Mayday!

Under a cloudless, bright blue sky over the mid-Atlantic states, seven crew members assigned to Flight 93 prepared for an early morning nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, while thirty-three passengers traveled for ordinary reasons and four other passengers planned to hijack the aircraft. The terrorists had begun planning their attack as early as 1999, but some factors were beyond their control: three of the hijacked planes departed on schedule, while Flight 93 was delayed more than 25 minutes because of heavy morning traffic. Just four minutes after Flight 93 took off, hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City, and at 9:03 am a second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, hit the South Tower. After 46 minutes of routine flight, at about 9:28 am, the terrorists on board Flight 93 took over the cockpit. Air traffic controllers in Cleveland, Ohio, heard the pilot or first officer shouting, "Mayday! Get out of here!" The hijackers gained control and turned the aircraft on a course directed toward Washington, D.C. At 9:42 am, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all aircraft across the nation to land at the nearest airport, and an estimated 4,500 aircraft landed without incident in the first such order in U.S. aviation history.

Pennsylvania · United States