BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The first dramatized re-creation of the terrorist hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, will air on Discovery Channel on the four-year anniversary of that infamous day.

	Post-Gazette Investigators inspect the site of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Somerset County, on Sept. 12, 2001. Producers of "The Flight That Fought Back" visited the area on several occasions, taping interviews with witnesses to the plane's flight and crash. Click photo for larger image.

"The Flight That Fought Back," a narrated documentary with approximately 45 minutes of re-created scenes depicting what happened before and during the flight, was produced by London-based Brook Lapping Productions with cooperation from United Airlines and some family members of the Flight 93 passengers and crew.

Flight 93, a Boeing 757 bound for California, was hijacked by terrorists who planned to crash it in Washington, D.C. Passengers who found out about previous terrorist attacks that morning disrupted the hijackers and caused the plane to crash in Shanksville, Somerset County, instead.

Flight 93 passenger Honor Elizabeth Wainio, 27, was head retail manager for the Northeast region Discovery Channel stores. Her stepmother, Esther Heymann, and her sister, Sarah Wainio, support the Discovery Channel production. They appeared on a press conference panel Saturday to discuss the program, which executive producer Phil Craig acknowledged may not be embraced by all the families of the 40 people killed in the crash.

Craig said members of 12 families were interviewed for the program and "we've spoken with and met 90 percent of the others, and I'd say of them, 90 percent are on board.

"A few people didn't want to have anything to do with it just because they just don't want to have anything to do with anything [relating to that day]," he said. "I think there will be some people who don't like it because their family member isn't highlighted, but when you're a filmmaker, you have to balance all sorts of things.

"It is a work of entertainment. It is a film that needs a big audience. It's also a work, I hope, of integrity and power that would move and inspire people."

Craig said the filmmakers tried to select a range of people, including some of the passengers who became famous in death and those who still remain less well known.

"Through that, we hope to honor the 40," he said.

Sarah Wainio said she wanted the story of her sister and others on the flight to be shared.

"I want people to be put on that plane," she said. "We have been dealing with it and thinking about it and imagining what happened that day for four years now, but the public might not always be thinking about it ... I'm grateful that this project is going on."

Heymann said she always expected a film of some sort would be made, and because her stepdaughter enjoyed working for Discovery Communications, "it sort of felt like something my daughter would have been involved in had she been here.

"To say it's been tastefully done sounds, of course, extreme because of how horrible it is, but I don't think it could be handled any better than Discovery has done it."

Heymann said she has seen portions of the film, but not a final version. The program will be screened for families beginning later this month. She said families she has been in touch with, which she's quick to point out are not all of the families, also are supportive of the project.

A short preview shown to journalists attending the Television Critics Association summer press tour included scenes of the passengers aboard Flight 93 after the hijacking making phone calls to loved ones, reading from a Bible and rushing down the aisle with a beverage cart.

Craig said the voices that drive the film are those of the interviewees, predominantly friends and family of the passengers and crew.

"There are some dialogue scenes on the plane, 90 percent of these are based on tape evidence and the memories of people who spoke to people on the flight," he said. "We have invented a few lines of dialogue that's been based on consultation with people who knew them."

A federal law enforcement officer is shown talking to other passengers about hostage-taking in "a very small scene," Craig said, because his parents believed it was the kind of conversation he would have had.

Craig cautioned against calling the film "definitive" because he said such an account cannot be made until the full cockpit recordings are made public following the trial of accused terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

Since work began in earnest on "The Flight That Fought Back" a year ago, Craig said the intention was always to be up front about the re-created scenes.

"When we don't know something, we'll say we don't know it," he said after Saturday's press conference, "and when we do know something, we'll say why we know it."

The film shows the hijackers entering the cockpit, Craig said, but it doesn't depict how they entered the cockpit because that remains uncertain.

"The normal TV style is to be quite boastful, you know, 'Here is the voice of God narration,' but this is not like that," Craig said. "It's much more humble, really, because there are things we don't know and we say so."

He said United Airlines supported the making of the film, allowing scenes to be shot in United facilities in Newark, N.J. Actors wear authentic United Airlines uniforms, some United employees play background characters and frequent travelers will recognize the fabric on seats as the same colors and pattern found on United planes. Scenes aboard Flight 93 were filmed on a Los Angeles soundstage.

Producers of "The Flight That Fought Back" visited Shanksville on several occasions, taping interviews with witnesses to the plane's flight and crash, including pilots who saw the Boeing 757 fly beneath their aircraft.

"There's one remarkable scene where the police force volunteered to repeat an honor guard that they established a week after the crash when the families first came to visit [the crash site]," Craig said. "They all volunteered to play themselves in the reconstruction that we shot, which is one of the most memorable things I think I've ever filmed."

Discovery Channel executives said they would like to air the 90-minute film without commercial interruption, providing a single sponsor can be found. Known actors are also being courted to narrate the film.

Discovery Channel's program isn't the only TV project about the hijacking. A&E Network announced in April that it will make an original movie for the 2005-06 TV season that also will re-create the events on board Flight 93.