Former Air Force Lieutenant Reveals the Suicide Mission Passengers Made Unnecessary
Former Air Force Lieutenant Heather “Lucky” Penney has shared the harrowing reality of what military pilots were prepared to do on September 11, 2001, to protect Americans in Washington, D.C.
Penney was only 26 years old when she faced what amounted to a suicide mission involving United Airlines Flight 93. The hijacked plane was the fourth aircraft seized that day. It was also the only one that did not reach its intended target, thanks to the bravery of the passengers and crew aboard.
Flight 93 was still on the ground when the other three planes had already been hijacked. After takeoff, it flew normally west for about 46 minutes. Then the hijackers stormed the cockpit and turned the plane toward Washington, D.C.
Air traffic controllers heard a “Mayday” and “Get out of here!” before one of the hijackers took control. Meanwhile, passengers and crew used airphones and cell phones to learn about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
They voted to try to retake the plane. Todd Beamer’s last recorded words became a defining part of the story: “Are you ready? Okay.” “Let’s roll.”
After a struggle in the cockpit, the plane rolled and pitched. The passengers and crew crashed it in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, rather than allow the hijackers to keep control.
At the same time, military leaders were dealing with an impossible choice. They had to prepare pilots to intercept the airliner, even though they did not have live missiles or real weapons available on board.
“We knew what the target would be. It would be an airliner full of innocent Americans. But we didn’t have any live missiles. We had no real weapons on board. So we knew that this would be a suicide mission.”
“And if we were to take down an airliner, we would have to ram our jets into the aircraft.”
Penney said another pilot, identified in her account as Sass, had a plan for the attack.
“And so as I was zipping my G-suit up, Sass says to me, ‘I’ll take the cockpit.’”
“So his plan was he would fly his jet into the cockpit to take out the terrorists and the flight controls, and then I would ram my jet into the tail of the aircraft.”
The pilots had to assume that the White House, Congress, and other national institutions could be the next targets.
“We had to assume that the White House, that Congress, our most cherished national institutions, the foundational bedrock of our democracy, would be the next target. We had to assume that.”
Penney said the pilots did not know Flight 93 had already gone down. By the time authorization came, the passengers had already made the decision that prevented the plane from reaching Washington.
“We did not know that 93 had crashed. We did not know that the passengers had already done the job.”
“In many ways, I feel like a mission failure, not only because our nation lacked the imagination, we weren’t sitting alert, we didn’t have live weapons, and frankly, we were too late.”
“Thank God for the passengers, because if it hadn’t been for them, we were given the authorization too late to have made a difference. 93 would have made it.”
She also emphasized the burden placed on the people aboard Flight 93.
“Those passengers were placed in a position where they had to make a choice that they never should have been faced with. But thank God they did.”
The passengers and crew are honored at the Flight 93 National Memorial, operated by the National Park Service. The memorial includes the Wall of Names, the Tower of Voices, a visitor center, and the crash site. The crash site is treated as a burial ground and is not walked on by the public.
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