An F-16 pilot who scrambled on 9/11 to prevent another attack on the US capital says she was prepared to ram her plane into a hijacked aircraft -- as there was no time to arm her plane with missiles.
Amid fears another hijacked airliner was barreling towards Washington, Heather Penney, then a lieutenant in the Washington DC National Guard, was one of two pilots ordered to take off without delay, she said in a recent interview.
The threat of an attack on US soil was seen as such a remote possibility at the time that the 121st fighter squadron at Andrews Air Force base outside Washington had no fully-armed fighter jets on standby.
With only 105 lead-nosed bullets on board, Penney and Colonel Marc Sasseville took to the skies, while two other F-16s waited to be armed with heat-seeking AIM-9 missiles, Penney told C-SPAN television this week.
The pilots had orders from the White House to take out any plane that refused to heed warnings and land, so the two pilots agreed on their plan.
"We wouldn't be shooting it down. We would be ramming the aircraft because we didn't have weapons on board to be able to shoot the airplane down," Penney said.