W. Milford man told wife of plan to storm cockpit
Thursday, September 13, 2001
By PETER J. SAMPSON
Staff Writer
In the final moments of United Airlines Flight 93, Jeremy Glick
told his wife to take care of their newborn daughter and have a good
life because he and a few passengers were going to storm the cockpit to
try to prevent a terrorist attack on the nation's capital.
For 30 minutes before the giant airliner, bound for San Francisco
from Newark, smashed into a field southeast of Pittsburgh, Glick was on
his cellphone talking to his wife, Lyzbeth, at their West Milford home.
As law enforcement authorities, contacted by her father, listened in,
Jeremy Glick told his wife that three knife-wielding hijackers on a
suicide mission had commandeered the plane and told passengers they were
going to crash it as part of a coordinated strike against America.
"He was asking her what was happening with the World Trade
towers, 'cause they were saying to everybody this is happening around
the country," Glick's sister, Jennifer Glick, said Wednesday during
an interview at her parents' Upper Saddle River home.
It was around 10 a.m. Tuesday, and two planes hijacked after leaving
Boston had already slammed into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan.
"I'm not positive where this was targeted but based on what I'm
hearing now on the news . . . the plane was headed to either the White
House or another target," said Jennifer Glick, 36, an attorney in
New York City.
Jeremy Glick, 31, described the hijackers as dark-skinned Middle
Eastern men who brandished knives, wore red headbands, and claimed that
a red box they carried was a bomb, his sister said. They forced the
passengers and crew to the rear of the plane and told them they were
going to die.
Jeremy Glick told his wife that he and a few passengers devised a
plan to try to stop the terrorists.
"They were going to jump the hijackers. They kept the phone on
and apparently they went into the cockpit and they crashed the plane or
the plane crashed," Jennifer Glick said. "I don't know how it
happened."
Her husband, Doug Hurwitt, said: "He knew that stopping them was
going to end all of their lives. But that was my brother-in-law. He was
a take-charge guy."
Flight 93 was the only one of the four hijacked planes that did not
strike a major target, and some officials said the actions of the
passengers may have prevented an even greater tragedy.
Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the House
defense appropriations committee, said at the Pennsylvania crash site
that he believes a struggle took place in the cockpit and that the plane
was headed for a significant target in Washington, D.C.
"There had to have been a struggle and someone heroically kept
the plane from heading to Washington," he said.
Jeremy Glick, who worked in sales and marketing for a technology
company, was on a business trip to San Francisco.
The third of six children whose names all start with 'J,' Glick
married his junior high school sweetheart and, after trying for a long
time to have a child, their daughter, Emerson, was born June 18, Glick's
sister said.
"He and Lyz adored each other," Jennifer Glick said, and he
"adored his daughter.
Their brother, Jed, 23, agreed.
"He was having a good life," Jed Glick said. "He loved
being a father and was just getting used to it. It's sad that she won't
get to know him."
Jennifer Glick said her brother loved skiing and water sports and
lived life to the fullest.
"He always lived life to the absolute extremes and was always a
hero," she said. "[He] was always proud, and would take care
of everybody."
He went to Upper Saddle River Day School, graduated from the
University of Rochester, and was a national collegiate judo champion.
Jeremy Glick also is survived by his mother, Joan, a Fairview speech
teacher, and his father, Lloyd, who works at a technology firm in New
York City, as well as brothers Jared and Jonah and sister Joanna.
Jennifer Glick choked back tears as she described her brother's
heart-breaking goodbye.
"He told Lyz that she should be happy in her life and take care
of Emerson. And to say that he loved us, all his siblings, and his
parents and his nephews."
Staff Writer Peter Sampson's e-mail address is sampson@northjersey.com
