Flying friend, BIll Weiler, forwarded the link to a C-Span interview with Major Heather Penney, a DC National Guard fighter pilot who responded to the events on 9-11. It is very well done and offers a minute by minute brief of how her guard unit was informed of the happenings of the day and the steps they took to get into the air. She described how defending the US with over flights was not their typical mission and how the leadership had to get permission to take to the air. As a wingman, she and her lead took to the air unarmed and ready to ram any threatening planes out of the sky. The interview is long but worth the watch as the professionalism of the pilots and dedication to duty shines through. The last fifteen minutes are particularly noteworthy as she describes their low flight over the burning Pentagon and later how people told her they responded to knowing the planes were overhead.
I could relate to her newness on the job as a fresh out of training wingman as my son is at that point in his career right now. Catch the entire interview on C-span.
Enjoy,
Sandy
What a great blog post! Amazing.
And here is “the rest of the story” – the Washington Post did a story on Heather Penney and followed up a few days later with an update – a part of the story that was not told initially, but that made her actions that day even more amazing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-down-plane-her-father-piloted-on-911/2011/09/13/gIQAHasoSK_story.html
Thanks for posting the link, Beth. Heather Penney certainly belongs to a family that thinks and operates like a military family.