Difference between revisions of "Tom Burnett calls"

Thomas Burnett Jr., 38, had been living in planes for the preceding six days. A senior vice president and chief operating officer for a medical research company in San Ramon, Calif., he had made it home at 4 p.m. Sept. 5 for dinner, left at 11 p.m. that night, stopped in Minnesota, then spent the weekend moving deer stands around on land he owned in Wisconsin. He planned to go back in November to hunt deer. He installed himself in seat 4C, first class.

...

Deena Burnett was waking up at her home in San Ramon, Calif. She'd gone down to the kitchen to fix breakfast for her three daughters. The phone rang. She recalls it was around 6:20 a.m. -- 9:20 Eastern time.

It was Tom.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"No. I'm on United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. The plane has been hijacked. We are in the air. They've already knifed a guy. There is a bomb on board. Call the FBI."

Deena Burnett dialed 911.

...

Around 9:30, Deena Burnett's phone rang again. It was Tom.

"He didn't sound frightened, but he was speaking faster than he normally would," she said. He told her the hijackers were in the cockpit.

"I told him a lot of planes had been hijacked, that they don't know how many," she said.

"You've got to be kidding," he replied.

"No," she said.

Were they commercial planes, airliners, he asked her. She didn't know.

"OK," he said, "I've got to go." He hung up.

Deena looked at the television. The Pentagon suddenly appeared, a hole torn into its side by an oncoming airplane. She wondered if it was her husband's flight. Deena Burnett started crying.

...

Deena Burnett doesn't know how she did it, but she went on with her morning rituals. She got the 5-year-old twins up and ready for school. She called a friend to get them there.

While Beamer was on the phone with Lisa Jefferson, Deena Burnett's phone rang again.

Tom was still alive.

"They're taking airplanes and hitting landmarks all up and down the East Coast," she told him.

"OK," he replied. "We're going to do something. I'll call you back."

Click.

...

Sometime shortly before 10 a.m., Tom Burnett called home one last time.

"A group of us is going to do something," he told Deena.

"I told him, 'No, Tom, just sit down and don't draw attention to yourself,' " she said.

"Deena," he told her, "If they're going to crash the plane into the ground, we have to do something. We can't wait for the authorities. We have to do something now."

The authorities, at that moment, had scrambled three F-16 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va. The planes, armed with heat-seeking, Sidewinder missiles, were authorized to knock down any civilian aircraft that appeared headed toward a target on the ground.

The fighter jets were 14 minutes out of range and closing in.

"Pray, just pray, Deena. We're going to do something," Tom Burnett told his wife.
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20011028flt93mainstoryp7.asp