Wives of Passengers on Flight 93
N E W Y O R K, Sept. 18, 2001 -- Lisa Beamer and Lyzbeth Glick will tell their children that their daddies were heroes.
Their husbands, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick, were among the passengers killed on United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in Pennsylvania after being hijacked on Sept. 11.
The wives said their husbands fought with the hijackers before the Boeing 757-200 went down.
Lyzbeth told ABCNEWS' Good Morning America that her husband Jeremy, 31, said he and a few other passengers took a vote and decided to jump the hijackers. Jeremy called her minutes before the plane went down to tell her what was happening. Lyzbeth was with their 3-month-old daughter, Emmie when she got the frantic call.
"I told him to go ahead and do it," Lyzbeth said. "I trusted his instincts, and I said 'Do what you have to do.' I knew that — I thought he could do it."
Passengers' families who received calls before the crash said Beamer, Glick and a few other passengers, including Thomas Burnett, tried to overcome the hijackers. Their actions may be what prevented the hijackers from reaching their final destination.
En Route to San Francisco
ABCNEWS learned that shortly before the plane changed direction, someone in the cockpit radioed the FAA and asked for a new flight plan with a final destination of Washington, D.C. The flight was originally bound from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco.
Vice President Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday that he telephoned Lyzbeth and called the men courageous. "We'll never know for sure. But without question, the attack would have been much worse if it hadn't been for the courageous acts of those individuals on United 93," Cheney said.
The nation is still waiting to hear the information gathered on the black boxes, which may help reveal how the plane crashed and if there was an on-board struggle between passengers and hijackers. Lyzbeth and Lisa, both residents of New Jersey, say they know their husbands did everything they could to stop the hijackers.
While some passengers were instructed by the hijackers to head toward the front of the plane, others, including Todd, stayed in the rear section of the plane and made phone calls, Lisa said. Todd, 32, picked up the GTE Airfone and spoke with one of the operators.
"Towards the middle of the conversation," Lisa said. "After he realized, I think, the gravity of the situation, and he asked her to contact me and asked her to say 'The Lord's Prayer' with him."
"I think he thought, 'OK, I've done what I need to do and now it's time to act.' And he told her that a few of the passengers, and he did mention a Jeremy, had decided they were going to jump on the hijacker with the bomb," she said.
No Return
Jeremy told Lyzbeth to hold the line and that he would return. He never did, and she believes it was at that point that her husband and other men made it into the cockpit.
"I think that they probably killed the hijackers," Lyzbeth said. "There's no doubt in my mind."
She said Jeremy described three hijackers over the phone. He said they had a box with something red around it, which he believed was a bomb.
The GTE phone supervisor relayed Todd's actions to Lisa as they were happening. The operator said his last words were "God help me. Jesus help me. Are you ready? Let's roll." Lisa said "Let's roll" is an expression Todd used all the time.
Lisa, who has three children and a fourth on the way, said people will tell her children their daddy was great. "We're going to be able to show them how great he was. And that's a great legacy for them that they'll be able to hold on to," she said.