At some point -- the best estimation is about 40 minutes into the flight west -- at least three of the hijackers stood up and put red bandanas around their heads. Two of them forced their way into the cockpit. One took the loudspeaker microphone, unaware it could also be heard by air traffic controllers, and announced that someone had a bomb onboard and the flight was returning to the airport. He told them he was the pilot, but spoke with an accent.

U.S. Rep. John P. Murtha, D-Johnstown, a ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, described the announcement this way: "As they got toward Cleveland, the hijackers said 'Look, just be calm, we're going to land this plane.' "

By that time, though, Jarrah and his crew apparently had already drawn blood. Deena Burnett was waking up at her home in San Ramon, Calif. She'd gone down to the kitchen to fix breakfast for her three daughters. The phone rang. She recalls it was around 6:20 a.m. -- 9:20 Eastern time.

It was Tom.

"Are you all right?" she asked. "No. I'm on United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco. The plane has been hijacked. We are in the air. They've already knifed a guy. There is a bomb on board.

Call the FBI." Deena Burnett dialed 911.

Jeremy Glick picked up a GTE Airfone just before 9:30 a.m. and called his in-laws in the Catskills. His wife, Lyz, and daughter, Emerson, were visiting. The family had been transfixed in front of a television, watching news coverage of airliners smashing into the World Trade Center in New York. Glick's mother-in-law, JoAnne Makely, answered. "Jeremy," she said, "Thank God. We're so worried."

"It's bad news," Glick replied. He asked for Lyz. Lyz recalls no background noise. No commotion. He described the men as Arabic-looking, wearing red headbands, carrying knives. One told passengers he had a bomb. Most passengers had been forced to the rear of the cabin. Glick's mother-in-law went to another phone and dialed 911. As Jeremy and Lyz spoke, New York state police patched in on the call.

Glick asked his wife: Was it true that planes had been crashed into the World Trade Center? Yes, she said. Glick thought so. Another passenger had been on the phone home and heard the same thing.

Around 9:30, Deena Burnett's phone rang again. It was Tom. "He didn't sound frightened, but he was speaking faster than he normally would," she said. He told her the hijackers were in the cockpit. "I told him a lot of planes had been hijacked, that they don't know how many," she said. "You've got to be kidding," he replied. "No," she said. Were they commercial planes, airliners, he asked her. She didn't know. "OK," he said, "I've got to go." He hung up.

Deena looked at the television. The Pentagon suddenly appeared, a hole torn into its side by an oncoming airplane. She wondered if it was her husband's flight. Deena Burnett started crying.

Alice Hoglan was visiting her sister-in-law, Kathy Hoglan, in Saratoga, Calif., when the phone rang. It was 9:42 Eastern time. Kathy's nephew, Mark Bingham was on the line. "Alice, talk to Mark," Kathy said, handing her the phone. "He's been hijacked." "Mom? This is Mark Bingham," the voice said. It sounded strange for her son to introduce himself by his full name. She knew he was flustered.

"I want to let you know that I love you. I'm on a flight from Newark to San Francisco and there are three guys who have taken over the plane and they say they have a bomb," he said. "Who are these guys?" Alice Hoglan asked. There was a pause. Hoglan heard murmurs of conversation in English. Mark's voice came back.

"You believe me, don't you?" he asked. "Yes, Mark. I believe you. But who are these guys?" There was a pause. Alice heard background noise. The line went dead.

Todd Beamer was near the rear of the plane, trying to use his company's Airfone account. For some reason, he couldn't get authorization for the call. Finally, he was routed to a Verizon customer service center in Oakbrook, Ill. He told the operator his airliner had been hijacked. He was patched through immediately to Lisa Jefferson, a Verizon supervisor. It was 9:45 a.m.

Somewhere outside Cleveland, United Flight 93 had made a sharp turn and began flying east, toward Washington, D.C.

Beamer told Jefferson he was sitting next to a flight attendant. He could see three hijackers, armed with knives. One insisted he had a bomb. Twenty-seven of the passengers had been herded to the rear of the plane, where the hijacker with the bomb was guarding them, he said. Two hijackers were in the cockpit. A fourth was in first class. He asked Jefferson to promise to call his wife, and their two sons, David, 4, and Drew, 2. "Oh! We're going down!" Beamer shouted. There was a pause. Then, calmly: "No, we're OK. I think we're turning around."

Deena Burnett doesn't know how she did it, but she went on with her morning rituals. She got the 5-year-old twins up and ready for school. She called a friend to get them there. While Beamer was on the phone with Lisa Jefferson, Deena Burnett's phone rang again. Tom was still alive. "They're taking airplanes and hitting landmarks all up and down the East Coast," she told him. "OK," he replied. "We're going to do something. I'll call you back." Click.

In Fort Myers, Fla., Lorne Lyles didn't hear the phone ringing. He'd worked the night shift and had lain down to sleep at 7:30. At 9:47 a.m., the answering machine picked up a call from his wife, CeeCee, stranded in the back of the airplane. When the tape was played back hours later, CeeCee Lyles could be heard praying for her family, for herself, for the souls of the men who had hijacked her plane. "I hope I'll see your face again," she said.

Lyz Glick was still on the phone with Jeremy. She stood in her parents' living room while the television screen filled with the sight of two burning towers. "You need to be strong," she said. State police, on the other line with Glick's mother-in-law, relayed a question: Did Glick know where his plane was? Glick didn't know, but he sensed they had changed direction. Lyz and Jeremy spoke of their love for each other. "I need you to be happy," he told her, "and I will respect any decisions that you make." Then he told her the passengers were taking a vote: Should they try to take back the plane? "Honey, you need to do it," Lyz told him. Glick wondered what to use for a weapon. "I have my butter knife from breakfast," he joked.

Phil Bradshaw was home in Greensboro, N.C., on the telephone, talking with a friend about the horrors on television. The line clicked. He asked his friend to hold. It was Sandy Bradshaw, his wife, the flight attendant. "Have you heard what's going on? My flight has been hijacked. My flight has been hijacked by three guys with knives," she said. Who was flying the plane? Phil asked his wife. "I don't know who's flying the plane or where we are," she said. Sandy Bradshaw, who was trained never to spill hot coffee on a paying customer, slipped into the airplane's galley and began filling pitchers with boiling water.

Some calls from Flight 93 arrived at hours people can no longer recall. Marion Britton, 53, assistant director of the Census Bureau's New York office, phoned a longtime friend, Fred Fiumano. All he can remember is that it was "sometime after 9:30."

Britton was crying. She had been hijacked, she told Fiumano, and two people on the plane already had been killed. "I was trying to console her," Fiumano said. "I said 'Don't worry, they're only going to take you for a ride. You'll be all right.' "

Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas, 38, phoned her husband Jack in San Rafael, Calif. She'd been scheduled to take a later flight that day, but rebooked to get home sooner. Jack hadn't heard the message. He'd seen the madness on television, and when Jack's sister-in-law phoned to ask if he'd heard from Lauren, he checked the phone machine. "Sweetie," the voice came over the tape, "pick up the phone if you can hear me." There was a brief pause. "OK, I love you. There's a little problem with the plane. I'm fine and comfortable for now." She told Jack she loved him. She asked him to tell her parents and family how much she loved them, too. Then she passed the Airfone to the woman seated next to her. "Now you call your people," Grandcolas told her.

Honor Elizabeth Wainio, 27, took the phone from Grandcolas and dialed her stepmother, Esther Heymann, in Baltimore. "Mom, we're being hijacked. I just called to say good bye," she said. "Elizabeth, we don't know how this is going to turn out. I've got my arms around you," Heymann said. Wainio told her stepmother she could feel them. "Let's look out at that beautiful blue sky. Let's be here in the moment," Heymann told her. "Let's do some deep breathing together." They passed a few quiet moments. "It hurts me that it's going to be so much harder for you all than it is for me," Wainio said. "I see a river." Sandy Bradshaw couldn't name it. It suggested, though, that Flight 93 was somewhere over Western Pennsylvania. "I just told her to be safe and come home soon," Phil Bradshaw said. "She said she hoped she would."

Sometime shortly before 10 a.m., Tom Burnett called home one last time. "A group of us is going to do something," he told Deena. "I told him, 'No, Tom, just sit down and don't draw attention to yourself,' " she said. "Deena," he told her, "If they're going to crash the plane into the ground, we have to do something. We can't wait for the authorities. We have to do something now." The authorities, at that moment, had scrambled three F-16 fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va. The planes, armed with heat-seeking, Sidewinder missiles, were authorized to knock down any civilian aircraft that appeared headed toward a target on the ground. The fighter jets were 14 minutes out of range and closing in. "Pray, just pray, Deena. We're going to do something," Tom Burnett told his wife. Still on his own phone call, Todd Beamer was pouring out his heart to his family through Lisa Jefferson, the Verizon supervisor he'd reached on his Airfone.

They prayed the 23rd Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want He maketh me to lie down in green pastures He leadeth me beside the still waters ...

Sometime shortly before 10 a.m., the direct line from Cleveland Air Traffic Control rang inside the control tower at Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, 70 miles east of Pittsburgh. Did Johnstown tower have any radio contact with a large aircraft about 20 miles to its south? Supervisor Dennis Fritz and controller Thomas Hull picked up binoculars -- the tower has no radar -- and scanned the horizon to the south. The day was clear and, from the highest point in the area, they could spot radio towers in neighboring Somerset County. A large plane would have stood out.

"We didn't see a thing," Fritz said.

Hull went on the radio and broadcast an open message: "Aircraft 20 South of the field, contact Johnstown tower ... ."

Ninety seconds later, Cleveland called back. The plane was now 15 miles south and heading directly for the Johnstown tower.

"We suggest you evacuate," they told him. Fritz ordered trainees and custodial staff out of the 85-foot tower. He and Hull stayed at their posts and scanned the south with binoculars. It occurred to Fritz that the plane must be flying below the level of the mountain ridges around them.

From the back of Flight 93, CeeCee Lyles finally reached her husband, Lorne. "Babe, my plane's been hijacked," she said. "Huh? Stop joking," he said. "No babe, I wouldn't joke like that. I love you. Tell the boys I love them." The pair prayed. In the background, Lorne Lyles could hear what he now believes was the sound of men planning a counterattack. "They're getting ready to force their way into the cockpit," she told him. When he had finished talking with Lisa Jefferson, finished relaying his love for his family, finished praying the Psalm that asked for green pastures and still waters, Todd Beamer put down the phone, still connected with the outside world.

"Are you guys ready?

Let's roll," he said.

Honor Wainio was still on the line with her stepmother. "I need to go," she said. "They're getting ready to break into the cockpit. I love you. Goodbye."

"Everyone's running to first class," Sandy Bradshaw told her husband. "I've got to go. Bye."

CeeCee Lyles let out a scream. "They're doing it!

They're doing it! They're doing it!" she said. Lorne Lyles heard a scream. Then his wife said something he couldn't understand. Then the line went dead.

Forty-five seconds after telling Fritz to evacuate the Johnstown tower, Cleveland Air Traffic Control phoned again. "They said to disregard. The aircraft had turned to the south and they lost radar contact with him." It was 10:06 a.m.

Fritz and Hull studied the horizon to the south. They couldn't see a thing.

NEWS RELEASE

11:17AM, EST

United Airlines has confirmed one of its flights has crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft, is the flight number involved. The flight originated in Newark and was bound for San Francisco. United is deeply concerned about a further flight, United Flight 175, a Boeing 767, which was bound from Boston to Los Angeles.

On behalf of the airline, CEO James E. Goodwin said, "The thoughts of everyone at United are with the passengers and crew of these flights. Our prayers are also with everyone on the ground who may have been involved in today's tragic events. United is working with all the relevant authorities, including the FBI, to obtain further information on these flights. In the meantime, in line with FAA directives, a worldwide groundstop on all our flights continues. For further information, friends and relatives who may be concerned about a passenger on United Flight 93 should call 1-800-932-8555."

The next day, Deena Burnett gathered the three girls on her bed and tried to explain the inexplicable.

"There were some bad guys on dad's airplane," she said. "The bad guys caused the airplane to crash and everyone on board died." "And Dad, too?" one of them asked. "Yes," she said. The four of them cried together for a while. They asked where their father was. Deena told them heaven.

The youngest, Anna Clare, 3, asked her, "Why does he want to be with Jesus instead of us?" "I'm really going to miss his silly faces," said Madison, one of the twins. "I will, too," Deena said. "Well, can we call him on his cell phone?" Madison asked. "No," Deena told them. "There are no cell phones in heaven." Halley, the other twin, suggested they write a letter.

After the crash, Lorne Lyles discovered CeeCee's first message on the answering machine. He couldn't force himself to listen to it. He will. Someday. CeeCee's boys are with their father. Lorne's sons are with his ex-wife. He spends his days in an empty home in Fort Myers wondering when he will go to work again. "I felt so helpless," he said. "As a police officer, I protect and serve people all day long. But there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do to help my wife."

Christine Fraser, who dropped off her sister, Colleen, at the airport that morning, reproached herself for not getting out to hug her sibling. It was only after she worked up the courage to finally enter Colleen's room that Christine found her sister's turquoise, flower ring. Colleen had worn it for most of her life. It was her signature item. For some reason, she hadn't done so that day. "It was in her room, like she'd left it for me. I'm wearing it now," said Christine Fraser. "It's a comfort."