Discovery Channel to make film recreating Flight 93

[taylorsmommy]

PITTSBURGH - The Discovery Channel will air a re-creation of the terrorist hijacking of Flight 93 on the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The program will be called "The Flight That Fought Back" and will include about 45 minutes of re-created scenes depicting what happened before the plane crashed in a Southwestern Pennsylvania field. Forty passengers and crew members were killed.

The show is being produced by London-based Brook Lapping Productions, which is getting cooperation on the project from United Airlines and some family members of those killed in the attack.

"A few people didn't want to have anything to do with it just because they just don't want to have anything to do with anything (relating to that day)," executive producer Phil Craig told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for Monday editions. "I think there will be some people who don't like it because their family member isn't highlighted, but when you're a filmmaker, you have to balance all sorts of things."

Flight 93 was en route to San Francisco from Newark, N.J., when it was hijacked and ultimately crashed about 65 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The official 9/11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to take control of the cockpit.

Craig said the show isn't meant to be a definitive look at what happened that day, and there are still unanswered questions about what went on. For instance, the show will portray the hijackers getting into the cockpit but not how they got there, because that isn't known, he said.

"There are some dialogue scenes on the plane, 90 percent of these are based on tape evidence and the memories of people who spoke to people on the flight," he said. "We have invented a few lines of dialogue that's been based on consultation with people who knew them."

A short preview of the program was shown to media last week attending the Television Critics Association summer press tour. A screening will be held later this month for family members of those who were on the plane.