Page 7 - Inside United News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

During the day where, you know, i was absolutely horrified. >> the image would not stop him. days after 9/11 days after his company lost two planes, tim duffy volunteered to fly a united airlines jet to tokyo. in between commercial assignments, he would patrol the east coast in his fighter jet. faa managers terry biggio and mike mccormick would take this day and ask what more they can do? >> after invading iraq, the u.s. government would try to rebuild iraq's infrastructure, including its air traffic control system. mike mccormick volunteered and recruited others, including biggio, whose broth...

>> all i know is that there was trouble, and i wanted to warn everybody. >> one of those flights ballinger tried to warn are the airline's version of -- united flight 39. >> i was accepteding out messages one after another. i think i sent 122 messages in a short time, an hour, two -- i don't know what it was. like screaming on the keyboard. i don't want to get the captain excite or put something in like are you in trouble? i just sent them a discreet message can i be of assistance? can i help you? at that time we had huge tvs that came on with cnn. >> this just in. you are looking at obviously...

They were hijacked. >> supervisor rich was working one last day before leaving the earl for a new job. >> drinking my coffee, and just realizing this is the last day, and it was kind of bittersweet, and i hear a commotion or someone talking about something hit a building in new york. i go, oh, that's odd. >> at that moment one of his workers catches his attention. belme is now footnote 81. >> he is white as a ghost and i could tell something is wrong. he says i just got a call from 175. the crew has been killed. the flight has been hijacked. >> inside united's maintenance office belme was over...

Think that 9/11 is why i was here. >> the united airlines dispatcher ed ballinger left the airline after 44 years. he has thought about but has not talked to the relatives of those who died on united flight 93. the flight he tried to warn. to say he was sorry. 9/11 commission investigators say there was nothing more ballinger or any of the footnotes in the story could have done. still, ballinger remains haunted by the what ifs still trying to put 9/11 in his wake. when we left him, he and his wife were waiting to sail away again. rich belme took the phone call from flight 93.

>> i said three words. should i have said something else? what is more to the point than "beware of cockpit intrusion". >> is that america 11 trying to call? >> they are the people who awoke september 11th living ordinary lives. >> i was in my office sitting in that chair. >> suddenly thrust into one of the most horrific days in this nation's history. >> they said, we have some planes. >> nobody move. if you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. >> we clearly had a hijack in progress. >> they just said, be prepared to shoot down the next hijack track. i sa...