Have you heard about the heroism of F-16 pilots Lt. Heather Penney and Commander Marc H. Sasserville?
They were the USAF pilots who were ready to sacrifice their lives to bring down the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001.
Armed jets weren’t kept on standby at the time, so Penney and her commanding officer, Marc H. Sasseville, had only their planes to use against the hijacked airliner. Three planes had already hit the towers and the Pentagon when they were told her to scramble their planes.
“I’m going to go for the cockpit,” Sasseville said.
“I’ll take the tail,” replied Penny, a rookie at the time.
They didn’t have to, because the passengers on the flight brought the plane down themselves. “I genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off,” Penny says. “If we did it right, this would be it.”
The bravery of these two pilots is extraordinary. Let us not forget them.
