Two decades after 9/11, Flight 93 hero Tom Burnett Jr.’s legacy lives on

There isn’t a day that goes by that Tom Sr. and Beverly Burnett don’t think about Sept. 11, 2001, and what that day cost their family: the life of their son, Tom Burnett Jr., who helped to lead the effort to take back United Flight 93 from its terrorist hijackers.

That effort succeeded: the plane-turned-flying-bomb didn’t reach its target, believed to be the White House or U.S. Capitol. But, it crashed in a Pennsylvania field, killing all 44 people on board, including 38-year-old “Tommy.” He had switched the time of his flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco in hopes of making it home earlier on his twin daughters’ first day of kindergarten.

In the 20 years since, the Burnetts, who raised their three children in Bloomington, where they were founding members of St. Edward parish, have leaned on their Catholic faith. But their suffering is a deep ache that doesn’t subside.

“It seems like yesterday that we found out that Tommy wasn’t coming home anymore,” said Beverly, 90. “So, 20 years is a long time, but it seems like yesterday he was on that plane, and we were all praying that he would get off.”

Beverly and Tom Sr., 91, shared their reflections with The Catholic Spirit Sept. 1 at her apartment in Carondelet Village, a senior living facility in St. Paul. Tom, a Korean War veteran, lives nearby at the Minnesota Veterans Home in Minneapolis. They’ve been married 69 years.

The Burnett family — which includes Tom Jr.’s sisters, Martha Burnett Pettee and Mary Burnett Jurgens — have channeled their grief into a foundation they began in 2002, just a year after 9/11. The Tom Burnett Family Foundation remembers Tom Jr. not as a victim, but as a hero. Today, it has supported youth leadership programs and scholarships, with a focus on helping young people become good citizens. It was a virtue close to Tom Jr.’s heart, and a quality he aimed to live out through reading history, asking questions, and trying to improve himself and the world around him, his family members said.

He lived out those values daily, his parents said, but they were exemplified the day he tried to take control of the hijacked plane — chronicled, in pieces, through several phone conversations he had from the flight with his wife, Deena, as well as the plane’s “black box” recording, which was recovered from the crash site and confirms he was near or in the cockpit. Deena, who had trained as a flight attendant, told him that he should just lay low and not draw attention to himself. Tom, however, didn’t see that as an option. The last thing he told her was, “Don’t worry, we’re going to do something.”

Those words — “We’re going to do something” — have become a sort of motto for the Burnetts. They remember Tom Jr. as a man of action, a lifelong leader and ambitious executive at a medical device company who sought out opportunities for education, responsibility and growth. He was an avid reader who always gave books for Christmas, and he had a wide range of interests, from wine to hunting on his property in Wisconsin.

“He was a lot of fun, and he enjoyed life,” Tom Sr. said, chuckling. “He had a strong character. He thought for himself. … He always came back to the idea that everyone could be a good citizen, and we’d be a lot better because of it.”

Tom Jr. called his mom regularly, and had spoken to her the night before he died from his hotel, overlooking Times Square in the rain. He had flown to New York after a weekend in Minnesota and Wisconsin, where he had spent time building deer stands. He had misplaced his phone before going to the airport, and wanted Beverly to know he’d found it.

Little did he know how much he would need it the next day. When he realized the plane had been hijacked, he called Deena, and she told him about what had happened in New York.

As the Burnett family has recounted countless times as they’ve shared their story, they know Tom Jr. had recurring dreams and visions about something significant happening in his future involving Washington, D.C. “He kept thinking, I need to pray more and figure out what this is about,” Jurgens said. That prompted him to attend daily Mass throughout the year before he died.

Jurgens, 51, and a parishioner of St. Therese in Deephaven, remembers watching footage of the crash into the first tower from a Lunds café, where she had stopped for coffee on her way to work. She saw the second plane hit in real time. Knowing Tom had been in New York for business, she called Deena, who told her that Tom was on a hijacked plane. Jurgens called her parents from her work’s parking lot, then drove home to be with them.

They clung to hope that Tom would be OK. That hope was renewed when, after another plane hit the Pentagon around 10:30 a.m. Central, Deena assured them that Tom was still alive. When news broke about a flight that went down in Pennsylvania shortly after 11 a.m. Central, they thought maybe it had been a “soft” landing — that Tom, if aboard, had survived. But then they saw TV footage of the crash site.

“It was just a hole,” Jurgens said. “There was nothing left.”

The Burnetts endured those first awful hours with the help of their parish priest, Father Mike Tegeder, St. Edward’s pastor from 1998 to 2011. Tom Sr. had walked across the street to the parish to find the priest when they learned Tom Jr. was on the hijacked flight. Father Tegeder held a prayer service at the parish that night and was a regular fixture in their home in the days and weeks after, the Burnetts recalled.

They’ve also had the support of Msgr. Joseph Slepicka, Tom Sr.’s lifelong friend and a retired priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa. He accompanied the family on their first visit to the Pennsylvania crash site in April 2002 and offered Mass in the field. For Jurgens, that Mass felt like her brother’s true funeral liturgy. The family held a funeral at St. Edward the next month. He was buried at Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minneapolis.

In past years, the Burnett family has marked the anniversary together with Mass celebrated by Msgr. Slepicka. It won’t be able to happen in the same way this year, due to many factors, including COVID-19. This year, they’re gathering together as a family Sept. 12.

On Sept. 11, Jurgens and Pettee plan to attend a Gophers football game, where a newly endowed scholarship established by the Tom Burnett Family Foundation will be recognized. With the 20th anniversary of 9/11, the Burnetts decided to focus the foundation’s efforts on creating the Burnett Scholar program at the Carlson School of Management, with a donation of $300,000.

The family has also supported the installation of a new public memorial for 9/11 victims in Wayzata. It includes small pieces of the fallen World Trade Center buildings, which were given about 10 years ago to the City of Wayzata from the Aamoth family, Wayzata residents whose son, 32-year-old Gordy Aamoth Jr., was among the 2,763 people killed in the New York attacks. The memorial is expected to be unveiled 10 a.m. Sept. 11.

Beverly is grateful the memorial is in a public spot where people will encounter it as they walk downtown along Lake Minnetonka. She is concerned about people forgetting about 9/11, and said she’s met Americans who don’t remember what happened that day.

Over the years, many people have given the Burnetts mementos and awards to honor their son. Beverly recently donated much of it to the Bloomington Historical Society. However, one of those gifts is prominently displayed in her apartment: an icon of the Virgin Mary holding the burning Twin Towers. It’s labeled “Our Lady of Sorrows.” It was from the Poor Clares, who until recently lived in a convent in Bloomington, and in whose chapel the Burnett family often marked the 9/11 anniversary.

Remembering is especially important now, the Burnetts said, as the United States has now officially ended its war in Afghanistan, which began because of 9/11. As they have followed the aftermath, they acknowledge that the situation is complicated, and they think about the members of the U.S. military who have served in Afghanistan. They know that among them are men and women inspired by Tom Jr.’s heroism. In the past two decades, they’ve met some of them.

They’ve heard a lifetime of recollections about where people were when they saw the Twin Towers fall, or news coverage of the smoldering Pentagon and destroyed Pennsylvania field, and what it was like that day and the days after, when the plane-less skies seemed a sign that the whole world was really standing still. And, because of the Burnetts’ very public loss, people have shared stories of hidden pains and losses, sensing that Tom Sr. and Beverly could understand.

The Burnetts do think about justice for their son and others killed, and wonder what that could look like on this side of heaven. Beverly and Tom Sr. have considered attending the trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the four other members of Al Qaeda accused of plotting the attacks, but she’s not sure it would happen now. The trial has been held up for more than a year by COVID-19 and legal issues.

While 9/11 “seems like yesterday” for Beverly and Tom Sr., life has gone on for the Burnetts. There have been graduations, weddings and new jobs. Tom Sr. and Beverly have grieved other deaths and rejoiced in births, including those of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They’ve also met a granddaughter whom Tom Jr. and a college sweetheart had given up for adoption in 1985. Deena has remarried, and her and Tom Jr.’s three daughters, Halley, Madison and Anna Clare — who were only 5 and 3 years old when their dad was killed — have graduated from college and begun careers.

When the Burnetts think about “Tommy,” they often go back to a weekend they spent together just weeks before he died. By chance, he, his parents and his sisters — just the five of them — ended up having dinner and watching a Neil Diamond concert on TV, sincerely enjoying each other’s company. It was a special weekend, Beverly said, exemplifying the best of their family relationships.

On this 9/11 anniversary, the Burnetts hope Americans are reminded that truly, freedom isn’t free, that it’s everyone’s responsibility to make the world a better place, and to live life with integrity and purpose.

“God has a plan for everyone. Sometimes you have to listen to these signs that are steering you in the direction of what your plan is,” Jurgens said. “Although our family is saddened to see him not on this earth, we know that he lived out his plan. … (We) don’t know how many years we all have, obviously. His kids expected him to walk through the door that night, and he expected to, too. You just don’t know what’s out there, for all of us. Live with your heart open to that.”

To learn more about the Burnett Scholar program at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, follow the Tom Burnett Family Foundation on Facebook at @tomburnettfamily or on Instagram at @tomburnett.family.