On the morning of September 11, 2001, four commercial airliners were hijacked in a premeditated terrorist attack against the United States. Two planes were intentionally flown into the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York City, and a third hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. A fourth plane, Flight 93, traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, California, was delayed more than 25 minutes before takeoff and left the ground four minutes before the World Trade Center was struck. After 46 minutes of routine flight west over Pennsylvania, terrorists breached the cockpit, took control, and turned the plane southeast toward the nation's capital. Through phone conversations with family members and authorities, passengers and crew learned that their flight was part of the terrorist attack, leading them to make a collective decision to revolt. As the 40 passengers and crew attempted to overthrow the four hijackers, the terrorists were forced to bring the plane down in an open field at 10:03 a.m., killing all on board, about 20 minutes flying time from Washington, D.C. Flight 93 was the only aircraft that failed to reach its intended target that day, believed to have been the U.S. Capitol building or the White House.
