No greater love

9:45 a.m.: Flight 93 has been in the air for just over an hour, its destination no longer California. The FAA has given the order to clear the skies nationwide: All planes are grounded.

Hijacker Ziad Jarrah, who is at the controls, has turned off the transponder which sends a radar signal with identifying information. But Cleveland Air traffic control is still able to track its erratic path. The White House, Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol are being evacuated.

Passengers know they’re running out of time.

Tom Burnett calls home a fourth and final time.

Deena Burnett: He said, ‘Okay, there’s a group of us and we’re going to do something.’ I said, ‘no.’  I said, ‘Please sit down and be still, be quiet, don’t draw attention to yourself.’ and he said, ‘No.’  He said, ‘If they’re going to drive this plane into the ground,’ he said, ‘we’ve got to do something.’

Americans to the end: Jeremy Glick tells his wife, Lyz they are going to take a vote. There’s a plan, and people willing and able to carry it out.

Lou Nacke: The guy with a “Superman” tattoo on his shoulder could probably back it up.

Mark Bingham once tackled a mugger on a San Francisco street. And that summer, he ran with the bulls in Pamplona.

Japanese student Toshiya Kuge played American football; he was a linebacker.

Richard Guadagno, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manager, was trained in hand-to-hand combat.

And Jeremy Glick wasn’t just some guy in a business suit.

Joan Glick: When he was in college, he was the national collegiate junior judo championship. So he was really strong.

There were strong women, too. Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles was a former cop.

Lorne Lyles: Ceecee was a tough one. Ceecee was a very tough cookie. Even when we play and wrestle around, I know she’s pretty tough. So I would say that Ceecee probably had her hands in her own fate because she always wanted to determine her own fate anyway.

New York Times reporter Jere Longman spent months investigating the Flight 93 story. In his book, “Among the Heroes,” Longman reports that Debby Welsh, the 6 foot-tall senior flight attendant, had overpowered a drunken passenger once, and shoved him into his seat. Passenger Deora Bodley had been captain of her high-school basketball team. And both Lauren Grandcolas and Linda Gronlund were trained emergency medical technicians.

Jere Longman, New York Times reporter: Linda Gronlund had once dislocated her leg, and had set her own kneecap in the driveway while waiting for the ambulance to arrive.

Jane Pauley: Among the women, who else would have been known as tough?

Longman: Well, there was Hilda Marcin—once a man tried to snatch her purse, and she beat him over the head with her umbrella. So she wasn’t afraid to stand up for herself.

Neither was 4’6” Colleen Fraser:

Longman: She had red spiked hair. She once commandeered a para-transit bus and drove it down to Washington to browbeat the senators into passing the Americans with disabilities act.

Tom Burnett’s strength was problem solving: it was practically a job description for the COO of a medical technology firm. Working the problem is what he did best, his wife says... and that day was no exception:

Deena Burnett: He was very busy. He was taking down information. He was planning what they were going to do. And he was not interested in reviewing his life or whispering sweet nothings into the telephone, I assure you. He was problem solving, and he was going to take care of it and come on home.

Claudette Greene never heard from her husband at all that morning and she thinks she knows why.

Claudette Greene, Don Greene's wife: I’ve never actually missed the fact that he didn’t call. I think he was busy. I’m convinced he was very busy, he didn’t have time to make the call.

Don Greene may have been the answer to the ultimate question: If the pilot and co-pilot were dead... what would the passengers have done after they overpowered the hijackers?

An executive in the aviation business, Don Greene had thousands of hours in a cockpit as a private pilot. He could fly a plane before he could drive a car.

Claudette Greene: He had the knowledge to fly and land that airplane. If there was any way he could get into the cockpit and take over the airplane, I think he would have tried to do that.

And another passenger, Andrew Garcia, had experience as an air traffic controller with the Air National Guard.

The passengers and crew of Flight 93 had the skills, the training, and a plan to fight back.

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