United 93 (ATOM Study Guide)

On the morning of 11 September 2001, United Airlines flight 93 was hijacked by four men. At 10.03 it crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing its thirty-seven passengers and seven crew members. It was the only one of the four planes hijacked that day that did not crash into a building.

In United 93, British director Paul Greengrass creates a gripping, provocative drama that tells the story of the passengers, crew and flight controllers who watched in dawning horror as United Airlines flight 93 became the fourth hijacked plane on the day of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil: 11 September 2001.

He explores the events of this day by telling the story of a single flight and the ordinary, random sampling of flight crew, businessmen, wives, grandparents, students and others bound for San Francisco aboard a Boeing 757. In the course of just over ninety minutes that the plane was in the air, the world below entered a new and violent age – viewed through a fog that revealed that America itself was under attack.

Painstakingly researched with the support of the families of the passengers and crew who lost their lives, the film paints a portrait of everyday people confronted with an unthinkable situation. The result is a powerful study of part of what happened on that day – chronicled and filmed in real time.