At 9:28 a.m. Flights 11 and 175 had already crashed into the World Trade Center and Flight 77 was within 9 minutes of striking the Pentagon.
First Officer LeRoy Homer, of United 93, managed to transmit to the ground, shouting amid sounds of violence,
"Mayday!
Mayday!
Get out!"
The crew made another transmission.
"Mayday!
Mayday!
Get out of here!
Mayday!
Get out of here!"
The flight dropped 685 feet in half a minute.
Then the hijackers managed to stabilize the aircraft.
Officials believe that at 9:28 a.m., the hijackers assaulted the cockpit and moved the passengers to the rear of the plane at the same time.
Flight 93 had only four hijackers.
Many passengers were saying in phone calls that they saw only three hijackers.
The 9/11 Commission believed Jarrah remained seated until the crew were overpowered and passengers were moved to the back of the aircraft and then took over the flight controls out of sight of the passengers.
Captain Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer survived the initial attack and were still alive after the hijackers took over the plane.
Dahl and Homer took actions to interfere with the hijackers.
They disengaged the autopilot just before the hijackers took over in order to prevent them from aiming the plane at Washington, D.C.
They also switched the output of the pilots' microphones from the cabin address speakers to the radio transmitter so that Jarrah's attempts to communicate with the passengers would instead be heard by air traffic controllers.
Dahl stayed in the cockpit alone with the hijacker-pilot, injured but not dead,
Homer was knocked unconscious and dragged from the cockpit.
Ziad Jarrah was identified as the pilot and is heard calling another hijacker "Saeed", indicating that Saeed al-Ghamdi, was helping Jarrah with the controls.
The final 30 minutes of Flight 93 at 9:31 a.m. Jarrah announced,
"Ladies and gentlemen: here the captain.
Please sit down, keep remaining seating.
We have a bomb on board.
So sit."
The controller understood the transmission, but responded,
"Calling Cleveland center, you're unreadable.
Say again, slowly."
A woman, presumably first-class flight attendant Debbie Welsh, is heard being held captive in the background and is heard struggling with the hijackers and pleading,
"Please, please, don't hurt me".
Since Jarrah couldn't engage the autopilot, he turned the plane and headed east at 9:35 a.m.
The aircraft ascended to 40,700 feet and air traffic controllers immediately moved several aircraft out of Flight 93's flight path.
The woman in the cockpit is heard to say,
"I don't want to die, I don't want to die!"
And then it is speculated that she was killed or otherwise silenced.
Then one of the hijackers said in Arabic,
"Everything is fine.
I finished."
At 9:39 a.m., air traffic controllers overheard Jarrah say,
"Here's the captain: I would like to tell 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."
Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife beginning at 9:30 a.m. explaining that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb.
He also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers.
His wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were
"talking about crashing this plane. ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."
He asked her for information about the attack and told the others nearby what she was saying.
He ended his last call by saying,
"Don't worry, we're going to do something."
An unknown flight attendant attempted to contact the United Airlines maintenance facility at 9:32 a.m., lasting 95 seconds, but was not received.
Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called the maintenance facility at 9:35 a.m. and reported the flight had been hijacked by men with knives who were in the cabin and flight deck.
They had stabbed another flight attendant, possibly Debbie Welsh.
He stayed on the phone until the end of the flight.
He reported that the passengers voted whether to "rush" the hijackers.
The transponder got turned off, but the Cleveland controller continued to monitor the flight on primary radar.
Joseph DeLuca called his father at 9:43 a.m., to inform him the flight had been hijacked.
Todd Beamer attempted to call his wife at 9:43 a.m., but was routed to GTE phone operator Lisa D. Jefferson.
He told the operator that the flight was hijacked and that two people who he thought were the pilots were on the floor dead or dying.
Stating one of the hijackers had a red belt with what looked to be a bomb strapped to his waist.
The hijackers veered the plane sharply south, and Beamer exclaimed,
"We're going down! We're going down!"
Dahl continued to struggle in the cockpit, refusing to allow a hijacker to engage the autopilot.
Linda Gronlund called her sister, 9:46 a.m. and left her a message saying there were men with a bomb.
Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles called her husband at 9:47 a.m., leaving him a message saying the plane had been hijacked.
Marion Britton called her friend, at 9:49 a.m. saying that
"We're gonna. They're gonna kill us, you know, We're gonna die.'"
Flight attendant Sandra Bradshaw called her husband at 9:50 a.m. and told him she was preparing scalding water to throw at the hijackers.
Passenger Lauren Grandcolas called her husband twice.
He missed both of her calls.
Honor Elizabeth Wainio called her stepmother at 9:53 a.m. ending the conversation by saying,
"I have to go. They're breaking into the cockpit. I love you."
Bradshaw, on the phone with her husband, said
"Everyone is running up to first class. I've got to go. Bye."
Beamer told Jefferson that the group was planning to "jump on" the hijackers and fly the plane into the ground before the hijackers' plan could be followed through.
He then recited the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm with Jefferson, prompting others to join in.
Beamer told Jefferson,
"If I don't make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them."
Then Beamer said,
"Are you ready?
Okay. Let's roll."
The passengers were forcing their way into the cockpit as Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance.
At 9:59 a.m. Jarrah pitched the nose of the airplane up and down.
The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of crashing, screaming, the shattering of glass and plates and shouts of pain or distress from a hijacker outside the cockpit.
A passenger cried,
"In the cockpit. If we don't, we'll die"
Another passenger, yelled,
"Roll it!"
The passengers used the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door.
Jarrah asked another hijacker,
"Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?"
The other hijacker responded,
"Yes, put it in it, and pull it down."
The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02 a.m.
A male passenger yelled,
"Turn it up!"
A second later, a hijacker said,
"Pull it down! Pull it down!"
At 10:02 a.m., Jarrah pleaded,
"Hey! Hey!
Give it to me!"
The airplane plummeted into a nosedive and then rolled upside down.
The aircraft picked up speed, and the hijackers inside the cockpit are heard yelling
"No!"
over the sound of breaking glass.
The final words heard spoken were a calm voice in English saying, "Pull it up."
The plane then crashed into an empty field in Stonycreek, Pennsylvania, fragmenting violently.
The 9/11 Commission Report concluded that "the hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them."
Many of the passengers' family members, believe that the passengers breached the cockpit and killed at least one of the hijackers guarding the cockpit door.
"I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down.
It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there.
Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke."
Eric Peterson, looked up when he heard the plane,
"It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets. You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side.
There was a great explosion and you could see the flames.
It was a massive, massive explosion.
Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud."
The crash knocked out the electricity and phones.
Val McClatchey grabbed her camera and took the only known picture of the smoke cloud from the explosion.
Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater.
Investigators found very light debris scattered up to eight miles from the impact point in New Baltimore.
Other tiny aircraft fragments were found 1.5 miles away at Indian Lake.
All human remains were found within a 70-acre area surrounding the impact point.
In examining the wreckage, the only human body that could be seen was part of a backbone.
Later there were found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains, or eight percent of the total.
The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact.
Four victims were identified by September 22 and eleven by September 24.
Another was identified by September 29.
Thirty-four passengers were identified by October 27.
All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so tiny, that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed.
Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. On September 13 the flight data recorder was located and the cockpit.
The voice recorder was found the following day, buried 25 feet below the crater.
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