During the struggle, the Boeing 757 lost control and crashed into a field in Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board, but saving the hijackers' intended target and additional victims.

[2] Beamer and his two sisters, Melissa and Michele, were raised "with a strong biblical value system and work ethic".

The family relocated to Poughkeepsie, New York, and then to Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb west of Chicago, where David worked at Amdahl, a computer technology company.

[1] Beamer attended Wheaton Christian Grammar School, where he played soccer, basketball, and baseball.

[4] Beamer subsequently worked for Wilson Sporting Goods while taking night classes at DePaul University, earning an M.B.A. in June 1993.

[6] Beamer and Lisa taught Sunday school at Princeton Alliance Church for six years, and worked in youth ministry.

Although Beamer could have left that night for a Tuesday business meeting in California, he opted instead to spend time with his pregnant wife, who was due with their third child the following January.

Four minutes later, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower.

Moments later, the hijackers, led by the Lebanese Ziad Samir Jarrah, took over the plane's controls, disengaged the autopilot, and told passengers, "Keep remaining sitting [sic].

Beamer tried to place a credit card call through a phone located on the back of a plane seat, but was routed to a customer-service representative, who passed him on to GTE airphone supervisor Lisa Jefferson.

With FBI agents listening in on their call, Beamer informed Jefferson that hijackers had taken over United 93, and that one passenger had been killed.

[1] According to accounts of cell phone conversations, Beamer, along with Mark Bingham, Tom Burnett, and Jeremy Glick, formed a plan to take the plane back from the hijackers.

[10] They were joined by other passengers, including Lou Nacke, Rich Guadagno, Alan Beaven, Honor Elizabeth Wainio, Linda Gronlund, and William Cashman, along with flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles, in discussing their options and voting on a course of action, ultimately deciding to storm the cockpit and take over the plane.

[1][8][9] According to the 9/11 Commission Report, after the plane's voice data recorder was recovered, it revealed pounding and crashing sounds against the cockpit door and shouts and screams in English.

"[1] The plane crashed upside down[11] into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 563 miles per hour (906 km/h), killing everyone on board.

The plane was 20 minutes of flying time away from its suspected target, the White House or the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.

In a November 8 address from the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Bush would invoke Beamer's last-heard words, saying in his speech, "Some of our greatest moments have been acts of courage for which no one could have been prepared.

[20][21] The Cranbury, New Jersey, post office was dedicated to Beamer on May 4, 2002, as a result of an Act of Congress authored by Congressman Rush D. Holt, Jr.

[24] The Flight 93 National Memorial located at the crash site in Stonycreek Township[25] includes a concrete and glass visitor center,[26] and a white marble Wall of Names—completed in 2011[25]—on which Beamer's name and those of his 32 fellow passengers and seven crewmembers are engraved on individual panels.

[28] An Oracle business card bearing Beamer's name and his two-tone Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust wristwatch, both of which were found damaged at the crash site, are on display inside the memorial museum.