BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Television isn't known for using great sensitivity when it comes to portraying tragic events. But the Discovery Channel movie "The Flight That Fought Back" tells the story of a group of American heroes who gave their lives to save others on one of the most tragic days in our nation's history — and it does so in a gripping fashion that in no way exploits the tragedy.
"It's incredibly hard to watch, but . . . I wanted this story to be shared," said Sarah Wainio, whose sister, Elizabeth, was one of the passengers on United Flight 93 who fought back against the hijackers who had aimed their flight at Washington, D.C. "I want people to be put on that plane."
"Flight" does just that. It's a re-creation of Sept. 11, 2001 — a day that changed all of our lives, and which ended those of the people on Flight 93. The film was made in cooperation with family members and friends, many of whom appear in the movie as they recount what happened and relate conversations they had with those on the plane via cell phone during the hijacking.
"I choose to say I was blessed to have a phone call from my daughter while she was in the plane. . . . Her final words to me were that they were getting ready to break into the cockpit and she had to go and she loved me. Goodbye," said Esther Heymann, Elizabeth Wainio's mother. "She didn't want to keep me on the phone. They had things they needed to do."
"Flight" uses actors to-recreate what happened as the people aboard that aircraft learned that two hijacked planes had already hit the World Trade Center and a third had crashed into the Pentagon, and how they decided to prevent their hijackers from doing the same thing. (It is believed Flight 93 was headed for either the Capitol Building or the White House.)
It's a stunning telefilm simply because of what happened, not because of any attempts to heighten the drama on the part of the filmmakers. According to executive producer Phil Craig, about 90 percent of the dialogue comes straight from cell-phone calls and the memories of family and friends of those on the flight. "There are very few occasions where we have invented dialogue" and that was done "based on consultation with people who knew them."
"To say it's been tastefully done sounds, of course, extreme because of how horrible it is," said Heymann, "but I don't think it could have been handled any better than Discovery has done it."
And Discovery Channel executive vice president and general manager Jane Root said she and the staff at the cable network felt a personal commitment to tell the story right — Elizabeth Wainio was a Discovery Channel store executive who was on her way to San Francisco on business when she boarded Flight 93.
"I felt confident always that somebody was going to take this project on," Heymann said, "and I was very relieved personally, and proud to be involved with Discovery, because I believe in the quality of their work. And my daughter . . . just admired working for that company so much. So I felt sort of like I was completing something that my daughter would have been involved in had she been here."
"I think it's the most accurate account that's yet been produced," Craig said. "I would not use the word 'definitive' because" the entire cockpit voice recording has not yet been released. But "we've interviewed several family members who were allowed to listen to those voice recordings, and they have given us their accounts."
"Flight" is important to the loved ones of those who died on Flight 93 so their story will not be forgotten. "It feels like if I don't do another thing with my life," Heymann said, "the most important thing that I can really do is make sure that this film is done right and that as many people in our world know about it as possible, because it's such a beautiful example of good overcoming evil, of people not sitting passively and feeling like they were victims, but actively choosing to make a difference, knowing that they were going to die.
"We really want very badly for Elizabeth to have died not in vain, but for our small little planet in this global time to really understand that we all have choices, and character is what you do when no one is looking,."
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com