Heroes Among the Dead

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Post their stories to this thread. Express your support.

-- MB (editor@heroesofseptember.com), September 14, 2001

Answers

From REUTERS/Rick Wilking

New York Fire Department Chaplain Rev. Mychal Judge, was buried September 15, 2001. Judge died whilst giving the last rights to a fireman in the aftermath of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers. The World Trade Center was destroyed after both the landmark towers were struck by two planes in an attack on September 11.

-- MB (editor@heroesofseptember.com), September 15, 2001.


Passengers voted to attack hijackers

Full story at:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/plane.phone.call/

Passengers voted to attack hijackers

September 13, 2001 Posted: 5:19 PM EDT (2119 GMT)

Passenger Thomas E. Burnett Jr. made four calls to his wife before the plane he was on crashed in Pennsylvania. NEW YORK (CNN) -- Passengers on board the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania Tuesday apparently decided to attack the terrorists who had commandeered the plane, according to family members of one passenger.

Passenger Jeremy Glick called his wife Liz and in-laws in New York on a cell phone to say the plane had been hijacked.

All 38 passengers, and possibly the crew, had been herded to the back of the plane.

Glick said they were aware a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and that some passengers were talking about retaking control of their plane.

Moments earlier, according to a partial transcript of cockpit chatter obtained by CNN Wednesday, air traffic controllers heard someone shout, "Get out of here," through an open microphone.

The plane, which took off from Newark bound for San Francisco, was near Cleveland, flying at 35,000 feet.

The microphone goes off and comes back on. Scuffling is heard. Somebody again yells, "Get out of here."

The microphone goes off again, then on, and a voice in broken English -- an Arabic accent, according to a source who heard the tape -- says:

"There is a bomb on board. This is the captain speaking. Remain in your seat. There is a bomb on board. Stay quiet. We are meeting with their demands. We are returning to the airport."

The microphone goes off.

At that point, air traffic radar showed the plane abruptly turning 180 degrees, heading southeast, apparently toward Washington with the possible intention of crashing it into the White House or Capitol.

Joanne Makely, Glick's mother-in-law, told CNN Wednesday the family called New York state police on another phone while Glick was still on the line and relayed messages to them from Glick.

Glick told police he could see three men he described as Arabs and that the plane was over countryside, according to Makely.

One of the hijackers "had a red box he said was a bomb, and one had a knife of some nature," Makely said.

Glick was not the only person on the flight to make a phone call during the hijacking.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that a 911 dispatcher received a call from an unidentified man who said, "We're being hijacked!"

A flight attendant called her husband and told him three other attendants had been stabbed by the hijackers, according to an airline employee who asked not to be named.

Passenger Thomas E. Burnett Jr., 38, made four calls to his wife Deena in San Ramon, California, the AP said.

"A group of us are going to do something," Burnett said at one point, his wife told the AP. He also said one passenger had been stabbed.

Glick and Burnett both said in their calls the people on board knew of one or more attacks on the World Trade Center, evidently from the other phone calls.

"He wanted to know if that was true," Makely said.

After Glick was told the reports were true, he left the phone for a while, returning to say, "The men voted to attack the terrorists," Makely said.

-- MB (editor@heroesofseptember.com), September 17, 2001.


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