Despite my formerly announced intent to avoid all the 9/11 coverage, with the weekend upon us, it’s becoming difficult. I thought I’d heard all the 9/11 stories, but this one is new this year:
The first two F-16s that were scrambled to stop Flight 93 before it reached Washington were armed only with training ammunition. The pilots, then-Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney and her commanding officer, Col. Marc Sasseville, took off before their planes could be armed with missiles, having agreed that to stop the hijacked plane, they would ram it. Sasseville would hit the cockpit, taking off the nose, and Penney would take off the tail. They calculated this would stop the plane’s forward progress and cause it to drop straight from the sky, minimizing the debris field on the ground.
As it turned out, the passengers of Flight 93 made the kamikaze attack unnecessary.
Major Penney was part of the first generation of female fighter pilots in the U.S. and was just a rookie on 9/11/2001. MSNBC has the story and includes links to a CSPAN interview and an article in the Washington Post. It appears the Post may have a second article available only to paid subscribers. For this story, I might even consider a subscription.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxLu8iESrYc&feature=player_embedded]
What an incredible story! I’ve never heard that one before either.
I too have been avoiding the 9/11 coverage. The memories are just too painful still, not the least of which is having watched it all live in the day-room of a locked psychiatric ward. The weird thing is that my 9/11 Declassified post is now breaking every stat record my blog ever had all by itself, with almost a thousand views just today, even though I can’t bear to look at it myself. 😐
Now, of course, I must go read your post. I’d be over the moon if I got that many hits in one day. Maybe I’ll be Number 1,000 …
Okay, I’m back. I didn’t need to see those …
I just took another peek myself and couldn’t even finish. I simply don’t get the fascination. Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy when my “views” count goes over 100, so days like these are very nice. But this seems is a little on the morbid side to me, and my thoughts on what might motivate such rabid fascination are a little disturbing. 1083 and counting… 😯
There are people, a friend of mine is one of them, who absolutely believed concentration camps were being built across the US, because if the GOP lost the Bush-Kerry election Bush would declare Martial Law, and the cattle cars would be brought out. These are the people who are desperate to believe in the idea of alternate histories. 9-11, my friend believes, was committed by a cabal of people who ordered the President to blah blah blah blah. These people, like my friend, make up a large percentage of Internet users.
My little brother was waiting in line for a tour of the White House when Flight 77 flew overhead, and watched it bank towards the Pentagon. It was low enough he could see the paint peeling off the tail, and that the window blinds were all down. It was either Flight 77, or Flight 93 that was originally supposed to kill my brother. This is why I hate people like my friend, and anyone else searching for conspiracies.
But seriously, next time try calling your post “Pharma Declassified”. You can have fun with the anti-Xenu, pro-Cruise people.
I’ll bet your friend and your brother could have (or have had) some lively conversations.
Sorry, sometimes I write posts instead of comments. Especially after 1am. We all went to high school together, they were friends as well, but mental illness has a way of getting in the way, especially when it’s never treated and only encouraged.
For a few years, my friend — who has inhaled more weed than oxygen — used to post videos to YouTube of the exhaust patterns of planes, he thought they were proof the government was seeding clouds with… something insidious.
These are the kinds of people who are always looking for “declassified” information about 9/11, or ‘big pharma’ or Obama’s birth certificate… by “kinds of people” I basically mean mentally ill but not too sick they can’t find an Internet connection.
My dad is 100% awesome. Just saying. Love you, Dad(:
I agree! I didn’t hear about this until 2011 and it blew me away. Tell him I said thank you!