A military jet flyover to honor and commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is scheduled on Friday during a Los Gatos High School football game.
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The Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District, Los Gatos High School and the Town of Los Gatos will come together for a ceremony in remembrance of the Sept. 11 attacks. The town has a special connection to the attacks, as two Los Gatos High alumni, Mark Bingham and Todd Beamer, were among the passengers and crew who tried to retake control of United Airlines Flight 93.
The Los Gatos High School varsity football team will be playing against Clovis High School at Helm Field. The remembrance ceremony is scheduled to start at 6:46 p.m., and will include the presentation of colors by the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department, remarks from Superintendent Heath Rocha and Mayor Rob Moore, the national anthem performed by the Los Gatos High School band and recognition of the Bingham and Beamer families.
“Their heroic actions saved likely hundreds or thousands of lives, and so I think it’s a really meaningful way of honoring their legacy,” said Moore in an interview.
Flight 93 was a regularly scheduled flight from Newark, NJ, to San Francisco. It departed at 8:42 a.m., minutes before the first hijacked plane struck the World Trade Center, according to History.com. The plane carried seven crew members, 33 passengers and four hijackers. The hijackers stormed the cockpit about 40 minutes into the flight after the crew had been notified of the attacks on New York and Washington D.C.
When the plane’s crew and passengers figured out that the plane may be used to carry out further attacks, four of the passengers tried to retake control of the plane. Beamer was famously heard saying, “Are you guys ready? Let’s roll.” The hijackers crashed the plane in an empty field in Shanksville, Penn., killing everyone onboard. It is unknown what Flight 93’s intended target was; but it is believed that the hijackers planned to attack the White House, the U.S. Capitol, the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland or several nuclear power plants along the Eastern seaboard, according to History.com.
The flyover, which is scheduled for 6:55 p.m., will feature two F-15C Eagle fighter jets from the 144th Fighter Wing of the California Air National Gaurd, based at Fresno Air National Guard base, according to district spokeswoman Tanya De La Cruz. There is no cost to the district for the flyover. Rocha said athletics director Kenny Perrotti had the idea and started the process to get the planes to fly over the high school.
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“He and our team thought, ‘What a better way to honor this day that changed our nation forever, to honor the selflessness of first responders that day and the extraordinary courage of everyday people that day, including two of our own,’” Rocha said in an interview.
Moore, who was only 3 years old when the 9/11 attacks occurred, said he knew just as much about the world before the attacks as the students he mentors now. Since the country is not engaged in large-scale conflicts like World War II and the Vietnam and Korean wars, he added, many young people today grew up disconnected from the thought that they might be drafted or consider serving in the military.
“It’s good that our children are not having to think about war. At the same time, I think it’s really important for young people to be exposed to the gravity of conflict,” Moore said. “There are many horrible things that go on in the world, but it’s hard to capture what it’s like for thousands of people to die on one day.”
In addition to the flyover, Los Gatos High School and the town have taken several steps to preserving the town’s connection to that history. The 9/11 memorial plaque for Bingham and Beamer was relocated from the high school’s Redwood Grove to the front of the school next to the wooden wildcat statue to be more accessible to the community. Rocha advocated for the plaque to be relocated and shared its story with a group of students during a Los Gatos leadership meeting.
“From this day forward, every student who comes on our campus and every citizen who walks by our sculpture will see their names and read their story,” Rocha said. “The idea being is that they’ll be reminded that true strength is found in service and that character is revealed in how we stand up for others.”
The Veterans Memorial & Support Foundation of Los Gatos will also be holding a memorial ceremony at the Flame of Liberty Memorial on the Civic Center Lawn at 9:30 a.m. on Friday. Retired New York Fire Department Lt. Joe Torrillo will be the keynote speaker for the memorial.
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