The 33 regular passengers and seven crew members who would board United flight 93 on the morning of September 11, 2001. Seven crew members assigned to Flight 93 began to prepare for the early morning non-stop flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, California.

Thirty-three passengers were traveling for ordinary reasons. Most of them were not even supposed to be on that flight. Many were on their own personal, special missions that day.

Hilda Marcin, a 79 year old grandmother, was moving to California to start a new life with her daughter. Joe DeLuca and Linda Gronlund, longtime friends who had just started dating, planned to celebrate Linda's forty-seventh birthday on September 13. After a Business meeting, they would tour the California vineyards.

Some were on the back end of their trips and heading home to the west coast. Two businessmen making the trip, Todd beamer and Mark Bingham  briefly had attended the same high school in northern California in the late 1980s

Captain Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer never had flown together before the morning, but in many ways they were kindred spirts, Borth had been fascinated with aviation from the time they were little boys. In fact, Jason learned to fly before he learned to drive. He joined the Civil Air Patrol at age 13 and was flying solo before he was 16. His father would have to drive him to the San Jose airport and drop him off for his lessons. He worked as a flight instructor and then as a pilot for a private jet company, delivering newly constructed aircraft around the west coast. He was hired by the United Airlines in 1985.

Dahl also was valued for his talent as an instructor. He became a "standereds captain," spending about half of each year flying and other half training and testing other pilots. In may 2001, however, he decided he wanted to start flying more often. He re-entered the "scheduled pilots" programs at United; the slight adjustment in his career path meant that it led him to the cockpit of Flight 93.

LeRoy Homer had the passion of an Air Force man long before he ever became one. He started taking flying lessons at age 15 and flew solo at the age of 16. A 1987 graduate of the air force Academy, he was decorated for his service in Desert Shield and Desert Storm in Iraq. Inn 1993 he was named the 21st Air Force Aircrew Instructor of the year. He joined United as a pilot in 1995.

Lorraine Bay spent 37 years with United. CeeCee Lyles, a former police officer in Fort Pierce, Florida, had enrolled in training in December of 2000 and was still in her first year on the job. Debbie Welsh was the "purser" the lead attendant on the flight issuing assignments and serving as a liaison with the pilots. Friends called her "little Apostle of the Airlines" because she carried unused meals from Newark Airport and distributed them to homeless on the way back to her Hell's kitchen neighberhood in New York City. Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw loved to travel but had cut back her work schedule to two trips a month after giving birth to a daughter in 1998 and a son in 2000. Sandy's plan was to get the two flights behind her as early as possible because she wanted to focus her attention on her son, Nathan's first birthday party. It was coming up in ten days.

Christian Adams attended an elite wine-testing event in New York and was traveling to another in San Francisco on September 12. He spent the night of September 10 at the Newark Airport Marriott, the same hotel where the four men who would hijack Flight 93 had stayed just two nights earlier.

The narrative that developed in the days and weeks after the September 11 was that these were ordinary people who did extraordinary things in the face of unthinkable terror. But that piece of mythology, understandable as it is, doesnt give them their due.

They were Energetic, curious, dedicated, and courageous. Exactly the kind of people it would take to quickly process the chaos unfolding in the final frantic minutes of a hijacked flight. The men of al-Qaeda planned, and planned well, for many contingencies in the years leading up to the attacks, but one important variable with potential to disrupt the entire operation was completely beyond their control; they couldn't predict the character and mettle of the forty people who would arrive at Gate 17 at Newark International Airport that morning and step through the doorway onto United Flight 93.