September 11, 2001 was supposed to be a typical day for District of Columbia Air National Guard Lt. Heather Penney. As Penney recalled in an interview with HISTORY in 2016, she was attending a briefing at Andrews Air Force Base that morning, planning training operations for the month. At around 8:45 a.m., someone leaned into the room and said, “Hey, someone just stole from the World Trade Center.”
First Lieutenant Heather “Lucky” Penney was a graduate of Purdue University, majoring in literature. She had planned to be a teacher. When Congress opened up combat aviation to women, Penney immediately signed up. She wanted to be a fighter pilot like her father, John Penney, a retired Air Force colonel who had flown combat missions in Vietnam and was now a commercial pilot for United Airlines. After her training, she was posted to the 121st Air National Guard Fighter Squadron.
The morning of September 11
The weather in New York that day was very clear with blue skies. “We thought it was a little general aviation plane or, you know, a little plane that maybe … messed up their instrument approach,” Penney recalls. It was assumed that a General Aviation aircraft had made a terrible mistake and they returned to their meeting.
A few minutes later there was another knock on the door and someone said, “Hey, a second plane just hit the World Trade Center.” It was clear: America was under attack. They rushed to a nearby television and saw the towers on fire. As Penney said, that’s when “we realized that our world had suddenly changed.”
READ MORE: September 11: Photos of the worst terrorist attack on American soil
There was no time to arm their F-16 fighter jets
As confusion enveloped the briefing room, Penney’s commanding officer, Colonel Marc “Sass” Sasseville, looked at his people and said, “Luckily, you’re coming with me.” They rushed to the pre-flight area and put on their flight suits. There was no time to arm their F-16 fighter jets, so they would fly this mission virtually unarmed, containing only their unwavering courage.
But what was the mission? Where were they going? What were they looking for? There were no clear orders on what to do. Somewhere in the confusion as the pilots climbed into their flight suits and raced to their planes, the Pentagon was hit by the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77. Reports circulated that a fourth plane, United Flight 93 from Newark, New Jersey, was there. Air Command assumed it was also heading to DC for another strike on the Pentagon, or a strike on the White House or the Capitol building.
Normally, pre-flight preparation of F-16 fighter jets takes half an hour, which allows pilots to methodically work on a checklist. As a rookie, Penney’s only combat experience was in training. As they ran to their planes, she started going through the checklist. Sasseville stopped him and barked: “Luckily, what are you doing?” Get your butt up there and let’s go! She quickly climbed into her cockpit. As she powered up the engines, she yelled at the ground crew to pull the chocks holding the wheels.
Receiving the green light from flight control, the afterburners of both jets emitted thousands of pounds of thrust as they took off and headed northwest, the last known location of the fourth aircraft. Rumor had it that they had shoot-to-kill orders. Knowing that they had taken off with unarmed planes, that could only mean one thing. They would fly a kamikaze mission, hitting Flight 93, a Boeing 757, nearly 7 times the weight of their F-16 fighter jets. They had agreed on the plan of attack. Sasseville would head for the cockpit of the 757 and Penney would aim for the tail of the plane. As they sped past Andrews Air Force Base, flying low at around 3,000 feet, they could see black smoke billowing from the Pentagon.
READ MORE: Behind White House 9/11 order to shoot down US airliners: ‘It had to be done’
A painted illustration by Gil Cohen of an F-16 fighter jet, the same plane flown by Heather Penney, on September 11, 2001, over the burning Pentagon in Washington, DC.
VCG Wilson / Getty Images
Heather Penney’s dad could have been the pilot of United Flight 93
Beyond the mission at hand, there wasn’t much else on First Lieutenant Heather Penney’s mind. She had accepted the fate of the passengers on Flight 93, believing that whether or not she succeeded, they would die. She briefly toyed with the idea of ejecting her plane just before impact, but quickly dismissed the idea, knowing that she only had one hit and didn’t want to miss. It didn’t even occur to him that it was possible that the pilot of United Flight 93 was his father, who often flew out of the towns on the East Coast. In fact, he was not.
For the next 90 minutes, Penney and Sasseville scans DC airspace in increasing numbers, looking for the fourth airliner. “We never found anything,” Penney told HISTORY. After about an hour on the mission, Penney and Sasseville learned that Flight 93 had crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. The flight passengers heroically prevented the hijackers from reaching their target.
The mission has now shifted from interception to airspace remediation. Not all aircraft at altitude that morning knew that the FAA had ordered a national take-off ban on all civilian aircraft, regardless of their destination. With the help of civilian air traffic controllers, Penney and Sasseville began to hijack any aircraft from the DC area and ordered them to land as soon as they could. They also identified the first aircraft that assisted in the Pentagon rescue.
WATCH: 11/9: The last minutes of Flight 93, premiering Friday September 11 at 8 / 7c.
Investigation personnel search the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 for debris and evidence, including the aircraft’s flight recorder, September 12, 2001 in Shanksville, Pa. The hijacked plane crashed, killing all 45 people on board.
David Maxwell / Getty Images
Penney and other pilots were instructed to keep the President of the United States on his way home
At the time of the attacks, President George W. Bush was attending an event at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida. When told that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center and the country was under attack, he was escorted back to Air Force One and taken to the safest place at that time with the sky open. .
Now in the evening it was time to bring the president home. Penney’s plane and the others patrolling the skies around Washington, DC, had been fitted with live ammunition. They were also given “free fire” clearance, which means pilots could make the decision to shoot any civilian aircraft deemed to be a threat, instead of waiting for clearance. Several hours after the initial attack, it was still unclear whether any other attacks were in progress.
WATCH: 11/9: Inside Air Force One on HISTORY Vault
An exhibit at the Visitor Center at the Flight 93 National Memorial on September 10, 2015 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Jeff Swensen / Getty Images
Heather Penney has been promoted to major and has toured Iraq twice
Since that day, Heather Penney has completed two tours of Iraq, was promoted to major, retired and currently works for Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company. She had time to reflect on her experience of September 11, 2001 and the courage of the passengers on Flight 93.
“I made a decision of my life and swore to protect and defend, but these were just ordinary people, mothers, fathers, teachers, businessmen,” Penney said. at HISTORY. “They are real heroes.”
WATCH: 11/9: The last minutes of Flight 93, premiering Friday September 11 at 8 / 7c.
