"Startling" Interview with Widow of United Flight 93 Hero, Tom Burnett, Reveals They Both Had "Premonitions" of His Death

Newsmax Staff/Teresa Neumann Reporting : May 3, 2006
Newsmax

A report in Newsmax states: "In a startling interview with Michael H. Brown, publisher of Spirit Daily, Deena Burnett, widow of the Flight 93 passenger Thomas Burnett, recalled that both she and her husband had premonitions about Tom's early death."

Burnett, according to his wife, had come back to church after "straying" from God as a young man. Raised a Catholic, he became "so devoted to his Lord" that he gave up his lunch hour to attend daily Mass. "He had been given a strong faith through his parents," said Deena, who also told Brown that before Sept. 11, both she and Tom had forebodings.

"After our third daughter was born, I always had this feeling that Tom was not going to live long enough to raise our children, but I never talked to him about this," she recalled. "I shared that thought with my mom right after our third daughter was born. She came into the hospital room and she said, 'Deena, I guess you'll have to have another child so Tom can have his son,' and I said, 'No, mom, God's not going to give us a son.' She said, 'Why?' and I said, 'Because God knows that Tom won't be here to raise the children and I couldn't raise Tom's son alone.'"

"My mother asked me what I was talking about. I don't know why I said that, but I remember feeling an incredible sense of peace, that whatever happened, everything was going to be OK. It was the week of Feb. 24, 1998, and I also told her then that he was going to be killed in a plane crash. It just came out of my mouth without any thought, and I didn't even think of it after I said it. It was something I was very much at peace with. It was God's plan, preparing me," she added, her voice cracking according to Brown.

The report goes on to state that in 1998, when Deena learned that Tom was going to daily Mass, she said, "I was a little bit surprised, but I didn't say anything. [Tom] said, 'I feel like God is calling me to do something, and I don't know what it is. But I know it's going to have a great impact on a lot of people.' He said, 'The reason I've been going to daily Mass is because I feel like if I can be closer to God, then I'll know what his plan is for me.'"

Reportedly, from then on Deena recalled she and her husband spent "a great deal of time" talking about what God's plan for them might be. "He wasn't sure," she told Brown. "But to say he was intuitive is an understatement, and I knew if he felt something was going to happen, I better listen to it and trust him. One of the things we brainstormed about was that he thought it had something to do with the White House."

At first Deena and Tom wondered if perhaps it all meant that Tom was to enter politics at some level. "That seemed like the avenue that God was calling him for," noted Deena, "But something about that didn't feel right, so he continued praying and we continued with our conversations from time to time about what he thought God's plan was."

"About a year before he was killed, Tom came to me and said, 'I don't know what's going to happen, but I have a feeling that you have always thought I was going to die young.' I was surprised because I never talked to him about it. I asked him why he thought that and he said, 'I don't know, but it may have something to do with God's plan for me. I'm not sure why I think that. But I need you to tell me what you think.' I just shared with him. I said, 'Well, I just always believed that we were not going to grow old together, that something was going to happen to prevent us from growing old together. One of us is going to be killed.'

"He took me seriously," Deena told Brown.

"My feeling was that it was going to be Tom, and Tom's feeling was that it was going to be him," Deena recalled. "He just felt that whatever God's plan was for him, it had something to do with the White House and was going to impact a lot of people."

After getting Tom's calls while he was on board United Flight 93 on 9/11, Deena immediately contacted the police and FBI.

"What do you want me to do?" Deena had asked him.

"Pray, Deena," said Tom. "Just pray."

"The two of us were calm - eerily calm," remembers Deena. "I knew that no matter what happened, that everything was going to be OK. I remember after hanging up the phone after each conversation with him just saying the same prayer. I asked God to hold him in the palms of his hands. I prayed for strength for all of us, and the endurance to do God's will."

"I know that he motivated those people aboard that flight to do what they did," said Deena, after having listened to the cockpit recorder tape. "And I also know that had he not been on the plane, that circumstances would have been very different today."

Deena, who reportedly moved back to Little Rock, Ark., where she attends Christ the King Church, told Brown she harbors no hatred toward Osama bin Laden, but she wants to see al-Qaeda stopped.

The tragedy, she says, "strengthened my faith in God. I found that I was more dependent on it - it was the only comfort that I could find. It's being able to pray and feel as if I'm in the presence of God."

Flight 93, the movie documenting that fateful flight, is currently in theaters throughout the U.S.