I’d be a kamikaze pilot: Fighter pilot recalls her would-be ‘suicide’ mission to take down United 93 – and the heroes who did it for her
Thomas Durante
Daily Mail [UK]
10th September 2011
When a group of fighter pilots in Washington, D.C., were told a plane had struck the World Trade Center, they assumed it was an inexperienced pilot in a Cessna.
But as the rest of 9/11 unfolded, the pilots realized it was their turn to act.
Heather ‘Lucky’ Penney was one of them, a young blonde in her 20s so enamoured with flying that jet fuel practically coursed through her veins.
Her father John, also an avid pilot, flew in Vietnam, and she was following in his footsteps.
Miss Penney is now the director of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin and part-time National Guard pilot who has not lost her passion for flying.
But 10 years ago, she was one of the first rookie female fighter pilots, who signed up as soon as she heard the news that combat aviation was being opened to women.
On the morning of September 11, she was first again, this time for a task involving a fourth hijacked plane on a course for Washington, and possibly others.
Her mission: Find United Flight 93 – and destroy it however she could.
But in a fighter jet absent of missiles and packed only with dummy ammunition from a recent training mission, there was only one way to do it.
‘We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft,’ Penney recalled in an interview with the Washington Post. ‘I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.’
The article continues at The Daily Mail.
H/T The Gill Report
Also, at Wikipedia, Timeline for the day of the September 11 attacks
8:34: Dan Bueno from Boston Center notifies the tower controller at Otis Air National Guard Base at Cape Cod of the hijacking of Flight 11. The controller directs Bueno to contact NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the northeast sector of NORAD. The controller then notifies Otis Operations Center that a call from NEADS might be coming. Two F15 pilots begin to suit up.
8:37: Flight 175 confirms sighting of hijacked Flight 11 to flight controllers, 10 miles (16 km) to its south.
8:37:52: Boston Center control notifies NEADS of the hijacking of Flight 11, the first notification received by NORAD that American 11 had been hijacked. The controller requests military help to intercept the jetliner…
…8:46: Two F-15 fighter jets are ordered to scramble from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts, intended to intercept Flight 11. Because Flight 11’s transponder is off, the pilots do not know the location of their target. NEADS spends the next several minutes watching their radar screens in anticipation of Flight 11 returning a radar contact…
