Let’s roll: Remembering Todd Beamer, the father and husband who helped lead the revolt aboard Flight 93

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 11, 2026 – Todd Beamer boarded United Airlines Flight 93 on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, as a husband, father and businessman traveling from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco.

He died an American hero.

Beamer was 32 years old. His wife, Lisa, was pregnant with their third child, and their two sons, David and Drew, were waiting for him at home.

After four al-Qaeda terrorists seized Flight 93 and turned the Boeing 757 east toward Washington, D.C., Beamer attempted to call his wife using an onboard telephone. Instead, he was connected with GTE Airfone supervisor Lisa Jefferson.

There is no recording or verbatim transcript of their conversation. What Americans know about the call comes primarily from Jefferson’s recollection and subsequent investigations. Some versions circulated online dramatize or reconstruct the exchange and should not be presented as an exact transcript.

But the essential facts are well documented. Beamer told Jefferson that the flight had been hijacked. The terrorists had knives, had forced the passengers toward the rear of the aircraft and claimed to possess a bomb. Beamer believed the bomb might be fake.

During the call, Beamer and the other passengers then learned that aircraft had struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They understood that theirs was not an ordinary hijacking and that Flight 93 was likely intended to become another weapon.

At least 10 passengers and two crew members communicated with people on the ground. Through those calls, they pieced together what was happening and made a decision: They would fight back.

Beamer told Jefferson that he and several others planned to overpower the terrorist guarding the cabin and then break into the cockpit. He asked Jefferson to contact his wife and tell her and their children that he loved them.

He then asked Jefferson to pray with him.

Together, they recited the Lord’s Prayer and words from Psalm 23: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

At 9:57 a.m., the passengers and surviving crew members began their assault. The cockpit voice recorder captured a sustained struggle as the terrorists violently rolled and pitched the aircraft in an attempt to throw the passengers off balance.

Jefferson remained on the line. The final words she heard Beamer say to those around him became one of the enduring expressions of American courage from that terrible day:

“Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.”

Flight 93 crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 am, killing all 40 passengers and crew members, along with the four terrorists. The 9/11 Commission concluded that the passengers’ assault forced the hijackers to abandon their mission and crash the aircraft before it reached Washington. Investigators believe the likely target was the U.S. Capitol.

Beamer and the others aboard Flight 93 could not save themselves. But by acting together, they almost certainly saved many other lives.

Todd Beamer died a father, a husband and a hero. Twenty-five years later, America should still remember his name, his faith and his final act of courage.

Let’s never forget Todd Beamer. And let’s never forget the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who refused to remain pawns in the terrorists’ plot.

Read the The 9/11 Commission Report here.