Duty before Self- Story of Heather Penny

September 11, 2001 was a black day in the history of Civil Aviation. While some stories of that day have been told in great depth, we know little of the drama in the skies.

Terrorists belonging to Al Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes and crashed two of them into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. A third plane was crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth plane, a Boeing 757 belonging to United Airlines was hijacked and was headed towards Washington.

The authorities then decided to launch fighter jets to intercept the hijacked aircraft.
Squadron Commander Marc ‘Sassy’ Sasseville and his wingman Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penny Garcia took off in a pair of F 16s to intercept the hijacked aircraft, United 93. As they get airborne their boss, Colonel Wherley radioed them,” You are the Capital Guardians”.

America was never prepared for a war in their own land then. So the fighter jets were not armed with weapons. And that meant only one thing, they had to fly a kamikaze mission, ramming into flight United 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft, to prevent the terrorists from entering the Washington airspace. They agreed on a plan of attack. Sasseville would head for the cockpit and Penny would aim for the plane’s tail.

And to add further drama there was a possibility that her father who was a pilot in United Airlines was the pilot of United Airlines flight 93.

Fortunately for Sasseville and Heather, the United flight crashed as passengers fought to take control of the hijacked airplane.

Ever the humble person, Heather stated “ We were Mission Failures. The true heroes were the passengers of Flight 93”.

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