This “This Is Us” theory is breaking our hearts so hard, it better not be true

It’s about time someone started coming up with fan theories for This Is Us. Get some tissues handy, because this one will probably break you. While in the future we know that dad Jack has passed away, we don’t yet know how he passed away. A new fan theory speculates as to how he died, and be warned, and is literally the most heartbreaking thing in the entire world.

Seriously. Turn back now if you don’t want spoilers, and also if you don’t want to cry hysterically for the rest of the day.

To recap: Present-day, Jack has passed away, ~sometime~ within the last decade (maybe?). The exact timeframe is unclear, but it sounds like Jack was still alive around 2006. We saw his funeral in the last episode, and the kids appear to be teenagers, putting his death in mid-90s-ish, MAYBE? The circumstances around it are still hush-hush, and sometime after Jack’s passing (or maybe, before it??) mom Rebecca married Jack’s best friend, Miguel.

Okay, got all of that? Now here’s the theory: Jack passed away on 9/11, because he was in one of the airplanes that hit the Towers.

There isn’t a lot of evidence to back this up, but what This Is Us has given us makes sense. When Kate gets on the airplane to visit her family for Christmas and they hit turbulence, she appears VERY nervous. Also, following Jack’s death, Kevin went and destroyed all the model airplanes the two had made together. false

There are, of course, holes in this theory, like the fact that Kate has stated she watched the Super Bowl with her dad in 2006. false

Regardless, this is a pretty good fan theory, and it’s also something we could see This Is Us doing. It’s tragic enough to lose a parent at a young age (or, tbh at any age), and now add in the fact that Jack passed away during the worst terrorist attack on American soil? Start collecting all the tissues you can.