If a single man stopped one of the 9/11 planes from going down, what kind of legacy would he get?

This is inspired by Mark Walhberg saying that if he were on a 911 plane, he would have stopped it and safely landed the plane.

Let’s say a single man on United Airlines Flight 93 with a serious background in sports, martial arts, or who is just freakishly strong immediately stands up to the Hijackers before they get to the pilot. He takes out the first with a surprise punch, the second charges him and gets stabbed the by firsts box cutter in the neck and nearly bleeds out, the third tries to hold him off while the fourth guy rushes the pilot but gets immediately overwhelmed, and the fourth guy makes it to the cockpit only to get crushed by the hero.

No one ends up dying on the plane, even the hijackers.

How famous would he become? How many movies would be made about it? Beyond saving 47 lives, would there be any impact?


For a second scenario, OTL Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad, Cleveland Show, a few Hollywood movies) was scheduled to be on Flight 11but missed his flight. What if Seth McFarlane boarded Flight 11 and somehow realized this was a suicide mission rather than a generic hijacking, and personally led a successful revolt against the Hijackers before the plane reached the point where it had to either crash or get shot down? Meaning McFarlane saves the day. How would this effect his career after he lands?

Or, what if Walhberg did as he said and saves the day as he canceled his flight OTL.


Or, in a darker scenario, what if McFarlane and Walhberg both die? What are the pop culture effects? How are their works remembered?
 
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Lots of people would probably say the planes couldnt have damaged the towers that badly
It's only one plane that's prevented from crashing, which meant that at least one of the towers was still going down regardless.
Unfortunately, one tower must fall before engineers could reliably predict the consequences of a crash. The kinetic energy of the plane will not cause the tower to give way. Jet fuel will not burn hot enough to melt steel. Steel, though, loses its structural integrity as it heats above 800 F, becoming nearly useless above 1600 F, so it gave way and the building collapsed. In chemical plants and refineries, sprinklers are installed to protect structural steel because the facility processes extremely flammable material. In the case of an office/commercial tower, there was no credible need to design the structure for such a massive exposure to fuel.

Having been involved in industrial hazard consideration, I can say that plane crash and meteorite are not likely enough to be credible hazards in chemical plants. Now in a nuclear facility, it would be different.
 
This is inspired by Mark Walhberg saying that if he were on a 911 plane, he would have stopped it and safely landed the plane.

Let’s say a single man on United Airlines Flight 93 with a serious background in sports, martial arts, or who is just freakishly strong immediately stands up to the Hijackers before they get to the pilot. He takes out the first with a surprise punch, the second charges him and gets stabbed the by firsts box cutter in the neck and nearly bleeds out, the third tries to hold him off while the fourth guy rushes the pilot but gets immediately overwhelmed, and the fourth guy makes it to the cockpit only to get crushed by the hero.

No one ends up dying on the plane, even the hijackers.

How famous would he become? How many movies would be made about it? Beyond saving 47 lives, would there be any impact?


For a second scenario, OTL Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy, American Dad, Cleveland Show, a few Hollywood movies) was scheduled to be on Flight 11but missed his flight. What if Seth McFarlane boarded Flight 11 and somehow realized this was a suicide mission rather than a generic hijacking, and personally led a successful revolt against the Hijackers before the plane reached the point where it had to either crash or get shot down? Meaning McFarlane saves the day. How would this effect his career after he lands?

Or, what if Walhberg did as he said and saves the day as he canceled his flight OTL.


Or, in a darker scenario, what if McFarlane and Walhberg both die? What are the pop culture effects? How are their works remembered?

Considering that we had two Movies about United 93 come out and that was a near victory i can see a minimum of two big blockbuster Movies, atleast one minor Movie, a mini series about the crew and passengers and a few straight to dvd Movies about U93 if they manage to land the plane safe.

When it comes to Mark Wahlberg he would be regarded in the same light as James Dean. An actor people wondered what movies he would made if he had survived. Remember, he had already made boogie nights and The perfect storm so people knew he could be a serious actor, he had also made Three kings and Rockstar and people knew he could be funny. Entourage would be butterflied away just as Kevin Connolys director career

As for McFarlane he would be remembered only for family guy as he had not done much prior to that
 
I can remember the attitude regarding hijackings pre-9/11, and I don't think that anybody would have risked their life to knock out the hijackers, at least not until there was positive confirmation that another plane had been deliberately smashed into the towers, by which time it would have been too late. I have vague memories of this incident, which happened a year before:
http://edition.cnn.com/2000/ASIANOW/south/01/02/india.pilot/

Indian Airlines Flight IC 814. It was hijacked and diverted to Pakistan, then the UAE, then Kandahar in Afghanistan, where it remained on the tarmac for several days. Only one person was killed. Eventually the Indian authorities cut a deal to release three Muslim militants. Fascinatingly all three of them are still alive today. In that case the hijackers had a pistol and they went to Kandahar in Afghanistan, but the tenor of the reporting is one of fear but not impending mortal danger. It just wasn't expected that hijackers would smash an airliner into a building, killing everyone.

I swear I remember a case where an airliner was hijacked in the 1980s and one of the hijackers actually left their pistol in the toilets - one of the passengers found it. The passenger decided against charging out in a blaze of glory and was praised by the authorities for not doing so. I do remember this incident, where an Afghan airliner was hijacked on an internal flight in February 2000, a month after the story above:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/essex/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8499000/8499547.stm

In that case the plane flew to Stansted where the hijackers and most of the passengers claimed asylum in the UK. Post-9/11 it became a political issue because the hijackers should, in theory, have been deported to Afghanistan - the country was perfectly safe in 2006 because our mission there had been accomplished - but they were allowed to stay in the UK.

My point is that Mark Wahlberg probably wouldn't have resisted the hijackers on 9/11, or at least not quickly enough to make a difference. If his was the only hijacked plane the authorities would have condemned him as a glory-seeking lunatic - "hijackers are only going to use greater force in future" - and if the other plane had hit one of the towers it would have been too late to intervene.
 
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