Fighting back
Tom Burnett and Flight 93
This article originally appeared in the Summer 2026 issue of Thinking Minnesota magazine.
The Minnesotan
Tom Burnett was heading home to his wife and three kids on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Burnett had been traveling a lot lately, so when the opportunity B Y arose to switch to an earlier flight, he took it. United Airlines Flight 93 left Newark for San Francisco at 8:42 a.m. (EST), nearly 40 minutes late, and was 35,000 feet over Ohio at 9:28.
Burnett was born in Bloomington,Minn., in 1963, the second of three children for Thomas Sr., a high school teacher, and Beverly, a realtor. Born prematurely, he wasn’t expected to survive and received the last rites twice, but he was a fighter. He attended Ridgeview Elementary School and then Olson Middle School. He inherited his father’s love of reading but was also a keen athlete. Hockey was his first love, but when it proved too expensive — an attempt to play in hand-me-down figure skates was unsuccessful — he switched to football, playing quarterback for Thomas Jefferson Senior High School and leading the Jaguars to the state finals in 1980. The Burnetts vacationed in northern Minnesota, where Tom would spend hours fishing.
Tom continued his football career in college, playing quarterback for Saint John’s University. When an injury ended his football career, he transferred to the University of Minnesota, where he was named president of the Alpha Kappa Psi fraternity. After graduating, he earned a Master of Business Administration at Pepperdine University. In 1996, he joined Thoratec Corporation, a medical devices company, as vice president of sales and marketing, and in 1999, he was promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer, traveling often on business from his home in San Ramon, Calif.
At college, Burnett fathered a daughter, Mariah, who was given up for adoption. In 1989, he met Deena Burchfield in Atlanta, where she had just completed flight attendant training for Delta Air Lines: “He spoke with great love and loyalty of his family in Bloomington, Minnesota,” she recalled of their first date. They married in 1992 and had three daughters — twins Halley and Madison, aged four and a half in September 2001, and a three-year-old Anna Clare.
“Kill the Americans… civilians and military”
Ziad Jarrah was also aboard Flight 93. Born in Lebanon in 1975 to a wealthy and secular Muslim family, he moved to Germany in 1996 and enrolled at the University of Greifswald where, under the influence of a radical imam, he became a devout Muslim. A year later, he moved to Hamburg and began associating with other radicals, including Mohamed Atta. Here, they were recruited to Al Qaeda, a terrorist organization headed by a wealthy Saudi named Osama bin Laden, whom they traveled to Afghanistan to meet in 1999.
Bin Laden had declared war on the United States in 1996, giving a long list of reasons, stretching from the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia all the way back to the Spanish reconquest of Granada in the 15th century. He now had a plan to hijack passenger planes in America and fly them into targeted buildings. “The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies — civilians and military — is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it,” bin Laden had declared. Jarrah would be one of the hijackers.
Like the others involved in this plot, Jarrah had experienced no personal trauma resulting from American foreign policy. None were the grieving relatives of innocents killed in an air strike. None was impoverished by blockade or economic sanctions. Indeed, in September 2001, Jarrah’s family was sending him $2,000 a month “for fun.” It became fashionable to dismiss the notion that “they hate us for our way of life,” but that is exactly where the hijacker’s hatred of the West generally, and the United States specifically, originated. This was not “blowback.” These men were welcomed by Europeans and Americans. They were disgusted by their way of life. They would murder them in cold blood.
And so, at 8:14, on that clear September morning, as Burnett and Jarrah awaited departure, American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked over Massachusetts. As Flight 93 took off, Jarrah’s comrades hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 above New Jersey. Both changed course for New York City.
Four minutes after Flight 93’s take off, at 8:46, Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center, killing all passengers and an unknown number inside the building. Burning jet fuel shot down the elevator shafts, immolating those inside — one of the casualties of this impact was found five blocks away. Four minutes later, American Airlines Flight 77 was hijacked above Ohio and changed course for Washington, D.C. At 9:02, Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. Again, all passengers — including two-and-a-half-year-old Christine Lee Hanson, the day’s youngest victim — were killed instantly along with an unknown number inside the building. The starboard engine landed six blocks away.
America was under attack, and thousands were already dead or dying.
“We’re going to do something”
At 9:28, Flight 93 suddenly dropped 700 feet, and the air traffic control center in Cleveland received a radio transmission from the aircraft. The captain or first officer could be heard shouting “Mayday” amid the sounds of a physical struggle in the cockpit. In a second transmission 35 seconds later, the captain or first officer could be heard shouting: “Hey get out of here-get out of here-get out of here.” The crew was quickly incapacitated; a wounded man, believed to be Captain Jason Dahl, was heard on the cockpit voice recorder pleading “No more,” or “No,” repeatedly, as the hijackers shouted for him to sit down and to stop touching something. First-class flight attendant Debbie Welsh asked, “Please, please, don’t hurt me” and “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” She went silent, one of the hijackers saying, “Everything is fine. I finished.” One passenger, Mark Rothenberg, had already been killed, probably to intimidate the others, who were forced to the back of the plane.
At 9:30, Deena Burnett received a phone call:
Deena: Hello?
Tom: Deena Deena: Tom, are you O.K.?
Tom: No, I’m not. I’m on an airplane that has been hijacked. Deena: Hijacked? Tom: Yes, they just knifed a guy.
Deena: A passenger?
Tom: Yes. Deena: Where are you? Are you in the air?
Tom: Yes, yes, just listen. Our airplane has been hijacked. It’s United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. We are in the air. The hijackers have already knifed a guy, one of them has a gun, they are telling us there is a bomb on board, please call the authorities.
At 9:37, Tom called Deena again:
Deena: Hello? Tom: They’re in the cockpit. The guy they knifed is dead.
Deena: He’s dead?
Tom: Yes. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t get a pulse.
Deena: Tom, they are hijacking planes all up and down the East Coast. They are taking them and hitting designated targets. They’ve already hit both towers of the World Trade Center.
Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane. (a pause) Oh my God. It’s a suicide mission…(he then tells people sitting around him)
Deena: Who are you talking to?
Tom: My seatmate. Do you know which airline is involved?
Deena: No, they don’t know if they’re commercial airlines or not. The news reporters are speculating cargo planes, private planes and commercial. No one knows.
Tom: How many planes are there?
Deena: They’re not sure, at least three. Maybe more.
Tom: O.K….O.K….Do you know who is involved?
Deena: No.
Tom: We’re turning back toward New York. We’re going back to the World Trade Center. No, wait, we’re turning back the other way. We’re going south.
Deena: What do you see?
Tom: Just a minute, I’m looking. I don’t see anything, we’re over a rural area. It’s just fields. I’ve gotta go.
At 9:39, Jarrah announced: “Ah, here’s the captain: [sic] I would like you all to remain seated. We have a bomb aboard, and we are going back to the airport, and we have our demands. So please remain quiet.” But the passengers knew the truth. Tom called Deena again at 9:44:
Tom: Deena
Deena: Tom, you’re O.K.
Tom: No, I’m not.
Deena: They [Flight 77] just hit the Pentagon.
Tom: (tells people sitting around him “They just hit the Pentagon.”)
Tom: O.K….O.K. What else can you tell me?
Deena: They think five airplanes have been hijacked. One is still on the ground. They believe all of them are commercial planes. I haven’t heard them say which airline, but all of them have originated on the East Coast.
Tom: Do you know who is involved?
Deena: No.
Tom: What is the probability of their having a bomb on board? I don’t think they have one. I think they’re just telling us that for crowd control.
Deena: A plane can survive a bomb if it’s in the right place.
Tom: Did you call the authorities?
Deena: Yes, they didn’t know anything about your plane.
Tom: They’re talking about crashing this plane into the ground. We have to do something. I’m putting a plan together.
Deena: Who’s helping you?
Tom: Different people. Several people. There’s a group of us. Don’t worry. I’ll call you back.
The 40-minute delay in takeoff made all the difference. The passengers of Flight 93 knew that this was a suicide mission, and they decided that if they were to die, they would die fighting. “I’m going to take a vote,” passenger Jeremy Glick told his wife. “There’s three guys as big as me and we’re thinking of attacking the guy with the bomb.” The motion was carried. At 9:53, Tom called Deena once more:
Deena: Tom?
Tom: Hi. Anything new?
Deena: No.
Tom: Where are the kids?
Deena: They’re fine. They’re sitting at the table having breakfast. They’re asking to talk to you.
Tom: Tell them I’ll talk to them later.
Deena: I called your parents. They know your plane has been hijacked.
Tom: Oh…you shouldn’t have worried them. How are they doing?
Deena: They’re O.K. Mary and Martha are with them.
Tom: Good. (a long quiet pause) We’re waiting until we’re over a rural area. We’re going to take back the airplane.
Deena: No! Sit down, be still, be quiet, and don’t draw attention to yourself!
Tom: Deena! If they’re going to crash this plane into the ground, we’re going to have to do something!
Deena: What about the authorities?
Tom: We can’t wait for the authorities. I don’t know what they could do anyway. It’s up to us. I think we can do it.
Deena: What do you want me to do?
Tom: Pray, Deena, just pray.
Deena: (after a long pause) I love you.
Tom: Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.
Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw boiled water to throw at the terrorists. Jeremy Glick had the butter knife he’d used for breakfast. Passenger Don Greene was licensed to fly small planes. If the terrorists could be subdued and Greene put at the controls, the passengers of Flight 93 might yet survive. “Are you ready?” passenger Todd Beamer asked. “O.K. Let’s roll.”
At 9:57, Jarrah asked, “Is there something? A fight?” Outside the cockpit were the sounds of crashing, screaming, and the shattering of glass and plates. Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance. “They want to get in here,” he said. “Hold, hold from the inside. Hold from the inside. Hold.” The two hijackers outside the cockpit screamed as the passengers attacked them. Jarrah pitched the nose of the airplane up and down. At 10:00, he stabilized the plane and asked, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” Another hijacker responded, “No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off.” Jarrah pitched the airplane up and down again. A passenger cried, “In the cockpit! If we don’t, we’ll die!” and another yelled, “Roll it!” as they used the food cart as a battering ram against the door. Jarrah ceased the violent maneuvers, recited the takbir — “Allahu Akbar” — twice, then asked his accomplice, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down,” he replied.
The passengers continued their assault. A shout of “Turn it up!” was captured clearly by the cockpit microphone, suggesting that the door was at least open. “Pull it down! Pull it down!” a hijacker screamed — had the passengers breached the cockpit? Were they struggling for control of the aircraft? Jarrah made a desperate plea, repeatedly screaming “Give it to me!” possibly referring to the plane’s controls: The passengers may have been only seconds away from regaining control of the plane.
Tom Burnett didn’t make it home. Flight 93 crashed into a field in Stonycreek, Penn., at 10:03, 20 minutes’ flying time from Ziad Jarrah’s target in Washington, D.C. All aboard were killed.
America
Tom Burnett was not the first Minnesotan to die in a field in Pennsylvania fighting for his country. A month after the attacks, Deena gave a speech. “Tom taught me a toast not long after we were married,” she said. “He would raise his glass and say, ‘Live every day as if it were your last, for surely one day you will be right.’ If this were your last day on earth, ask yourself: ‘What have I done to make a difference? Is the life I lead worth someone else dying for?’”
America is not its spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain majesties, or fruited plains. America, like any country, is its people, their beliefs, and their actions. Sept. 11, 2001, was one of the darkest days in this country’s history. But even then, in thousands of cases, from first responders running into the Twin Towers to Tom Burnett and the other heroes on Flight 93, the American people showed themselves at their very best.