On 9/11, F-16 pilot wanted to ram hijacked Flight 93

Filed Under (News) by admin on 12-09-2011

Tagged Under : , , , , , , ,

On 9/11/2001, when it was discovered that Flight 93 may have been hijacked and would probably hit another major target, an F-16 was ordered to track it down and shoot down if necessary. However, due the urgency of the matter, the planes were departed without loading any missiles into them.  The two pilots were confronted about the situation and had agreed that if necessary they would ram their planes into the Flight 93 plane to avoid another disaster.


With only 105 lead-nosed bullets on board, Penney and Colonel Marc Sasseville took to the skies, while two other F-16s waited to be armed with heat-seeking AIM-9 missiles, Penney told C-SPAN television this week.

Heather Penney, then a lieutenant in the Washington DC National Guard, was one of two pilots ordered to take off with the plane.  “We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We would be ramming the aircraft because we didn’t have weapons on board to be able to shoot the airplane down,” Penney said.

She said she thought about possibly ejecting just before impact.

“I would essentially be a kamikaze and ram my aircraft into the tail of the aircraft. I gave some thought to, you know, would I have time to eject?”

But the young pilot was concerned about failing to hit the target.

“I mean you only got one chance, you don’t want to eject and have missed, right? “

Flight 93, which was headed from Newark, NJ to San Francisco had already been redirect for Washington, but it never made to its target as the people in the plane discovered what the plan of the hijackers might be and fought the hijackers which resulted in the crash of the plane.

“The people on Flight 93 were heroes, but they were going to die no matter what,” she said. “My concern was how do I minimize collateral damage on the ground.”