MItchell Zuckoff - Fall and Rise - The Story of 9/11

CeeCee told Lorne she expected an easy day. The nonstop flight to San Francisco had been assigned five flight attendants, she told him, despite a sparsely filled cabin. First class would have ten passengers and coach would have only twenty-seven, which meant that four out of every five seats on Flight 93 would be empty.

Work had begun and CeeCee said goodbye. Lorne told her he loved her and to call when she landed.

THROUGHOUT THE MORNING, as minutes ticked past and the terror swelled, only the hijackers and their al-Qaeda bosses knew how many planes they intended to seize. It could be two, ten, or more. But from the terrorists’ perspective, the first hour of their attack went like clockwork: so far, they’d hijacked three planes, two of which had struck their targets in New York and the third was under their control, coursing toward Washington, D.C.

Those results were the fruits of a poisoned tree. After months of research and reconnaissance led by Mohamed Atta, the hijackers had guessed correctly about how their victims in the air and their enemies on the ground would and wouldn’t react to a hostile airborne takeover. During the first three hijackings, fifteen terrorists had used planning, training, subterfuge, and deadly violence to exploit preconceived notions and gaping weaknesses they’d identified in U.S. airline security, all in service to Osama bin Laden’s 1998 declaration of war against the United States and its people.

The hijackers on American Flight 11, United Flight 175, and American Flight 77 had boarded without incident, despite their apparent possession of short-bladed knives, not to mention previous travels and associations that should have been flaming red flags. They’d swiftly gained access to cockpits and replaced pilots with men who’d trained to fly jets expressly for the purpose of becoming martyrs. “Muscle” hijackers spread fear by attacking several crew members and passengers. They herded the rest to each plane’s rear section to keep them out of the way. Claims about bombs, whether true or (more likely) false, confused and frightened passengers and crew members into obedience, perhaps with the exception of former Israeli commando Danny Lewin on Flight 11, whose throat was apparently slashed by the hijacker who sat behind him. Announcements from terrorist pilots in the cockpits, even if not all were heard by passengers and crew members, were lies designed to trick their hostages into believing that these were “ordinary” hijackings, with political or monetary goals, and that no one else would be hurt if the terrorists were allowed to fly to their chosen destination and if authorities on the ground satisfied their demands.

During the first three flights, the tightly choreographed strategy worked. And one of the most important elements was timing.

The plan to use the hijacked planes as weapons of mass destruction depended on the hijackers’ ability to commandeer and maintain control of fuel-heavy transcontinental flights that took off within a few minutes of one another. That narrow window maximized the element of surprise, which the hijackers understood or hoped would lead to a chaotic response, too late to stop them from reaching their intended targets. Conversely, delays would increase the chance that they’d be stopped on the ground by a shutdown of air traffic, confronted in the air by fighter jets, or challenged on board by passengers and crew members who might discover that other hijackings hadn’t ended with safe landings and the release of innocents.

Just as Atta intended, American Flight 11 and United Flight 175 took off from Boston’s Logan Airport only fifteen minutes apart, at 7:59 a.m. and 8:14 a.m. respectively, each fourteen minutes after its scheduled departure time. American Flight 77 left Washington’s Dulles Airport at 8:20 a.m., ten minutes after its scheduled departure. In fact, all three planes could be described as being on schedule. Departure times typically specified when a plane was supposed to leave the gate, before taxiing and takeoff. Considering the long delays that often dogged air travel, time had been on the hijackers’ side. So far.

A fourth transcontinental flight, scheduled to depart at 8:00 a.m. from another airport in the Northeast, didn’t get off the ground as quickly. And that made all the difference.

THE PASSENGERS OF that flight, United Flight 93, swiftly boarded the lightly booked plane.

Mark “Mickey” Rothenberg always flew first class, thanks to his bulging frequent flier account from far-flung business trips. Trim, fifty-two years old, a husband and father of two, Rothenberg was a devotee of black cashmere sweaters, a pack-a-day smoker, and a math whiz. He settled into seat 5B for the first leg of a business trip to Taiwan for his import business.

Around him was a collection of strangers with a great many similarities, young and young-in-spirit men and women, many of whom had been shaped by sports in their youths and who channeled their competitive fires into successful careers.

Directly in front of Mickey sat thirty-eight-year-old Thomas E. Burnett Jr., tall and square-jawed, who’d parlayed a sharp mind and a knack for sales into a job as chief operating officer of a company that manufactured heart pumps for patients awaiting transplants. Analytical and ambitious, a former high school quarterback, Tom originally booked a later flight, but he’d switched onto Flight 93 to get home sooner to his wife, Deena, a former flight attendant, and their three young daughters.

Across the aisle in 4D was Mark Bingham, a goateed, thirty-one-year-old public relations executive. Six foot four and more than 200 pounds, Mark ran with the bulls in Pamplona and dressed as what he described as a “transvestite lumberjack” for Halloween. During college, he played on national championship rugby teams at the University of California, Berkeley. He still loved the bone-crushing game: he cofounded a gay-inclusive team called the San Francisco Fog. Mark’s toughness extended beyond the field. Six years earlier, two muggers, one with a gun, demanded cash and watches from Mark and his then partner. Mark jumped the armed mugger, who smashed him on the head with the gun, drawing blood. Mark knocked away the gun and the muggers fled. United flights felt like homecomings for Mark: his mother and his aunt were United flight attendants. Headed to California for the wedding of a fraternity brother who happened to be a Muslim, Mark overslept and nearly missed Flight 93—a kindly gate agent had opened the jetway door and let him board.

In a small-world coincidence, six rows back sat Todd Beamer, who graduated one year ahead of Mark Bingham from the same high school in Los Gatos, California. Although both were schoolboy athletes, Todd spent only his senior year there, and it’s unknown whether he and Mark knew each other at school or recognized each other on the plane. Todd had a boyish face, a warm smile, and a drive for success that made him an ace salesman for computer software maker Oracle Corp. When he wasn’t working, Todd devoted himself to teaching Sunday school, playing in a church softball league, and above all, spending time with his pregnant wife, Lisa, and their two young sons. At his church men’s group, Todd was studying a book called A Life of Integrity.

In a window seat one row back sat an affable thirty-one-year-old man with curly hair, sympathetic eyes, and the thickly muscled shoulders of a powerful athlete. Jeremy Glick worked as a sales rep for a web management company, but he looked as though he’d be more comfortable in a weight room. Jeremy carried 220 pounds on his six-foot frame and held a black belt in judo. In college, he showed up alone, without a coach or a team, to a national collegiate judo championship—and he won. Jeremy and his wife, Lyz, were high school sweethearts; she had given birth three months earlier to a daughter they named Emerson, after Jeremy’s favorite poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson. They called her Emmy. Jeremy reluctantly tore himself away from home for a business trip to California. A fire on September 10 at the Newark airport forced him to switch his plans to Flight 93.