>> the smithsonian national museum of african american opens september try forth. -- september 24. we will be live with the dedication, which includes remarks by president obama and founding museum director. this is american history tv, only on c-span 3. created by america's cable television companies and brought to you as a public service by your cable or satellite provider. week, american artifacts visits museums and historic places. we travel to somerset county, pennsylvania, to visit the flight 93 memorial and take a

tour. the memorial is the final resting place of 40 passengers and crew. this program is just under an hour. schaeffer and i'm a park ranger at flight 93 national memorial. we will be looking inside the visitor center which was dedicated in 2015. we are standing out at the end of the flight path overlook. we are standing on the shadow of the flight path flight 93 would have been on. the reason we are standing here is because this orientation for visitors is central to the design of the visitor center itself. the walls shield the visitors

view of the landscape around us. and the enormity of the landscape. and only frame the flight path as you approach the entrance. as you are coming off the parking lot, you have to walk the flight path this plane was on just before it crashed. one of the first things visitors notice as they are walking the flight path is the timestamps that are embedded in the ground. this timestamp represents the first plane striking the north tower in new york city at 8:46 a.m.. the second timestamp represents the second plane hitting the south tower. we have some geese flying overhead. the third timestamp will

recognize -- will represent american airlines flight. and if you continue down to our names of the passengers and crew are listed. , thebeyond the wooden gate last possible piece of granite has been my dear before you -- has been laid here before you is the timestamp for flight 93. congress passes legislation and the president signs into law the flight 93 it as a act designating unit of the national park service. a federal advisory commission was appointed to oversee a design management plan for the site as well as boundary for

this memorial. that was the beginning of the memorial that has taken shape around us. we are still not finished with the memorial. still a few missing components to the memorial landscape we are continuing to add on to. the majority of the memorial withonline this past year the dedication of the visitor center, learning center, and the walking trails that extent from this complex down to the trash site of the to the memorial plaza. we are looking down over top of that wall from the flight path, the continuation of the flight path just before the impact site and the crash site we protect. the national park service protects over 42 acres of ground south of this black wall you

see. that is the northern boundary to the crash site and a brief field --flight 93 -- the brief debris field of flight 93. the quarter-mile stretch from our visitors center out to the path flight mall -- well, that is the shortest walk. it is there because it protects the crash site and field that allows visitors the opportunity to get close to that landscape or to pay their respects lead tributes to the passengers and crew. -- leave tributes to the passengers and crew of flight 93. these tall walls are the visitor center and sometimes confusing for visitors arriving because it does not stand out as a building. they do appear as walls.

the design was based around answering the basic question of where did the plane crash? because of the landscape here, it is very open sky, open sweeping landscape, very easy for visitors to become disoriented. outarchitect paul murdoch of los angeles designed the visitor center around the orientation of the flight path and as you turn, you are looking down the flight path and you can progress down the pathway, as you pass through the first opening, the entrance to our visitor center will be on your left-hand side. what he is trying to draw the

visitor out to is the flight path overlooked. when you pass to the second law -- well, the landscape reopens vision -- field of vision. we will go inside the visitor center but i want to stop here and show you the texture of the walls that appear throughout the memorial. likeill find this looks wooden beams which are indicative of some of the barns an older buildings found in pennsylvania. it is a tie-in to the hemlock grove of trees which was impacted when flight 93 crashed here on september 11. some of the angles you see here angles of thehe eastern hemlock, the branches

and the leaf structure. cuts youcs some of the see in the sidewalks. as we approach -- you will see asoughout the glass as well the ceiling tile. let's take a walk inside and we will take a look at the exhibit space that just opened in september 2015. the first panel you come to on -- entitled "an ordinary day." each wall you come to has this glass panel that gives you an overview of what each wall will cover. visitors,tant to give especially if they did not experience september 11, everybody thinks back to the

bright blue sky. it was important to place people in the context of somerset county and the area around shanksville, pennsylvania. since this is more of an unfamiliar story, new york city is quite familiar to a number of people. and so, as you progress through the timeline of events, you will see it places you at the three attack sites. there is some foreshadowing that takes place, but it places you in arlington at the pentagon and it places you at the believed flight 93 which is the united states capitol building. we will take you to those three places. there is a business card from one of the people working for a fitzgerald,f cantor

showing the business as usual aspect of that morning. a military cap from the pentagon. as well as the wall plate hanging over in office. the piece that stands out to me the most, the story i like to share with people because a lot of people do not realize this is on the evening of september 11, every year there is a congressional barbecue the president hosts. this year was on september 11, 2001. the members of congress were invited to the white house where they were going to enjoy a couple pounds of tenderloin. after the events began to unfold that morning, and they realized they were evacuating washington, d.c., and the barbecue was canceled. a lot of the food that was

prepared for the barbecue was set up -- sent to the rescue provide support at the pentagon. the invitation came to us from a staffer and his son planning to attend the barbecue that evening. when you first come inside the visitor center, you will notice there are these tall black walls and the pattern is very similar to the walls on the exterior of the visitor center. when flight 93 crashes here, the thousands of gallons of jet fuel that incinerate on impact scorched 80-100 hemlock trees. this black against the wall is symbolic of the charring of those trees. it is time you back to the story constantly as you are moving to the site -- it is tying you back to the story constantly as you are moving to the site. -- through the site.

usually questions that come up from visitors, either the coloration or the angles and it allows us to tie it back to the story. intowall takes you right the events of september 11 and what is happening in new york city initially. in the center of this exhibit space, we have rolling footage and it cuts between different networks. it shows the global aspects of that morning. news storya breaking to tell you about. it happened just a few moments ago. we have very little information available. >> you are looking at a disturbing live shot. that is the world trade center. unconfirmed reports that a plane has track -- crashed into one of the towers.

>> another plane just hit. another plane has just hit. right into the middle of it. my god, right into the middle of the building. flew into plane just the second tower. the other thing, in the background, you have an image that shows the statue of liberty from new jersey. they shot is taken a number of days after september 11 but it shows you the smoke still hovering over the city in lower manhattan. the artifacts that were selected were done so very specifically to represent the three sites. in place people at those sites -- and place people at those sites. --m new york city, you have

those are on loan -- you have some cutlery. those are on loan from us from the september 11 museum. you have pieces of limestone part of their pentagon. you have a miniature statue of --edom, which as people were the architect of the capitol at up that morning a little before 9:00, i believe, and his story -- he is tuning into this news footage. he is also preparing that morning for a meeting to raise funds for u.s. capitol visitor center. that is what his morning begins like.

as things unfold, they learn about the gun being attacked -- about the pentagon being attacked and there is a rogue plane inbound for washington, d c he later learns the immediate threat has passed because this plane has crashed and pennsyvania somewhere. he later comes here in 2012 and the specific statue of freedom, this desk model of freedom, was on his desk that morning. he leaves the statue of freedom at one of the nietzsche's found memorial plaza. he left an official letter and in a letter, we have a copy of that, this model of the statue of freedom that stands atop the

dome of the u.s. capitol building is left with deep respect, a final resting place of the heroes of flight 93. those who sacrificed their lives here saved mine and those of many thousands of others at the u.s. capitol building as well as an historic building of our democracy known around the world. we have come to shanksville, pennsyvania, two pair respects and express our deep gratitude -- to pay our respects and express our deep gratitude to those who will never be forgotten. we cover the buildup to september 11 with a timeline that takes you through the establishment of al qaeda. there is little piece about bin laden. we placed it on a rail so you have to get close to this wall in order to be able to read more about this. we did this specifically knowing that some people would not care and would choose not to step up

to the rail and know more about this. we did this out of sensitivity for the many family members that often visit the site. after visitors come from this wall, they will turn around and they are faced with a map of the united states and this is depicting the nearly 4500 aircraft that are in the air that morning, potential threat to the united states that morning. what was important about this wall, showing the chaos of trying to sort out correct reports coming out from erroneous ones. the other important thing about this wall, though, is it gives you the diagram of flight 93. it was a boeing 757 and if we get closer, you can see, this is where the passengers and crews ticketed on the morning of

september 11. the diagram at the end shows you exactly where the passengers were seated, the terrorists, where they took position on the plane and where the crew members would have been seated. the artifacts we used to represent, we have a boarding pass from the oldest passenger on flight 93. was headed home to japan that morning. one of the things a lot of visitors recognized immediately, how under seated flight 93 was. one of the major changes that has occurred since september 11 is there has been a number of aircraft mergers, fewer flights -- united airlines typically

flew this flight three times a day from newark to san francisco. this plane would have been capable of carrying 182 passengers. that morning, they are ticketed with 33 passengers and seven crew. that is minus the four terrorists ticketed in the first class section of the plane. four of them are not planning to arrive in san francisco. the 33 passengers planning to make it to san francisco that morning are expecting to arrive a little after 11:00 local time. we will go around the corner to the next exhibit wall. the next wall shows flight 93, it is airborne at this point after being delayed 20 minutes. flight 93 takes off at 8:42 a.m. and it will begin its gradual

climb out of newark airspace -- if you have ever left from newark, you realize the airport is right across the skyline from the world trade center. this is four minutes before americans airlines flight 11 will hit the north tower. flight 93 gets airborne. it will begin its trip to san francisco. this gray on the map represents the routine flight across the state of pennsylvania. they are barely over ohio when the four terrorists are going to take control of flight 93. they will incapacitate the first .fficer and the captain they are going to begin to turn flight 93 around for heading toward washington, d.c.

at 9:28 a.m., the approximate time the terrorists take over flight 93, the four hijackers seated in first class will get up from their positions and they are going to rush the cockpit. there are some details about this that we just do not know exactly how they took over the plane. we do know from what was recovered that they were carrying knives or box cutters. they did threaten the passengers and crew with a bomb, which is bomb.learned to be a faux after they seized the control of the cockpit, there is a little bit of a dip in the altitude which gives us the indication when the plane is taken over. the plane is going to dip a couple of hundred feet, which is

fairly significant. it would have been noticed by air traffic control. because of being on autopilot, the plane will come up to its assigned cruising altitude around 35,000 feet. the plane is going to manually -- there is a steep bank and it will continue to climb to about 40,000 feet in altitude. the terrorists will use the 120, which will take them back to washington, d.c., and that draws the pretty straight line. the idea was from the tactics they were using, they were wereing to when they within range of reagan airport

-- the diagram you see now depicts the change from the time .f the hijacking you can see by the yellow blocks indicated on the diagram, the passengers and crew have gotten up from their seats and they have moved to the back of the aircraft and these represent seats where phone calls would have been placed from on board the flight. we know there were 37 attempted phone calls. we do not know what that represents all of the phone calls because there were cell phone calls made. most of the calls after the time of the hijacking were placed from airfone's. these are satellite based phones the passengers would have used their credit cards to swipe and it leaves an excellent record

for us to know these calls were attempted. we know who they called or who they attempted to call and we are able to go back to , in some cases, we have the actual recordings of some of the calls left on answering machines. these blocks represent the area of the aircraft were these calls are being placed from and you , juste from the timeline to the right, how passengers and crew from their phone calls and from what we have been able to gather from different phone calls, a plan is being formulated to do something about their situation. they are learning very quickly about the takeover that has occurred on other aircraft. the world trade center, as well as the pentagon, have been

struck by aircraft. by theey are being told terrorist on their flight, they are going back to the airport to have demands met, which was common strategy being applied in reverse. knowna developed what is as common strategy for people in the airline industry in hijack situations and it was really how you should respond. some of the passive responses in years past is what a lot of the crew members would have been taking with them on board the plane that morning and how to restore -- respond to the hijacking initially. because of these phone calls and the knowledge of what they are dealing with, it allows them to develop a completely new strategy while they are in the air that morning. that strategy is that they are

going to attempt to retake control of the aircraft. we learn the passengers and crew to go vote from the back of the plane -- took a vote from the back of the plane to do something and they would not sit idly by and wait for something .lse to happen that is best illustrated in the center of this exhibit space where you are viewing the information that has come back from the flight data recorder. this is the first box that is recovered out of the ground here at the crash site of flight 90 32 days after the crash. 93 twows -- of flight days after the crash. they implement the plan of fighting back and trying to

regain control. the terrorists are going to manipulate the controls to make it difficult for the passengers and crew to gain access to the cockpit. that is provided by the national transportation safety board. at the top, you will see the cockpit voice recorder, the narrative across the top. you can see in real time what is unfolding on the cockpit voice recorder. the front of the plane, there are four microphones that capture the voices in and around the cockpit space. that is paired up with how this plane is flying in the final moments. as we approach 10:03 a.m., you will see the planes come up at a 90 degree angle. the plane will rise up and as it does that, it will hold that for about a second and then it is going to rock over onto its backside and the plane will come

down in crash. 10:03:11 in the fields just beyond the visitor center. as we leave this wall and we turn to the next well, it was very important to try to give visitors, especially if they have never flown before, never been on a 757 before, the idea or the sense of being compressed aislehe space of a single aircraft. and the flight that hit the pentagon are both these model aircraft.

it was important to give visitors the sense of being at the back of the aircraft were a lot of those phone calls took place. we give visitors the opportunity to listen to three of the four recorded phone calls that were placed from on board flight 93. 11 minutes after the hijacking began leaving this message on their home answering machine. funny, are you there? oney, are you there? i just wanted to tell you i love you. we are having a little problem on the plane. i am totally fine. i love you more than anything, just know that. i am ok for now. a little problem.

i just love you. please tell my family i love them, too. bye, honey. adam: this is the answer machine in california capturing the message she just left for her home butack who was at because of the time differential, being three hours different from the eastern seaboard, he is still in bed. awaken when she makes the phone call. about 18 minutes into the hijacking, leaving this message on her home answering machine. >> i only have a minute. i am on united 93 and it has

been hijacked by terrorists. apparently, they have flown a couple of planes into the world trade center already. mostly, i just want to say i love you. love --ive my i just love you and i just wanted to tell you that. all of my stuff is in the safe. the safe is in my closet in the bedroom. 0-9-1-3. #and then it should unlock. bye. attendant found her

husband at 9:47 a.m., about 19 minutes into the hijacking, leaving this message on their answering machine. baby. i am on a plane that has been hijacked. i want to tell you i love you. please tell my children i love them very much. i do not know what to say. i am trying to be calm. planes thathere are have flown into the world trade center. i hope to be able to see your face again. i love you. adam: if we walk around from this well, we will go around to the next wall and it will take you right here to shanksville to where the plane impacts, the

edge of a reclaimed mining site. if you look to the top, the 911 phone caller that lives about half a mile or less from where we are standing. this is a snippet of her call. flight 93 will impact at 500 miles per hour inverted upside down and this case is meant to give you the sense of fragmentation that takes place when flight 93 crashes. if we get closer, we can take a look at some of the pieces recovered. these were average sized pieces found across the site from the point of impact and southward. 757have a lot of wiring, made up of over 60 miles of wiring. a very common thing to find

bolts and rivets. finite thisou how large locomotive waited piece of equipment has become after it hits the ground. you can see the bluish smoke coming out of the crater from the jet fuel that incinerate's on impact. incinerates on impact. the pieces are so fragmented but the majority of the aircraft has been absorbed into the ground. it is not until later when they andn excavating the crater looking for evidence that they will start to uncover more and more of flight 93. that is represented best on the camera -- this represents the edge of where mining had ceased.

this is the southern edge of a very large open surface mine that had been active up until the mid-1990's. flight 93 will crash just before the edge of the tree line. it is crashing in an area that would have been -- the soil would have been removed for a period of time until the coal had been removed. this area here, where the trees, the hemlock grove exists today, this would have been a natural stand of trees. when the jet fuel incinerate that morning with the explosion from crashing into the ground, the fireball is going to continue on the trajectory the plane had been traveling in the

jet fuel being topside because the plane is inverted will come continue onuel will the trajectory of the plane and engulf this area with flame impingement. that is best captured by the .tate police that morning around 11:30 a.m. that morning, they will capture some aerial footage of the site. initially, they do not know what they are looking at. they will land their helicopter, they will be briefed, and they are going to return that afternoon and get some closer footage of the impact site.

footage can clearly show 757 impactsis whole the ground and this is the vertical tail stabilizer you see up above in the fuselage. it was inverted so it would have been impacting the ground this way. it shows the scorching of the trees represented by the black walls in the visitor center. so much debris embedded in these hemlock trees because it is on the trajectory of the flight path, whenever the decision is made to cut down the burned trees, they send those trees through a wood chipper and the wood pile remains here on the site. it never left. heart of the effort to ensure there was proper -- part of the effort to ensure there was proper care taken of the remains

. response out of the community that begins after flight 93 crashes. this is rick king, the assistant fire chief out of shanksville and there is a quote that captures sort of the moment and what that most have been like for responders. photo has been captured many times. the quote underneath captures the moment for her when she takes this picture. represents the state response. you have governor tom ridge arriving, the governor of pennsylvania at the time. he will eventually be promoted

when president bush creates the department of homeland security as the secretary of the department of homeland security. the media immediately wants to know about this plane crash, what has happened in new york city and the pentagon, there is an immediate thirst for knowledge and understanding about why this plane has crashed here, what investigators are looking for, and what the experience has been. the media is going to be pushed away from the site within the first hour or so of being here. there is a press conference that is established very near where the first 911 phone call is going to be received. this is a great place to -- transitionause to the next wall behind us. this quote is taken from a

special agent in charge and shows the methodical nature all the investigators were going to they werethe 13 days going to be coming -- coming over the site. -- combing over the site. this is a tactile visitors can touch and it is representational of the flight, cockpit voice recorder. this crime scene become so important in those early hours and days after september 11 because this flight does not hit its target. and because of that, investigators are able to comb through the debris field and more easily get to any evidence that is going to shed light on who carried out the attacks, how they accomplished the attacks, and whether or not, if there were other attacks when needed to be aware of -- we needed to

be aware of. they're hoping to be able to sift through debris here in order to answer a lot of those , onceons and it is here forget the eye agent says -- one -- in order to answer a lot of those questions. you are looking at this, this is how they are loaded into the tail section of the aircraft. they are designed to be able to survive up to 2000 degrees fahrenheit up to a period of about 30 minutes and withstand a large amount of geforce. they were very hopeful they would find these boxes and the reason we know so much about what happened on flight 93 is

because of these -- these boxes are excavated out of the ground. his television monitor takes you through -- this television monitor takes you through the methodical nature of combing through the ground, the linear approach they take to picking up debris. they began sifting through the debris and categorizing plane and personalidence effects. thisabulous thing about exhibit and some of the other exhibits we have here in the visitor center, it is captured by oral history. you can pick up -- i know you are capturing some of the text, these andn pickup listen to the voices of the

investigators themselves. you can hear how important it was the moment they discovered the cockpit voice recorder and the data recorder. you do not have to hear from a ranger why it is important. you can hear from the people themselves were here. you are looking at the suntrust bankcard recovered here that financial on the trail of al qaeda. important piece of evidence recovered here on the ground. they are sifting through the dirt being excavated out of the crater and very carefully raking through that ground. they are on their hands and knees going through a lot of the debris. a big part of that is the recovery of human remains, the ability to identify everybody

that boarded this aircraft. the end of the exhibit space, what you are seeing, somerset county coroner and his role. this is his scene. he will have a federally -- disasteream mortuary operational response team. they will assist him with the recovery of the human remains. a lot of visitors ask us the remains, this being a final resting place because we use that term generally. from the moment of impact, 92% of the remains, it is estimated, were unrecoverable. it is believed 8% of the remains

of the people on board flight 93 were recovered and a percentage of that 8% were identifiable that could be returned to family members. the remaining unidentified remains were brought back. this is both traditional and nontraditional burial ground and we treat the crash site as such, protecting over 42 acres of ground south of the memorial plaza. you are looking at some of the pieces recovered from flight 93 itself. a seatbelt latch, some of the silverware that would have been possibly used in first class. a portion of a manual. you'll see, these are some of the larger pieces recovered on flight 93. the piece to the front is the nose number.

this is the number that would've been used by the specific airline. there is a nose number and a tail number and those are specific to the airline company. the tail number is used by faa to identify planes, like your license plate you have on your car. the top piece comes from the .ertical tail stabilizer other than the american flag itself that would have adorned the side of the plane. we have some examples of small facts recovered from the site. that is his law enforcement badge. we have an employee identification badge.

license thatvers was recovered at the crash that. the drivers license is a facsimile. i will come around the side. this wall is all about the passengers and crew of flight 93. theidea here, much like portrait hanging on your wall at photothere is a central were each of the 40 passengers and crew were identified and there's an unmarked photo, a secondary photo that captures them with other people in their lives, other family members and friends, captures a moment in time from their life that was really special to their family or friends. this piece in the center is the

cap of the purser, which would have been the flight attendant caring for first-class. it was a signature piece worn by deborah welsh. she would wear this sailor style cap when she went to work. this is one of the photos we have of her wearing that hat. if you pan just above that photo, you will see debbie with her dalmatian. screen,ome down to the welsh.look at debbie there is a bio that will cover a little bit about her life. you can look through additional photos. we see her with her dalmatian. you can scroll through.

she loved to fly and she loved sometimes known for taking some of the leftover airline meals home with her and would take the sum and distribute those -- would take those home and distribute those to some of the homeless or two people in need -- or two people -- to people in need. this is her with her husband. her career.ning of over here, you have some items that belonged to first officer leroy homer. his patch from his military service from the air force. wings and his luggage tag.

two passengers were traveling for the u.s. census bureau. receivede medal she for exceptional service. the other neat piece we have here, the congressional gold medal that was struck for flight 93. it was presented here on september 11 to the site for the actions and the crew. you have both sides represented their. it is important to say that each site, each of the september 11

sites, new york city and the pentagon also have congressional gold medals that represent their sites specifically. this is the one that represents flight 93. if we turn around to the wall captures howis drawn to the been over the last 15 years. at the top, you have a quote that was written on a tribute piece that was left here at the flight 93 crash site. if we come over here to the the words are on this photo of a quilt.

captain ruda wrote these words. at an early planning meeting where they were trying to decide what would happen with this memorial, this quote was to aified as a preamble larger mission statement for what the memorial would become. when we came in from the outside of the visitor center and you are walking the flight path, as we did at the beginning, you a common field one day. some of the groupings of tribute items that have been left at the temporary memorial or at the permanent memorial, you have things that represent the rescue

workers that responded at all of the sites, patches are a common form of item left year representing not just rescue workers but military. we have a strong connection here with people visiting that leave military items. haveat the end, we also items that were left here by the people who responded here. this is the shanksville fire department, a coat that would have been left. the original coat is in storage. this is a facsimile. see aiginal coat you can picture. we have the assistant fire chief's helmet. a piece in the center is a

montage of various people and times throughout the history of the site since the crash. from the very moment where family members were coming here for the first time and leaving towers and things themselves visitors beginning to come here for the first time as well and pay tribute to the actions of the passengers and crew, you periods from the early days to the dedication of a permanent memorial in 2011 at the memorial plaza and the walls , building their names up to the dedication of the visitor center in 2015. at the conclusion of the exhibit space, this is a final law and it captures the nearly 3000 lives that were lost that day as a result of these attacks,

including flight 93. they are segmented out by the different locations. in the center, there are three screens that capture the three memorial sites. because this is an unfolding story, we did not talk about post-september 11 and the world that is continuously changing and there are events tied to international terrorism that have unfolded since that time. the learning center, which he passed on her way into the site, is a place where we are continuously going to be looking to expand on the story since september 11 and talk about -- it is a place for we can talk about the legacy of flight 93 as well as the continuing story from these events. we thought it was important to stop here and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives as

well as show the three memorial sites where you can go and learn more about the individual stories at those locations. memorial national represents a lot about what makes america a fantastic country. on september 11, 2001, the people on board flight 93 were every day ordinary people, citizens of the globe, and it shows you can make a difference no matter how big or how small and no matter where you are at. and in a very short period of time. it shows human nature at its best and its worst moments, together.

it shows that everyday people can come together for the betterment of humanity and what you see illustrated here is people not sitting by and watching but actively becoming involved citizens in an event that unfolded to them. crew ofengers and in at 93 were living post-september 11 world long before any of us knew about it. it is important to take the lessons of the people on board this plane. i often tell students coming here, think about how you utilize 30-35 minutes out of your everyday life and what you can do with that time. maybe you can repurpose that

time, even if it is something as simple as, you know, helping somebody carry their groceries from the car or picking up garbage. it is often a challenge to the visitors who come here, a chance for self-examination and i think a lot of visitors ask themselves, would they be able to do this themselves if they were put in the position? it is a question nobody can answer unless they are faced with the same set of situations. it is something people often ask themselves when they are here.

[captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> today marks the 15th anniversary of the september 11, 2001, attack in new york city and washington, d.c. american history tv remembering the event through the stories of americans. penny recount the

drama in the skies after air national guard pilots scrambled to intercept planes. what she was prepared to she also recounts a later that day she helped escort president bush and air force one back to andrews air force base. this interview is one hour. >> major penney, the morning of september 11, 2011, how did the day begin for you? >> it was a normal day, as far as we were concerned. we had just participated in a red flag deployment the previous two weeks and had returned back home that early -- that saturday. so the commanders had given the vast majority of the full-time force, whichas