{"id":970,"date":"2011-11-07T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2011-11-07T10:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/americainuniform\/?p=970"},"modified":"2011-10-28T02:58:26","modified_gmt":"2011-10-28T02:58:26","slug":"the-events-of-sept-11-2001-and-an-f-16-pilot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/11\/the-events-of-sept-11-2001-and-an-f-16-pilot.html","title":{"rendered":"The Events of Sept. 11, 2001 and an F-16 Pilot"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a feature from a subscriber who remarks, \u201cWow!\u00a0 This is one of the best “courage” stories I have ever read.\u00a0 When I read this I get upset at athletes being called heroic or doing a brave thing… They are just playing a game especially with the NFL strike and now the NBA brain surgeons on strike\u2026 stupid and arrogant.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The events of Sept. 11, 2001 put an F-16 pilot into the sky with orders to bring down United Flight 93<\/strong>
\nBy Steve Hendrix<\/p>\n

Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather \u201cLucky\u201d Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly.\u00a0 She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93.\u00a0 The day\u2019s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington.\u00a0 Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off,\u201d says Maj. Heather \u201cLucky\u201d Penney, remembering the Sept. 11 attacks and the initial U.S. reaction.<\/p>\n

The one thing she didn\u2019t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition.\u00a0 Or missiles.\u00a0 Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.<\/p>\n

Except her own plane.\u00a0 So that was the plan.<\/p>\n

Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding\u00a0 officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be shooting it down.\u00a0 We\u2019d be ramming the aircraft,\u201d Penney recalls of her charge that day.\u00a0 \u201cI would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, Penney, one of the first generation of female combat pilots in the country, gave no interviews about her experiences on Sept. 11 (which included, eventually,\u00a0 escorting Air Force One back into Washington\u2019s suddenly highly restricted airspace).<\/p>\n

But 10 years later, she is reflecting on one of the lesser-told tales of that endlessly examined morning: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to protect the airspace any way we could,\u201d she said last week in her office at Lockheed Martin, where she is a director in the F-35 program.<\/p>\n

Penney, now a major but still a petite blonde with a Colgate grin, is no longer a combat flier.\u00a0 She flew two tours in Iraq and she serves as a part-time National Guard pilot, mostly hauling VIPs around in a military Gulfstream.\u00a0 She takes the stick of her own vintage 1941 Taylorcraft tail-dragger whenever she can.<\/p>\n

But none of her thousands of hours in the air quite compare with the urgent rush of launching on what was supposed to be a one-way flight to a midair collision.<\/p>\n

First of her kind<\/strong>
\nShe was a rookie in the autumn of 2001, the first female F-16\u00a0 pilot they\u2019d ever had at the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard.\u00a0 She had grown up smelling jet fuel.\u00a0 Her father flew jets in Vietnam and still races them.\u00a0 Penney got her pilot\u2019s license when she was a literature major at Purdue.\u00a0 She planned to be a teacher.\u00a0 But during a graduate program in American studies, Congress opened up combat aviation to women and Penney was nearly first in line.<\/p>\n

\u201cI signed up immediately,\u201d she says. \u201cI wanted to be a fighter pilot like my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

On that Tuesday, they had just finished two weeks of air combat training in Nevada.\u00a0 They were sitting around a briefing table when someone looked in to say a plane had hit the World Trade Center in New York.\u00a0 When it happened once, they assumed it was some yahoo in a Cessna.\u00a0 When it happened again, they knew it was war.<\/p>\n

But the surprise was complete.\u00a0 In the monumental confusion of those first hours, it was impossible to get clear orders.\u00a0 Nothing was ready.\u00a0 The jets were still equipped with dummy bullets from the training mission.<\/p>\n

As remarkable as it seems now, there were no armed aircraft standing by and no system in place to scramble them over Washington.\u00a0 Before that morning, all eyes were looking outward, still scanning the old Cold War threat paths for planes and missiles coming over the polar ice cap.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no perceived threat at the time, especially one coming from the homeland like that,\u201d says Col. George Degnon, vice commander of the 113th Wing at Andrews.\u00a0 \u201cIt was a little bit of a helpless feeling, but we did everything humanly possible to get the aircraft armed and in the air.\u00a0 It was amazing to see people react.\u201d<\/p>\n

Things are different today, Degnon says.\u00a0 At least two \u201chot-cocked\u201d planes are ready at all times, their pilots never more than yards from the cockpit.<\/p>\n

A third plane hit the Pentagon, and almost at once came word that a fourth plane could be on the way, maybe more.\u00a0 The jets would be armed within an hour, but somebody had to fly now, weapons or no weapons.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky, you\u2019re coming with me,\u201d barked Col. Marc Sasseville.<\/p>\n

They were gearing up in the pre-flight life-support area when Sasseville, struggling into his flight suit, met her eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to go for the cockpit,\u201d Sasseville said.<\/p>\n

She replied without hesitating.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll take the tail.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a plan.\u00a0 And a pact.<\/p>\n

\u2018Let\u2019s go!\u2019<\/p>\n

Penney had never scrambled a jet before.\u00a0 Normally the pre-flight is a half-hour or so of methodical checks.\u00a0 She automatically started going down the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucky, what are you doing?\u00a0 Get your butt up there and let\u2019s go!\u201d Sasseville shouted.<\/p>\n

She climbed in, rushed to power up the engines, screamed for her ground crew to pull the chocks.\u00a0 The crew chief still had his headphones plugged into the fuselage as she nudged the throttle forward.\u00a0 He ran along pulling safety pins from the jet as it moved forward.<\/p>\n

She muttered a fighter pilot\u2019s prayer \u2014 \u201cGod, don\u2019t let me [expletive] up\u201d \u2014 and followed Sasseville into the sky.<\/p>\n

They screamed over the smoldering Pentagon, heading northwest at more than 400 mph, flying low and scanning the clear horizon.\u00a0 Her commander had time to think about the best place to hit the enemy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t train to bring down airliners,\u201d said Sasseville, now stationed at the Pentagon.\u00a0 \u201cIf you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target.\u00a0 My thought was the cockpit or the wing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also thought about his ejection seat.\u00a0 Would there be an instant just before impact?<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hoping to do both at the same time,\u201d he says.\u00a0 \u201cIt probably wasn\u2019t going to work, but that\u2019s what I was hoping.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penney worried about missing the target if she tried to bail out.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you eject and your jet soars through without impact . . .\u201d she trails off, the thought of failing more dreadful than the thought of dying.<\/p>\n

But she didn\u2019t have to die.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t have to knock down an airliner full of kids and salesmen and girlfriends.\u00a0 They did that themselves.<\/p>\n

It would be hours before Penney and Sasseville learned that United 93 had already gone down in Pennsylvania, an insurrection by hostages willing to do just what the two Guard pilots had been willing to do: Anything.\u00a0 And everything.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves,\u201d Penney says. \u201cI was just an accidental witness to history.\u201d<\/p>\n

She and Sasseville flew the rest of the day, clearing the airspace, escorting the president, looking down onto a city that would soon be sending them to war.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s a single mom of two girls now.\u00a0 She still loves to fly.\u00a0 And she still thinks often of that extraordinary ride down the runway a decade ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cI genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off,\u201d she says.\u00a0 \u201cIf we did it right, this would be it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

Loyal Subscribers!\u00a0 We need some help.\u00a0 The purpose of our “Heart” section is to publish stories of the experiences, contributions and sacrifices of our military (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard) and public service personnel (police officers, fire fighters, EMS, merchant marines and others in the public sector) as well as stories of their families.\u00a0 Please search your memory and computer for a few and\u00a0send them to Bill\u00a0(CPT Otis) O’Quin at boquin@ix.netcom.com<\/a><\/strong> for possible publication. \u00a0Thanks!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Important links for updated military\/defense information:
\nThe Daily News Briefing<\/a><\/strong>:<\/a> Today’s News for the U.S. Military, their families and friends.
\n The Military Trivia Challenge:<\/a><\/strong> Register and test your knowledge about military history.
\n U.S. Department of Defense:<\/a><\/strong> Military Defense News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a feature from a subscriber who remarks, \u201cWow!\u00a0 This is one of the best “courage” stories I have ever read.\u00a0 When I read this I get upset at athletes being called heroic or doing a brave thing… They are just playing a game especially with the NFL strike and now the NBA brain surgeons…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":442,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interesting-stories"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Events of Sept. 11, 2001 and an F-16 Pilot - America in Uniform<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/americainuniform\/2011\/11\/the-events-of-sept-11-2001-and-an-f-16-pilot.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Events of Sept. 11, 2001 and an F-16 Pilot - 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