Both the BBC and ABC News reported last week that in the efforts to intercept and possibly shoot down United Airlines Flight 93, the closest jets to that plane were two F-16s conducting a training mission near Detroit.
They were dispatched to intercept UA93, but there was one major problem — both planes were unarmed. ABC quotes U.S Army Brig. Gen. W. Montague Winfield as saying that the two planes had orders to get as close to the UA93 and try to force it to land.
And if that didn’t work? The pilots likely would have been ordered to fly their jets into the hijacked plane.
Sources:
Any Means Necessary: Fighter Jet Pilots Faced Possible Suicide Mission On Sept. 11. Martha Raddatz, August 30, 2002.
US considered ‘suicide jet missions’. The BBC, August 29, 2002.