Claim: Internet account describes Todd Beamer's final moments on Flight 93.
Example:[Collected on the Internet, 2002]
"I don't think we're going to get out of this thing. I'm going to have to go out on faith."
It was the voice of Todd Beamer, the passenger — and Wheaton College graduate — who said "Let's roll" as he led the charge against the terrorists who had hijacked United Flight 93, the one, you will remember, that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside.
The whole world knows how brave Beamer and his fellow passengers were on September 11. But this week we learned more fully what buttressed the bravery: Faith in Jesus Christ. Todd died as he lived, a faithful evangelical believer.
In an article titled "The Real Story of Flight 93," Newsweek reveals gripping new details from the actual transcripts of the now-recovered cockpit voice recorder. "Todd had been afraid," Newsweek relates. "More than once, he cried out for his Savior."
After passengers were herded to the back of the jet, Beamer called the GTE Customer Center in Oakbrook,
Illinois. He told supervisor Lisa Jefferson about the hijacking. The passengers were planning to jump the
terrorists, he said. And then he asked her to pray with him.
As Newsweek relates, "Beamer kept a Lord's Prayer bookmark in his Tom Clancy novel, but he didn't need
any prompting. He began to recite the ancient litany, and Jefferson joined him: Our Father which art in
heaven, Hallowed be thy name."
As they finished, Beamer added, "Jesus, help me." And then, Beamer and his fellow passengers prayed a prayer that has comforted millions down through the centuries — the prayer that David wrote in a time of great anguish: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . . Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
And then the famous last words: "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
We now know from the cockpit voice recorder that Beamer and other passengers wrestled with the
hijackers and forced the plane to crash into the ground, killing themselves but foiling what was believed to have been the hijackers' plan to fly Flight 93 into the Capitol or the White House.
As Christians, we know that God can bring good out of evil. In Todd Beamer, the world witnesses a faith that
held up in the extremity of fear. A faith that is even now comforting his widow and two young sons.
Lisa Beamer told NBC's Dateline, "You know, in the Lord's Prayer, it asks us to forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." As Todd prayed this prayer in the last moments of his life, in a way, Lisa said, "He was forgiving those people for what they were doing, the most horrible thing you could ever do to someone."
It wasn't Todd Beamer's job to fight terrorists. He was just a passenger who along with several others did
what he didn't have to do but foiled a terrible evil that might have been done to his country.
As Flight 93 hurtled towards destruction, Todd Beamer could not have known that his quiet prayers would
ultimately be heard by millions — that the story of his last acts on earth would be a witness to the Lord he loved and served and a lasting example of true heroism.
Origins: Exactly what happened to United
Airlines Flight 93 on 11 September 2001 remains — to the general public, at least — a mystery. We know it was hijacked, along with three other flights that day, by terrorists who planned to crash it into something, possibly the White House or the U.S. Capitol. We know that because Flight 93 was forty-five minutes late in departing, its passengers learned from their cell phones en route that they were to be part of a fourth September 11th suicide attack on America. And we know that a group of passengers decided over the skies of Western Pennsylvania that they had to try to take control of the plane back from the terrorists — not only to save their own lives, but to prevent an even greater loss of life should the Boeing 757 reach its hijackers' intended destination. The courage and resolution of those passengers has been epitomized by the final recorded ones of one of them, Todd Beamer, who, after telling a GTE operator of their plans over his cell phone, signed off with, "Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
What happened afterwards is the mystery. The cockpit tapes reveal a struggle between passengers
and hijackers, but just why the plane crashed into a Pennsylvania field remains unclear. Newsweek wrote that the tapes "strongly suggest that the hijackers flew the plane into the ground under a ferocious assault from the passengers," but the evidence is insufficient for that conclusion to be more than speculation. Did the passengers deliberately crash the flight to foil the terrorist plot? Did both sides inflict so much damage on each other that no one was in control of the plane at the end? Did the terrorists set off the bomb one of them claimed to be carrying? Or was Flight 93, as some have suggested, shot down by Air Force fighters scrambled to intercept it? We just don't know.
We do know the final thoughts and words of Todd Beamer, a 32-year-old Oracle Corporation account manager from Cranbury, N.J., with a wife and two young sons (and a third child on the way), who was travelling to California for a September 11 business meeting on Flight 93. Somehow, Beamer's cell phone call from Flight 93 was routed to Lisa Jefferson, a supervisor with the GTE Customer Center in Oakbrook, Illinois. As Mrs. Jefferson proceeded down the checklist in GTE's "distress call" manual, Beamer relayed the details of their situation: number of passengers, number of hijackers, weapons carried by the hijackers, etc. As reported in Newsweek's "The Real Story of Flight 93," Beamer's last words to Lisa Jefferson included a recitation of the Lord's Prayer:
Up to this moment, Beamer had been all business. "Lisa," he said suddenly. "Yes?" responded Jefferson. "That's my wife," said Beamer. "Well that's my name, too, Todd," said Jefferson. "Oh, my God," said Beamer. "I don't think we're going to get out of this thing. I'm going to have to go out on faith." Jefferson tried to comfort him. "Todd," she said, "you don't know that." Beamer asked her to promise to call his wife if he didn't make it home. He told her about his little boys and the new baby on the way. Then he said that the passengers were going to try to jump the hijackers. "Are you sure that's what you want to do, Todd?" asked Jefferson. "It's what we have to do," he answered. He asked her to pray with him. Beamer kept a Lord's Prayer bookmark in his Tom Clancy novel, but he didn't need any prompting. He began to recite the litany, and she joined him:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen.
"Jesus help me," Beamer said. He recited the 23d Psalm. Then Jefferson heard him say:
"Are you guys ready? Let's roll."
Todd Beamer was one of many heroes on Flight 93 that day. Whether his heroism was inspired by a love of God, faith in Jesus, characters in Tom Clancy novels, childhood memories of Superman, or just a plain fear of dying, what matters most is that, in the end, he did act heroically. As the coda to the Newsweek piece declared, "In daring and dying, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 found victory for us all."
Last updated: 7 March 2008
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