Extended interview: F-16 pilots recall mission to intercept Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001 - YouTube

Hi, I'm Nora O'Donnell. As we mark 22 years since the deadliest terror attack on American soil, we remember those lives lost, the families no longer hold, and the heroes who put their lives on the line to help others, including two fighter pilots here in the Washington, D.C. area. We first brought you their story two years ago, but it is still widely unknown, and it's one we think everyone should hear.

大家好，我是诺拉·奥唐奈尔。在我们纪念美国境内最致命恐怖袭击事件22周年之际，我们怀念那些逝去的生命、那些失去亲人的家庭以及那些为了帮助他人不惜生命的英雄们，包括华盛顿特区这里的两名战斗机飞行员。两年前，我们首次报道了他们的故事，但它仍为人所知甚少，我们认为每个人都应该听到这个故事。

We've included in this extended cut air traffic control audio that covers the airspace over the eastern seaboard as a reminder of the confusion as everything unfolded that Tuesday morning. That's when Mark Sassville, call sign SASS, and Heather Penny, call sign lucky, took off after the World Trade Center was hit with one sole mission to protect the nation's capital no matter what it took. American Airlines emergency line, please state your emergency. Hey, this is Nity the American Airlines calling. I am monitoring a call in which flight 11, the flight attendant is advising our reps that the pilot, everyone from the staff. We got hit by surprise. We contacted air traffic control. They are going to handle with her the confirmed hijacking, and we weren't going to be caught on the ground watching America get hit again.

我们在这个扩展版的空中交通控制音频中包含了对东海岸的领空进行覆盖，提醒大家当时整个混乱的情况是如何展开的。那天早上，当世贸中心遭受袭击时，马克·萨斯维尔（呼号SASS）和希瑟·彭尼（呼号lucky）起飞了，他们的唯一任务是无论付出何种代价保护国家首都。美国航空公司紧急热线，请陈述你的紧急情况。嘿，我是美国航空公司的Nity。我正在监控一通来电，11号航班的乘务员告诉我们的代表，飞行员和所有人员都受到了突袭。我们联系了空中交通管制，他们将与她合作，确认了劫持事件，而我们不愿看到美国再次遭受袭击而束手无策。

Roger's weapon, Sergeant Powell. Hi, Boston Center team, you. We have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble to domestic scenes or something up there to help us out. Is this real world or exercise? No, this is not an exercise, I'm going to test. So, if you want to start. No, we have several situations that go going on here. It's escalating big big time, and we need to get the military involved with us. While we're going to just get these, somebody who has the authority to get military in the air now.

罗杰的武器，鲍威尔中士。嗨，波士顿中心团队，你们好。我们这里有一个问题。一架劫持飞机正朝纽约飞来，我们需要你们出动，需要有人紧急处理国内的情况来帮助我们。这是真实世界还是演习？不，这不是演习，我要进行测试。所以，如果你们想开始的话。不，我们这里有几个情况正在升级，情况非常紧急，我们需要把军方牵扯进来。同时我们需要找到一个有权力让军方紧急出动的人。

Well, thank you guys both for doing this. I think as much as we all know about 9-11 and reflecting back, your story is one that many people don't know about. Let's start 20 years ago. What were you both doing when you heard about the first strike against America, General? It was a normal Tuesday morning. We had just come back from a big deployment out to Las Vegas where we had a lot of training to do, and we were very successful. We had a normal scheduling meeting, and in the middle of that is when things started to unfold and caught all of us by surprise. Before you know it, the phones are ringing and we're talking to the White House jock, we're talking to the Secret Service, trying to just really understand what's happening. And one thing led to another before we got too far down the road. We were just trying to get in the air as soon as we could to make sure another airplane didn't hit its target fundamentally.

嗯，非常感谢你们两个参与这次访谈。我认为虽然我们对于9/11事件的了解很多，但你们的故事是许多人所不知道的。让我们回到20年前。将军，当你听到美国首次遭受袭击的消息时，你们俩都在做什么呢？那是一个平常的星期二早上。我们刚从一次重大任务归来，前往了拉斯维加斯进行了许多训练并取得了很大的成功。我们进行了一次正常的日程安排会议，就在那个会议中，事情开始逐渐展开，让我们完全措手不及。不一会儿，电话开始响个不停，我们与白宫的要人接触，与特勤局交谈，试图真正理解发生了什么。随着时间的推移，我们努力尽快起飞，确保另一架飞机不会对准目标。

Heather, describe where you were when you first heard about the World Trade Center. I was sitting in a scheduling meeting with SAS and some of the other pilots that were part of the senior leadership in the squadron that day. So there was SAS, Dan Raisin-Kane was there. It was Mark Drifter Valentine's first day. We had Phil Dogg Thompson, was our supervisor of flying, so we were working on how we were going to fly that week. Who was available, who had checkrides that month. It was just normal administration. And David chunks Callahan, one of our enlisted troops, knocks on the door and opens up the door and says an airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. And I remember thinking, well, how could that have happened? It was a spectacularly clear blue day. And I don't know about you, but I think most of us assumed that it was a small airplane. It was like a small general aviation Cessna. And everyone knows those airplanes just bounce off of buildings. They don't really cause damage. So I recall a few inappropriate jokes. But it wasn't until he came back and said a second aircraft hit the second World Trade Center, and it was on purpose. And that was when we all got up to the bar and saw the images that everyone else that morning saw. That was when we really knew that the nation was under attack.

希瑟，描述一下你第一次听到世贸中心事件时所在的位置。那天，我正坐在一个与SAS（可能是组织名称）及其他一些中队高级领导人参加的会议中，进行排班安排。当时有SAS，丹·雷辛·凯恩也在场，那是马克·德里夫特·瓦伦丁的第一天。菲尔·多格·汤普森是我们的飞行监管主管，所以我们正在讨论这周的飞行计划。谁是可用人员，谁在本月要进行飞行训练考核。那只是一场普通的行政工作。然后我们的一位下士大卫·卡拉汉敲门走进来说有一架飞机刚刚撞向了世贸中心。我记得当时我在想，怎么会发生这样的事情呢？当天的天气是晴朗明朗的。我不知道你是否也有相同的看法，但我想我们大多数人都以为这是一架小型飞机，可能是一架一般的通用航空塞斯纳。而众所周知，这些飞机只会在建筑物上弹起，不会造成实质性的破坏。所以我记得当时有些人开了一些不适当的玩笑。但直到他回来说第二架飞机撞击了第二个世贸中心，并且是有意为之时，我们才都走到酒吧看到了当天早晨其他人所看到的画面。那时我们真正意识到国家遭受了袭击。

I remember when the second plane hit, my immediately thought was we're at war. I immediately thought that. Now don't want to just hit the building. Wow. Wow. No way. I'm not going to hit the World Trade Center. All building just came apart. Oh my god. Holy. This is not an accident. I think we thought the same thing. In my mind, my instinct was we needed to react. We've got to get up into the air with whatever we have.

我记得第二架飞机撞击时，我立刻想到我们处于战争状态。我立刻就这样想了。现在我不希望只是撞击大楼了。哇，哇，不可能。我不会撞击世界贸易中心的。所有建筑物都崩塌了。天哪，这不是意外。我想我们当时都有同样的想法。在我的脑海里，我的本能告诉我我们需要反应。我们必须用我们手上的一切飞上天空。

This is December 7, 1941, so many years later. And we cannot let another airplane hit its target. If they are coming for here, and so, you know, not too long after that, the Pentagon is hit. We were all in a reaction mode here in the wing. It was a complete wing effort to get the airplanes ready to start to pull missiles out and to get some kind of capability up in the air.

这是1941年12月7日，如今已经过去了这么多年。我们不能再让另一架飞机击中目标。如果他们来袭，你知道，不久之后，五角大楼就被击中了。我们所有人都处于紧急反应状态。全体人员齐心协力，将飞机准备好，准备开始拉出导弹，并且尽快在空中获得某种能力。

Well, I told the F.D. so far we need to get those fighters strapped over man-hand because we don't know how many guys are out of time. Could this reach you? Could it be more? I think once we got past that initial actions phase, if you will, it started to sink in that we were going to have a longstanding security commitment for many years. No idea that it would take as long as it did, but.

嗯，我已经告诉F.D.，目前我们需要使战斗机准备就绪，因为我们不知道有多少人已经没有时间了。这信息能传到你那吗？可能会更多吗？我觉得一旦我们度过了初始行动阶段，如果你想这么说的话，我们开始意识到我们将对长期的安全承诺负责很多年。完全没想到会花这么长时间，但是。

So you were thinking we got to get up in the air. When did the orders come down? So we never got any official tasking. We were asked by the White House jock if there was anything that we could get up into the air. And so we were at that time, our squadron, our wing, was not part of NORAD. We were not part of that structure tasked to defend America. So when they indicated that what turned out to be flight 93 was coming down the river as we talked about it. That indicated to us there may be more coming. We need to do something. And so that became essentially our unofficial tasking. And we did what we needed to do.

所以你认为我们得起飞。命令是什么时候下达的？所以我们没有收到任何官方的任务。白宫的家伙问我们是否能够有任何飞机起飞的情况。当时，我们的中队、我们的机群并不是NORAD的一部分。我们不是负责保卫美国的那个组织结构的一部分。当他们提到实际上是93航班下来的时候，我们明白可能还会有更多的飞机。我们需要做些什么。于是，那就成了我们非正式的任务。我们做了我们需要做的。

Heather described what was your understanding about when the White House called and what they wanted you to do. We knew immediately as soon as we saw the images that we needed to protect and defend. But as General Sastviel said, we were not an alert squadron. We didn't have any missiles. And we weren't part of the command and control chain. How could we get authority? Everyone in the squadron, everyone in the wing began immediately to take action. I remember our intelligence officer, David Nutsm McNulty, making phone calls to airline reservations desks to try to find out who was still airborne, who was what aircraft were taking off, what airliners were doing. He was trying to build us a picture of what was going on within the airspace.

Heather描述了当白宫打来电话并告诉你要做什么时，你的理解是什么。我们一看到图像，立刻明白我们需要保护和捍卫。但正如萨斯特维尔将军所说，我们不是一个处于警戒状态的中队。我们没有导弹，也不是指挥和控制链的一部分。我们怎么能获得授权呢？中队的每个人，机群中的每个人都立即采取行动。我记得我们的情报官员大卫·纳特斯·麦克纳尔蒂打电话给航空公司预订服务台，试图找出哪些飞机仍在空中，哪些飞机正在起飞，航空公司的情况如何。他试图为我们建立一个对领空情况的画面。

When we finally got the call from the White House, our mission to protect and defend was obvious. Even though at that point in time we didn't have missiles on board, we needed to do everything we possibly could do to protect any further attack from reaching our nation's capital. Describe that. I mean, it just kind of like take me to that moment. Was it let's go, get up the White House, just called, like how is it communicated to you, get in the planes, like describe that for me, General.

当我们终于接到白宫的电话时，我们保护和捍卫的使命变得明显。尽管那时我们没有携带导弹，但我们需要尽一切可能来阻止任何进一步的袭击到达我们国家的首都。描述一下那个时刻。我的意思是，那时候是什么情况，是否立即前往白宫，只是接到电话后就行动起来了，给我描述一下，将军。

So essentially it was Phil Dogtomsen was standing behind the duty desk talking to the Secret Service. And that was the demand signal was there may be more coming. So that's all we really needed. He called the Wing Commander. The Wing Commander came down. We ran into a quick briefing to assess the threat, figure out what we needed to do. And Lucky and I were the first ones to take off. And we just went down, grabbed our flight gear and got in the airplane. Lieutenant Colonel Denman, the maintenance officer at the time was out there pulling pins. And we jumped in the airplanes and took off without wasting any time. It just happened so quickly because of the severity of the issue. We knew we didn't have time to spare.

基本上，菲尔·多格汤森站在值班台后面与特勤局交谈。那时是有可能会有更多的人来袭的信号。所以那就是我们真正需要的一切。他打电话给机翼指挥官。机翼指挥官下来了。我们进行了一次快速的简报，评估了威胁，弄清楚了我们需要做的事情。幸运和我是第一批起飞的人。我们只是下去拿了我们的飞行装备，然后上了飞机。时任维修官的丹曼中校当时正在那里拉销子。我们跳上飞机，不浪费任何时间起飞了。由于问题的严重性，一切发生得非常迅速。我们知道我们没有时间浪费。

When were you told that you could shoot down a plane if it didn't respond? That came a little bit later. Once we were airborne, all that sorted out the vice president, as you know, and we all know at this point, made a declaration. And so it took a while for that to get down through the Wing Commander here. And so once we're airborne, we understood what the rules of engagement were. And that was really part of the concern is in the fog of war at the time. In the confusion, we needed to be very careful that we didn't make a bad situation worse.

你是什么时候被告知如果飞机没有回应可以击落它的？这是稍后才发生的事情。一旦我们起飞后，副总统就像你知道的那样，而且我们现在也都知道了，做出了宣告。所以要把这个信息传达给这里的机翼指挥官需要一段时间。一旦我们起飞后，我们就明白了战斗规则。这其实也是当时战争迷雾中的一个担忧。在混乱中，我们需要非常小心，以免让糟糕的情况变得更糟。

But you're scrambling to get the jets up in the air. What did you understand about the rules of engagement, Heather? We understood what the threat was. We were looking for a rogue airliner flying low that was not communicating with air traffic control. Go for a zero six traffic is 11 o'clock and five miles northbound fast moving piping altitude unknown. Are you having the traffic? You know what kind it is? Can you think? Looks like a 757, sir. A 757. Can you estimate it out the two? It looks like you just go out and do it right now, sir. Go for eight six, thank you. So we had a very good idea contextually of what would comprise a hostile target.

但是你正在匆匆忙忙地使喷气机起飞。希瑟，你对战斗规则了解多少？我们了解到了威胁的情况。我们正在寻找一架低空飞行的独行客机，它没有与空中交通管制通讯。去看一下北边11点钟五英里处有一架飞机，飞行速度快，飞行高度未知。你看到了那架飞机吗？你知道是什么类型的吗？你能想一下吗？看起来像是一架757，先生。一架757，你能出个大概的数吗？看起来你就去执行吧，先生。八六号，谢谢。所以我们在上下文中对构成一个敌对目标有了很好的了解。

As General Sassville said, the indications were that there was an aircraft coming in from the northwest low down the Potomac River. And so that was the initial target that we were looking for. And we would have to do whatever it took to prevent it from reaching DC. After Sass took us out, sanitized the airspace far enough to make sure that there was no threat on that axis and then brought us back to DC. I remember you working with Potomac Air Traffic Control and teaching them how to become air battle managers because there was an incredible response of medics, of police helicopters, of military airlift. So even though when we took off, the airspace was dead calm. When we came back and Sass set up a counter rotating combat air patrol, all sorts of aircraft and helicopters began to get airborne and we had to distort out. Who was a good guy? Who was a medevac? Who was, you know, official government? Who was just an innocent individual who had no idea what had gone on and who potentially could be a threat? And the air traffic control, the controllers down in the Potomac tracon, the radar system that manages all the airspace around DC, they did a fantastic job.

正如Sassville将军所说，迹象显示一架飞机正在低空自波托马克河从西北方向飞来。因此，这就是我们最初正在寻找的目标。我们将尽一切可能阻止它到达华盛顿特区。在Sass带领我们出去后，清除了远离轴线上的空域，确保在那个方向上没有威胁，然后再带我们回到华盛顿特区。我记得你曾与波托马克航空管制合作，教他们如何成为空中战斗管理人员，因为在医务人员、警察直升机和军队空运的协同应对下出现了惊人的反应。尽管我们起飞时空域非常平静，但当我们返回时，Sass设立了一个反转作战巡逻，各种飞机和直升机开始起飞，我们必须进行识别。谁是好人？谁是医疗疏散？谁是官方政府人员？谁只是一个毫不知情的无辜个体，有可能构成威胁？波托马克控制中心的空中交通管制员，负责管理华盛顿特区周围的雷达系统，他们做得非常出色。

I mean, General, how long do pre-flight checks usually take? It's usually a 20-minute program, 15 to 20 minutes nice and calm and making sure that everything's organized, where it needs to be, properly fueled, proper tire pressure, oxygen pressure, and the like. And how much time did you have on 9-11? I got right in the cockpit. And that's part of the team effort that Lucky's talking about is it was a team effort. And the maintainers do a great job. We, it's a second check when we jump in. So we both trusted our maintainers. That's the special bond that pilots and crew chiefs have. And we both jumped in and took off right away. In fact, Heather, I read you were saying pull the blocks. What you mean, you were moving. You guys were moving and pulling stuff out of the plane to get up as quickly as possible. Absolutely. You know, jumping up into the jet as General Sassville said, I mean, normally it would take up to 20 minutes and we didn't have GPS back then. Clearly, we didn't have 20 minutes.

我是说，将军，通常需要多长时间进行飞行前检查？这通常是一个20分钟的程序，15至20分钟，稳稳当当地确保一切井然有序，到位地，正确加注燃料，合适的轮胎压力，氧气压力等等。那你在9/11那天有多少时间？我直接进入驾驶舱。这是Lucky所说的团队努力的一部分，这是一个团队努力。维修人员做得非常好。当我们进入飞机时，这是第二次检查。所以我们都信任我们的维修人员。这就是飞行员和机组人员之间特殊的纽带。我们两个都立刻起飞了。事实上，Heather，我看到你说要拆除障碍物。你是指你们在忙着移动和清除飞机上的东西以尽快起飞吗？确实如此。你知道，像Sassville将军所说的那样，通常需要20分钟，但那时候我们没有GPS。显然，我们没有20分钟的时间。

And I had actually never been trained on how to scramble an aircraft, how to scramble an F-16. And in order to be able to do that, you had to actually nowadays, we call it hot-cocking a jet, there are systems that you sort of preset so that we can take off and go really quickly. But I'd never been trained on any of that. The jets clearly had not already been set up for that. And so I had to kind of make up my own procedures for scrambling. You didn't have all the instruments on. When I jumped up in the jet, my main concern was what's the minimum that I need to do to make this jet airworthy to fly? Checking the engine, checking the flight control. But I had no navigation system, I had no radar, none of the systems that had the time to go through their normal checks. I was just hoping the inflight line thing worked. And your F-16s weren't armed with missiles, why not? Well, we never did that. We never, since we weren't part of the alert enterprise, it's actually kind of dangerous to have live missiles loaded all the time. So we had them available, but they weren't assembled. We don't store them together, right? That's a huge hazard. So they weren't assembled, let alone brought forward here to the flight line, let alone loaded up on the airplanes. That happened about an hour after we took off, and so raising an I-GOR had had missiles on the airplanes by the time they took off.

我实际上从未接受过关于如何迅速起飞和使用F-16战机的训练。为了能够做到这一点，现在我们称之为热启动喷气式飞机，有一些预设的系统，这样我们可以快速起飞。但我从未接受过任何这方面的培训。飞机显然还没有进行这方面的设定。所以我不得不自己创造紧急起飞的程序。我没有所有的仪器设备。当我跳进飞机时，我最关心的是要做到最低限度，使这架飞机能够飞行。检查引擎，检查飞行控制。但我没有导航系统，没有雷达，没有时间进行正常检查的所有系统。我只希望飞行线路正常工作。你的F-16没有装备导弹，为什么？嗯，我们从来不这样做。由于我们不是警戒部队的一部分，始终装载有实弹其实是很危险的。所以我们确实有这些导弹，但它们没有组装好。我们不会将它们存放在一起，对吧？那样非常危险。它们没有组装好，更别说放到飞机上了。这发生在我们起飞后大约一个小时，而起飞时，其他飞机上已经装载了导弹。

I mean, if you remember, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the nation wanted a peace dividend, and they wanted to really draw down the entire military, so they cut the Air Force in half. And so all of the alert units that used to ring our nation's borders to protect us from Soviet nuclear bombers had been reduced to only five alert units for the entire nation, and we were not one of them. That's why we didn't have armed missiles on the aircraft, and why we weren't part of NORAD, why we had such challenges getting the authorization to launch, was because of how small the Air Force had become, and the guard suffered the same.

我的意思是，如果你还记得，在苏联解体之后，全国希望获得和平红利，他们真的希望彻底削减军队规模，所以他们减少了一半的空军。因此，所有曾经负责保卫我们免受苏联核轰炸机侵袭的警戒部队都缩减到了仅五个部队，覆盖整个国家，并且我们不在其中。这就是为什么我们的飞机上没有武装导弹，也没有参与北美防空司令部的原因，也是为什么我们在获得发射授权方面遇到如此困难的原因，因为空军规模已经变得如此之小，国民警卫队也遭受了同样的困境。

And post 9-11 though now, there are armed F-16s ready to go. Absolutely. Since 9-11, we've had a 24-7, 365 air defense commitment. We call it airspace control alert now, but we are lock, stock, and barrel part of that, chain of command part of that, that enterprise, and makes you wonder why we weren't set up that way before 9-11.

自911事件之后，现在有装备齐全的F-16战机随时待命。绝对是这样。自911事件以来，我们一直保持着全年无休的24小时空中防御承诺。现在我们称之为空域控制警戒，但我们完全参与其中，是那个指挥链条的一部分，使人不禁想知道为什么在911事件之前我们没有建立起这样的体系。

If you two were flying F-16s that weren't armed, how were you going to take down Flight 93? So you'll be happy to know, and I think the American public will be happy to know that we don't train to take down airliners we never have. I had known, I had practiced during the Cold War how to attack large airplanes bombers, our enemies bombers, and so I was a little bit familiar with how that might go, but you're right, we didn't have any missiles and we didn't have combat loads of bullets. We had training rounds.

如果你们两个驾驶的是没有武器的F-16战机，你们打算如何击落93号航班呢？所以你会很高兴知道，我认为美国公众会很高兴知道，我们不训练击落客机，我们从来没有这样做过。我曾在冷战期间练习过如何攻击大型轰炸机，即我们的敌人的轰炸机，所以我对此有些了解，但你是对的，我们没有导弹，也没有弹药供战斗使用。我们只有训练用弹药。

And so as we're running out to the airplane, the other thought occurred to us, we do need to kind of understand how we're going to do that. And so she and I, Lucky and I, had a game plan on how we might approach that. But the fundamental premise is we were going to have to hit the airplane and disable it somehow, either get the flight controls or the propulsion system or some part of the airplane that would make it alter its course and not hit its target.

所以当我们冲向飞机时，我们突然想到一个问题，我们确实需要弄清楚如何做到这一点。因此，我和幸运的我，有一个大致的计划，可以解决这个问题。但最基本的前提是，我们必须击中飞机并使其失效，无论是控制飞行的部件、推进系统还是飞机的其他部分，这样它就能改变航线，而不会撞击目标。

A Kamikaze mission. We had no missiles. Our only choice was going to be to ram the airliner.

一项神风特殊任务。我们没有导弹，唯一的选择将是用我们的飞机撞击那架客机。

Sir, I remember you would take the cockpit to aim at the terrorists. And I would take the tail.

先生，我记得您会操纵驾驶舱瞄准恐怖分子，而我会负责尾部部分。

And you said that. We did. As we're running out to the airplane.

你说过那件事。没错，当我们匆忙赶往飞机时。

And so when he said that to you, what did you think? And of course, it was obvious. It was so clear what needed to be done. Neither of us had any second thoughts. We didn't have time to think of it. We, it was pure reaction mode, it was pure adrenaline. And thankfully we had enough training to safely get airborne, to work together as a team to find the airplane. And thankfully, it wasn't there. We never saw it. But we knew that there is a potential that there might be more airplanes coming. There might be a second or third wave that we needed to be ready for. And so for that small part of time, we just needed to have some kind of capability to prevent those targets from being hit.

所以当他对你说那句话的时候，你有什么想法？当然，很明显。清楚地知道需要做什么。我们俩都没有任何犹豫。我们没有时间去思考。我们纯粹是反应模式，纯粹是靠肾上腺素。幸运的是，我们受过足够的训练，能够安全地起飞，作为团队一起寻找飞机。幸运的是，那儿并没有飞机。我们从未见过它。但我们知道可能会有更多飞机来袭。可能会有第二波或第三波我们需要准备。因此，在那段时间里，我们只需要有一些防止这些目标被击中的能力。

What was your understanding? I mean, did you, did you have the understanding that Flight 93 was headed to the White House or to the US Capitol? Okay, United 93. Go ahead. It's 29 miles out of 29 minutes out of Washington, D.C. 29 minutes out of Washington, D.C. And tracking towards that. This is the one who reverse cars in Ohio.

你明白情况了吗？我的意思是，你是否理解联合93航班是朝白宫还是美国国会飞去的？好的，联合93航班。告诉我。它离华盛顿D.C.还有29英里，29分钟的飞行时间。正朝着那个方向飞行。这是在俄亥俄州逆行的那架飞机。

Well, we had seen, we saw the Pentagon on fire. If there was another airplane, there were only certain value targets inside of the district of Columbia. They're all government related in all high value targets that if they had been hit, would have probably changed the course of history.

嗯，我们曾经目睹了五角大楼起火的情景。如果还有另外一架飞机，那只能在哥伦比亚特区内的一些特定价值目标上进行袭击。这些目标都与政府有关，且都是非常重要的目标，如果被击中，可能会改变历史的走向。

You were going to ram the cockpit. You were going to ram the tail.

你打算猛撞驾驶舱。你打算猛撞机尾。

That's not something you survive. No. A suicide mission is not something you survive. I mean, as the military, we don't send our service members on suicide missions. But it was clear what needed to be done that morning. And although it wasn't until much later that I made the correlation for myself that this was Flight 93, we knew that there was an airliner coming in low from the Northwest. And we also believed that there were potentially up to three unaccounted for aircraft based off of the work that our intelligence officer, David McNulty, had done. So we had to be ready. We knew that Dan Kane and Brandon Rasmussen were back at the squadron. And if they needed to, they could scramble just as quickly.

那不是你能幸存的事情。不，自杀式任务是无法幸存的。我是说，作为军人，我们不会派遣我们的队员去执行自杀式任务。但那个早上，我们明确知道有些事情是必须完成的。虽然直到后来我才自己意识到这就是93号航班，但我们知道有一架航班从西北方向飞得很低。我们同时相信，根据我们的情报官员大卫·麦克纳尔蒂的工作，可能还有三架未被发现的飞机。所以我们必须做好准备。我们知道丹·凯恩和布兰登·拉斯姆森留在中队，如果需要的话，他们可以迅速起飞。

But I remember you saying, raise an U.N.I. or wait until you get missiles. So protecting our nation's capital from an incoming airliner, from an attack from a terrorist. It was what we needed to do. We'd already seen what they'd done in New York. We'd saw what they had done with the Pentagon. We flew over. We passed through the smoke. What else would there be but but our nation's leadership? The vice president had given the order to shoot down a commercial airline. Did he know that you were unarmed? Vice President has cleared. Vice President has cleared us to intercept track. You know what they're doing? They're going to shoot them down if they do not respond first on our C-C. So the vice president gave a weapons free order. I think was the term that was used at the time. I don't think that anybody really had a great picture of what was happening at the time. And so I want to, you know, it's important to know that nobody asked us to do this. Nobody in the chain of command directed us to take this approach. This is something that we saw. This is a scenario that we saw and we knew what needed to be done. It's also important to know that our unit lives here. This is our home. So not only is this a nation's capital but we have friends, we have families here, deep roots as a guard unit. And it will frankly a little bit of a personal angle on defending our own turf as well. So it was a very difficult position that we were all put in that day. And thankfully, like I said, we didn't make matters worse.

我记得你曾经说过，要么升级U.N.I.，要么等到你拥有导弹。所以，保护我们国家的首都免受来袭的客机、恐怖分子的攻击，这是我们需要做的事情。我们已经看到他们在纽约所做的事情，我们也看到他们对五角大楼的袭击。我们飞过去，穿过了烟雾。除了我们国家的领导层，还会有什么？副总统已经下令击落一架商业航班。他知道你们是没有武器的吗？副总统已经批准了。副总统已经批准我们执行追踪拦截的指令。你知道他们在做什么吗？如果他们不先在我们的C-C频道上回应，他们就会击落他们。所以副总统下达了武器自由使用的命令。我想那是当时使用的术语。我不认为任何人当时真正了解发生了什么。所以我想强调的是，没有人要求我们这样做。指挥链中没有人指示我们采取这样的方式。这是我们看到的情景，我们知道该怎么做。还值得知道的是，我们的部队生活在这里。这是我们的家。所以，这不仅是一个国家的首都，我们还有朋友、家人在这里，作为一个警卫部队，我们在这里有深厚的根基。所以，那天我们都被放在了非常困难的境地。幸运的是，就像我说的，我们没有让情况变得更糟。

It was not an order through the chain of command. It was your call to ram the plane. We didn't have any other choice. And we weren't going to be caught on the ground watching America get hit again. It wasn't going to happen. No question in your mind that was the right thing to do. Not a question. And the only thing you could do. We didn't have any choice. Yeah, absolutely.

这不是一个来自指挥链的命令。把飞机撞击是你自己的决定。我们没有其他选择。我们不能袖手旁观，看着美国再次受到袭击。这是不会发生的。你心中毫无疑问，这是正确的做法。没有任何疑问。也是你能做的唯一事情。我们没有任何选择。是的，绝对如此。

Describe what it was like flying over the Pentagon that was on fire. So after we drove up the river, didn't see anything on the radar, we're looking low, turned back around and flew over the Pentagon. And one of the most vivid memories I have is looking down, seeing the fire, smelling the smoke and the fumes coming through the cockpit and being completely nauseous. And it wasn't the smoke that was making me nauseous. It was the thought that we got hit by surprise. We were attacked, successfully attacked, and we couldn't do anything about it. That's what got to me. What was your thought, Heather? I recall how white and black the smoke was against the clear, clear blue sky. And how it just barely drifted because the winds were so light out of the Southwest. But really what I was focused on was trying to be a good wingman and do what we needed to get done. So I remember the physical sensations. I remember the smell coming through the ECS. But I really didn't have any emotion. It was so very surreal.

描述一下飞过着起火的五角大楼的情景。所以在我们沿着河边驾驶时，雷达上什么都没看见，我们低头观察，然后掉头飞过五角大楼。我记忆最鲜明的一幕是低头看着火光，闻到冒进驾驶舱的烟味和有毒烟雾，感到极度恶心。让我恶心的不是那股烟味，而是我们被突然袭击了的想法。我们受到了攻击，而且这次攻击非常成功，我们却无能为力。这才是让我感到害怕的地方。你有什么想法，Heather？我记得烟雾在明澈的蓝天下是多么的明亮和黑暗交织。由于风很轻，烟雾几乎不流动。但我真正关注的是尽力做一个好的伙伴，并完成我们需要完成的任务。所以我记得身体上的感觉。我记得烟雾从环境控制系统传来的味道。但我并没有太多情感。一切都是如此超现实。

Go for a zero-six. Go for a zero-six, guys. Consider aircraft is down. These are our 12th-clock division. Looks like it's just to the north, west of the airfield at this time, sir. Go for eight-six, thank you. The center maintained 2,000. Okay, we're down to 2,000. And just to go for a zero-six, it looks like that. Aircraft is an opinion, sir. You knew that the World Trade Center had been hit. But did you know from command that the Pentagon had been hit or did you see it for the first time? We didn't see it. We heard about it. You had heard about it and then you saw it. And then we saw it. And you know, like anything, when you hear something and then you see it in person, it's it. Yeah, we were that whole first sortie, certainly, and into the second sortie, we were just operating on adrenaline and in the reacting mode, not really thinking about future moves and what was about to happen and what would unfold in a strategic sense for decades to come. It was all, let's make sure that we get the situation under control to the best that we can.

走向零六点。伙计们，走向零六点。考虑到飞机坠毁了。这些是我们的12点钟方向。看起来目前在北面空军基地的西边，先生。八六点，感谢您。中心保持在2000英尺高度。好的，我们降到了2000英尺。而且走向零六点，看起来是这样的。飞机是个观点，先生。您知道世界贸易中心被袭击了。但是您从指挥部知道五角大楼被袭击了吗？还是您第一次看到呢？我们没有看到，是听说的。您听说了然后看到了。而且您知道，就像任何事情，当您听到一些事情然后亲眼看到时，感觉就是不一样。是的，我们在整个第一批任务以及第二批任务中都是在肾上腺素的作用下，一直处于应激模式，没有真正考虑未来的行动和即将发生的事情以及未来几十年的战略意义。一切都是为了确保我们能尽力控制局势。

Right. When you were in the air, what were you doing to try and find Flight 93? So when we took off and SAS turned us to the Northwest, I floated out to a wide position to his North and we stayed low because we needed to be able to have a visual lookout across the horizon. And if we were too high looking down, there was a chance that the aircraft could get visually cluttered as well as have our radar be cluttered as well. So it was a combination of a visual lookout and then also a radar lookout trying to capture any kind of return contact for the aircraft.

没错。当你们在空中的时候，你们做了什么来寻找93航班？当我们起飞并且SAS将我们转向西北方向时，我在他的北边漂浮到一个宽敞的位置，我们保持了低空飞行，因为我们需要能够纵览地平线。如果我们飞得太高并低头看，飞机可能会出现视觉混乱，雷达也可能变得混乱。所以我们既进行了视觉观察，又进行了雷达观察，试图捕捉到飞机的任何返回信号。

Of course, we never found anything. We were our normal tactic is to stay together as a two-ship. And so we drove up as far as we could. We stayed together and then it became apparent to me that this might not be the best tactic so we split up. And knowing that some of the airplanes had taken off out of the Northeast, that might be an attack vector. So one of us looked to the Northeast, one of us looked to the Northwest again looking outside and looking on the radar to see if anything was coming our way.

当然，我们从来没有发现任何东西。我们通常的策略是以两艘船组成一队。因此，我们尽可能地驶得更远。我们一直在一起，但我开始觉得这可能不是最好的策略，所以我们分开了。我们知道有些飞机是从东北起飞的，那可能是一个攻击方向。所以我们中的一个向东北方向看，另一个向西北方向看，一边观察外界，一边观察雷达，看是否有任何东西朝我们靠近。

Heather, your father was a United Pilot at the same time, essentially flying a similar route. Were you worried that he could be on a cockpit of one of those planes up in the air? My father never crossed my mind. That was not something that I was even thinking about. This what we were about to do was not about me. What we needed to do was about the mission about protecting our nation.

Heather，你的父亲同时也是一名联合航空公司的飞行员，基本上飞行着类似的航线。你有没有担心他会在天空中驾驶其中一架飞机的驾驶舱呢？我从未想到过我的父亲。那根本不是我考虑的事情。我们即将要做的事情不是关于我个人的，而是关于我们的任务，关于保护我们的国家。

When did you learn that Flight 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania? After we landed. So when we're flying, we only have two radios and you're talking to air traffic control and you're talking to your squadron or your flight mate. And so you really don't have a lot of information when you're flying around if somebody doesn't tell you. So there's no way to get updates. Different story, 20 years on with the technology that we have, we have different means of communicating and different ways of displaying information. But we didn't get the rest of the story until we landed after that first sortie.

你是何时得知93号航班在宾夕法尼亚坠毁的消息的？我们降落后得知的。所以当我们飞行时，我们只有两个无线电，一边与空中交通管制通话，一边与我们的中队或飞行伴侣通话。所以当你在飞行中时，除非有人告诉你，你基本上没有太多的信息。所以无法获取更新。不同的是，现在有了20年后我们拥有的技术，我们有了不同方式的通讯和信息显示。但是直到我们完成了第一次出任务后降落，我们才得到了完整的事情经过。

So how long were you up in the airframe that first sortie? Until we ran out of gas. That's normally about an hour and a half, two hours. So that whole time you were looking for Flight 93 or any other aircraft. Anything that's pointed towards Washington DC looks like it intends to run into something. So the altitude, the angle, anything that was coming towards us, we were going to take a very hard look at.

所以你在第一次任务中在飞机上多久？ 直到我们耗尽燃料。通常大约是一个半小时，两个小时左右。所以在整个时间里，你一直在寻找93航班或其他飞机。任何指向华盛顿特区的东西看起来都像是有意撞向某物。所以无论高度、角度还是任何朝我们飞来的东西，我们都会非常仔细地观察。

And how did you make sure that there wasn't a disaster where you took down a plane that was not a danger? So what was amazing was how SAS taught our air traffic control how to essentially speak fighter pilot, speak Air Force. So once you brought us back and you set up a counter rotating cap between the two of us so that someone was always looking towards the northwest or towards the northeast. We were only talking at that point in time, our only information was from air traffic control, whose job normally is to sequence the airliners in, predetermined routes, keep them separated, but now we needed to have them help us facilitate intercepts, provide us information on who is who and what so we can filter out the good guys from the unknowns and from the bad guys.

而你如何确保没有发生误击危险的灾难呢？令人惊奇的是，SAS教会了我们的空中交通管制人员如何与战斗机飞行员、空军交流。因此，一旦你们带我们返回并建立了一个相互交替的警戒区，总有人朝着西北方向或东北方向观察。那时我们只能通过航空交通管制获得信息，他们通常的工作是按预定航线排序飞机并使它们保持间隔，但现在我们需要他们协助我们进行拦截，提供有关身份和情况的信息，以便我们可以区分友军、不明身份者和敌人。

Was headed toward where? Washington. Okay. So your AOR and I just wanted to give you a heads up. Okay. Go ahead. The last known lat long that we had primary target only was 4038 North 074 03 West on American 1 1. And so I remember you telling Potomac, okay, so there's this Navade, it's a navigational beacon on National Reagan Airport, it's called DCA. Now I know that that's, I know it's called DCA, but let's just call it Bullseye for now. And if you see a contact that's to the east, which is a 090 on the compass and it's 20 miles and it's 3000 feet, I want you to say Bullseye 090 for 23000.

朝着哪里去？华盛顿。好的。所以你的行动区域（AOR），我只是想提前提醒你。好的，说吧。我们最后一次确认的纬度和经度是北纬4038，西经07403，美国1 1号位置上。我记得你告诉波托马克，好的，有个导航信标在里根国家机场上，叫作DCA。我知道它叫DCA，但我们现在就叫它靶心吧。如果你看到一个目标向东方，指南针上是090度，距离20英里，高度为3000英尺，我希望你说靶心090，高度23000。

And like that, the air traffic controller is immediately adapted. And so pretty soon they were telling us just proactively, hey, we've got a medevac flight. This is their Bullseye. This is what they're squawking. This is where they came from. Here's where they're going. And so we could see that contact on our radars and then say, okay, we know that that's a friendly and continue looking for what was unknown. And if we saw something that they hadn't told us about, we'd let them know using the same Bullseye language. And then they could clarify, oh, I forgot to tell you, that's a sheriff's helicopter. Or they could say, we don't know who that guy is. And then as the cap commander, SAS would then give me the authority to go check it out and take a look at whoever that was.

就这样，航空交通管制员立刻适应了新的工作方式。很快，他们开始主动地告诉我们，嘿，我们有一架医疗疏散飞机。这是他们的目标标识代码。这是他们来自哪里，这是他们要去哪里。我们就可以在雷达上看到这个联系，然后说，好的，我们知道那是友方的，继续寻找未知目标。如果我们看到他们没有告诉我们的东西，我们会用相同的标识方式通知他们。然后他们可以澄清，哦，我忘了告诉你，那是警长的直升机。或者他们可以说，我们不知道那个人是谁。然后作为指挥官，SAS会给我权力去查证并核查那个人。

And so the question about who's who becomes very important. Sometimes air traffic control knew who they were. Sometimes they didn't. The ones that they couldn't identify are the ones that Lucky and I would go and take a look at. But the scenario of if that is an unknown and it looks like they are coming towards us and we will need to do something is an ethical and moral question that we were both wrestling with at the time. Because if you do need to ram it or take action, that would be a very heavy weighty decision to make on the fly. Not knowing if it was really intended for a certain target, how many lives would be taken in the attack, let alone taking down the airplane. So very, very difficult scenario to work through in your mind at 500 knots. Thankfully, we didn't have to do any of that.

所以关于谁是谁的问题变得非常重要。有时候空中交通管制知道他们是谁。有时候他们不知道。那些他们无法辨认的人，就是我们幸运和我需要去查看的人。但是，如果情况是一个未知身份的人朝着我们飞来，我们将需要采取行动，这是一个伦理和道德问题，当时我们两人都在纠结这个问题。因为如果你需要撞击它或采取行动，那将是一个非常沉重的决定。不知道它是否真的旨在攻击某个目标，不知道袭击中会有多少人丧生，更不用说将飞机击落。所以在500节的速度下，想象出这种非常困难的情景是很难的。谢天谢地，我们没有必要做任何这样的事情。

20 years later when you look back at that decision that you made, what do you think? In the short term, I think anybody in our position would have done the same thing. That's what we do. We defend the nation. We defend America. I think that day would have been the same. I'm happy that we've come a long way in the past 20 years. The National Guard specifically is a much more operational force where we are better trained. Our equipment is very much like what the active duty has. I'm confident that if a similar scenario were to happen again, albeit in a different domain, let's say, I think our ability to respond in just a successful manner is much improved.

20年后当你回顾你做出的那个决定，你会怎么想？短期来看，我认为在我们的位置上任何人都会做出同样的决定。那是我们的职责。我们捍卫国家。我们捍卫美国。我认为那一天会是一样的。我很高兴在过去的20年里我们取得了长足的进步。国民警卫队现在是一个更具操作性的力量，我们接受了更好的训练。我们的装备与现役部队非常相似。如果类似的情况再次发生，虽然可能是在不同的领域，我相信我们的应对能力会大大提高，我们可以更成功地应对。

Heather, I understand later that day, US-corted Air Force One and President Bush back home. Was that a sense of relief? As quoting President Bush was an honor, it was also anti-climactic. At that point in time, I think the scenario had calmed down enough. We had aircraft that were armed at that point in time. We also had additional resources from NORAD. There was an AWACS aircraft. We had a tanker. There were additional fighters that were airborne. It was an honor to be able to bring President Bush back home to Andrew's Air Force Base, but definitely did not have the significance of our first mission.

希瑟，当天晚些时候，美国空军一号和小布什总统回到了国内。你会觉得那是一种解脱感吗？引用小布什总统是一种荣幸，但也有点情节走向反转的感觉。当时，情况已经足够平静了。那时我们有武装飞机。我们还得到了北美航空防卫司令部的额外资源。有一架预警机。我们还有一架加油机。还有一些额外的战斗机在空中。能够将小布什总统安全带回安德鲁斯空军基地是一种荣幸，但与我们的第一次任务相比，它并没有那样重大的意义。

Twenty years later, how often do you think about that day, 9-11? In some ways, the legacy of 9-11 is always with me. When I think about the mission that we didn't have to do, because the passengers on Flight 93 did, I also want to give you a heads up Washington. United 9-3. Have you got information on that yet? Yeah, he's down. He's down? Yes. Why did he land? Because he didn't land. He did not land. He's down? Yeah, somewhere up north east of Camp David. Clearly, not only does our nation owe so much to those heroes, but Sass and I owe our lives to them as well. And they made a choice that they shouldn't have had to have made. They shouldn't have had to have made the choice to sacrifice their lives.

二十年过去了，你认为你有多经常想起那个9-11的日子呢？从某种程度上说，9-11的遗产始终伴随着我。当我想起我们本来不需要执行的任务，因为乘坐93航班的乘客替我们完成了，我也想提醒你一下，华盛顿。美联航93. 你对此有了解吗？是的，他坠毁了。他坠毁了？是的。为什么他会降落？因为他没有降落。他没有降落。他坠毁了？是的，位于戴维营的东北方向。显而易见，我们的国家不仅对那些英雄有着巨大的债务，Sass和我也感谢他们救了我们的命。而他们做出了本不应该做的选择。他们不应该不得不选择牺牲自己的生命。

But that's also why when I think of 9-11, instead of being overcome by the trauma and the horror and the tragedy, I'm actually overcome by hope. Because of the character and the bravery and the service to all of us that they demonstrated that date and the other heroes of 9-11, the first responders and neighbors that opened up their homes to strangers, that this is what it means to be an American. And we see that today with Americans opening up their homes to strangers, right? That the best of who we are was demonstrated on that day. And that's part of what I hope to live through my daily choices and to honors their legacy and their gift to us. So in some ways, living my life is normally as possible, is the biggest way that we can say that the terrorists did not win, that we are still who we are going to be. And we are going to live our lives as normally as possible. And at the same time, hopefully with that kind of awareness and mindfulness of being our better angels.

但这也是为什么当我想到9/11时，我并没有被创伤、恐怖和悲剧所征服，反而被希望所感动。因为那天他们展示了美国人的品格、勇气和为我们所有人的服务，以及其他9/11的英雄，包括第一批响应者和邻居们为陌生人开放家园。这就是作为一个美国人的意义所在。而我们今天也看到美国人向陌生人开放家园，对吗？我们在那一天所展示的，正是我们最优秀的一面。这也是我希望通过我的日常选择来生活的，以纪念并珍视他们给予我们的遗产和礼物。所以在某种程度上，尽可能正常地过自己的生活，是我们可以表达恐怖分子没有获胜、我们仍然是我们自己的最佳方式。我们将继续尽可能正常地生活。同时，希望我们能保持这种意识和专注，成为我们更善良的一面。

I think about it every day. I work in the Pentagon. I drive by the 9-11 Memorial every day. Those on Flight 93 that paid the ultimate price actively engaged, they knew what they were doing, those are the real heroes, those who perished in the airplanes inside the Pentagon, inside the towers, those are the real heroes.

我每天都在想这件事。我在五角大楼工作，每天经过9/11纪念馆。93航班上那些付出了最终代价并积极参与的人，他们知道自己在做什么，他们才是真正的英雄。在飞机和五角大楼内部丧生的人，以及在双子塔内部丧生的人，才是真正的英雄。

I think as traumatic an event as that was looking back on it in the long run, in the long arc of time, we will still prevail. We will preserve our values and we won't be deterred. There's nothing in a traumatic event like that or anything else that our enemies will throw at us that will slow us down.

我认为，回顾那个创伤性的事件，从时间的长河来看，我们最终会战胜困难。我们将保持自己的价值观，不会被吓倒。在类似那样的创伤事件或其他任何敌人对我们的攻击中，都不会让我们停下脚步。

Well General and Heather, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Thank you and thanks for your time and your service.

嗯，感谢将军和希瑟与我们分享你们的故事。非常感谢你们的时间和付出。

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. It's quite a story.

是的，谢谢你。谢谢你。这是一个相当有意思的故事。