Hijack hero widow's flight of defiance

Lisa Beamer: wanted to show support for President Bush

The pregnant widow of a passenger who tackled hijackers on board the United Airlines flight which crashed in Pennsylvania on 11 September has flown the same route in a symbolic act of defiance against terrorism.

Lisa Beamer's husband, Todd, was one of several passengers on board Flight 93 who alerted relatives and authorities to the fact that the Newark-San Fransisco plane had been hijacked.

We can't let ourselves be held captive by terrorism

Lisa Beamer

All 44 passengers and crew died when the plane was brought down in a field in Shanksville before it could reach its final, unidentified destination.

Boarding the renamed Flight 81, Mrs Beamer said: "I want to show people it's safe to get back on an airplane. We can't let ourselves be held captive by terrorism."

Phone calls made by Mr Beamer and other passengers on the flight provide a dramatic insight into events on board the doomed flight.

Thirty-two-year-old Mr Beamer, an account manager for Oracle Corporation, spent 15 minutes talking to a GTE air phone operator.

He told the operator three men had taken over the flight - two of them armed with knives and the third claiming to have a bomb strapped to his waist.

'Let's roll'

Mr Beamer said 27 people, including two injured pilots, were being held at the back of the plane and that he and some fellow passengers had decided to try to overpower the hijackers.

Todd Beamer helped stop the hijackers from fulfilling their mission

He asked the operator to tell his wife and family he loved them and together they said the Lord's Prayer.

Mr Beamer's final words, directed at another passenger, were "Are you ready? Let's roll."

A short time later, the plane crashed.

Mrs Beamer, who is expecting her third child in January, said she was flying in a sign of support for President Bush and in solidarity with America's struggling airline industry.

Speaking on US television network ABC, Mrs Beamer said: "The terrorists have already taken so much control of our country and they have tried to take so much control of my life and I refuse to be held captive."