Nearly every American above a certain age remembers precisely where they were on September 11, 2001. For a small handful of Americans—many of them among the most senior officials in the U.S. government—that day conjures memories of a bunker underneath the White House, built for the Cold War but never used until that Tuesday morning 18 years ago.

What had begun as an odd incident, with the crash of American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., quickly escalated 17 minutes later when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. As the world realized the country was under attack, Vice President Dick Cheney and senior White House aides were rushed to that bunker under the White House, known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). There, underneath the executive mansion’s north lawn, they tried to figure out how many more hijacked planes were in the air. They knew of at least one: United Flight 93.


This excerpt from the forthcoming book The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 (Avid Reader Press) is based on contemporaneous transcripts of 911 calls and cockpit voice recorders from September 11, as well as both archival primary source interviews with key participants—conducted as early as 2002—and supplemental original interviews by the author, as recent as this spring, including the first-ever interview with the Navy officer who ultimately asked Cheney for authority to shoot down hijacked airliners. Interviews have been edited and condensed for clarity.



***

Gary Walters, chief usher, White House: It was a little bit before 9 a.m. when Mrs. Bush came downstairs—I met her at the elevator. As we were walking out, I remember we were talking about Christmas decorations.

Laura Bush, first lady: My Secret Service agent, the head of my detail, Ron Sprinkle, leaned over to me as I got into the car and said, “A plane has hit the World Trade Center.”

Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, White House: I thought, Well, that’s a strange accident. I called the president. We talked about how odd it was. Then I went down for my staff meeting.

Matthew Waxman, National Security Council, White House: I had started about six weeks earlier as Condi Rice’s executive assistant. At about 9:00 o’clock, we would have a daily Situation Room meeting for the national security adviser and all the senior directors. It was during that meeting that the second plane hit.

Mary Matalin, aide to Vice President Dick Cheney: I was with the Vice President when the second plane hit, and we knew instantly that this was not an accident.

Condoleezza Rice: It was the moment that changed everything.

Matthew Waxman: We went into full crisis response mode.

Mary Matalin: We went right into work mode. While we were in his office making calls to New York, making calls to the president, making calls wherever they needed to be made, the Secret Service barged into his office.

Dick Cheney, vice president: Radar caught sight of an airliner heading toward the White House at 500 miles an hour.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney: We learn that a plane is five miles out and has dropped below 500 feet and can’t be found; it’s missing. You look at your watch and think, Hmmm, five miles out, 500 miles an hour. Tick, tick, tick.

Dick Cheney: My Secret Service agent said, “Sir, we have to leave now.” He grabbed me and propelled me out of my office, down the hall and into the underground shelter in the White House.

Mary Matalin: My jaw dropped and the jaws of my colleagues dropped because we had never seen anything like that.

Condoleezza Rice: The Secret Service came in and they said, “You have got to go to the bunker.” I remember being driven along, almost propelled along. We had no idea where it was safe and where it wasn’t. We didn’t think the bunker of the White House was safe at that point.

Dick Cheney: They practice this—you move, whether you want to be moved or not, you’re going.

Gary Walters: The Secret Service officers started yelling, “Get out, get out, everybody get out of the White House grounds.” I remember early on, the chaos. People running, screaming. Fear was in my mind.

Christine Limerick, housekeeper, White House: The look on the faces of the Secret Service agents who were told that they had to stay—I will never forget that because we had at least the opportunity to flee.

Ian Rifield, special agent, U.S. Secret Service: We were fairly confident that plane was going to hit us. The supervisor in the [Secret Service’s] Joint Operations Center basically said, “Anybody who survives the impact, we’ll go to an alternate center, and we’ll continue.” It wasn’t a joke.

Dick Cheney: A few moments later, I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.

Commander Anthony Barnes, deputy director, Presidential Contingency Programs, White House: Vice President Cheney arrived in the bunker, along with his wife. The PEOC is not a single chamber; there are three or four rooms. The operations chamber is where my watch team was fielding phone calls. Then there’s the conference room area where Mr. Cheney and Condi Rice were—that’s the space that had the TV monitors, telephones, and whatever else.

Mary Matalin: It took a while for everybody to actually get to that area. It hadn’t been used for its intended purpose—which was to be a bomb shelter—since its inception.

Commander Anthony Barnes: Shortly thereafter, I looked around and there was Condi Rice, there was Karen Hughes, there was Mary Matalin, there was [Transportation Secretary] Norm Mineta. Mr. Mineta put up on one of the TV monitors a feed of where every airplane across the entire nation was. We looked at that thing—there must have been thousands of little airplane symbols on it.

Mary Matalin: The vice president was squarely seated in the center. It was emotional, but it was really work, work, work. We were trying to locate first and foremost all the planes. Identify the planes. Ground all the planes.

Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t. We couldn’t confirm much of this stuff, so we had to take it on face value until proven otherwise.

At 9:59 a.m., those inside the bunker—as well as millions more glued to TV screens around the country—watched in horror as the South Tower fell.

Mary Matalin: We saw the building collapse.

Commander Anthony Barnes: There was a deafening silence, and a lot of gasping and “Oh my god” and that kind of thing.

Mary Matalin: Disbelief.

Commander Anthony Barnes: There are four or five very large, 55-inch television screens in the PEOC. We would put the different news stations—ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC—on those monitors. I remember Cheney being as flabbergasted as the rest of us were sitting there watching on these monitors. Back in those days, a 55-inch TV monitor was a really big TV. It was almost bigger than life as the towers collapsed.

Dick Cheney: In the years since, I’ve heard speculation that I’m a different man after 9/11. I wouldn’t say that. But I’ll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities.

Mary Matalin: We had to go right back to work.

Richard Clarke, counterterrorism advisor, White House: Many of us thought that we might not leave the White House alive.

Matthew Waxman: One of the things we were all very conscious of down in the PEOC was that the White House Situation Room was staffed with our close colleagues and friends who were staying in those spots despite a clear danger. The Situation Room, which is only half-a-floor below ground, was abuzz with activity, from people who wouldn’t normally be posted there, but who felt duty bound to stay there to help manage the crisis. Especially early in the day, there was a palpable sense that close friends and colleagues might be in some significant danger.

Ian Rifield: There was a sense of frustration too, because we were sitting there. Everybody wanted to fight back. We’re trained to go to the problem, and we were sitting there. There was a lot of tension in that regard. You wanted to do something to protect the complex and the office of the president even better than we were, but we were doing the best we could with what we had.

Condoleezza Rice: Norm Mineta, the transportation secretary, was tracking tail numbers of the aircraft on a yellow pad. He was calling out. “What happened to 671? What happened to 123?” He was trying to make sense of what was going on.

Nic Calio, director of legislative affairs, White House: Norm Mineta was sitting in front of these TV screens that had all these planes on them. It was pretty remarkable when you saw the number of planes in the air.

Condoleezza Rice: My first thought was, Get a message out to the world that the United States of America has not been decapitated. These pictures must have been terrifying. It must have seemed liked the United States of America was coming apart. My test was to keep my head about me and to make certain that people around the world didn’t panic.

Nic Calio: The activity was so high and things were happening so quickly, at least for me, there wasn’t any time to be afraid.

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Matthew Waxman: There was this stark contrast between the chaotic information bombardment about what was happening around Washington, around the country—some of it accurate, some of it inaccurate—and the calm and careful deliberation of a lot of the senior decision-makers.

Nic Calio: The vivid memory I have was we were in this cocoon—receiving and sending all this information, at the same time not knowing where our families were. It was probably midafternoon before we were able to try and contact our families. That was worrisome. I didn’t know where my kids were. There was an overriding uncertainty about what was going on, what would actually happen, and what would have to follow.

Commander Anthony Barnes: The president was safer aboard Air Force One than trying to come home, and Mr. Cheney—without question—he was in charge. He was in charge of the space and we would bring him information.

To defend the nation from the surprise attack, government officials inside the PEOC called upon the military and the small number of fighter aircraft ready at bases across the Northeast, coordinated through the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) headquarters in Rome, New York.

Col. Bob Marr, commander, NEADS: We were in foreign territory; we are used to protecting the shores, way out overseas. Our processes and procedures weren’t designed for this.

Major General Larry Arnold, commander, 1st Air Force, Continental United States North American Aerospace Defense Command, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida: We can’t see the aircraft. We don’t know where it is because we don’t have any radars pointing into the U.S. Anything in the United States was considered friendly by definition.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney, F-16 pilot, D.C. Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland: Our chain of command didn’t go up to NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command], didn’t go up through the First Air Force, which oversaw operations in the United States. They had no method to be able to reach down—or even be able to know that the D.C. National Guard was there and available. There were no rules of engagement. I hadn’t even thought about what that kind of mission might be like on American soil.

Commander Anthony Barnes: I was running liaison between the ops guys who had Pentagon officials on the phone and the conference room [in the PEOC] where the principals were. The Pentagon thought there was another hijacked airplane, and they were asking for permission to shoot down an identified hijacked commercial aircraft. I asked the vice president that question and he answered it in the affirmative. I asked again to be sure. “Sir, I am confirming that you have given permission?” For me, being a military member and an aviator—understanding the absolute depth of what that question was and what that answer was—I wanted to make sure that there was no mistake whatsoever about what was being asked. Without hesitation, in the affirmative, he said any confirmed hijacked airplane may be engaged and shot down.

Col. Matthew Klimow, executive assistant to the Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, Pentagon: No one had ever contemplated the need to shoot down a civilian airliner.

Major General Larry Arnold: I told Rick Findley in Colorado Springs [at NORAD’s headquarters], “Rick, we have to have permission. We may have to shoot down this aircraft that is coming toward Washington, D.C. We need presidential authority.”

Major Dan Caine, F-16 pilot, D.C. Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland: I handed our wing commander the phone to talk to the high levels of government to get the rules of engagement.

Dick Cheney: It had to be done. Once the plane became hijacked—even if it had a load of passengers on board who, obviously, weren’t part of any hijacking attempt—having seen what had happened in New York and the Pentagon, you really didn’t have any choice. It wasn’t a close call.

Matthew Waxman: That really grabs you by the collar, when you hear the vice president giving the order to shoot down an unidentified aircraft flying toward the national capital. That stands out as one of the most frightening moments of the day, partly because it highlighted the sense of continuing danger. There was also the realization of the enormous dilemmas that faced decision-makers at that moment with very little time and imperfect information.

Commander Anthony Barnes: I knew, without a doubt in my mind, that that was a historical precedent—that never before had we given permission to shoot down a commercial airliner. I got back on the phone—it was a general of some sort in the Pentagon—and on that secure line I was talking on, made sure that he understood that I had posed the question to the National Authority [the vice president] and the answer was in the affirmative. We made sure that we did not stutter or stumble because the emotion at that point was very, very high. Fortunately we didn’t have to use that authority.

Josh Bolten, deputy chief of staff, White House: Vice President Cheney was very steady, very calm. He clearly had been through crises before and did not appear to be in shock like many of us.

Dick Cheney: As bad as the events of 9/11 were, some of us had practiced exercises for far more dangerous and difficult circumstances—an all-out Soviet nuclear attack on the United States. That helped—that training kicked in that morning.

Eric Edelman, principal deputy assistant to the vice president for national security affairs, White House: He was a calming influence on people because you’d sort of be embarrassed to, in front of him, betray any sense of, Oh my God.

Condoleezza Rice: There were times that day that it felt like an out-of-body experience. But you keep functioning, even though you don’t really believe it’s happening.

With the order given from Vice President Cheney, the military scrambled to find fighters it could bring into the fight—even if that meant launching them unarmed, on a kamikaze mission to crash their own fighters into hijacked airliners. The scrambled fighter jets would never make contact with Flight 93—the passengers and crew aboard United Flight 93 passengers were planning, at the same time, to take the plane down themselves.

Col. Matthew Klimow: It was a very painful discussion for all of us. We didn’t want the burden of shooting down the airliner to be on the shoulders of a single fighter pilot, but we also didn’t want to have that pilot go all the way up the chain of command to get permission to shoot. It was decided the pilots should do their best to try to wave the airplane off, and if it’s clear the airplane is headed into a heavily populated area, the authority to shoot can be given to a regional commander.



THE CALL

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney, F-16 pilot, D.C. Air National Guard: This sounds counterintuitive, but when the magnitude of the situation hit me, I really lost all emotion. It was really much more focused on, What are the things I need to do to enable us to protect our capital? What are the things I need to do to facilitate us getting airborne?

Brigadier General David Wherley, commander, D.C. Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland: My translation of the rules to Sass was, “You have weapons-free flight-lead control.” I said, “Do you understand what I’m asking you to do?” [Sasseville and Penney] both said yes. I told them to be careful.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, F-16 pilot, U.S. Air Force: As we’re going out to the jets, Lucky and I had a quick conversation about what it is that we were going to do and how we were basically going to do the unthinkable if we had to.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: We would be ramming the aircraft. We didn’t have [missiles] on board to shoot the airplane down. As we were putting on our flight gear in the life support shop, Sass looked at me and said, “I’ll ram the cockpit.” I made the decision I would take the tail off the aircraft.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: We didn’t have a whole lot of options.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: I had never been trained to scramble [mobilize] the aircraft. It would typically take about 20 minutes to start the jets, get the avionics systems going, go through all the preflight checks to make sure the systems were operating properly, program the computers in the aircraft. That’s not even including the time to look at the forms, do the walk-around of the airplane, and whatnot. We usually planned about half-an-hour to 40 minutes from the time you walked out the door to the time that you actually took off.

Col. George Degnon, vice commander, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base: We did everything humanly possible to get the aircraft in the air.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: I just got my radios up, and I was yelling at my crew chief, “Pull the chocks!” He pulled the chocks and I push my throttle. The crew chief was still running under the tail so that my gear would come up—there are safety pins that are all in the airplane—and so they were pulling all those safety pins as I was taxiing to go do an immediate take-off. I didn’t even have an inertia navigation unit. I didn’t have any of that set up. It was lucky it was a clear, blue day because we didn’t have all the avionics. They were not yet awake when we took off.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: I was thinking, Wow, we’re in a little trouble here.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: Sass and I fully expected to intercept Flight 93 and take it down.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: I was going into this moral or ethical justification of the needs of the many versus the needs of the few.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: I genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off. If we did it right, this would be it.

Major General Larry Arnold, commander of the 1st Air Force, the Continental United States North American Aerospace Defense Command, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida: Bob Marr quotes me as saying that I told him that we would “take lives in the air to save lives on the ground.”

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney, F-16 pilot, D.C. Air National Guard: Seeing the Pentagon was surreal. It was totally surreal to see this billowing black smoke. We didn’t get high. We were at about 3,000 feet. We never got above 3,000 feet, at least on that first sweep out.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: There was all this smoke in my cockpit. It made me nauseous to be honest with you—not from an Ugh, this stinks, it was more from an Oh my God, we’ve been hit on our own soil and we’ve been hit big. I couldn’t believe they had gotten through and they managed to pull off this attack.

Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney: The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves.

Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville: They made the decision we didn’t have to make.



***

Aboard Flight 93

In the final minutes of United Airlines Flight 93, passengers and crew used the plane’s in-seat Airfones to call friends, family and airline operators to communicate about the hijacking. A few minutes before 10 a.m., United Flight 93 passenger Edward Felt, a 41-year-old, married father of two who was traveling as part of his job as a computer engineer for BEA Systems, called 911 from the plane and reached emergency dispatcher John Shaw in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. It was the first tip to Pennsylvania authorities that there was trouble in the skies overhead. This is an abridged transcript of their call.

Ed Felt: “Hijacking in pro—“

John Shaw: “Excuse me?” “Hey somebody’s reporting a—“

Felt: “Hijacking in progress.”

Shaw: “Sir, I’m losing you, where are you?”

Felt: “United Flight 93.”

Shaw: “Wait a minute, wait, United flight. United Flight 93.”

Felt: “Hijacking in progress!”

Shaw: “OK, where are you? Where are you?”

Felt: “I’m in the bathroom, United Flight 93.”

Shaw: “OK, where are you?”

Felt: “I don’t know.”

Shaw: “Where are you?”

Felt: “I don’t know where the plane is.”

Shaw: “Where did you take off?”

Felt: “Newark to San Francisco.”

Shaw: “I got it, OK, stay on the phone with me sir.”

Felt: “I’m trying to ... [unintelligible] at the bathroom. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Shaw: “Hey somebody get the FAA, Newark to San Francisco and they got a hijacking in progress. OK, yeah. Get somebody from the airport on the line. This is a hijacking in progress.”



***

Alice Ann Hoglan, mother of Mark Bingham, passenger, United Flight 93: The uniqueness of Flight 93 is that it was in the air longer than the other flights. People on board were able to find out about the fate of the other three flights and mount an effort to thwart the hijackers, even if they weren’t able to save their own lives.

Deena Burnett, wife of Tom Burnett, passenger, United Flight 93: It was silent, and I could feel my heart racing. [On the phone with me,] Tom said, “We’re waiting until we’re over a rural area. We’re going to take back the airplane.” I became very frightened and I begged, “No, no, Tom. Just sit down, be still, be quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself.” He said, “No, Deena. If they’re going to crash this plane, we’re going to have to do something.”

I asked, “What about the authorities?” He said, “We can’t wait for the authorities. I don’t know what they can do anyway. It’s up to us.” He said, “I think we can do it.” Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then I said, “What do you want me to do? What can I do?” “Pray, Deena, just pray.” “I am praying. I love you.” Tom said, “Don’t worry. We’re going to do something,” then he hung up. He never called back.

One passenger, Todd Beamer, reached a Verizon Airfone operator, Lisa Jefferson.

Lisa Jefferson: As that plane took a dive, I could hear the commotion in the background. I heard the flight attendant screaming. People hollering out, “Oh, my God! Jesus, help us!” He asked me, if he didn’t make it, would I please call his wife? I told him I would, but I asked him if would he like me to connect him to her right then. He said, no, he didn’t want to upset her. She was expecting their third child in January, and he knew she was home alone. He gave me his home phone number.

Lyzbeth Glick, wife of Jeremy Glick, passenger, United Flight 93: Jeremy said there were three other guys as big as him, and they were going to jump on the hijacker with the bomb and try to take back the plane. He asked if I thought that was a good idea. We debated a little bit. He said that they were going to take a vote and asked what did I think he should do. I said, “You need to do it.” He’s a very strong man, and large—6 feet, 220. He was a national judo champion, so he was really well-equipped with self-defense. He was joking, “I have my butter knife from breakfast.” Despite everything, he was able to be a little bit humorous. Then he said, “OK, I’m going to put the phone down. I’ll be right back. I love you.”



CHAOS ON BOARD

Philip Bradshaw, husband of Sandra Bradshaw, flight attendant, United Flight 93: We talked about how much we loved each other and our children. Then she said: “Everyone is running to first class, I’ve got to go. Bye.” Those were the last words I heard from her.

Lisa Jefferson: Todd turned to someone else and he said, “Are you ready?” I could hear them; they responded. He said, “OK. Let’s roll.” That was the last thing I heard.



***

Transcript from the United Airlines Flight 93 cockpit voice recorder

9:57 a.m.

Voice in Arabic: Is there something?

Voice in Arabic: A fight?

Voice in Arabic: Yeah?

Voice in Arabic: Let’s go guys. Allah is greatest. Allah is greatest. Oh, guys. Allah is greatest.

Voice in Arabic: O Allah. O Allah. Oh the most Gracious.

[Sounds of a struggle, grunting]

Voice in English: Stay back.

Voice in English: In the cockpit! In the cockpit!

Voice in Arabic: They want to get in there. Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold.

Voice in English: Hold the door.

Voice in English: Stop him.

Voice in English: Sit down. Sit down. Sit down.

Voice in Arabic: There are some guys. All those guys.

Voice in English: Let’s get them.

Voice in English: Sit down.

Voice in Arabic: Trust in Allah and in him.

10 a.m.

Voice in Arabic: There is nothing.

Voice in Arabic: Is that it? Shall we finish it off?

Voice in Arabic: No. Not yet.

Voice in Arabic: When they all come, we finish it off.

Voice in Arabic: There is nothing.

Voice in English: I’m injured.

Voice in Arabic: O Allah. O Allah. O gracious.

Voice in English: In the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die.

Voice in Arabic: Up, down. Up, down, in the cockpit. Up, down. Saeed, up, down.

Voice in English: Roll it.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?

Voice in Arabic: Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.

Voice in Arabic: Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen.

Voice in Arabic: Up, down. Up, down.

Voice in Arabic: What?

Voice in Arabic: Up, down.

Voice in English: Shut them off. Shut them off.

Voice in English: Go, go, move, move.

Voice in English: Turn it up.

Voice in Arabic: Down, down.

Voice in Arabic: Pull it down. Pull it down.

Voice in English: Down. Push, push, push, push, push.

Voice in Arabic: Hey. Hey. Give it to me. Give it to me.

Voice in Arabic: Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.

Voice in Arabic: Give it to me. Give it to me. Give it to me.



10:03 a.m.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest.

Voice in English: No!

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.

Voice in Arabic: Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.

At 10:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into an abandoned coal mine in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. All 40 passengers and crew aboard were killed, as were the four hijackers.



***

American flags fly at a memorial site on the 5th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, where United Flight 93 crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, September 11, 2006. | Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

Photo Credits: Photos inside the bunker (David Bohrer/U.S. National Archives via Getty Images). Pentagon (Alex Wong/Getty Images). Fighter jet (Alex Wong/Getty Images). Flight 93 victims (AP).

Sources: In addition to original interviews by the author and contemporaneous audio recordings, this oral history is based on conversation and interviews conducted as part of the following primary sources: Oral history transcripts from the collection of the National 9/11 Museum and Memorial; oral histories conducted by the 9/11 Tribute Museum; Mitchell Fink and Lois Mathias’ book Never Forget; Leslie Filson’s official Air Force history, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission; Kate Anderson Brower’s book, The Residence: Inside the Private World of the White House; Jimmy Orr, “Nope, Dick Cheney Didn’t Change His Mind,” Christian Science Monitor, May 21, 2009; Richard Clarke, “Cheney and Rice Remember 9/11: I Do, Too,” Washington Post, May 31, 2009; “In Cody, Cheney Reflects On 9/11,” Powell (WY) Tribune, May 31, 2018; C-SPAN, “Pilots Remember September 11, 2001”; Evan Thomas, “The Day That Changed America,” Newsweek, December 30, 2001; Nicole Weisensee Egan, “Inside a Hero Fighter Pilot’s Decision to Give His Life in Kamikaze Mission on 9/11: ‘We Were Going to Do the Unthinkable,” People, September 9, 2016; Steve Hendrix, “F-16 Pilot Was Ready to Give Her Life on Sept. 11,” Washington Post, September 8, 2011; Andrew Alderson and Susan Bisset, “The Extraordinary Last Calls of Flight UA93,” Telegraph (U.K.), October 21, 2001; CNN Presents, “9/11: What Really Happened?”, September 14, 2002; as well as video interviews conducted with Laura Bush, by the Smithsonian, and with Condoleezza Rice, by the University of Denver.

Copyright © 2019 by Garrett Graff. From the forthcoming book THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff to be published by Avid Reader Press, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Printed by permission.