This article remembers Todd Beamer and the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93, recounting the timeline, calls, and final moments when those on board fought back against hijackers on September 11, 2001.

On the morning of September 11, Todd Beamer and 32 other passengers boarded United Airlines Flight 93 in Newark, bound for San Francisco. They did not know the flight would be seized by four terrorists and become the scene of a desperate, decisive struggle. What happened onboard would become one of the most searing examples of courage from that day.

Flight 93 pushed off the gate at 8:42 AM and was airborne when other attacks unfolded in New York and Washington, D.C. Around 9:28 AM, while over eastern Ohio, the hijackers moved to take over the aircraft, likely killing at least two people up front before forcing passengers and crew to the rear. Captain Jason M. Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer were incapacitated, and the terrorists turned the plane back toward the east and then southeast.

Todd Beamer used the onboard Airfone to reach his wife, Lisa, and then a GTE Airfone supervisor, Lisa Jefferson, after he could not get through at home. The Beamers had two sons and Lisa was pregnant with their third child. That call became one of the central records of the passengers’ awareness and resolve.

During their call, Beamer learned what had already happened in New York and at the Pentagon and asked, “Lisa, is that true?” Lisa told Todd, “It’s very bad,” and warned him their country was under attack. Beamer then asked Jefferson for a favor: “I want you to call my wife and kids for me and tell them what’s happened. Promise me you’ll call.” Jefferson responded, “I promise — I’ll call.”

Passenger Thomas Burnett made calls to his wife, Deena, who relayed the news of the World Trade Center and later the Pentagon. Burnett said, “Oh, my God,” and then, after learning more, told Deena and others that the situation looked like a suicide mission. In another call he reassured with, “Don’t worry. We’re going to do something.”

Other passengers made similar calls and learned what the terrorists had already done. Jeremy Glick spoke with his wife about the hijackers, Mark Bingham called his mother, and Flight 93’s crew and passengers combined for 37 calls from 13 different people. With that information, they moved from fear to planning and then to action.

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Flight attendants and passengers left brief, chilling messages: CeeCee Lyles called her husband, Sandy Bradshaw told her husband she was boiling water to use against the attackers, and Honor Wainio, during a lengthy call, said, “I have to go. They’re breaking into the cockpit. I love you.” Those voices show how quickly ordinary moments turned into life and death decisions.

Beamer, still on the line with Jefferson, told her the passengers would try to subdue the man claiming to have a bomb. Together they recited the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm, with other passengers joining in. Beamer asked Jefferson, “If I don’t make it, please call my family and let them know how much I love them,” and then the final, defining exchange came through the cabin: “Are you ready? Okay. Let’s roll.”

Investigations later found the hijackers deliberately chose flights with fewer passengers to lower the odds people would resist. Around 9:57 AM the revolt began, and over the next minutes the hijacker flying the plane tried to thwart the effort by rolling and pitching the aircraft. The cockpit voice recorder captured the chaos outside the flight deck and the sounds of passengers attempting to force their way forward.

The recorder includes a passenger shouting “Roll it,” possibly referencing a food cart used as a battering ram, and then a hijacker asking, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” The reply heard over the recorder was, “Yes, put it in and pull it down.” At 10:03 AM Flight 93 crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 20 minutes flying time from Washington, D.C.

Authorities later concluded the hijackers likely intended to strike the United States Capitol, and Vice President Dick Cheney said upon learning of the crash, “I think an act of heroism just took place on that plane.” The passengers’ decision to fight back prevented the aircraft from reaching its intended target and almost certainly saved many lives on the ground.

Every person on that flight deserves to be named for their bravery. Their actions are a reminder of what ordinary people can do when faced with extraordinary evil. Below is the full list of crew and passengers from Flight 93 who took part in that final stand:

• Captain Jason M. Dahl
• First Officer LeRoy Homer
• Lorraine G. Bay, Flight Attendant
• Sandy Waugh Bradshaw, Flight Attendant
• Wanda Anita Green, Flight Attendant
• CeeCee Ross Lyles, Flight Attendant
• Debora Jacobs Welsh, Flight Attendant
• Christian Adams
• Todd M. Beamer
• Alan Anthony Beaven
• Mark Bingham
• Deora Frances Bodley
• Marion R. Britton
• Thomas E. Burnett, Jr.
• William Joseph Cashman
• Georgine Rose Corrigan
• Patricia Cushing
• Joseph DeLuca
• Patrick Joseph Driscoll
• Edward Porter Felt
• Jane C. Folger
• Colleen L. Fraser
• Andrew “Sonny” Garcia
• Jeremy Logan Glick
• Kristin Osterholm White Gould
• Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas and her unborn child
• Donald Freeman Greene
• Linda Gronlund
• Richard J. Guadagno
• Toshiya Kuge
• Hilda Marcin
• Waleska Martinez
• Nicole Carol Miller
• Louis J. Nacke II
• Donald Arthur Peterson
• Jean Hoadley Peterson
• Mark David Rothenberg
• Christine Ann Snyder
• John Talignani
• Honor Elizabeth Wainio

Todd Beamer’s watch from that day is on display at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, smashed and charred but still frozen at 11, and his crumpled business card sits nearby as a poignant relic. Those small artifacts and the recorded voices remind us of the human choices made aboard Flight 93 and the cost those choices carried. “Let’s roll.”