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Hijacked
The next day, Sunday, shopping for a scope for his hunting rifle, Tom misplaced his cell phone in a sporting goods store. He went back twice, finding it just minutes before he had to leave for the airport. That phone with its earpiece would prove to be central in the events of the following Tuesday.His mother noticed that he seemed "melancholy" on that weekend visit. Deena says, "He was very intuitive, and he really did not want to go on this trip. Looking back, I wonder if he felt like something was going to happen."
On Monday evening, September 10, Tom entertained Larry Cohen, president of Thoratec's East Coast subsidiary, ITC, at a chic Manhattan restaurant called Judson Grill. It was pouring that night, and Tom was tired, anxious to get home, but in another letter sent to Deena after Tom's death, Cohen's wife, Ronnie, who was also at the dinner, described him as "delightful, genuinely interesting and extremely intelligent."
Though he was scheduled to sleep in and catch a later flight to California, Tom contacted United Airlines and changed to an earlier flight, so he'd be back home in time for dinner. Before turning in, he called and left a message for Deena and the girls, then phoned his parents and stood at the window of his Marriott Marquis hotel room, describing Times Square to his mother, because she had never been there.
When Burnett arrived at Gate 17 at the Newark airport the following morning, he was assigned seat 4C in first class on Flight 93, right beside one of the day's other heroes, Mark Bingham. Two of the hijackers sat directly in front of them; one was probably in coach. And Ziad Jarrah, who is believed to have been the leader and the man who eventually flew the plane, occupied seat 1B, right behind the cockpit door.
A little over an hour later, Tom's sister Mary Margaret heard the news that planes had struck both World Trade Center towers. She knew her brother was in New York but was unsure of his flight schedule. She called her parents. "Where's Tommy?" she asked. She then called her brother's cell phone, but he did not pick up -- unusual for him, except, of course, when he was airborne. Meanwhile, Beverly called California, where Deena had just gotten the children up and was making breakfast. "Wait a second," Deena said. "He's calling on the other line right now."
As she habitually did with friends, Deena took notes during this call, the first of four Tom would make to her from the hijacked plane. Later she reconstructed them to avoid having to repeat the painful conversations again and again:
Deena: Tom, are you okay?
Tom: No, I'm not. I'm on an airplane that has been hijacked.
Deena: Hijacked?
Tom: Yes, they just knifed a guy.
Deena: A passenger?
Tom: Yes.
Deena: Where are you? Are you in the air?
Tom: Yes, yes, just listen. Our plane has been hijacked. It's United Flight 93 -- Newark to San Francisco. The hijackers have already knifed a guy. One of them has a gun. They are telling us there is a bomb on board. Please call the authorities.
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