With Ziad taking the helm of the plane, there is a brief flashback sequence showing him training for his mission, seated in a cardboard cut-out representation of the cockpit, memorising where every button and control is located. And yet his notes are not perfect, with the plane jumping around in the air, Ziad accidentally announces the hijacking over an open channel to the FAA control centre.

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Events progress swiftly, with the fear and concern of the passengers reflected on the ground as we visit Air Traffic Controllers and White House staff managing an ever escalating crisis. By now, the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon are ablaze, and as the passengers on board Flight 93 make covert telephone calls using cellphones and airphones to the authorities and loved ones on the ground, it becomes clear that they too must be on board a plane heading for another suicidal mission into an American landmark building. They must make a decision, either remain seated in fear of the hijackers who announce that they have a bomb, or retake the plane in a desperate attempt to survive, or at least prevent the terrorists from hitting their assigned target.

Unfolding almost in real time, the passengers take turns to formulate their plans, and speak to family members to say their tearful goodbyes. The scenes of passengers who know they are going to die saying farewell to their partners or parents on the ground cannot fail to bring a lump to the throat and remind the viewer that these were innocent ordinary people caught up in an extraordinary situation over which they have almost no control.

The last scenes aboard the plane are brutal and primal as the passengers mount their desperate bid for control of Flight 93 before the final, inevitable end.

We all know what that end was, and yet, despite this fact, there is a hope throughout the film that the passengers might succeed against the odds and retake the plane. Although they failed to do so, they did succeed in stopping a greater loss of life and prevented the terrorist hijackers from striking at an important American symbol – likely to have been either the White House or the Capital Building in Washington DC.

And throughout the film, I could not help but cast my mind back to what I was doing 5,000 miles away in England whilst this drama was unfolding, and I recalled thinking at the time that after September the 11th, things would never be the same again…

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