The fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has been overshadowed by the Hurricane Katrina disaster, but television viewers will be reminded tonight of how much the catastrophes share, in at least one respect: In both, civilians were initially left to fend for themselves as officials struggled to grasp what was unfolding.
The Flight That Fought Back is a Discovery Channel docudrama about the heroic resistance of the hijackers aboard Flight 93. It reminds us of something else as well, though -- the ways in which the context for such civilian heroism can sometimes be lost in our search for an uplifting aspect of an otherwise catastrophic event.
The 90-minute film, which airs at 9 p.m., offers a compelling picture of what may have occurred on United Airlines Flight 93 bound from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco. Some of the 40 passengers and crew on board stormed the cabin and brought the plane down in Somerset County, Pa., before it could be crashed into the White House or Capitol. The film honors their courage without undue sensationalizing.
If only, however, the film's creators had been as considerate of other victims of 9/11 -- and of the historical record -- in naming the film. The Flight That Fought Back is, on its face, an accurate descriptor of Flight 93. But implicit in it is a misplaced slight against the passengers of the other three planes hijacked that day.
The title draws attention to the fact that passengers on the other flights apparently didn't fight back as they were being flown toward their deaths and further destruction below. It may seem petty to take issue with a movie's title, particularly when the title's lack of nuance is partly made up for in the film itself and when the producers no doubt intended no slight. But the problem with this title reflects a broader muddiness in the way the country has recalled 9/11 and reacted to it.
Passengers on Flight 93 decided to "fight back" because the flight included some truly heroic and selfless men and women. But, they also fought back because -- thanks to cell phones and the chronology of that morning -- they knew something that passengers on the other planes probably didn't know: The 9/11 hijackers intended to crash the planes into high-profile buildings filled with thousands of people.
