Outside the Cockpit Door, a Fight to Save the Plane

The pilot turned the jetliner and headed east. The commission believes his target was the White House or the Capitol.

A woman, most likely a flight attendant, was held in the cockpit at one point. On the cockpit voice recorder, she could be heard struggling with a hijacker, who silenced her. A passenger soon reported in a another phone conversation that a flight attendant had been killed.

At 9:39, an air traffic controller overheard an announcement that there was a bomb on board and the airliner was returning to the airport. The fact that the controller heard it meant that the hijacker had pressed the wrong button on his radio. That also meant his words were not broadcast to the cabin.

The cockpit voice recorder, drawing from microphones in the pilots' headsets and an overhead panel, recorded the last 31 minutes of the flight. Also, at least 10 passengers and two crew members who had been forced to the back of the aircraft made calls on the plane's air phone system, learning of the World Trade Center attack.

At least five calls included word that passengers were discussing a revolt to retake the plane. One said they had voted on it.

"At 9:57 a.m.," the commission said, "the passenger assault began."

Ending a call to the ground, one woman aboard the plane said: "Everyone's running up to first class. I've got to go. 'Bye."

When the passengers charged, the hijackers' pilot, Ziad Samir Jarrah, rolled the airplane right and left, trying to knock the attackers off balance. At 9:58, he told another hijacker to block the door. A minute later, he pitched the nose of the airplane up and down for 11 seconds.

At 8 seconds past 10 o'clock, Jarrah asked a colleague: "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?"

The other hijacker replied, "No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off."

The recorder captured the sounds of continued fighting outside the cockpit, and Jarrah again dipped the airplane's nose.

At 26 seconds past 10, a passenger cried out: "In the cockpit. If we don't, we'll die!"

Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, "Roll it!" This appears to be distinct from "Let's roll!" -- the phrase made famous after Todd Beamer used it apparently to rally fellow passengers as he ended a call with a GTE Airfone operator.

At 10:01, Jarrah stopped the maneuvers and called out twice, "Allah is the greatest!" He asked his fellow hijacker again, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" This time his colleague answered, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down."

Eighty-three seconds later, at 10:02:23, with sounds of the passenger assault still audible, the hijacker called out, "Pull it down! Pull it down!"

"Jarrah's objective was to crash his airliner into the symbols of the American republic, the Capitol or the White House," the commission wrote. "He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93."