The plane had been hijacked and Tom Burnett realized that he would probably never see his wife and three girls again. But instead of using his last calls to say goodbye, he did something that would remain forever in the history of September 11.
It was the morning of 11 September 2001.
Tom was 38 years old, working as a medical device executive and was on board United Airlines Flight 93. His wife Deena and their three daughters were waiting at home.
What was to be a normal day of travel changed completely when the hijackers took control of the plane.
Tom reached a phone on board and called his wife.
Not once.
He called her four times.
During the first call he tried to tell her what was happening. The flight had been hijacked and a man had been stabbed.
But it was Deena who gave him the information that completely changed the situation.
Two planes had already crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.
Later news of the attack on the Pentagon came.
At that point, Tom and the other passengers began to understand something terrible: it was probably not a hijacking intended to end with a landing and negotiation.
Their plane could also be used as a weapon.
Tom's phone calls were no longer just a way to maintain contact with his wife.
They became a way to gather information and understand what to do.
Tom spoke with the other passengers. Some of them were receiving information from the outside through other phone calls.
And slowly a common awareness was formed.
If no one intervened, other people on the ground could have died.
Tom told Deena that some passengers had decided to do something. He knew how little their chances were to survive, but by now they understood that waiting meant to let hijackers complete control of the plane.
During the fourth and last call he told his wife they were about to act.
Then he had to go.
Shortly after the passengers reacted against hijackers.
At 10:03 flight 93 rushed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
None of the people on board survived.
Later reconstructions established that the passenger revolt prevented the hijackers from reaching Washington. The Capitol was indicated, in investigation reconstructions, among the most probable goals.
It is one of the most impressive aspects of flight history 93.
Those people were not soldiers prepared to face an attack.
They were men and women who had taken a plane that morning thinking about work, family and returning home.
Then, through a few phone calls, they knew what was going on in the rest of the United States.
And they understood that a decision made at thousands of meters of height could determine the fate of people they would never know.
Tom Burnett had a wife and three girls waiting for him.
He never came back to them.
But in his last few minutes he thought not only of what he was about to lose.
Together with the other passengers of flight 93 decided to try to prevent other families, that day, they received the same terrible news that shortly thereafter would receive his.