понедельник, 17 сентября 2012 г.

Passenger's wife:Husband told her of plan to fight hijackers; United Flight 93:Struggle apparently preceded Tuesday's plane crash in Pennsylvania - Telegraph - Herald (Dubuque)

HACKENSACK, N.J. - In the final moments of United Airlines Flight93, Jeremy Glick told his wife to take care of their newborndaughter and have a good life because he and a few passengers weregoing to storm the cockpit to try to prevent a terrorist attack onthe nation's capital.

For 30 minutes before the giant airliner, bound for San Franciscofrom Newark, smashed into a field southeast of Pittsburgh, Glick wason his cell phone talking to his wife, Lyzbeth, at their WestMilford, N.J., home.

As law-enforcement authorities, contacted by her father, listenedin, Jeremy Glick told his wife that three knife-wielding hijackerson a suicide mission had commandeered the plane and told passengersthey were going to crash it as part of a coordinated strike againstAmerica.

'He was asking her what was happening with the World Tradetowers, 'cause they were saying to everybody this is happeningaround the country,' Glick's sister, Jennifer Glick, said during aninterview at her parents' Upper Saddle River home.

It was about 10 a.m. Tuesday, and two planes hijacked afterleaving Boston had already slammed into the Twin Towers in lowerManhattan.

'I'm not positive where this was targeted but based on what I'mhearing now on the news ... the plane was headed to either the WhiteHouse or another target,' said Jennifer Glick, 36, an attorney inNew York City.

Jeremy Glick, 31, described the hijackers as dark-skinned MiddleEastern men who brandished knives, wore red headbands, and claimedthat a red box they carried was a bomb, his sister said. They forcedthe passengers and crew to the rear of the plane and told them theywere going to die.

Jeremy Glick told his wife that he and a few passengers devised aplan to try to stop the terrorists.

'They were going to jump the hijackers. They kept the phone onand apparently they went into the cockpit and they crashed the planeor the plane crashed,' Jennifer Glick said. 'I don't know how ithappened.'

Her husband, Doug Hurwitt, said: 'He knew that stopping them wasgoing to end all of their lives. But that was my brother-in-law. Hewas a take-charge guy.'

Flight 93 was the only one of the four hijacked planes that didnot strike a major target, and some officials said the actions ofthe passengers might have prevented an even greater tragedy.

Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on theHouse defense appropriations committee, said at the Pennsylvaniacrash site that he believes a struggle took place in the cockpit andthat the plane was headed for a significant target in Washington,D.C.

'There had to have been a struggle and someone heroically keptthe plane from heading to Washington,' he said.

Jeremy Glick, who worked in sales and marketing for a technologycompany, was on a business trip to San Francisco.

The third of six children whose names all start with 'J,' Glickmarried his junior-high-school sweetheart and, after trying for along time to have a child, their daughter, Emerson, was born June18, Glick's sister said.

'He and Lyz adored each other,' Jennifer Glick said, and he'adored' his daughter.

Their brother, Jed, 23, agreed.

'He was having a good life,' Jed Glick said. 'He loved being afather and was just getting used to it. It's sad that she won't getto know him.'

Jennifer Glick said her brother loved skiing and water sports andlived life to the fullest.

'He always lived life to the absolute extremes and was always ahero,' she said. '(He) was always proud, and would take care ofeverybody.'

He went to Upper Saddle River Day School, graduated from theUniversity of Rochester, and was a national collegiate judochampion.

Jeremy Glick also is survived by his mother, Joan, a Fairviewspeech teacher, and his father, Lloyd, who works at a technologyfirm in New York City, as well as brothers Jared and Jonah andsister Joanna.

Jennifer Glick choked back tears as she described her brother'sheart-breaking goodbye.

'He told Lyz that she should be happy in her life and take careof Emerson. And to say that he loved us, all his siblings, and hisparents and his nephews.'

Copyright 2000 by Telegraph Herald, All rights Reserved.