PDA

View Full Version : 'Flight" Honours Heroic 9/11 Passengers



Gold9472
12-04-2005, 02:37 PM
'Flight' honours heroic 9/11 passengers

http://jam.canoe.ca/Television/2005/12/02/1334395.html

By STEVE TILLEY -- Toronto Sun

Four years seems to be the official mourning period for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with a slew of 9/11-related productions either currently shooting or recently released.

But it's tough to imagine the likes of Oliver Stone's upcoming 9/11 movie packing the emotional punch of The Flight That Fought Back - A Tribute To The 9/11 Heroes Aboard Flight 93, a documentary about the United Airlines jet that crashed in a Pennsylvania field after its passengers organized a counter-assault against the al-Qaida hijackers on board.

Making its Canadian broadcast premiere tonight at 8 p.m. on Discovery Channel after debuting in September in the U.S., the Brook Lapping-produced documentary combines fact-based dramatic recreations with interviews with the victims' loved ones to present a best-guess scenario as to what happened on the doomed plane.

United Airlines Flight 93 was bound from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when it was hijacked and diverted toward Washington, D.C. The aircraft's eventual target was never revealed, but it's assumed the al-Qaida operatives planned to slam the fuel-laden jet into either the Capitol building or the White House.

The Flight That Fought Back undertakes a difficult and delicate task, trying to frankly portray the violence that likely occurred on board -- it's believed the pilot and first officer as well as at least one passenger and a flight attendant were slain by the hijackers -- while remaining compassionate to the families' memories of their loved ones.

With narration by Kiefer Sutherland, the program follows that morning's events, recreating a span of a few hours with surprisingly capable actors playing the roles of the 33 passengers, seven flight crew and four hijackers on board.

In between, family, friends and telephone operators who received phone calls from the doomed plane are interviewed, including the Verizon operator who heard passenger Todd Beemer utter his now-famous "Let's roll" call to arms.

Some of the calls, made through the aircraft's own in-seat telephones and by passengers able to get sporadic cellphone reception, are recreated based on the recipients' memories.

Others, including a call made from passenger Lauren Grandcolas to her husband in which she is clearly saying what might be her last goodbye, are actual recordings. Nearly all are heartbreaking in their simple poignancy, as are the interviewees' shared memories of their daughters, brothers, parents and friends who died that day.

The Flight That Fought Back's only failing is that it doesn't forcefully crush conspiracy theorists' claims that the flight was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet, other than to briefly reiterate the government's stance that no jets were within range.

And while the recreations are based in large part on the 9/11 Commission Report's findings, the producers chose to ignore the report's conclusion that the passengers never successfully breached the cockpit.

Instead, we see the heroic citizens lunging inside and grabbing at the terrified hijackers, who were in the process of deliberately diving the plane into a Pennsylvania field to kill themselves and everyone aboard.

In that sense, the documentary sacrifices a small amount of objectivity for the sake of telling a better story. But the profundity of the families' losses and the strength to which they hold to the belief that their loved ones would have acted like heroes in the face of terror is stirring and inspiring.

The Flight That Fought Back shows that even four years later, there's still a lot of pain -- and a lot of hope -- to be drawn from that dark and unforgettable day.