WASHINGTON — Again and again, the "Let's Roll" passengers and crew of United Flight 93 fought back against the hijackers, continuing their assault even when the plane was turned upside down.
Panicked by the unexpected assault, it was the terrorists who gave up in the end.
Shouting "Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest," Ziad Jarrah, the hijacker at the controls, crashed the Boeing 757 into an empty field near Shanksville, Pa., rather than be overwhelmed by his determined captives.
These and other harrowing new details contained in the final report of the Sept. 11 commission revealed the terrible final moments on Flight 93 as well as on the three other airliners hijacked in the deadliest terror assault against the United States.
On all the planes, hijackers brandished knives or box cutters, stormed the cockpits and stabbed passengers and crew members who were in their way or tried to intervene. In several cases they used Mace and claimed to have a bomb. Passengers were herded to the rear of the planes.
The airline pilots were all believed stabbed to death to allow the hijackers to take the controls.
On Flight 93, the passengers fought back.
Flight 93 took off from Newark at 8:42 a.m., bound for San Francisco with 37 passengers — including hijackers Jarrah, Ahmed Al Haznawi, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami — and seven crew members aboard.
The hijackers attacked at 9:28 over eastern Ohio. The "black box" cockpit tape recorded sounds of a struggle and the captain or first officer shouting repeatedly, "Hey, get out of here!" The two pilots were killed, most likely stabbed to death.
At 9:32 the hijackers, wearing red bandanas, herded the passengers to the rear of the plane.
Ten of the passengers and at least two crew members calmly passed on an alert, making cell-phone calls to family, friends and authorities.
They learned that United Flight 175 and American Flight 11 had crashed into the World Trade Center. They did not know that American Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon, the report said.
Passengers on the other hijacked planes also had made cell calls. On Flight 175, passenger Peter Hanson called his father, Lee Hanson, two times.
"It's getting bad, Dad," he said in his second call. "I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast."
Aboard United 93, the passengers took a vote and decided to counterattack at 9:57. Todd Beamer, 32, an account executive in Princeton, N.J., turned to fellow passengers and said the now-famous words: "Are you guys ready? Let's roll!"
As the passengers rushed the cockpit door, Jarrah violently rocked the plane left and right to knock them off balance. Hearing the sounds of fighting continue, Jarrah asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?"
Another hijacker replied, "No, not yet. When they all come, we finish it off."
Jarrah then began pitching the nose of the plane up and down. An unidentified passenger shouted: "In the cockpit! If we don't, we die!"
Jarrah said, "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!" and asked his fellow hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?"
The other hijacker answered, "Yes, put it in, and pull it down."
Jarrah rolled the plane onto its back. But "the sounds of the passenger counterattack continued," the report says.
Shortly after 10:02, the plane smashed into the ground, killing all aboard.
The commission's report concludes that "Jarrah's objective was to crash his airliner into the symbols of the American Republic — the Capitol or the White House. He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93."