San Ramon Tutors

About San Ramon

San Ramon tutors remember Thomas Edward Burnett, Jr. who resided in San Ramon and was chief operating officer of “Thoratec Corporation.” Burnett was a passenger on board United Airlines Flight 93 that was hijacked by terrorists as part of the “September 11” attacks. When the plane crash-landed in a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, all onboard were killed. According to San Ramon tutors, Burnett had attended church daily in the year prior to the September 11 attacks, after expressing to his wife Deena, a feeling of foreboding, which he could not seem to shake.

Burnett made several phone calls to his wife Deena after the hijackers took control of the plane. He found out through her that the World Trade Center had been attacked during their second phone call. It was at this point he realized that the flight he was on was likely being directed into some other landmark. He confirmed her worst fear, that the hijackers were “talking about crashing this plane….Oh my god. It’s a suicide mission.” It was after this realization, while Deena was on the phone, that Burnett began educating the other passengers of what was going on outside the plane. He told her of a plan that he and three other passengers Mark Bingham, Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick were planning to attempt to take the plane back from the hijackers. As a former flight attendant, Deena’s training in this situation was to stay calm and to not draw attention to yourself, which she urged her husband to do. However he bravely put his own life at risk to attempt to save all of the passengers on board. When he hung up the phone he said, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.”

It was revealed through audio captured on the cockpit voice recorder that Burnett along with several other passengers plucked up the courage to storm the cockpit to take control back from the hijackers. The hijackers plan had been to crash the plane into the White House or Capitol Building. You can hear Burnett shouting, “Roll it!”, which San Ramon tutors suspect was a signal to the other passengers involved in the take back plan to charge into the armed hijackers with a food cart. Tragically in order to prevent the passengers from regaining control, the hijackers crashed the plane into the ground. At this time the flight was above a Pennsylvania field, and thanks to the bravery of Burnett and other passengers involved no one on the ground was injured as a result of the crash.