497 - Cigarettes and Mothballs

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Goodbye.

Hello

and welcome to my favorite murder.

That's Georgia Hardstark.

That's Karen Kilgareth.

And we're just here to tell you a couple things before we go.

Dish like four.

Four things.

And then we're going to go back on tour.

Yeah, we'll just go back to the hotel rooms.

Constantly for the rest of our lives.

Forever.

And eat chicken strips and Caesar salads.

I mean, Caesar salads, you're being good.

Oh, I don't eat it.

I just order order it.

Oh, I see.

And Vince eats it.

He gets that roughed.

He does.

He's so good at it.

And I'm just like a child fucking, I just ate a fucking uncrustable.

Like, I don't, I eat like a toddler.

I had my first uncrustable in the Denver dressing room.

Congratulations.

Georgia came up and was holding uncrustables.

Like, would you like some of these?

Because I asked for them in the dressing room because they're like the perfect snack.

Yeah.

And they gave me like 12 of them.

So I was like, I'm going to share the wealth.

Everyone gets an uncrustable.

It's so funny.

They asked what I wanted in my dressing room.

And I'm like, I don't know.

And I said mozzarella sticks, but I meant string cheese.

And it's the same.

It was like everyone kind of pauses, like, okay, I guess we'll get you hot mozzarella sticks.

Impossibly.

Yeah.

String cheese is a good idea.

Yeah.

It's such a weird part of it that you're like, I don't, what do people fucking want in green rooms?

I've never

cocaine.

Always coke.

Cocaine.

Cocaine and edamame.

I asked for edamami as well.

I was trying to do protein things, but again, it's absolutely performative.

Yeah.

Right.

For

sure.

I'm not sure.

Well, we're back, except we're not, because when this comes out, we're in Austin.

Yes, that's right.

Night two in Austin.

That's right.

Which I'm very excited about.

I think I'm going to wear cowboy boots to the show.

Yeah.

Local jokes get local work.

Yeah.

In the best way.

In the best way.

Give them what they want is what I meant.

for that one.

Thank you everyone who came to Denver.

That was like such a fucking amazing time.

It was, I mean, I would have to say to go back on stage after six years,

it was perfection.

It was great.

We forgot how to do it.

They didn't care.

They were so supportive.

They were really right there with us as we didn't know our lines in our own show.

It was so much fun.

I hope you guys are coming to the live shows coming up.

Yes.

I think they're going to be fucking fun.

I mean, first of all, I would just say Denver was the loudest audience I've ever heard both nights.

Yeah.

But that first night was nuts.

Yeah.

Like nuts.

Yeah.

And there was a Katie dressed as a hot dog front and center.

That's right.

I mean, there's just

a lot of great stuff.

Mary drove from South Dakota.

That's right.

There was just

positivity.

People repping from all over this great land.

We were in our own little fantasy worlds in that theater.

It was really great.

Us and Uncrustables.

Yeah.

Wait, were you giving me a signal to put my hair in?

No, I was actually my own hair.

When we were in Denver, I went to a vintage store and I bought this shirt that I

had this blouse.

What was it called?

Gold mine.

Gold mine.

Thank you.

Oh, my God.

And I steamed it and it smells vintage now.

Yes.

You know how that happens?

Sigs, cigarettes and mothballs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I have a thing that's very, has nothing to do with anything.

Okay.

Except for that just, it was very touching to me.

So there was the like the technical Mms, but there is an actor who I've always been a huge huge fan of and I actually kind of became you know fake Twitter friends with for a little while.

His name's Sean Haddise and he has been working since I think he's in his early 20s.

He's been in a million things.

He used to be on a show called Southland, but now he's on the pit and he won for best supporting actor.

Wow.

So I have always loved him, of course.

And somewhere in the Twitter world, he did something like he posted a picture.

He's like, what is this outside of?

And it was like a bunch of bikes that had goofy shit all over them and people were just guessing and i guessed hot yoga studio in santa monica or something like that and he wrote back i expected better from you karen wow and then i was like wait what the fuck then i would post a joke and he would be there baking jokes back and so it was almost like we were already friends like i went to high school with sean hattacey where i was just like My friend Molly, who was, I was also a Twitter friend.

So she was like, what the fuck's going on?

I'm like, I truly don't know, but just everybody act calm and pretend like like whatever he's just a funny guy but he's also just like one of those working actor people that like everybody loves and is so good in everything he does

and when i posted a thing when my mom died he dmd me and sent me the loveliest message of like whatever so i just wanted to say because now twitter's gone right i'm over on tick tock on my tick tock island on your own with no connections to anything and i'm just fucking basically a weird lurker i don't get to write my jokes or do my fun stuff.

Yeah, they really ruined that for me.

They ruined everything.

140 characters.

Congratulations to Sean Haddissey.

That's amazing.

I have an update or a thing that is, that has nothing to do with this except it's true crime.

Oh, maybe we do more stuff like that on our true crime podcast.

I guess.

So in July of 2024, I did an episode 436 called You, Me, and American Geography.

I covered Buford Pusser, who was the walking tall guy.

Yes.

And about how they got ambushed, his wife was killed by the people who were like going after him and how he became this hero.

Well, looks like he killed his wife.

Oh, no.

Yep.

Spoiler alert.

They think he did it.

Yeah.

Like all the lore around that man is false.

Yep.

And they think he killed her.

They like looked at the evidence again.

The wife's name was Pauline.

It was said that she was shot in the car while riding with him, but but new evidence shows she may have been shot outside the car.

And Buford had been shot in the face, which was like a huge, and he survived, you know, but it's like, oh, that looks like a self-inflicted gun wound now.

Now, do we know for a fact, or is this just is like we think and we're getting close to the answer?

I think they're pretty set on it.

He's dead, you know, long dead.

So it's like nothing could be done.

But there's like the new evidence is pretty damning.

Yeah.

I guess.

Also, it's the kind of thing where, and will the new evidence even matter?

Because oftentimes when like lore happens like that it's just set and people kind of never change their mind i mean it's almost like yeah like cold cases that are just so fascinating it's like oh fuck man you find out new shit all the time that's a real twist i know i know i know should we do some highlights let's do it okay we have a podcast network it's called exactly right media here are some highlights we've got a new buried bones episode this week called blood on the cobblestones part one kate and paul head to boston 1962 where a series of women are found found strangled, and this story is just beginning.

Oh, wow.

Speaking of Buried Bones, Kate and Paul are going on vacation, and they're taking you with them.

That's right.

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Can you imagine?

I cannot imagine.

Do you think that ID channel will just zap out because everyone will be on it at 1130?

Like, buffet, dance party, whatever.

Yeah.

Then you need those forensic files.

Oh, my God.

That sounds amazing.

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I mean, that's going to be really fun.

Yeah.

Also, amazing places to go.

Yeah.

Okay, then over on I Said No Gifts, Bridger is joined by some hilarious guests, Lauren Lapkus, Taran Killam, and Vinny Thomas, my very favorite.

If you haven't followed Vinnie Thomas on either Instagram or TikTok, he is one of the funniest people out there.

He was just on I Said No Gifts individually.

Nice.

Anyway, they're live in Los Angeles, and the topics include deodorant application, an OJ Simpson Pog, and the Capital One Cafe.

And then over on our newest podcast, Trust Me, Lola and Megan are joined by journalist Jane Borden.

Oh my God, good friend of the podcast.

Friend of the pod.

Author of the book Cults Like Us that I've mentioned here before.

It's so freaking good.

She talks about how cult thinking is baked into American life from doomsday myths to self-help empires and why we're all more susceptible than we think.

Fascinating stuff.

Yeah, it's very cool.

And also finally over on That's Messed Up, Kara and Lisa covered the SVU episode Dare, which is the tragic story of actress Isabella Grasso and discussed the gruesome case of Dr.

Michael Mastro Marino.

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There's more food for thought, more thought for food.

There's more data insights to help with those day-to-day choices.

There's more to the weather than whether it's going going to rain.

And with our arts and entertainment coverage, you won't just get out more, you'll get more out of it.

At the Chronicle, knowing more about San Francisco is our passion.

Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

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All right, well, I'm solo today.

Yes, it's your day.

It's my day.

It's also 9-11 when this comes out.

Never forget.

In the spirit of not forgetting, I'm going to tell you a story that happened exactly 24 years ago on September 11th, 2001.

As you know, Karen, four hijacked airplanes were used to conduct the deadliest attack on American soil.

And what boggles my mind is that there are people who listen to this podcast who weren't even born yet.

Yeah.

And who are adults?

Yeah.

It's fucking crazy.

I know.

Like the trauma that we collectively still have from it, from that day, and people hadn't been born yet.

I can't even imagine.

The weirdest thing, and I know, I feel like we've talked about this, but I remember like three days later, we all, me and my friends went to the beach and we were in the water, you know, out in Santa Monica, and a plane came to land and we all just froze in the water.

Everybody at the beach was like, what's going to happen right now?

And it's like, the plane just landed normal.

Constantly.

It was a complete.

paradigm shift, obviously.

Totally, totally.

It changed the way you saw the world completely.

A week after the attacks, the famous journalist Hunter S.

Thompson, who then had a column for ESPN's sports writing site, page two, wrote, quote, the 22 babies born in New York City while the World Trade Center burned will never know what they missed.

The last half of the 20th century will seem like a wild party for rich kids compared to what's coming now.

The party's over, folks.

End quote.

And he was.

correct.

Dang, Hunter

Thompson knew it.

Can you imagine going into labor when that's happening?

And you have to go to the hospital?

I mean, in New York.

And it's basically like now we're all in a disaster movie that we that no one has even ever imagined.

No, it's like the serious finale of some fucking hospital movie that like is awful.

So crazy.

I had friends that had to run.

They lived down near Wall Street and they had to run out of their apartment with no shoes on and like just to get away from the building.

Jesus Christ.

So nuts.

The shockwaves from that day have reshaped our country and our world and we're still living with the consequences.

But today's story is about some of the people who, in the moment, decided to sacrifice themselves to ensure that as little harm as possible would come to their fellow Americans.

This is the story of the passengers and crew of United 93,

the only hijacked plane that did not hit its intended target.

Holy shit.

I know.

Great idea.

Right?

Yeah.

Thank you to Allie and Molly for suggesting this.

I've been waiting to do this

today of all fucking days.

Yeah, really.

Along the way, we'll talk about some of the other people on board the other planes who sounded the alarm and relayed as much information as possible over the phone.

And it's because of these phone calls that we have any information about what happened on those planes.

I also want to talk about how like cell phones were like in their infancy.

Yes.

Everyone maybe had a cell phone.

There was no texting, though.

There was no sending photos.

If you were on an airplane, you couldn't make a call most of the time.

Yeah, probably not.

There was texting, but it was that you had to do, you would depress the little number a certain amount of times for the certain letter.

Oh, I was so good at that.

But exhausting.

Oh my God, it was exhausting.

It was ridiculous.

People would not understand today.

Also, it's so expensive.

So expensive, yeah.

I'm sure, yeah, calling from an airplane.

Can you like, yeah.

So the main sources I used for the story were an article in The New Yorker by Paige Williams, a segment from 60 Minutes, and the 9-11 Commission Report.

And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes.

So we're going to start in Oak Brook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, and we're at the Customer Service Call Center for Verizon's airphone service.

Remember they had phones on the back of the seat.

Oh, yes, with the wire.

Yes, you'd press this button and a like phone would pop out of the back of the seat in front of you on an airplane.

And it was $10 a minute.

That was like so expensive.

It was so expensive.

Nobody used them.

Like they were for show, it felt like.

Well, a woman named Lisa Jefferson is a supervisor at this call center.

She spent the morning working in her office.

And sometime after 8 a.m.

Central Time, a co-worker asked if she's heard that two planes have crashed into the the World Trade Center buildings in New York.

Lisa hadn't heard yet, and at about 8.45 a.m., she steps out of her office to find out more.

And she's only taken a few steps when one of the call center reps she supervises flags her down.

She says she's on the phone with a man who is on another plane that has been hijacked.

Lisa has the representative get some more information for her to relay to her supervisors.

And by the time Lisa has done this and returns, she can tell that the representative is having trouble handling the information she's hearing.

Obviously, she's panicking.

Lisa has to lift her physically out of the chair and sit her down next to her so she can get on the call because this woman is just

drinking.

She puts on the headset and starts talking to, quote, a soft-spoken, calm man, as she puts it.

He introduces himself as Todd.

So Todd Meimer is 32 years old and he's from Cranberry, New Jersey.

He has two little boys, David, who's three, and Drew, who is one, and one more baby on the way.

His wife, coincidentally, is also named Lisa.

Todd works as a software salesman for the software company Oracle.

He had flown out of Newark that morning to attend a meeting in San Francisco, and he was just going to take the meeting and come right back home to be with his family.

He was supposed to have gone the day before, which is like fucking always, right?

Yeah.

But he and Lisa had just gotten back from a trip to Italy and he wanted to spend that night with his kids.

So he took the flight the next day.

Oh, he rushed.

He rushed home.

Yeah.

So Todd is a baseball fanatic.

He can't wait to start his kids in the sport.

He's already assembled a full catcher's uniform for his three-year-old, right?

Like I could see Vince doing that.

Everything except the mitt.

And that's because Lisa, the wife, had put her foot down about this.

She's like, he's three years old.

He doesn't need the whole thing yet.

Like, let's wait on the mitt.

You know, these are, they're expensive.

Yeah.

It's sometimes reported that Todd was trying to call his wife initially, but the call wouldn't connect, and that he called the Airphone Customer Service Desk and said, but according to Lisa Beamer, the wife and Lisa Jefferson, Todd didn't try to call his wife at all.

He knew she was home with her two very young children and she was pregnant and Todd did not want to upset his family and freak her out.

So because it was 2001, which is ancient.

There's no transcript of Lisa Jefferson's call with Todd.

It was not recorded.

Lisa took some notes on a post-it and those were what was handed over to the FBI.

So everything we know about the conversation is from Lisa's memory.

There was a transcript circulating online, but it was fake.

So of the four planes that were ultimately hijacked that morning, Todd's flight from Newark, United 93, had been the last to take off.

Between the four planes, there were 19 hijackers total, and four of them are on Flight 93.

Each of the other flights have five hijackers on board, and it's guessed that the final hijacker was detained upon attempting to enter the United States.

So there's only four on his flight.

All 19 hijackers are members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, and most but not all of them are from Saudi Arabia, where al-Qaeda has the strongest presence.

The hijackers are between the ages of 20 and 33, with the majority of them being in their early 20s.

I know the whole thing.

Just like watching radicalization.

Yeah.

And that's what we're doing in this country now.

But it's just like that thing of...

There is no end.

It's the one end, actually.

Sorry.

It's a zero-sum game.

Like it's just so sad.

And then the idea that something has gotten into their head to the degree where they're like, yep, I'm going to die for this belief.

Yeah.

And I'm going to kill a bunch of other people for this belief.

Yeah.

It's, it's a horrible thing.

Yeah.

So some of the hijackers had been in America for years and have attended American flight schools.

Other hijackers.

that were there just to subdue the passengers and crew mostly arrive in the U.S.

later and they are kept separate from the pilots until the day of the attack.

I mean, you can read about this and watch the details about this everywhere, obviously.

So I'm not going to get super in the weeds.

But all four of the Flight 93 hijackers are seated in first class in the front of the plane.

So the TSA will be created in response to 9-11, which is so wild.

Yeah, you used to be able to go up to the gate.

Yeah.

Yeah, you could walk your person up to the gate.

That's right.

There was no centralized authority performing security screenings at every airport.

The airlines instead contract out their security to individual companies.

You know, so it's just, there's no rules, essentially.

There's no rules.

Surveillance footage from these checkpoints shows that several of the hijackers set off the metal detectors and then they get checked with a wand that morning.

In the footage, one of them appears to have something clipped to his back pocket, but he's allowed through the checkpoint without it being examined.

And it will turn out that most of the hijackers were able to get knives or box cutters on board, which is why you have to take your shoes off now.

I mean,

you do not.

Well, you absolutely could have a box cutter in those doctor shoals.

I mean, it doesn't make sense anymore.

I know.

It sucks that we like, we do things in response to tragedy, not to like circumvent it.

Yes.

There's no one sitting down and preventatively.

Yeah.

Maybe they are, but I just watched a woman do this TikTok where she's like, so you're telling me that my pet has to stay in quarantine till his vaccines come all the way through, but there's not going to be any vaccines for children.

Right.

And it just like, oh my God, like the mentality of things where you're just like, how are we?

There's no not overriding logic.

No, it's fucking mayhem.

Yeah.

Now, yeah.

It's total mayhem.

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Knowing San Francisco is our passion.

Discover more at sfchronicle.com.

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Goodbye.

So United 93 boards around 8 a.m.

Eastern Time.

There are 33 passengers who range in age from 20 to 79.

They're from all over the country, Minnesota, California, Florida, some even from overseas in Germany and Japan.

It's believed that the first hijacking on the first plane, American Airlines 11, begins around 8.14 in the morning, shortly after that flight took off out of Boston's Logan airport.

This is when communications between air traffic control and the pilots started going unanswered.

So that's how they know something had started.

There were seven crew members aboard that day, and two heroic flight attendants on that flight are able to separately contact American Airlines to sound the alarm that something had happened.

At 8.19 a.m., Betty Ann Ong calls the American Airlines Reservations Desk from the jump seat in coach and informs them that she believes the flight has been hijacked.

So this is the first they hear about it.

Wow.

She says that two first-class flight attendants have been stabbed and that she believes that the hijackers have taken over the cockpit.

She says people are having trouble breathing and that she thinks the hijackers sprayed mace up in first class.

Oh my God.

I never heard any of that.

Yeah, me neither.

At 8.29, Madeline Amy Sweeney, another flight attendant on American Airlines 11, who goes by Amy, also contacts American Airlines, reaching their flight services desk in Boston and confirms that two flight attendants had been stabbed and that an additional passenger in first class was also killed.

It's believed that this was a man named Daniel Lewin and that he had attempted to stop the two hijackers seated in front of him, not realizing that additional hijackers were seated behind him.

So he just jumped into action.

Wow.

Yeah.

American Airlines personnel reach the air traffic control tower in Boston, which is already aware that there's a situation on Flight 11 because of the dropout in communication, but also because one of the American Airlines 11 hijackers mistakenly radios them at 8.24 a.m.

He says, quote, we have some planes, end quote, and tells the passengers to sit down.

It seems like he thought he was using the plane's PA system, but instead had broadcast that out to pilots and air traffic controllers.

So you're just fucking...

flying your plane and you hear that.

Terrifying.

Wow.

Yeah.

Both Betty and Amy remain on the line with American Airlines personnel, calmly relaying information.

At 8.46 a.m., Amy said she can see water and buildings and that the plane is flying way too low.

Both phone calls end when American Airlines 11 hits the North Tower of New York's World Trade Center.

And it's just horrific.

She seems to know what's coming.

Across the river in Newark, New Jersey, Todd's flight, United 93, has taken off four minutes earlier.

So like just if.

If there was just some delay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Some delay.

At 8.42 a.m.

after a 25-minute delay on the tarmac.

So if it had just been a little bit longer.

A little longer.

Between the hijacking of American Airlines 11 and United 93 taking off, the two other flights have also taken off.

Those are United Airlines 175 from Boston to LA, which took off at 8.15.

One minute after the American Airlines 11 hijacking began, so too late by then.

And American Airlines 77, which took off from Washington, D.C.'s Dallas Airport at 8.20.

These two flights are hijacked within 10 minutes of United 93 taking off.

So air traffic control loses contact with American Airlines 77, the flight that left out of Dulles at 9 a.m., about 15 minutes after the North Tower had been hit.

By this point in time, the FAA is aware that multiple hijackings are taking place, but they have not put out the warning to other planes that are currently flying.

I mean, what would you do?

Well, there is no protocol in place for this kind of thing.

Oh.

Because this has never happened.

Because multiple, yeah, it's like one hijacking at a time in the past.

Yeah.

So they don't know when to like emergency land.

They don't tell them to stop taking off.

I mean, imagine it's like, have you ever seen one of those maps with all the planes flying and how many are flying at the same time?

Yes.

And you're supposed to get on a mic and be like, guys, everybody land.

Yeah.

And then imagine being one of the pilots like on the tarmac that day who was told not to take off.

And the people on the plane who are like, what the fuck's going on?

You can't tell them.

They'll freak out.

It's just

an impossible situation.

Yeah.

At 8:59, a passenger aboard United Airlines 175 named Brian David Sweeney.

Oh my God, have you heard this?

He leaves a message for his wife on his home answering machine.

Have you heard it?

I think so.

It's fucking heartbreaking.

He says in a calm voice, can I read it to you?

Sure.

Quote, Jules, this is Brian.

Listen, I'm on an airplane that's been hijacked.

If things don't go well and it's not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you.

I know.

I want you to do good, go have good times.

Same to my parents and everybody.

And I just totally love you.

And I'll see you when you get there.

I know.

And it's like, his voice is like kind of calm, but you can tell it's like resigned.

It sounds resigned.

It's just like, I just need you to know this.

Yeah.

Which is a beautiful thing.

I know.

And saying, I want you to do good and go have good times, knowing like,

yeah, shh.

She's about to lose everything.

What a loss of a man that would place that call.

Totally.

God damn.

I know.

So five minutes later, that flight strikes the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

The attacks in New York ultimately killed 2,753 people.

So at this point, back on United 93, they've been in the air for about 20 minutes when that happens.

And in the beginning, the first tower, we like weren't sure what it was.

Even the second tower,

that's when you started to hear about like the word terrorist attack.

But it was slow.

I mean, the news, I was with my grandma.

I was living at her house at the time the news came in so slowly and it came in as the newscasters were learning it as well like fucking no one knew anything and then suddenly there's another plane that had been hijacked and another plane and like it was just very

it was a panemonium yeah it's like started surreal yeah then got weirder i've told you this already but my sister called me and i didn't get up because it was like really early and she kept calling and when i finally picked up she was like she said they attacked the White House, which I thought she meant aliens.

So it was just this like, what, what, what?

And I turned on the TV.

But then it was this like, when the first plane went, you were like, oh, what a terrible accident.

Yeah, my grandma came and woke me up.

You know, my 100-year-old grandma, she woke me up in a really nervous, weird way.

That was like after the first plane had hit and she was like, I don't want to be alone anymore.

And it came and woke me up.

I was like a fucking 20-year-old brat, you know, like, and we watched it together.

I know.

Okay.

The pilots on flight 93 are named Jason Dahl and Leroy Homer, and they have already heard the mistaken transmission go out from one of the hijackers.

And when at 9.23 a.m., a United Airlines dispatcher named Ed Bollinger lets them know about the other hijackings, sending written transmission, quote, beware any cockpit intrusion, two aircraft hit World Trade Center, end quote.

So they're fucking midair and they get that fucking message.

I mean.

And there's a movie called United 93 that seems to like be pretty close to the actual events, which is terrifying and really hard to watch.

But I know, I remember when that movie came out, I was just like, who has the kind of weekend where they feel like they have the capacity to take that in?

Right.

Well, I just watched the last scene that I'm going to tell you about and it was,

it was brutal.

Yeah.

A few minutes later, air traffic control sees that that plane loses 700 feet of altitude out of nowhere.

And the pilots issue a Mayday call.

This message is received by an air traffic control tower in Cleveland.

The plane levels off and 30 seconds later, the Cleveland air traffic controllers hear the sound of a struggle and First Officer Leroy Homer saying, quote, get out of here.

End quote.

So obviously, that's when they breached their cockpit, it seems like.

And also, like, there wasn't the security with the cockpits that there is now.

Like, they lock the aisle when the pilot has to come out to go to the bathroom.

It's like this whole protocol.

It was not like that then at all.

Not at all.

Like, they'd leave the door open sometimes.

The last flight I was on, I think on the way to Denver, the pilot came out a bunch.

Yeah.

They kept being like, oh no, you can't be up here or whatever.

And I was just like, I've never seen pilots walk around this much.

It's very weird.

I would have been like, oh no, what's happening?

Just like, Charlie Horse.

Is that okay?

Charlie Horse.

Meanwhile, at 9:37, American Airlines 77 hits the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

All passengers and crew on board are killed, as are 125 people in the building.

Two minutes after this, Cleveland's air traffic controllers hear a message from the hijackers that are on United 93, which had been intended for the passengers, but again was broadcast on the wrong channel.

In it, the hijacker falsely claims there's a bomb on board.

So it seems like that's how they used, they like subdued people as saying there was a bomb and told everyone to remain in their seats.

Hijackers engage the plane's autopilot and the plane turns heading southeast towards Washington, D.C.

Right.

Then they turn off the plane's transponder, making it more difficult to track, which shouldn't be a thing you can turn off, probably, right?

Well, they can't do that anymore.

Who knows?

These transponders these days.

Truly.

The hijackers on the previous three planes had done the same thing, and it's believed that the intended target of this plane is either the White House or the Capitol building.

Yeah.

The hijackers split up the passengers, sending most to the back of the plane and some to first class.

And we know this because the passengers and crew in the back of the plane start making phone calls, including Todd.

Todd uses the airphone and wound up talking to Lisa Jefferson at the Verizon Call Center, as I told you in the beginning of this.

Again, we don't have the transcript, but Lisa says that she does not tell Todd about the attacks in the World Train Center and the Pentagon, not wanting to freak him out.

But there are at least 10 passengers on the phone at the same time as Todd.

And so the people on Flight 93 do learn about the other attacks.

So like, it's not an isolated incident.

and this is a suicide mission.

Yeah.

Finding that out.

Horrifying.

Yeah.

Just, yeah.

They also felt themselves change direction.

So they are aware that they are now flying back to the East Coast, which is bad news.

Yeah.

At multiple points throughout her conversation with Todd, Lisa offers to connect him with his wife, but he tells her that he doesn't want to scare her and the children.

It seems from Lisa's end of the conversation.

then that a decision is made pretty quickly.

In less than a 10-minute time frame, it seems like all those passengers back there decide to retake the plane, which is like fucking bananas.

I know how, who did it first?

I don't know.

Like, yeah.

This like collective, like, we can't just stand here.

Yes.

And these things already have, like, it's almost better that they knew what had already happened because otherwise maybe they thought everything would be fine.

They were just hijacking a plane.

It wasn't a suicide mission, but they found out.

Yes.

And they're like, We've got to do something.

Yes.

If it's so entirely up against it, got to do something.

Yeah.

Like we outnumber them.

I mean, and they thought they had a bomb.

It's like, but fuck it.

Yeah.

We have to do something.

I mean, I'm just, it's unbelievable.

So the widow of one of the other passengers says that her husband, while he's on the phone with her then, tells her that a group is planning to fight and that they're waiting until they are above a rural area with no houses because they are aware that crashing the plane will be the likely outcome.

They fucking know the plane is going to crash and they're going to die.

Let's do this somewhere where it will take as few

people on the ground as possible.

Like they're thinking of everybody else the whole time.

Because they know if it flies into a building, it's again, like, you know, in Washington where they think they're going, it's going to kill tons of people.

We need to take it down now

somewhere where it does the least amount of damage, but I know I'm going to die.

Like that is.

I mean, like that they're not just sitting there frozen like the person rightfully was like freaking out.

It's like they're the ones taking action and they're in the eye of the storm.

Totally.

So at 9.57 a.m., everyone who is on the phone with loved ones say that they have to go.

Everyone gets off the phone.

One caller who's not named in the reporting says, quote, everyone is running up to first class.

I've got to go.

Bye.

End quote.

It's just like they decided.

Todd asks Lisa to recite the Lord's Prayer with him, and he asks her to tell his family that he loves them and then asks her to relay a private message to his wife, which Lisa Jefferson has never shared.

Which is like, oh.

Then Lisa hears Todd asks the other people around him, quote, are you ready?

End quote.

And then she hears them say yes.

Todd's the leader.

It seems like Todd is part of the people who are like leading this.

Then Todd says, quote, okay,

let's roll.

Oh, that's right, because Neil Young wrote the song.

Right.

So let's roll becomes this well-known part of the story and it's like kind of used in a way that is very Hollywood.

Hollywood, but also political like george w bush turns it into a political phrase oh right and it just kind of is gross but like so let's just look at it now as a man who knew he was about to die said it a man who knew he was about to die and becomes a leader yeah in on a plane where these days people can't even like sit next to each other without fighting right and this guy gets everybody together and then gets them to do that let's roll let's roll

the cockpit's voice recorder was recovered from flight 93 and it captures the the sound of what the 9-11 Commission's report will later call a sustained assault outside the cockpit doors.

Wow.

Loved ones of the passengers and crew members on that flight can pick out the individual voices of the people they lost who are fighting.

Of course they can.

Can you imagine if you lose someone and then you get a tape of their last moments, you would be able to fucking...

Their last moments fighting.

for civilians' lives.

I mean, that's just, it's so heroic.

I can't even, it's, that word isn't even good enough.

Yeah.

The hijackers try to disable the passengers by flying erratically to like throw them all over the plane.

And the voice recorder captures the sound of things crashing and breaking glass.

The voice recorder captures one hijacker asking the other if he should just crash the plane now.

And the other hijacker says to wait until the people reach the cockpit.

Like they realize.

that they're going to get overtaken.

Yeah.

And so he says, wait.

The passengers continue their assault.

And within two minutes, one of the hijackers yells, put it down, like they realize they've been overcome.

Put the plane down?

Yeah.

This leads the 9-11 Commission to believe that the passengers and crew were about to overcome them.

Wow.

And in that movie, it shows that.

So at 10.02 a.m., United 93, after just skimming the village of Lambertsville with 4,000 people in it, crashes into an abandoned strip mine in the rolling hills of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

So they took it down in the middle of nowhere,

barely skimming a town full of people to save

everybody's life, but their own.

Fuck.

I know.

I know.

And also kills.

Like, how did they do that?

How did they do that bravery-wise?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Incredible.

Right.

Everyone on board is killed instantly, but there are no additional casualties on the ground.

The plane would have been about 20 minutes away from Washington, D.C.

15 minutes earlier, U.S.

airspace had been shut down and all flights had been ordered to land, finally.

And it is possible that before reaching D.C., United Ninety-3 would have been shot down by military aircraft because at that point they had been deployed.

However, this would not have ensured the safety of people on the ground the way the passengers had taken such care to.

Like they just were trying to get the plane down any way they could and passengers were like, we got to do it where there there isn't anybody.

The crash site in Shanksville has since been turned into a memorial honoring the passengers and crew of United 93.

In a clearing in the trees, there's a wall of names with a white marble block for each of the 40 passengers and crew members on board.

There's also something called the Tower of Voices, a 93-foot-tall giant musical instrument that holds 40 wind chimes.

Isn't that beautiful?

Yeah.

One for each voice that was cut short on that flight.

Okay, here you're gonna, you're gonna cry.

So in January of 2002, a couple months later, Lisa Beamer welcomes a baby girl named Morgan.

Later that year, she gives an interview on NBC about her husband Todd, and she says that just a few weeks earlier, she had been digging through some of Todd's things in their home's basement.

She says, quote, I found a catcher's mitt that Todd had bought and I gave it to David and he was thrilled.

So now he has the whole gear from daddy.

End quote.

I know.

And that is the story of the passengers of United Flight 93 on 9-11.

God damn it.

I know.

I mean, people have the potential to be incredible.

Right.

And sometimes it does take the worst of the worst to get that out of people.

Yeah.

And

let's practice doing it while not in a dire situation.

Yes.

Let's exactly bring out the best in you in everyday life.

In everyday life.

And people have it in them.

Yeah.

I mean, goddamn.

Let's roll.

Let's roll.

All right.

Well, thank you guys for listening to this solo episode.

Sorry, I cried.

I'm kind of tired.

We love a good Karen cry.

Everyone knows that.

And we love your support while we do any kind of type of version of this show so we can do all of the different things we're doing right now.

We're so thrilled to be out there seeing you again, doing it in person.

It really is the best.

It's thrilling.

It's so fun.

Anyway, stay sexy.

And don't get murdered.

Goodbye.

Elvis, do you want a cookie?

This has been an exactly right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squolachi.

Our researchers are Maren McLashin and Allie Elkin.

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Listen to MyFavorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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While you're there, please like and subscribe.

Goodbye.

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