Husband's heartbreaking 9/11 call

A fiery blasts rocks the south tower of the World Trade Center as the hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the building on September 11, 2001. Photo / Getty

The heartbreaking message from a passenger on the doomed United Airlines flight to his wife on 9/11 has gone viral.

Brian Sweeney, 38, made a phone call to his wife from the back of the plane just three and a half minutes before it crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. A manuscript of the fatal phone call has since been shared on social media by professor Frank McDonough.

Phone call from Brian Sweeney, passenger on Flight 175, to his wife pic.twitter.com/bA2uEubRFB

— Prof Frank McDonough (@FXMC1957) September 11, 2017

"I'm on an airplane that's been hijacked," Sweeney said in a voicemail left to his wife, Julie Sweeney Roth.

"If things don't go well, and it's not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you, I want you to do good, go have good times - same to my parents and everybody -
and I just totally love you, and I'll see you when you get there. Bye, babe. I hope I call you."

After leaving the message, Sweeney called his mother and told her he loved her before abruptly hanging up the phone, according to CNN.

Julie told CNN in 2004 she thinks the main reason Brian made the calls was to "let us know where he was, what was happening, and to give us his final love and wishes for our lives, because he knew he was on a doomed flight".

Her husband's voice helped to give her comfort in the days following the attacks.

"He was a warrior, and you just didn't believe that something like this could take him away," Julie, who is now remarried, said in a video published by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. "All I needed was that message, and I think he very selflessly left it. I don't think he left it until he knew he wasn't coming home."

Sweeney's words can be heard at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City, where people in attendance can pick up a telephone and hear the message for themselves, as Roth did, 16 years ago today.