Flight 93: another contradiction?

[John Doe II]

I read once again the Commission Report about Flight 93. I quote:
"The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:23, a hijacker said, "Pull it down! Pull it down!" The hijackers remeined at the controls butu must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down.; the control wheel was turned hard to the right. The airplane rolled onto its back, and one of the hijackers began shouting "Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greates." With sounds of the passengers counterattacking continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville".
(p. 14)

Maybe I'm too critical. Maybe it's macabre. And please correct me if I'm mistaken. I simply don't understand given the way the airplane heads down, full speed, rolls on his back (eyewitness agree on that) because the hijackers are going to crash it. I can't understand that the passenger can continue their counterattack. It seems to me physically impossible. It should even be impossible in a plane that's going to crash head on to remain standing on one's feet.

I immediately agree that also family member of the victims who listened to the tape had the impression that at the very end of the tape the passengers managed to gain control. That means that till the end of the tape the sound of a counterattack are audible.

Does anybody believe that the counterattack is physically possible in such a flight? Or does it imply that there is something wrong (again) with the Report and that the tape was played till its end?

[RH]

1. It is all too fuzzy to say.

On board a plane it is not a matter of which way up it is, nor the absolute velocity. The sensation depends on any change of velocity. To get to grips with that you'd then need to sift through the precise details of any flight information.

It is frustrating not see it all sorted out but who exactly should have done so? What administrative mechanism would bring it about?

Show me the nuts and bolts of a deliberate conspiracy and I'll believe in it. In the mean time if it looks like a hideous mess and talks like a hideous mess and it walks like a hideous mess ......

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

(Hamlet: Act II, Scene II)

[stickdog]

2. It's too fuzzy because none of the evidence has been released.

All we have is the sanitized say so of an updated Warren whitewash.

[John Doe II]

3. I love Hamlet

First thanks for answering and I'm releaved that obviously my question is not that stupid. Rethinking it it seems even harder to solve the contradictions.

It is not suprising that nobody questioned the possibility that the passengers could attack till the end when the family members listened to the tape. It simply wasn't assumed that the hijackers headed the plane into the ground on purpose. So physically speaking it should have been possible to remain on ones feet.

But how is it even theoretically possible what's written word by word in the Report? "The airplane headed down" and this seems logical as "the passengers were only seconds from overcoming" the hijackers. So certainly Jarrah headed down to crash the plane as fast as possible. And even more "The plane rolled on his back" (and again several eyewitnesses agree on this statement): How can the passengers possibly continue their counterattack?? The passengers will be thrown through the plane hurt themselves but certainly it is impossible that they could have remained at the cockpit door. Please how?? They didn't have any "Fasten your seat belt" sign.
RH obviously you are not so sure about this. They please explain me if a plane at full speed headeds down (to be crashed as fast as possible) and the roll on its back how can passengers continue their attack? (And I don't think any voice recorder or whatsoever has to be released. It seems even theoretcially impossible that it's true what's written in the Report).

[k-robjoe]

4. Wouldn´t they be thrust towards

the cockpit door?

( Don´t want to see you using your time arguing with RH about this, when your other evidence was so much stronger... )

( in my opinion... )

:)

[RH]

6. If the aircraft accelerated

they'd be thrown backwards, not forwards.

Physics.

[seatnineb]

7. Another contradiction...

rh hypothesizes
If the aircraft accelerated they'd(passenger counter-attackers) be thrown backwards, not forwards.

O.K....

Then how is it that this ingeniouse ploy used by Cessna graduate, Jarrah, was not employed by the original Flight 93 pilot and Gulf War Veteran ,Leroy Homer, when the Arabs originally attacked the cockpit

Because our Leroy knew somthin was up that morning.....

Leroy Homer,36, the first officer,recieved a radioed text message from air traffic control in Chicago warning aircraft of that morning's(9/11) hijackings."beware cockpit intrusions" the text message said..At about 9:15am the crew typed a one word reply:..."CONFIRMED"
http://www.devvy.com/red_20011210.html


Any answers rh....

[John Doe II]

8. Contradiction remains

K-robjoe: I agree that certainly my argument about Glick's phone call is much stronger as I think is irrefutable and only based on facts. This time I don't want to show that the Commission lied about the timeline but I question the end of the flight (and there are more contradictions still to come).
First in any case we can agree that given what happens when the hijackers planed to crash the flight it was impossible to continue the counterattack. And certainly one can distinguish the sound of a counterattack and people sreaming of pain. So on the first glance the Commission Report seems to be coherent but I think it can't be true.
Is this just about semantics? Does it matter if the Commission called it counterattack or people screaming of pain?
Yes, it does. Because the Report hides a strange absence. The absence of a certain noise that is suspiciously absent of the recording as well that family members heard: The famaily members don't mentioned the screams of people that are in pain but moreover no screams of people that know that the plane will crash within seconds? How come they don't here anything that indicates that people in the cockpit and elsewhere see and know there are dying within the next seconds?? And very strange as well on the recording there is something else missing: "There is no sound of the impact".
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/4084323.htm?1c

In this light I think the probability that it happened to Flight 93 what the Commission reported are very very low.

[RH]

5. I dont think it helps to speculate.

I dont see that any of the previous speculation was fruitful, over the past couple of years. While one alleged "Smoking Gun" after another blew away in the smoke the Bush gang sat there as smug as ever. As Kerry is at long last getting around to show, you dont have to dig so deep to find some shit to throw back at them.

I'm also sick to death of this "not realeased" mantra. If people want more information they have to go get it. Amen. In my experience the boffins tend to live with wives and kids who dont want to know what goes on at work and when somebody does turn up with a shared interest they're more than pleased to talk. If they dont then want to talk to others with no intention other than to look for ways to impugn their work I'm not going to blame them for that. I wouldn't know how to interpret raw black box data anyway so I figure that you just have to trust them no matter what.

If you want a speculation to play with maybe a sudden flurry of cell phone call attempts interfered with the safe conduct of the aircraft. It makes about as much sense to me as anything else does.

[John Doe II]

9. And yet another odditiy

There is another oddity concerning Flght 93 which I believe is worth pointing out:
A lot of passengers decided to overcome the hijackers and they discussed together a plan. There was a pilot onboard, Donald F. Greene, which could have been the very person all hope was put on. Certainly it must have been a big concern for the passengers what to do after they overcame the hijackers. But in not a single phone call (and there have been many) the very existence of Donald F. Greene is mentioned.
Or to put it into the word of Greene's wife:
"I have just found it so unusual that no one mentioned the pilot among them. If these guys were trying to reassure their wives on the phone, that everything was going to be okay, wouldn't you say, 'We've got a guy who can fly a plane' There was never any mention of that. Don was a provocative guy. He would have been in these guys' faces" (Among the Heroes, p. 255).

Unfortunately there is no record of a phone call of Greene himself.



Thanks to woody box:-)

[stickdog]

10. They can't mention Greene because Greene was the guy flying the

plane for the last three minutes.

[MercutioATC]

11. WTF is that supposed to mean???

[stickdog]

12. Can you give us the names of all of the Cleveland air traffic controllers

who handled Flight 93 and suspected Delta hijacking that day so we can attempt to discuss this with them? Or is the gag order still in effect, MercutioATC?

[RH]

13. Did the gag order

somewhow prevent an answer to a perfectly reasonable question, as put? It is otherwise inpossible to make any sense of that repsonse except in terms of disruption or evasion.

MercutoATC has often explained exactly who he is, where he is to be found, hence his point and purposes.

Is stickdog then about to practice what stickdog preaches or does a dual standard apply with regard to the provision of personal information?

[stickdog]

14. If MercutoATC is who he says he is, what's wrong with what I asked him?

I'm not asking MercutoATC to provide his personal information. I was asking if he has any knowledge that could help lead us closer to the truth about what happened with Flight 93. Considering "exactly who he is" and "where he is to be found," I think the question is quite legitimate. In fact, it's the first question that comes to mind. He's obviously very interested in the subject of 9/11 himself, and I'm simply wondering if there's some impediment to him doing whatever he can to help us obtain as much firsthand information about the event as possible. I understand why the US government might have wanted to gag the air traffic controllers who handled these flights in the days just after 9/11, but now that the 9/11 Commission has answered all our questions about the event, what could possibly be the purpose of suppressing the testimony of these important witnesses?

As for me, I'm a longtime poster on Democratic Underground. I'm also a concerned citizen of the United States of America. My track record speaks for itself. My analyses speak for themselves. As should be perfectly clear to anyone who has read a decent number of my posts, my only agenda is uncovering as much truth as I can using research and reason. So exactly how am I not practicing what I preach?

Concerning WTF is that supposed to mean???, I'm not sure how to answer. What it means is exactly what I orginally posted. I merely speculated that if was Greene the pilot who filed the new DC flight plan and turned back on the transponder, this would explain why his story has been conspicuously absent among Flight 93's heroic peans.

[RH]

17. Read the previous threads.

MercutioATC has already assisted, on several occassions.

He mentioned for instance the ATC on duty on 9/11.

Why then the sudden diversion so late in the day?

[MercutioATC]

22. I don't have a problem with stickdog's question.

I wasn't going to give out the name of the retired controller for privacy reasons, but it appears that it's already been published (by medieanalyze for one). John Worth is the male controller voice you hear on the UAL93 ATC tape.

[stickdog]

28. Thanks. Have you ever talked to people at work about that day?

Is there any skuttlebutt "story behind the story" that hasn't been widely published? I'm apologize if you already posted this information and I missed it.

I'm not trying to be a nosy prick here. I think you can appreciate my curiosity about this subject considering that I don't often run into people who work (or once worked) with direct, firsthand 9/11 witnesses. If you'd rather not discuss this or discuss it privately, I understand.

[MercutioATC]

31. I have spoken with Stacey about UAL93.

She didn't really have anything to say that she didn't tell Brokaw. I did ask her specifically about the possibility that it had been shot down and she said that she really didn't believe it had.

I completely understand your curiosity. Don't worry, I don't think you're being nosy...I just don't have any real revelations to report. I can tell you it's true that only family members of the passengers and crew and the ATCs involved got to hear the uncensored version of the ATC tapes (aside from investigators, of course). Stacey told me she had chosen not to listen to them.

[MercutioATC]

18. Since Stacey talked to Brokaw on national TV, I don't think there's a "gag

order"...

As far as giving you all of the names, there are over 450 controllers at Cleveland Center. Aside from Stacey and another controller who's since retired, I have no idea who talked to UAL93.

I can tell you that only two controllers were involved with UAL93 after it was hijacked: Stacey and the retired controller.

ON EDIT:

I wasn't going to give out his name for privacy reasons, but it's apparently already been published. The male controller voice on the UAL93 tape was John Worth. He retired a couple of years ago.

[John Doe II]

19. Evacuation

MercutioATC,
as we're talking about the controllers. Do you know by any chance more about the evacuation of Cleveland?

[MercutioATC]

20. There were reports that DAL1989 had a bomb on board.

At the time, it was near Cleveland Center. As we knew that there had been attacks on other buildings and Cleveland Center being the busiest ATC facility on the planet, the decision was made to evacuate the Center and leave only a skeleton crew of volunteers behind. When DAL1989 landed at Cleveland Hopkins shortly afterward, the evacuation was ended.

[John Doe II]

21. Thanks, MercutioATC

Do you know if Stacey Taylor and the retired controller both stayed after the evacuation?

[MercutioATC]

23. I know Stacey did. I believe John did, too.

The Center was broken up into 7 geographic areas (areas of airspace). Stacey was in Area 5. John was in Area 4. As I said, I wasn't there that day. All told there were probably 20 or so people left on the control floor including supervisory staff.

[John Doe II]

24. Thanks for the info!

:-)

[MercutioATC]

25. No problem. That's the primary reason I post here.

I'm happy to answer any questions about ATC or specific 9/11 events I'm familiar with. If I don't know something, I'll try to find out.

We may not reach the same conclusions, but sharing information is never a bad thing.

[John Doe II]

26. Sure, I'll certainly agree on that!

[John Doe II]

49. Question to MercutioATC

There is something I really don't understand and I hope you could kindly help me out on that:
On 9/11 Cleveland Center heard the following message:

United 93: this is captain, please sit down, remain sitting, we have a bomb on board.

Cleveland: Uh, calling Cleveland Center, you’re unreadable, say again slowly.

Executive 956: sounded like he said he had a bomb on board.

Cleveland: Uh, say again, you there, United ninety-three?


How come that Cleveland is apparently unsure where the message comes from (twice it asks back for the identity) and moreover why then finally was believed that this message came from Delta 1989?
Isn't there no definite way to figure out which cockpit says what? Are there often confusions if planes fly nearby?

I would be very happy if you could help me out of this:)

[MercutioATC]

52. I'll try...

Pilots and controllers are trained to always identy the flight being spoken to in every single transmission. If we recieve a transmission without an identification, we'll always ask who it was from (a misunderstanding could result in an incorrect clearance, with possibly disastrous results). Asking for an identification in this case was routine procedure.

I don't believe that this transmission was the reason that we thought DAL1989 had a bomb on board. I'll try to find out.

There's no way to ID where a transmission came from. That's why we insist on ID every time.

[John Doe II]

53. Thanks a lot for the clarification!

Do you have any idea then why the Delta flight was mistaken for Flight 93? Or more precisely: When did Jarrah's message "We have a bomb on board" lead to the conclusion that the Delta flight was hijacked, too? At least this is the explanation I found in the articles talking about Delta 1989.
Or put it differently: Frm your experience as a ATC what could lead to this wrong conclusion (I'm not trying to put blame here. Just as Delta was mistakenly taken for a hijacked flight with a bomb on board, I'm trying to understand).
Thanks again.:)

[MercutioATC]

54. I don't know, but I'll try to find out.

I don't know that it was Jarrah's message that led to the conclusion that DAL1989 had been hijacked, but I'll try to talk with people who were working that day and see if they can shed some light. I'm not back at work until Saturday, so it'll take a few days...

[John Doe II]

55. I would very much appreciate that

On a quick glance I couldn't find a quote that says that Jarrah's message was taken to come from Delta 1989.
Nonetheless this might help:

Minutes later, a new voice, this one with a heavy accent: "Ladies and gentlemen, here it's the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard."

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2002/2002-08-13-clear-skies.htm

This sounds very much like Jarrah's first message from 9:32
(Report, p.12)

USAToday talking about Delta 1989 says for this message that it happend minutes after 9:30.

I very much appreciate your help as it seems important and insight knowlegde of ATC's working helps certainly to avoid wrong conclusions.

[tngledwebb]

56. Seems like next logical step

would be MercutioATC talking to 9/11 Commission, or getting in touch with other officials to help with the ongoing investigations.

[John Doe II]

57. I'm sorry

I read several good and interesting posts by you. But I don't really know if this one is helpful.

[tngledwebb]

58. Maybe not,

but given MercutioATC's professional expertise and having been and/or still working at Cleveland and knowing people who may know something important, etc....

[MercutioATC]

59. Me?!? Talk to the 9/11 Commission?!?!

Yeah, I'll have a chat with the Pope while I'm at it...

I can try to get some insights from the prople who were there because I work with them. I don't think the 9/11 Commission would be very receptive to answering questions i might ask.

[tngledwebb]

60. What is....

the first question you would start with, Mercutio? As an ATC you must have a long list.

[MercutioATC]

61. I can think of a few.

1) Can you explain the discrepency between the official UAL93 crash time and the recorded local seismic event?

2) When will ALL of the videotapes from the cameras surrounding the Pentagon be released?

3) Will you release the transcripts from the flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders that were recovered?

...that's just off the top of my head.

[tngledwebb]

62. Why are those questions relevant

to you? And why do you think this evidence has been held back for three years?

[stickdog]

30. And Rick Kettell was their supervisor?

Does he still work at the Cleveland hub?

Finally, any comments about what Rick & Stacey said in these two interviews?

http://www.post-gazette.com/nation/20020615shanksville6.asp

But Rick Kettell, manager of the Cleveland Center, briefly talked about the day and said that although Flight 93's transponder, a beacon to track the aircraft, was shut off after the hijacking over Ohio occurred, the signal sporadically came back. He said that indicated the flight crew was trying to keep communicating with controllers.

"It appears that the flight crew of Flight 93 continued to do courageously what they could," Kettell said.

"We received several transmissions from the cockpit to make us aware all was not well. We also received sporadic transponder transmissions with altitude information that assisted us in the tracking of that airplane. We can only surmise how bravely they accomplished that."

http://news.globalfreepress.com/ewing/woodybox/brokaw2.html

BROKAW: You're keeping your eye on Flight 93 at this point?

Ms. TAYLOR: Yeah. And then the transponder came back on. We got two hits off the transponder. That's something we've always wanted to know. Why did the transponder come back on? Because the hijackers had shut it off so that they couldn't be tracked, even though we were still tracking them. Now we were getting an altitude readout on the airplane. I can't remember the precise numbers, but it was around 6400 feet, and then around 5900 or 5800 feet. And we're thinking, 'Oh, you know, maybe something's happened, maybe this isn't what we think it is.'

BROKAW: (Voiceover) But minutes later, at 10:03, the transponder shuts off again. Flight 93 disappears from radar.


*****


Specifically, do you have any theories about why or how Flight 93's transponder was switched on sporadically during the last minutes of flight?

[Woody Box]

32. Rick Kettell on the evacuation of Cleveland Center

Then, as controllers worked to clear the skies, a small plane was spotted flying erratically above the Cleveland center. The decision was made to evacuate.


"We actually evacuated, out in the parking lot," said Rick Kettell, Cleveland air traffic manager.


Luckily, controllers there had already landed most of the planes before the evacuation.


"Had that happened a half-hour earlier, I probably would have done a limited evacuation," Kettell said.


The Federal Aviation Administration is still investigating what plane that was and what it was doing.


"We never did find out exactly who it was," Kettell said. "The airplane flew off to the north, and we lost radar on it."


http://www.newsnet5.com/News/1608371/detail.html


Hm. Kettell is not talking about Delta1989, is he?

[MercutioATC]

33. Rick was the Facility Manager, but he's no longer at Cleveland Center.

I really have no idea who turned it back on. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing one would be concerned about during a crash.

[stickdog]

34. Exactly. However, 6,400 feet is a bit of distance from the ground.

And the last minute change of flight plan from SFO to DCA? Doesn't that also not seem like the kind of thing one would be concerned about during a crash?

[MercutioATC]

35. I still haven't heard the details on that flight plan change.

I'd need to know how it was changed and by whom to make any assessment.

[stickdog]

37. Me either. This is what I have.

http://www.foxicat.com/HeroesFlight93.html

The heroes of Flight 93: Interviews with family and friends detail the courage of everyday people.

By Kim Barker, Louise Kiernan, and Steve Mills
Chicago Tribune

It may be there were separate plans to take the plane or that somehow, amid all the telephone calls, chaos and fear, the passengers were able to communicate with each other.

If they did, they may have known they had another pilot among them, Donald Greene, chief executive officer of Safe Flight Instrument in New York. Greene, according to his family, knew anything and everything about airplanes.

At about 9:54 a.m., the plane started flying erratically. In Oak Brook, Ill., Jefferson heard screams in the background.

Two minutes later, the plane's flight plan changed. The destination airport was changed from San Francisco International to Ronald Reagan National Airport. Estimated time of arrival: 10:28 a.m.

[stickdog]

36. Another earlier article

http://www.flight93crash.com/second-plane-at-flight93-crash-site.htm

IN RURAL HAMLET, THE MYSTERY MOUNTS

SOURCE: The Bergen Record

BYLINE: JEFF PILLETS, Staff Writer

DATELINE: SHANKSVILLE, PA -- 9/14/01

An official at the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center in Overland, Ohio, which tracked Flight 93 as it turned in the sky and tracked eastward from the Cleveland area, said "no comment" when asked if there was any record of a second plane over the crash site.

"That's something that the FBI is working on and I cannot talk about," said Richard Kettel, head of tower operations at the Cleveland center. He spoke shortly before the FBI announced it had no evidence of a second jet.

[MercutioATC]

38. "Overland"?...heeheehee. It's Oberlin.

And yes, we will usually cover our asses and not talk about incidents until we've been cleared to do so. We all have secret security clearances (Rick's clearance was top secret) so we won't usually say too much without an official O.K.

[John Doe II]

16. Greene's phone call

I couldn't manage to find Greene's phone call. Did anybody find anything about his phone call or did he not phone?

[Woody Box]

29. No, Greene didn't make a call (nT)

[John Doe II]

40. Thanks woody box

Indeed there is not a single article that mentioned a phone call by Donald Greene. So the future pilot, the life saver, the center of the liberation plan of Flight 93 is one of the very few passengers that don't phone and he wasn't even mentioned in a single conversation: no where did any passenger mention that they had a pilot onboard. Why?

[John Doe II]

15. Another strange absence

While there was no impact sound to be heard on the recording (as already stated in this thread) several people who had been on the phone with passengers of Flight 93 witness another bizarre sound before the connection ended abruptly:

"according to sources, the last seconds of the cockpit voice recorder are the loud sounds of wind, hinting at a possible hole somewhere in the fuselage".
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12192317&method=full&siteid=50143

Also Lorne Lyles at the phone with his wife CeeCee recalled: "he heard a whooshing sound, a sound like wind, a sound he couldn't really explain, just that it was like wind and people were screaming and then the call broke off."
(Among the Heroese, p. 253)

Yet, the Commission Report fails to answer the question of "The Mirror":
Why the wind sounds?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12192317&method=full&siteid=50143

So, can anybody please come up and explain why no sound of the impact but the sound of wind was audible at the end of the recording?
And why does the Commission obivously not mention things audible for the family members?

[seatnineb]

27. Cee Cee joins Glick!

O.K we got major shit goin on here......

Cee Cee Lyles phones her husband ,Lorne, at 9:58am ,and proceeds to talk to him for 2 minutes about all things personal:
"Our conversation actually lasted for about two minutes, and we were just -- she was just telling me that she loved me, tell the kids, and then we said a prayer. "

Then at 10:00am Cee Cee Lyles declares(to Lorne):
"OK, it's getting ready to happen"

And....

"They're forcing their way into the cockpit."

http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0112/07/lkl.00.html

Another thing to note is that Cee Cee used her mobile phone.

According to the 9/11 Commission report:

Jarrah was rolling the plane left and right between 9:58:57
to 9:59:52....

But according to Cee Cee.......

The passenger revolt has not yet begun to force Jarrah to roll the plane to the left and right......


Looks like Cee Cee and Jeremy were out of synch with Todd and Tom....

Looks like the whole flight 93 time line is out of synch with itself....

[John Doe II]

39. Case closed, and further questions

Seatnineb,

Thanks for your find.
I think the case of the official timeline is closed. Nobody answered the thread of "Commission lied" so I take it that nobody can come up with anything substantial to refute the thesis that the Commission lied on purpose!
But having a look at the Report I have more and more doubts that the recordings the family members listened to and the one the Commission writes about are actually the same:
Continuing counterattack as heard by Commission is physically impossible.
If the hijackers crashed the plane at full speed, turned the plane on the back etc then why didn't the family members hear any screaming but had the impression that passengers managed at the end to get into the cockpit (no audible sign that passengers knew they would die within seconds and had no chance anymore).
Why didn't the family members hear that the hijackers decided to crash the plane. Arab phrases were translated on a screen so it's really hard to believe that there is a psychological explanation that nobody wanted to read ...!

So, excuse me, there are simply too many inexplicable contradictions so I'm sure that either the family members didn't hear the same tape or once again the Commission lied about the final minutes of Flight 93.

Concerning the final miniutes:
And why didn't the family members hear no sound of impact? Why did they hear sound of wind instead (as witnessed by others on the phone)? Anybody has an idea??

[John Doe II]

41. Flight 93 almost crashed at 9:28 and nobody cared

From the Report:

The hijackers attacked at 9:28. While travalling 35,000 feet above eastern Ohio, United 93 suddenly dropped to 700 feet
(p. 11)

This surely must have been really very very scary for the passengers who must have seen themselves dead in the next seconda already. Certainly an experience that marked them. Certainly an experience that they wanted to tell their beloved ones in the phone calls that were made in the following minutes. But no. Nobody mentioned that they just escaped death.
Why?
Isn't this another aspect of the Commission Report about Flight 93 that simply doesn't add up.

[k-robjoe]

42. Thanks

This is very interesting.
All your updates today.
But I´m especially surprised that I haven´t heard about this before.

[k-robjoe]

43. Too weird to be true

It was a bit too weird to be true.

It should be : "93 suddenly dropped 700 feet". Not that it dropped TO 700 feet.

Tsk tsk.

But apart from this, you´re doing swell.

[John Doe II]

44. Uups!!!!!

Thanks a lot!
And I'm very sorry!
Getting a bit paranoid myself!
So we just completely delete this!!!!
Fortunately I still have some other ones.

[John Doe II]

45. How many hijackers onboard?

The Commission Reports states:

several passengers on United 93 described three hijackers not four
(p. 12)

Well, this is not really precise because actually none of the passengers saw four hijackers and all passengers giving a number said that there are three hijackers onboard.

The Report refuses the idea of jumpseating as an explanation of the difference.

We have found no evidence indicating that one of the hijackers, or anyone else, sat there (jumpseat) on this flight. All the hijackers had assigned seats in first class, and they seem to have used them.
(p. 12)

And indeed there is a passenger who sees ALL four hijackers (without knowing): Todd Beamer.

The Commission report states that there have been 37 passengers onboard. "Among the Heroes" percises that 10 passengers were seated first class and 27 in coach. (p. xvi)

As mentioed all hijackers were in first class. 1B, 3C, 3D and 6B.

At 9:45 Beamer calls Lisa Jefferson and according to Longman he gives her the following information:
"There were ten passengers in first class, twenty-seven in coach" (p. 279).

So conclusevily all the hijackers are to be seen in first class at the beginning of the flight. And how many hijackers are there according to Beamer: three! (p. 279)

Why doesn't he see the fourth one?

But it's becominig even stranger:

Beamer describes:
"Two with knives went into the cockpit and locked the door. The third person stood in first class with what appeared to be a bomb strapped around his waist with a red belt.He ordered everyone to sit down, then he closed the curtain that separated first class from couch" (p. 279)

Maybe Beamer being seated in coach didn't see a hijacker who didn't do a move yet.
But Mark Bingham (seated 4D, p. 41) and Tom Burnett (4B, p. 41) both seated first class and both only see three hijackers (p. 186 and ABC, 9/12/01)).

So maybe maybe Todd Beamer miscounted and there have been only nine person in the first class.
But
"about midway through the tape, one of the hijackers said to another, "Let the guys in now," apparentl referring to other terrorists entering the cockpit". (p. 291)

This clearly says that two hijackers (or three are in the cockpit but that two are still outside the cockpit door. So why does no passenger see all the hijackers??

[John Doe II]

46. Passengers in First Class

Strange.
JosephDeLuca and Linda Gronlund (seats 2B and 2D) just sitting between Jarrah and Nami and Ghamdi (1B, 3C and 3D): No mentioning of the number of hijackers nor any characteristics of them.

Edward Felt: (2D) sitting very close to three hijackers. "Ed Felt did not describe the hijackers or mention any attempt to regain control of the plane" (Among the Heroes, p. 275)

Thomas Burnett Jr.: (4B)sees three people. No special characteristics of hijackers are mentioned.

Mark Bingham: (4D): states that there are "three guys". No characteristics of hijackers are mentioned.

Mark Rothenberg: (5B) made no call.

So although as shown before all four hijackers have been sitting in First class when Flight 93 took off. None of the passengers sitting very close to the hijackers see the four of them. Even stranger none of the passengers gave as special charcteristic of the hijackers that apparently they were arab and the only arab-looking passengers on the plane.

Why don't they see the four hijackers. Where is the fourth hijacker??
And why does none of the passengers give the obvious description of the hijackers so FBI would know who they were?

[John Doe II]

47. Cockpit door only provided flimsy protection

Jere Longman states in "Among the Heroes":
Although the cockpit door remained locked during flight, it provided only flimsy protection on September 11. The door was designed to withstand no more than one hundred and fifty pounds of pressure, so that it could be forced open in emergencies, allowing thepilots to escape outward or passengers to escape inward to climb out of a cockpit window. A heavy shoulder would dislodge the door (p. 8)

According to the Commission Report the passengers didn't manage to enter the cockpit during a fight of six minutes. Anybody ready to explain how several passengers didn't manage with the help of a foot cart to open the cockpit door that only provided flimsy protection?

[John Doe II]

48. Next contradiction: "Remain seated"?

Flight attendent Sandy Bradshaw said that "most of the passengers had been herded to the rear of the plane". (Among the Heroes, p. 247). And Jeremy Glick said "they send passengers to the back of the plane" (p. 202). The Commission Report agrees on that (p. 13)
This must have happened before 9:37 as Glick's phone call began at that time (Among the Heroes, p. 201).
According to the Commission Report two minutes later the following occured:

At 9:39, the FAA's Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center overheard a second announcement indicating that there was a bomb on board, that the plane was returning to the airport, and that they should remain seated . While it apparently was not heard by the passengers, this announcement, like those on Flight 11 and Flight 77, was intended to deceive them. Jarrah, like Atta earlier, may have inadvertently broadcasted the message because he did not knowhow to operate the radio and the intercom.

But what's the sense of herding passengers to the rear of the back whdere they're not seated (Sandy Bradshaw eg tells her husband she's boiling water) and then a few minutes later to tell them that they shall REMAIN seated??

According to the Commission Report Jarrah wanted to deceive the passengers. But how could he. Since around 9:45 the passengers were completely left alone. With an airplane equiped with airfones it's quite forseeable that passengers do phone and get to know of other attacks (as Flight 93 had a 41 minute delay Jarrah must have known that the other three flights already had hit their target or finished in another way). The Report comments on this not convincingly:

If Jarrah did know that passengers were making calls, it might not have occured to him that they were certain to learn what had happened in New York, thereby defeating his attempts at deception. (p. 12)

I mean is Jarrah completely dumb? How could the passengers not learn of the other attacks and become convinced that they have to start a counterattack if the hijackers let them phone???
And what's the sense of telling them to REMAIN seated although they (with a few exceptions that remained in first class) are herded to the back of the plane?



Thanks to woody box

[John Doe II]

50. Commission Report vs Eyewitnesses

The Report describes the crash of Flight 93 as the intentional crash of the hijackers:

The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down.
(p. 14)

The hijackers obviously tried to crash the plane as fast as possible (this corresponds as well to the speed of 580mph with which UA 93 crashed). So I think the last seconds of Flight 93 seen from the outside are quite easy to imagine:
head down, roll at one point onto its back and plow into the field as fast as possible.

Strangely the eyewitnesses recalled that the airplane didn't behave like this. Moreover several eyewitnesses alos hear something bizarre:

Lee Purbaugh, 270 metres away: There was an incredibly loud rumbling sound and there it was, right there, right above my head – maybe 50 feet up (....) I saw it rock from side to side then, suddenly, it dipped and dived, nose first, with a huge explosion, into the ground.
http://www.world-action.co.uk/independent.html

Laura Temyer: I heard like a boom and the engine sounded funny. I heard two more booms -- and then I did not hear anything.
(Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/01)

Michael Merringer, two miles away: I heard the engine gun two different times
and then I heard a loud bang…
http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/2001/09/12attack/ke091201s69779.htm

”He (Rob Kimmel, several miles away) sees it fly overhead, banking hard to the right . It was only 100 or 200 feet or less off the ground as it crests a hill to the southeast.”
(Among the Heroes, by Jere Longman, p. 295)

”’It dropped out of the clouds,’
too low for a commercial flight, (Terry) Butler said.
The plane rose slightly, trying to gain altitude , then
‘it just went flip to the right and then straight down.’”
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010912somerscenenat4p3.asp

”Linda Shepley, told television station KDKA in Pittsburgh that she heard
a loud bang and saw the plane bank to the side before crashing.”
(ABC, 9/11/01)

“Linda Shepley, said she had an unobstructed view of Flight 93's final two minutes (…). She recalls seeing the plane wobbling right and left , at a low altitude of roughly 2,500 feet, when suddenly the right wing abruptly dipped straight down, and the Boeing 757 plunged into the earth.”
(Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/01)



Do the eyewitness' accounts correspond to the Commission's description that the hijackers deliberately crashed the plane as fast as possible?

[John Doe II]

51. One or two attacks

There are two indications that from about 9 :45 the passengers were left alone when the hijacker(s) entered the cockpit to join Jarrah.

About midway through the tape, one of the hijackers said to another “Let te guys in now,” apparently referring to other terrorists entering the cockpit.
(Among the Heroes, p. 291)

It fits that no passenger who was reflecting about their plan of entering the cockpit refers to a hijacker who is still standing in first class. Moreover no sound of a fight with this hijacker is to be heard on any phone call. So I think it’s rather save to assume that from 9:45 the passengers were alone.
A small group around Burnett are in the first class. The rest of the passengers was herded in coach and forms a group around Beamer. Apparently there seems to have been no communication between theses two groups. In not a single phone call theses groups are referring to each other. And Paul Thompson assumes in his timeline that the attack started in first class at 9:57 and was followed by a second attack from coach at 9:58. (Observer, 12/2/01). This chronological order corresponds also to Beamer’s phone call:

Then, in the background, she could hear an “awful commotion,” men’s voices raised and hollering and women screaming “Oh my God,” and “God help us,” and “Help us Jesus.”
Todd seemed to turn away from the phone to speak with someone else.
“You ready?” He said. “Okay. Let’s roll.”
(p. 285f)

So first the attack in first class then following the passengers from coach.
But why didn’t they communicate before if there was nobody preventing them anymore? Repeatedly it’s said that people spoke normally on the phone. So why not talk with passengers from first class?
And why is there no surprise in Beamer’s reaction when he hears that the attack started already?