On the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial U.S. airliners departing from East Coast airports, flying two into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City and a third into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, while United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing all on board as part of the deadliest attack on American soil by any foreign nation or terrorist group. After Flight 93 was delayed more than 25 minutes, terrorists seized the cockpit about 46 minutes into the flight and turned the aircraft toward Washington, D.C., likely aiming for the U.S. Capitol. Alerted by phone calls to family, friends, and authorities that the hijacking was part of a larger attack, the forty unarmed passengers and crew voted to fight back, rushed from the rear of the plane toward the hijackers and cockpit, and struggled to regain control before the aircraft rolled upside down and crashed at 10:03 am less than 20 minutes flying-time from Washington. The crash prompted a major FBI investigation that recovered black boxes, personal effects, human remains, knives, terrorist passports, and handwritten Arabic documents, and enough remains were found to identify everyone on board. In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, which brought disbelief, sorrow, anger, and renewed unity and patriotism, the site near Shanksville became a national memorial honoring the extraordinary courage of the passengers and crew of Flight 93.
