the passengers would soon break through to the cockpit, the hijackers made the decision to crash the plane before reaching their final destination. At 10:02 a.m. a voice was recorded saying, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.” The airplane then rolled onto its back and plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour.

[irisblue]

6. Air National Guard Pilot Marc Sasseville, spoke yesterday about their flight plans

title--A National Guard Commander Recalls Suicide Mission To Intercept Flight 93 On 9/11

source--https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/09/10/flight-93-911-national-guard
audio & transcript there