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> Either it was shoot down, or would have been later

The jets were scrambled in such a hurry to intercept Flight 93 that they weren’t loaded with ammunition. I’m afraid that the plan was to collide the fighters with the plane if necessary. It was a suicide mission. [1] However, we have plenty of evidence that the passengers resisted and in the course of that the plane crashed.

1. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/fighter-pilot-reflects-911-sui...

I'd also recommend taking a look at "The Only Plane in the Sky" by Garrett Graff, which is an oral history of 9/11; basically, a huge number of in-person interviews that construct a timeline of the days leading up to, during, and after 9/11, including those of the pilots who went up in the fighters, knowing that should they need to, mid-air collision was the only option if they needed to intercept something. For what it's worth: a great read, but a tough one. I'm sure you won't have trouble finding a book link, but Politico [1] has an excerpt if you're interested.

[1] https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/were-the-onl...

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