Elle était prête à sacrifier sa vie le 11 septembre 2001: une pilote de chasse raconte aujourd'hui son histoire

Je découvre tout juste cette histoire par le biais d'un article dans le Washington Post. Le 11 septembre 2001 Heather “Lucky” Penney avait pour ordre de lancer son F-16 sur l'avion du vol 93 de United Airlines puiqu'on avait pas eu le temps de charger des armes ou des missiles. Comme si cette situation n'étais déjà pas suffisamment dramatique, elle croyait que son père pouvait être un des pilotes de l'avion qu'elle devait abattre.

 "For years, Penney, one of the first generation of female combat pilots in the country, gave no interviews about her experiences on Sept. 11 (which included, eventually, escorting Air Force One back into Washington’s suddenly highly restricted airspace).

But 10 years later, she is reflecting on one of the lesser-told tales of that endlessly examined morning: how the first counterpunch the U.S. military prepared to throw at the attackers was effectively a suicide mission.%% “We had to protect the airspace any way we could,” she said last week in her office at Lockheed Martin, where she is a director in the F-35 program.

Penney, now a major but still a petite blonde with a Colgate grin, is no longer a combat flier. She flew two tours in Iraq and she serves as a part-time National Guard pilot, mostly hauling VIPs around in a military Gulfstream. She takes the stick of her own vintage 1941 Taylorcraft tail-dragger whenever she can."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2015/09/06/7c8cddbc-d8ce-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html?wpisrc=nl_optimist&wpmm=1