这是最近美国报刊上热炒的一篇有关911事件的文章，实在有点看不懂。据说一位美女战斗机飞行员海瑟·佩尼最近接受了一次电视采访，讲述了十年前911事件当天的一段故事。“她和其它的几架F-16战斗机得到命令准备将已经被劫持的美联航93号班机撞落，因为，该劫持的班机原计划飞往华盛顿，撞击美国会上的建筑物。故事讲的十分动情，据说当时他的父亲还是美联航华盛顿航线上的班机机长，她接到命令时还不知道93号航班是否由她父亲驾驶。据说当时她已经做好了牺牲自己的准备，如果93号航班的机长是她的父亲也在所不惜。当时的命令是尽一起可能击落93号班机，然而，F-16上既没有导弹也没配备航炮的炮弹。同时顾虑用武器击落的话会带来许多难堪的后果。因此，海瑟的长机飞行员决定用撞机的方式阻碍93号班机飞往华盛顿。最后，由于93号班机在宾夕法尼亚境内坠落，海瑟·佩尼和长机马克·萨塞维尔的攻击命令被取消了。

不过众所周知，93号航班最后坠毁了，究竟是这样坠毁的？据说是因机内旅客和恐怖分子格斗而失控坠毁的。这就是真相吗？

另一篇文章似乎阐明得更清楚些。实际上在安德鲁空军机场起飞待命的是两架F-16战斗机。一架由海瑟·佩尼驾驶，另一架由马克·萨塞维尔（Marc Sasseville）上校驾驶，当时这两架战斗机上都没有武器。安德鲁空军基地的第121战斗机联队另有两架战斗机在做准备，准备装上热寻的AIM-9空空导弹后升空。马克和海瑟商量，一旦得到攻击命令后用飞机撞击93号航班，马克负责撞击客机驾驶舱，海瑟负责撞击客机的尾翼。

后来，攻击的命令一直没有下达。事后海瑟了解到，美联航93号航班中的乘客得知被劫持将撞击国会山后，冲进驾驶舱和恐怖分子搏斗，导致93号航班在宾夕法尼亚州境内坠毁。

由于美联航93号航班没有出现在华盛顿特区的上空，所以海瑟和她长机马克就没接到攻击的命令，最后返回安德鲁空军基地。当天下午海瑟等接到命令为小布什总统乘坐的空军一号护航，返回安德鲁空军基地。

现在，海瑟·佩尼少校是洛克希德·马丁公司的F-35计划的主管，还保持国民警卫队业余飞行员的职位。十年过去了，海瑟·佩尼依然保持着翱翔蓝天的激情。

'Kamikaze fighter pilot' who volunteered to take down United 93 on 9/11 was ready to kill her own father - a United Airlines captain

标题非常劲爆

“自愿在911事件中将美联航93号航班撞落，为杀死当时

任美联航机长的父亲做好准备的神风突攻队飞行员”

 

By Thomas Durante and Rachel Quigley

Last updated at 4:51 AM on 16th September 2011

 

The F-16 fighter pilot who emerged as one of the brave women who volunteered to go on the 'suicide' mission to take down United 93 could have been about to kill her own father - who was a captain for United Airlines at the time.

Heather 'Lucky' Penney was among the group of pilots in Washington DC who had been ordered airborne out of fear that a hijacked plane was heading to the capital and that they would have to bring the plane down without live ammunition or missiles, effectively killing themselves and everyone on board.

Now her mother Stephanie Penney has revealed that not only was her daughter willing to sacrifice her own life by ramming into the 757 jet, but that she also knew it was a possibility her father may have been flying the plane.

艰巨的任务：2001年9月11日早上，海瑟·佩尼接到的任务是：

搜寻美联航93号班机，并尽其一切可能摧毁93号航班。

Tough task: Heather Penney's mission on the morning of September 11 was to find United Flight 93 - and destroy it however she could.

父女俩：海瑟·佩尼和她的父亲约翰·佩尼

十年前接到命令，可能会在不开跑的情况下撞落美联航93号班机。

Father and daughter: Heather Penney, pictured with her dad John, would have had to bring the plane down without live ammunition

Mrs Penney said: 'We were thankful that Heather was able to put her emotions aside and not even consider that her father might have been flying on United 93.

'John was a captain for United Airlines at that time. He flew 757s and had been flying trips into and out of the East Coast the month before. Heather would not have known for sure that her dad wasn’t the captain on United 93,' she told the Washington Post.

Her daughter, who was a young blonde in her twenties at the time so enamoured with flying that jet fuel practically coursed through her veins, had followed in her father's footsteps by becoming a pilot.

She is now the director of the F-35 programme at Lockheed Martin and part-time National Guard pilot who has not lost her passion for flying.

Speaking about the 'kamikaze mission' and the knowledge that her father could have been on the flight, she said: 'This sounds cold-hearted. I mean that was my daddy. But, frankly, there was no way for me to know, and it would not have changed what I needed to do at all.'

“幸运”：当她知道妇女可以当战斗机飞行员后，

海瑟·佩尼立即就签约当战斗机飞行员。

'Lucky': Penney signed up to be a combat pilot as soon as she learned the opportunity was being offered to women

Relieved: Heather and her father, pictured, recounted the turmoil they went through that day

She was one of the first rookie female fighter pilots who signed up as soon as she heard the news that combat aviation was being opened to women.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, she was first again, this time for a task involving a fourth hijacked plane on a course for Washington, and possibly others.

 

More...

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Her mission: Find United Flight 93 – and destroy it however she could.

She had no way or no time of contacting her parents when she volunteered for the mission and it was a distinct possibility her father could have been flying the plane.

约翰与海瑟都是飞行员，这已经是家庭的传统了。

Her father, retired Col John Penney told the Post: 'We talked about the possibility that I could have been on the plane. She knew I was flying that kind of rotation. But we never fell down and emotionally broke apart or anything like that. She’s a fighter pilot, I’m a fighter pilot.'

Mrs Penney added: 'I did say to Heather, "We’re really glad that wasn’t your dad and that you didn’t have to think about that".

'She just said, "Mom, I couldn’t think about it. I had a job to do". That’s what we’re most proud of Heather for, that she was doing her job.'

Recalling that fateful day in September, when the rookie pilot was told there was only one way to bring down the plane, she said: 'We wouldn’t be shooting it down. We’d be ramming the aircraft. I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot.'

Back then, there were no armed F-16s at the ready at Andrews Air Force Base, and it would take nearly an hour to get them armed. There was no time.

Combat jets needed to be in the air to protect Washington, and they had to get there immediately.

'Lucky, you’re coming with me,' Colonel Marc Sasseville shouted.

Mr Sasseville, who is now stationed at the Pentagon, said: 'We don’t train to bring down airliners. If you just hit the engine, it could still glide and you could guide it to a target. My thought was the cockpit or the wing.'

He admitted he thought about the possibility of utilizing his ejection seat to bail out just before striking the jet.

But Miss Penney said it was of much greater concern to eject from her plane and risk missing the target and fail the mission, even if it saved her life.

Sass, as Miss Penney called him, said he would take out the cockpit. She would take the tail.

She said: ‘I knew that if I took off the tail of the aircraft, it would essentially go straight down and so the pattern of debris would be minimized.'

       

十年后，海瑟·佩尼已经是两个孩子的母亲，但依然没有失去飞行的激情。

 

保持空域的安全：在911当天余下的时间里，海瑟1佩尼一直担任华盛顿空域警戒任务。

就像照片里的那架F-16一样，驾机为美国总统的空军一号专机护航。

Keeping the skies safe: Heather Penney spent the remainder of September 11 in the air, piloting an F-16 like this one, seen escorting the president in Air Force One

Ditching the usual pre-flight preparations, she shot into the sky, following Sass at speeds of 400 mph.

The jets passed over the ravaged Pentagon, flying low and scouring the sky.

It wasn’t until hours later that they would find out United 93 had already gone down in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

But that didn't mean their job was done, as Miss Penney spent the remainder of that day in the air, clearing airspace and escorting the president as he flew in Air Force One.

After the mission, Miss Penney went on to become a major and fly two tours of duty in Iraq.

Now a mother of two, she didn’t have to make the ultimate sacrifice on 9/11 – a group of courageous passengers did instead.

She said: 'The real heroes are the passengers on Flight 93 who were willing to sacrifice themselves. I was just an accidental witness to history.'

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另一篇文章似乎间的更清楚些。

Fighter pilot's 9/11 kamikaze mission

战斗机飞行员的9/11神风特攻任务

AN F-16 pilot scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another attack on the US capital says she was prepared to ram her plane into a hijacked aircraft, as there was no time to arm her plane with missiles.

Amid fears another hijacked airliner was barrelling towards Washington, Heather Penney, then a lieutenant in the Washington DC National Guard, was one of two pilots ordered to take off without delay, she said in a recent interview.

The threat of an attack on US soil was seen as such a remote possibility at the time that the 121st fighter squadron at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington had no fully-armed fighter jets on standby.

With only 105 lead-nosed bullets on board, Penney and Colonel Marc Sasseville took to the skies, while two other F-16s waited to be armed with heat-seeking AIM-9 missiles, Penney told C-SPAN television this week.

The pilots had orders from the White House to take out any plane that refused to heed warnings and land, so the two pilots agreed on their plan.

"We wouldn't be shooting it down. We would be ramming the aircraft because we didn't have weapons on board to be able to shoot the airplane down,'' Penney said.

As they were putting on their flight gear, "Sass looked at me and said, 'I'll ram the cockpit.'

"And I had made the decision that I would take the tail off the aircraft,'' she said.

Penney said she "knew if I took off the tail of the aircraft, that it would essentially go straight down and so the pattern of debris would be minimised.''

She said she thought about possibly ejecting just before impact.

"I would essentially be a kamikaze and ram my aircraft into the tail of the aircraft. I gave some thought to, you know, would I have time to eject?''

But the young pilot was concerned about failing to hit the target.

"I mean you only got one chance, you don't want to eject and have missed, right?"

When she took the plane down the runway, she said she believed it be the last take-off of her life.

In the end, Flight 93 never reached Washington, as passengers assaulted the hijackers in the cockpit and the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

But the F-16 pilots did not learn of the aircraft's fate until later that day, said Penney, now a major.

"The people on Flight 93 were heroes, but they were going to die no matter what,'' she said.

"My concern was how do I minimise collateral damage on the ground.''

Later that afternoon, Penney helped escort Air Force One, with former president George W Bush on board, back to Andrews Air Force base.

A few years later, she flew missions in the Iraq war, hunting for SCUD missiles and backing up special operations forces.

Penney was among the first wave of female fighter pilots and she has since stopped flying full-time. The mother of two girls, she now works as a corporate executive, according to the Washington Post.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Penney said she was absorbed with the urgent job at hand and had no time for emotions.

"It wasn't so much that I kept my emotions in check. It was that they didn't even exist,'' she said.

"There was significant adrenalin. It was really just, dear God, please don't let me screw up.''