Agonizing docudrama of the fate of the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11

Rating: 9/10 (6 January 2007)

A taut, saddening, intensely realistic docudrama about the fate of the fourth airliner hijacked on September 11, 2001, the one intended to hit the Capitol in Washington, DC, or so we all imagine, but that crashed instead in the Pennsylvania countryside, killing the crew and all 92 passengers, including the four young Islamic terrorists who had seized the plane. Much of the film depicts the increasingly frantic efforts of civilian air traffic controllers and air force emergency response personnel to first comprehend and then take preventive action on that horrid morning, as the saga of four hijackings, and the destruction that followed, unfolded.
These scenes are intercut with others inside the cabin, aboard United flight 93, as terrified passengers and crew try to survive and retake control of the plane. What is underscored so effectively is our nation's shocking lack of preparedness for such an unprecedented attack. Adding to the realism of the film story is the participation of a number of actual personnel (air traffic controllers and military figures) who were involved that terrible day, i.e., playing themselves.. (In English & Arabic) My grades: 8.5/10 (A-) (Seen on 01/05/07)