Fall and Rebirth: The Story of 9/11
By Mitchell Zukov
Translated by Du Xianju
Published by Wenhui Publishing House
Tuesday, September 11, 2001. On the flights, passengers were lucky enough to catch a good day on the flight; office workers in Lower Manhattan and the Pentagon had a busy workday; and on the grass in the Pennsylvania countryside, housewives dried their clothes on a clear late summer day. Until four jetliners descended from the sky one after another. A new day has just begun, but the lives of nearly three thousand people are coming to an end.
9/11 shocked the world and changed the whole world.
On the same day, Mitchell Zukov wrote the 9/11 headlines for the Boston Globe.
When a living life is transformed into a string of numbers, the value of the individual is easily erased. In the face of life, the cure for rejecting indifference is to record and listen to their stories. So Zukov collected a large number of stories of witnesses in the follow-up report, written from September 10, through meticulous investigation and moving narration, Zukov's experience of more than 100 witnesses as the main line to restore the specific experience of the day, in the second unit to present the thrilling attack and rescue, and tell the reconstruction work of the post-9/11 and people's follow-up life.
Under the threat of terrorists, on the way to the building, before the building collapsed, there were Chinese flight attendants who reported hijackings to the ground at the first time, there were victims who comforted their families on the phone after accepting their fate, and there were flesh and blood brothers who befriended on the way to escape... The author's 18-year-old "Fall and Rebirth: The Story of 9/11" is a story about falling, but it flashes the power of rebirth everywhere.
Inner text appreciation >>
"Let's Do It" (excerpt)
Fifteen minutes into Todd Beamer's call to Air Chief Lisa Jefferson, he told her, "A few of our passengers are organized. I think we're going to sneak up on that guy with the bomb!" ”
Lisa asked Todd if he was right. Todd said he had no choice but to rely on faith. Lisa had the impression that Todd felt that some of the passengers and crew would fly the plane. That's it, he said, if the bomb that supposedly was on the plane hadn't been detonated, if they could subdue the knife-wielding terrorists, if they could retake the cockpit. Lisa told Todd that no matter what decisions he and others made, she would support him behind him.
Jeremy Glick mentioned "voting" to his wife, Leeds. Do nothing, or do you do something? In a life-or-death situation, "do something" wins.
A few minutes ago, the men and women on United Airlines Flight 93 were strangers they had never known, and now they had awakened their survival instincts and discovered the samurai spirit that some of them did not know they possessed. They were still airline employees or everyday passengers when they boarded the plane, or they went home, or to business meetings, or to vacations, or to memorial services, but, out of the horror of the cicada chrysalis, they emerged as a group of brothers and sisters who fought side by side. They are clearly disadvantaged, but they have numerical superiority, they have each other, they have people who love them on the ground, they have a collective will that the hijackers have foolishly ignored. Even if it crashes, it's in their own chosen way. The flight will not continue the catastrophic pattern they have heard of outside of New York and Washington, D.C. Whatever the cost, the hijackers cannot decide their destination.
A few minutes before 10 o'clock, Todd Beamer left the phone. Lisa Jefferson heard him ask, "Are you ready?" ”
Lisa didn't hear a reply. But then she heard a few words, and the command got the men and women who had become warriors to act: "Okay, let's do it." ”
The man behind the plane and the murderer in the cockpit were nearly a hundred feet apart. The only passage for the rebels was a passage about twenty inches wide. They could only line up in columns to fight back. They shouted in fear and rushed over.
The hijackers heard the noise outside from the cockpit.
"What happened?" A hijacker asked.
"Fight?" Another said.
"Huh?" The first one says.
In first class, a hijacker knocked on the cockpit door, trying to get in and take shelter. The sounds of fighting and the screams of a man echoed between the four walls of the plane. Jalla, who was piloting the plane, knew he needed more time to reach their destination.
Jarrah turned the steering wheel and made the plane shake, left and right, left and right, and he wanted to throw the hostages who began to resist out of balance. The fighting outside the cockpit continued, with whispers of grunting and shouting.
One of the hijackers shouted, "Get out of the way!" "He may have been threatening the fighters who rushed up at the same time with a knife, or the fire axe, or the box they claimed to contain the bomb. But they rushed up anyway.
"In the cockpit!" A native English speaker shouted to the passenger or crew, "In the cockpit!" ”
At 9:59, Jala said in Arabic, "They're coming in." Hold (door). Hold it from the inside. Hold it from the inside. Hold on. ”
Jara shook his wings harder. But it's useless. One passenger or crew member shouted, "Stop him!" ”
One of the hijackers shouted, "Sit down! Sit down! Sit down! ”
The fight continued, and the sounds of shouting and action began to become indistinguishable on the recorder in the cockpit. Someone said in Arabic, "What? Some guys. All those guys. One passenger or crew member said, "Let's go catch them!" One hijacker said, "Believe Allah, believe him." Some distance from the pilot's seat, one hijacker insisted: "Sit down." "But it's too late. The passengers and crew no longer want to be at the mercy of anyone, they just want to do what they want.
Jarrah deliberately flew the plane ricketily in the hope of undermining the passengers' resistance. The sound of metal colliding in the cockpit. "Ah!" A hijacker shouted. He shouted again, this time louder: "Ah! "There was the sound of cups or plates breaking. Then quiet down. An alarm sounded in the cockpit. Then there were more thumping sounds. Someone cried out for the third time, "Ah! ”
By 10 o'clock, when the plane flew to an altitude of five thousand feet, the terrorists suddenly understood that they could not hold the cockpit door indefinitely, but they did not yet know what to do.
One hijacker said in Arabic, "Nothing." ”
The other—obviously Jara—asked, "Is that it?" Let's get rid of it? ”
"No, it's not. Not yet. ”
"When they all come over, we'll get rid of it!"
Another listened from inside the cockpit to voices from outside: "Nothing." "Maybe they'll have enough time to get to Washington after all." Jarrah pulled the steering wheel backwards and the plane climbed up. But the fight outside the cockpit resumed. Then came the voice of an English speaker: "Ah! I was injured. ”
The sound of metal colliding came over, and then, from some distance from the cockpit came an "ah" sound, and Jarra, who was sitting in the pilot's seat, began his religious pleading: "Ah Allah! Ah Allah! O mercy Allah! ”
The rebels launched another attack. One of the leaders of the rebels shouted, "Enter the cockpit!" If we don't go in, we'll die! ”
Jarrah used a new trick. He pulled the steering wheel forward and backward in turn, causing the plane to rise, then descend, and then rise again. He made the nose shake up and down repeatedly. He instructed Ganmudi to use the co-pilot's steering wheel and operate with him. Alternating between Arabic and English, Jala commanded, "Up, down." Up, down, sit in the driver's seat. "While the hijackers were desperately maneuvering the plane, there was a series of crashes, falls, shouts and glass smashing.
"Up, down. Sayyid – up, down! ”
However, shaking the plane does not stop the passengers and crew. They were still trying to get into the cockpit, and they used the food truck as a siege hammer. "Push it!" A male passenger shouted.
Just then the pilot of a small plane saw Flight 93 coming straight at him at an altitude of eight thousand feet, its landing gear lowered, flying backwards and backwards, tilting extremely to the left, and then turning sharply to the right, swinging its wings over the farmland southeast of Pittsburgh and the old coal mine.
The recorder in the cockpit of Flight 93 recorded a heavy crash. Passengers and crew may be pulling the dining car backwards and then using it to crash into the cockpit door.
Jarrah stopped shaking the wings of the plane and stopped fiddling with the nose up and down. He kept the plane steady. The battle began again.
At 10:01, a conversation between the two hijackers showed that they knew they were running out of time. They could not hold the cockpit for long to complete the murder mission. Months of planning and training would be ruined by passengers and crew, men and women who looked ordinary and showed extraordinary strength to save themselves and perhaps others.
The hijacked United Flight 93 will not reach Washington, D.C., almost one hundred and twenty-five miles away. Jarrah was unable to crash the fuel-laden Boeing 757 into two locations most likely to be his target: the U.S. Capitol or the harder-to-hit White House. No one inside or around the building will die. Neither landmark will burn on TV screens around the world. The ultimate goal of the fourth hijacking operation will not be achieved.
So Jarrah automatically turned to Mohammed Atta as a retreat: any hijacker who could not reach the target should crash the plane to the ground.
"Is that so?" Jarrah asked in Arabic, "I mean, let's pull it down?" ”
"Yes," said Gamme, "put it in, and then pull it down." ”
Jara wanted to move quickly before passengers and crew broke into the cockpit. He shouted, "Sayyid! He then resorted to a desperate attempt to delay the revolt that was taking place, saying in Arabic mixed with English: "Cut off the oxygen!" Cut off the oxygen! He started flying the plane backwards and forwards again, shouting "up, down, up, down."
The revolt continues. A chaotic clash and sound filled the planes, metal bumps coupled with loud groans and shouts from Arabic and English speakers. At 10:02, there was a series of shouts: "Turn them off!" Turn them off! Then there was a series of metal crashes.
Passengers were reluctant to give up: "Go! walk! Move! Move! One of the rebels urged his comrades. A native English speaker said, "Turn up!" ”
The command in Arabic: "Down, down... Pull down! Pull down! under! Then someone said in English: "Down, push, push, push, push... push. ”
Flight 93 swooped down toward the mountains and streams of rural pennsylvania. As it drew closer to the ground, the passengers and crew apparently made a last-ditch effort, hoping to get closer to Jala and Gamme in the pilot's seat. Although some flight experts thought they were unlikely to succeed, the sound recorded on the cockpit tape recorder suggested they were still fighting at the last minute. One possibility is that a passenger or crew member grabbed the pilot's or co-pilot's steering wheel and, in desperation, tried to pull the plane back and prevent it from continuing to rush straight down. One of the hijackers — apparently Gammy — shouted in Arabic: "Hey! hi! Give me. Give me. ”
The hijacker repeated "give it to me" six more times.
Someone turned the steering wheel violently to the right. The plane flew sideways, then completely turned over, flew on its back, and descended as its belly toward the blue sky. Groans and shouts mingled with a hijacker shouting "Allah supreme!" in Arabic. " sound.
The fight continues. A male passenger shouted, "No! ”
It was in the midst of screams, loud noises, and whispered prayers of "Allah to the Great" that the recording of the cockpit ended. The plane almost completely flipped over at the last moment, flying at five hundred and sixty-three miles per hour, with the nose facing down at a forty-degree angle, and the Boeing 757 carrying more than five thousand gallons of aviation fuel crossed the high-voltage wires and reached its end.
United Airlines 93 caught fire and exploded, the cockpit was disconnected, plunged forward into the ground, and then cracked into countless pieces. The rest of the plane burrowed fifteen feet deep into the ground, into a patch of soft grass that had once been an open-pit coal mine called Diamond T. The flight, which first took to San Francisco, was hijacked for Washington, D.C., before crashing in Shanksville, a small town of just two hundred and forty-five people in Pennsylvania. It takes about fifteen minutes to fly to the capital.
The time is 10:03.
Author Mitchell Zukov (above), a pulitzer prize for investigative reporting when he was a journalist on the Boston Globe's Spotlight team, is now a Boston Professor who has published eight nonfiction books and several on the New York Times best-seller list. With an amazon score of 4.8/5 and a goodreads score of 4.7/5, "Fall and Rebirth" was praised by the New York Times, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Daily Telegraph and other media, and was selected as the Best Book of the 2019 Cox Book Review. The American drama of the same name, adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriter Mark Ball, will be released in 2021.
Edit: Jin Jiuchao