September 9th, 2011
Despite the national memorial now emerging in Shanksville, I don’t think America has fully begun to appreciate where Flight 93 fits into the pantheon of great moments in American history. I’d argue that–for a host of reasons–it belongs somewhere in the same neighborhood as Little Round Top and Revere’s ride. It’s fitting that we mourn the World Trade Center and Pentagon dead on 9/11, but properly understood our commemorations every year should start there and build toward reverence and appreciation for the men and women of Flight 93. That field in Pennsylvania, not the hole in Manhattan, should be our enduring symbol of the day.
The Washington Post has a story today about another untold effect of the heroism of Flight 93. In addition to everything else they did, the people who fought in that narrow, terrible aisle saved the lives of Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penny and Col. Marc Sasseville. They were the two F-16 pilots sent on a suicide mission to ram the plane and bring it down. Their story is worth reading in full.
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Thanks for this.
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Thanks.
A bunch of yuppie strangers self-organized within minutes and not only saved the Capitol or the White House, but appear, a decade later, to have historically eliminated the strategic threat posed by airline hijacking for kamikaze purposes. For about two hours, the bad guys seemed to have invented an unstoppable new strategic weapon, with who know what dire long term consequences, but then it proved they were stoppable by unarmed frequent flyers. And there haven’t been any kamikaze hijackings since Flight 93.
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With all due recognition of the bravery of the F-16 pilots, chances were fairly good that they could have done sufficient damage to Flight 93’s empennage (encompassing the plane’s vertical and horizontal stabilizers, plus elevator and rudder), say with their wingtips or landing gear as to render it uncontrollable without a spectacular kamikaze event making it impossible for them to have safely ejected and survived such an intentional mid-air collision. (Not that the jihadi crazies at the controls of the bigger plane would have made it easy to do so.)
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Hey JVL … if you recall, the first time we connected was after your article (in the WSJ???) comparing Flight 93 to Little Round Top. Couldn’t agree more, and you’ve done some great work on the heroism of those incredibly brave people. Can’t help but think of this article, which came out 5 days after 9/11 and is as powerful today as it was then…
http://web.archive.org/web/20040103103416/http://216.111.31.12/details.asp?PRID=32
Fake Herzog September 9, 2011 at 7:16 pm
You are so right about Flight 93. I don’t think I really appreciated their heroism until I saw Greengrass’ movie about the events, “United 93”. Whatever you think about his other films, I think he hit a homerun with that movie and the viewer gets the sense that those passengers were true heroes.