Sept. 23 — A desperate and wild struggle — that’s how law enforcement officials describe what they’ve heard on the cockpit voice recorder of United Flight 93. In the days since that plane went down outside Pittsburgh, we’ve brought you the stories of the phone calls maTOM BURNETT JR. grew up in a land where larger-than-life legends were what a small boy had to look up to. He was a Minnesota kid, a hometown boy whose airplane rides were pretty timid back then; an outdoorsy type who loved to fish with his Dad, to swim with his Mom; a pesky little brother who earned the total devotion of his two sisters. Like many young American males, he loved sports — baseball was an early passion. And by high school he was the star quarterback on the football team. He was a big guy, 6 foot 2 and 205 lbs.But while his close-knit family happily stayed put in a Minneapolis suburb, Tom Burnett acquired a taste for adventure. He won an appointment to the Air Force Academy, where he would have learned to fly, but he left when he discovered he’d rather give orders than take them. de by some of the passengers who most likely confronted the hijackers. Here’s the story of another member of that courageous group — a beloved husband and father, an adored son, an able business leader — and a man who would not sit quietly and let the terrorists carry out their plan. He chose another university and studied business instead, eventually leading a California company that makes a medical device doctors use to mend broken hearts. But business put him in the air — he flew across the country so many times the woman he proposed to was a flight attendant.
When their daughters arrived — first 5-year-old twins Halley and Madison, then a year later, Anna Clare — Deena Burnett stopped flying.
So when the horrific events of September 11 began to unfold, Deena was in the kitchen fixing breakfast, watching television. She worried because she knew her husband was planning to fly home from New York that morning.
She got a call from Tom’s mother in Minnesota.
Deena Burnett: “We both knew he was in New York. I did not know which flight he was coming out on. And while I was on the phone with her, the phone rang in on call waiting and it was Tom. I asked him immediately if he was OK and he said no. He said I’m on the airplane, United Flight 93 and it’s been hijacked.” Maria Shriver: “What went through your mind?”
Burnett: “What went through my mind was just terror and he gave me a few details and said, ‘please call the authorities’ and hung up.”
Shriver: “What details did he give you?”
Burnett: “Just that they had knifed a guy, that they had a bomb on board.”
Deena immediately called 911. But with all the chaos in New York, it took a while before she could get anyone to believe that her husband was on yet another hijacked plane. While she was talking to the FBI, Tom called again with an update on the hijackers.
Maria Shriver: “And what did he say to you this time?”
Deena Burnett: “He said they were in the cockpit. He asked me about the World Trade Center. He asked if it was a passenger airline and I told him I didn’t know. And he said, ‘OK,’ and he hung up again. Said that he had to go.” Shriver: “And then what did you do?”
Burnett: “I remember hugging the telephone, waiting for it to ring, and the reporter on TV said that there was a plane that had just hit the Pentagon. And I remember just wailing, thinking that it was my husband’s flight, because they didn’t give the flight number.”
Deena says she began to sob — her daughters hugged her, asked what was wrong.
Deena Burnett: “And the phone rang, and it was Tom. And I was so glad to hear from him.”
Shriver: “So relieved.”
Burnett: “Was so relieved.” Deena told him a plane had just crashed into the Pentagon and that she told the authorities — the FBI — about his calls.
Burnett: “He said, we can’t wait for the authorities. And he was just pumping me for information. His adrenaline was flowing. And he was trying to sort it out. And I think he realized much sooner than I did that it was a suicide mission.”
Shriver: “And then he hung up.”
Burnett: “He hung up.”
And, fifteen seconds later, what would be his final call.
Deena Burnett: “And he said, ‘OK, there’s a group of us and we’re going to do something.’ I said, ‘No.’ And I said, ‘Please sit down and be still, be quiet, don’t draw attention to yourself.’ And he said, no, he said, ‘If they’re going to drive this plane into the ground,’ he said, ‘we’ve got to do something.’”
And he hung up the phone and never called back.
How long Deena sat watching, waiting, hoping is a blur, as she stared at the frantic rescue efforts in New York. She says she stubbornly held out for that familiar voice, telling her he had gotten control of the plane. That — even as pictures of the smoldering wreckage of United Flight 93 — Tom’s flight — were broadcast.
Burnett: “I was still holding on to the telephone. I held on to the phone for three hours until the battery ran down.”
Back in Minnesota, Tom’s mother Beverly was in a daze — clinging to the futile belief that he would somehow be OK.
Beverly Burnett: “I just thought he was coming home.”
And no wonder it seemed impossible that he was dead. Only hours before, her beloved and loving son had called her from his hotel room in New York, describing the neon wonderland of Times Square at his feet.
Beverly Burnett: “I thought he was gonna be OK, he’s just always been there. (crying) I was just optimistic he’d be OK.”
His dad, Tom Senior — by all accounts, his best friend, fishing buddy, confidante, best man at his wedding — was more realistic.
Tom Burnett Sr.: “I was worried, like someone hit me in the stomach, you know.”
Maria Shriver: “And when your wife kept saying, ‘it’s going to be OK, I’m sure it’s OK,’ what did you say to her?”
Tom Burnett Sr.: “I just walked out the front door and paced the sidewalk for a bit.”
Tom’s little sister, Mary Margaret, who always thought her brother walked on water, hadn’t seen the pictures yet. She prayed now for a miracle.
Mary Margaret Burnett: “There was hope. At least I had hope at that point. And I thought maybe they crashed safely. One of those landings, you know, maybe they hit water.”
In fact, his whole family clung to the notion that Tom was somehow invincible.
Tom Burnett Sr.: “Not Superman, maybe, but analytical and highly intelligent and capable of doing something like that.”
Maria Shriver: “Many of these calls we’ve heard — people have called home to say goodbye. And one gets the sense that he didn’t really feel like he was calling to say goodbye.” Deena Burnett: “No, he was not calling to say goodbye. And I think if he had said goodbye, I would have been terrified. He was taking down information, he was planning what they were going to do. And he was not interested in reviewing his life, or whispering sweet nothings to the telephone, I assure you. He was problem solving and he was going to take care of it and come on home.”
But in the days since the crash, Tom Burnett’s life and death have been reviewed — at memorial services across the country — in San Ramon, California, where he lived, and in his home town of Bloomington, Minnesota.
| And those tributes — hailing him as a hero — a label, his family says, he would have found excessive. Deena Burnett: “He would often get irritated that the word hero would be used freely and on people who were undeserving. He didn’t think that there were many heroes out there. So he would be embarrassed, yet he would be very honored.” Maria Shriver: “So many people are calling him an American hero, does that help you?” Burnett: “I would have much preferred him to come home than to be anyone’s hero.” Shriver: “Deena, what did you say to your kids?” Burnett: “I sat them on the bed, and I told them that — that Dad was not coming home. And they asked why and I said, the plane that he had been on had bad people on it, and the bad people did something to the airplane to make it crash and that all the people in the airplane died. And they were hanging on every word. And then when I said ‘died’ they just burst into tears. And they said, ‘No.’” Death is a hard thought when you’re only five. Deena Burnett: “And they said, ‘Well, where is Dad now, if he’s dead? Where is he? And I said “Well, he’s in heaven. And my little one said, ‘Why does he want to be with Jesus instead of us? Madison asked if she could call him on his cell phone. And I told her no, that he didn’t have a cell phone in heaven. And Hallie said, ‘Well can the postman take a letter to him?’ So they understand that he’s not coming home but they don’t understand exactly where he is or why.” The why, of course, has many answers. But, another question may be why Tom Burnett, Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick fought back against the terrorists. In the case of Tom Burnett, those who knew him best say he was a deeply spiritual man, who rarely missed daily mass, who counted among his closest friends a Roman Catholic priest, Monsignor Joe Slepicka. Monsignor Joe Slepicka: “What causes a person to throw his life on the line — it’s got to be the fact that he believes God is with him.” Not only love of God and love of family but love of country too. Maybe the thought that his plane might be crashed into the nation’s capital is also what propelled Tom Burnett up the aisle of that doomed jet. Maria Shriver: “What will you tell your children when they’re a little bit older about their father?” Deena Burnett: “I’ll tell them that he loved them and that he wanted them even before they were ever born. I’ll tell them the kind of life he lead with honor and dignity and integrity and how he believed that being a good citizen was the most important thing any of us could become.” As word of what Tom Burnett did spread, the expressions of support poured into his family. From the White House to the schoolhouse, thanks and praise and comfort. Tom Burnett Sr.: “Wherever we go people know us now, in town that is, and that’s — it’s comforting. They say he did a wonderful thing.” The pride, the overwhelming support, the kindness of strangers — the Burnett family knows it will help them get through these days of numbing disbelief. But they know that soon the hole his death has left in their lives — the ache — will deepen.” His sister Martha... Martha Burnett: “You think he’ll call, he’ll ring up. he’ll walk through the door.” The son and brother who came home for every holiday, for every family celebration, every chance he got won’t be walking through that door again. But the telling and retelling of what he did that Tuesday morning in September will surely earn him a place on that roster of legendary figures he so admired as a little boy. The Burnett family is flying to Washington where they will get a chance to gather with other United Flight 93 families. They’ll be together for a meeting at the White House with President Bush. |
||||