What REALLY happened with Flight 93

[benburch]

Flight 93 crashed.

In Pennsylvania.

It was not spirited away to Area 51 by the Bilderbergers or the Bavarian Illuminati or the Discordians.

The passengers WERE fighting to take it over as it crashed.

However, as they were engaged in that, I believe that the USAF shot the plane down (and properly so!)

The shootdown has been suppressed because if it were known that the plane was shot down as the passengers were fighting to take it back, we couldn't use "Let's Roll" as a political "Bon Mot" to roll off the tongue of a cowardly "President" who wants to wrap himself in the late Mr. Beemer's honorable bravery.

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Not to mention the questions about why the other planes weren't shot down!

[dcfirefighter]

3. Possibly because 93 was the last one in the air by an hour or so. nt.

[benburch]

6. Exactly.

We only had a few armed interceptors on duty for the whole damned country by that point in time.

[redqueen]

9. Why?

They had been receiving dire warnings for MONTHS... from all kinds of sources.

WHY?

[benburch]

12. Fecklessness.

Pure incompetency.

[redqueen]

25. I don't buy it. They were warned from outside,

they were warnted from our own intelligence agencies... they would have been prepared if they wanted to be.

They wanted their Reichstag. It'd take a whole lot of evidence showing otherwise to make me think differently.

[benburch]

36. Oh I have no doubt that LIHOP is a 80% certainty.

But not having interceptors, that was fecklessness. I mean, how much do YOU really trust the "New Russia"? I don't trust them farther than I could throw a full Samovar.

[redqueen]

75. Gotcha...

I had to google "samovar"... thanks for all the new information. :)

Hope you have a nice weekend, benburch. :hug:

[benburch]

79. And you too!

I am out to the grill now to make some turkey burgers! YUM

[smb]

174. Because The Feds Are Lazy And Incompetent

They had been receiving dire warnings for MONTHS... from all kinds of sources. WHY?

I just posted a brief excerpt from an article in the latest Reason describing how several FBI agents in the field were on the right trail... but their superiors didn't want to be bothered following it up.

[Atman]

32. No, in fact we had an entire "war games" scenerio in operation at the time

training for EXACTLY this type of event. There were fighters everywhere at the ready and any one of them could have been diverted to take down any of the so-called "hijacked" planes.

[benburch]

50. And not one of them armed with live rounds.

You do not mount live rounds for an exercise.

And it takes about an hour to re-arm a plane IF you are prepared for it by having your live ordinance our of the bunkers. Longer if not.

[iconoclastNYC]

160. You don't usually shot down planes in an intercept

You use other tactics.

[redqueen]

7. What took them so long?

Why were they able to attend to Paine Stewart's plane so quickly, but ignored these for so long?

We need answers to these questions, not obfuscations.

[benburch]

10. The Payne Stuart plane was not intercepted quickly at all.

And when it was it was intercepted with an UNARMED aircraft diverted from a training mission.

[LostinVA]

21. Yup, them's the facts about Stewart

[redqueen]

28. Thanks...

it just breaks my heart... knowing that they had been warned, and in such strong terms.

This just did not have to happen. It could have been avoided, if Bush, Rice, et. al. had been doing their jobs.

[benburch]

30. Exactly.

They failed to protect out nation, and have since used the events of this day to destroy our country.

[redqueen]

35. With the saber rattling over Iran lately...

I've felt about a half a step from tears for the past week.

How can so many be so blind? So willfully ignorant?

It really breaks my heart... so much needless suffering...

[DemoTex]

58. Correct, BB. Nor was the Stuart Learjet shot down ..

It was watched closely by the F-16s (Oklahoma ANG, for a while), lest it pose a threat to life or property on the ground. It allowed to fly until the engines flamed-out from fuel starvation, when it then crashed in open farmland. Had Stuart's Learjet threatened life and limb on the ground, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been downed by armed interceptors. There was plenty of time to get armed F-16s to that Learjet (it was in stable flight, on a predictable course, with a known fuel supply and range, and with all aboard obviously incapacitated and most likely dead).

[Ammonium]

99. Actually

Payne's plane was intercepted within 15 minutes. Is that not quick?

[benburch]

101. Wrong.

45 minutes.

[benburch]

102. Here is the proof.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm

At 0933:38 EDT (6 minutes and 20 seconds after N47BA acknowledged the previous clearance), the controller instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another Jacksonville ARTCC controller. The controller received no response from N47BA. The controller called the flight five more times over the next 4 1/2 minutes but received no response.

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.8 About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet,9 the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response. About 1000 CDT, the test pilot began a visual inspection of N47BA. There was no visible damage to the airplane, and he did not see ice accumulation on the exterior of the airplane. Both engines were running, and the rotating beacon was on. He stated that he could not see inside the passenger section of the airplane because the windows seemed to be dark. Further, he stated that the entire right cockpit windshield was opaque, as if condensation or ice covered the inside. He also indicated that the left cockpit windshield was opaque, although several sections of the center of the windshield seemed to be only thinly covered by condensation or ice; a small rectangular section of the windshield was clear, with only a small section of the glare shield visible through this area. He did not see any flight control movement. About 1012 CDT, he concluded his inspection of N47BA and proceeded to Scott AFB, Illinois.

----

0933 EDT unanswered call. Add 4.5 munutes, 0937.4 EDT

0952 CDT (1052 EDT) F-16 on a test flight intercepts.

This is actually longer than my recollection; 77 minutes.

[Ammonium]

103. This is fun...

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm>
At 0933:38 EDT (6 minutes and 20 seconds after N47BA acknowledged the previous clearance), the controller instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another Jacksonville ARTCC controller. The controller received no response from N47BA. The controller called the flight five more times over the next 4 1/2 minutes but received no response.

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.8 About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet,9 the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response. About 1000 CDT, the test pilot began a visual inspection of N47BA. There was no visible damage to the airplane, and he did not see ice accumulation on the exterior of the airplane. Both engines were running, and the rotating beacon was on. He stated that he could not see inside the passenger section of the airplane because the windows seemed to be dark. Further, he stated that the entire right cockpit windshield was opaque, as if condensation or ice covered the inside. He also indicated that the left cockpit windshield was opaque, although several sections of the center of the windshield seemed to be only thinly covered by condensation or ice; a small rectangular section of the windshield was clear, with only a small section of the glare shield visible through this area. He did not see any flight control movement. About 1012 CDT, he concluded his inspection of N47BA and proceeded to Scott AFB, Illinois.


Okay so 19 minutes to be technical but certainly not the 45 minutes you are claiming.

You left out the superscript 7 that read "7 About 1010 EDT, the accident airplane crossed from the EDT zone to the CDT zone in the vicinity of Eufaula, Alabama."

[benburch]

104. You missed the time zone change my friend.

Add a whole hour.

[dcfirefighter]

2. I believe you to be absolutely correct. nt

[Maat]

4. I'm sure you're correct.

Any decent human being would have been honest about the whole thing. But we aren't talking about decent human beings in this Misadministration, are we?

[bunny planet]

5. Donald Rumsfeld already had a slip of the tongue admitting as much before

he caught himself.

[Terran1212]

15. I remember that

[Jara sang]

22. Do you have a link?

I'd like to see that.

[bunny planet]

59. here's one

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42112

[bunny planet]

60. and another

http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/12/27/rumsfeld.flt93/

[satya]

90. See post #88 for link to audio. nt

[phantom power]

8. Somebody raised a good question about cell-phone calls...

Cell phones don't work on a jet at cruising altitude. Mine certainly doesn't work for me. How did the passengers leave the famous voice mails

[JVS]

13. A lot of airlines have phones that will work in the headrests.

You can use them if you're willing to pay an arm and a leg.

[benburch]

17. My ex worked for GTE Airfone.

She knew the woman who took the call from Todd Beemer.

That happened as reported.

Period.

[JVS]

29. Thanks! Now I know the name of those phones

You might want to set these folks straight too http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1049018&mesg_id=1050503

[redqueen]

33. You know what's really sad? That we've been lied to SO much,

that we can't help but be suspicious about every single thing they say.

*sigh*

[ronnykmarshall]

56. Hmmmm?

But why is she now your EX, eh? Isn't that conveeeeeeennt that we can't validate this story. Interesting!

:sarcasm:

[Grateful for Hope]

135. The problem is that just because someone says he is Todd Beemer

doesn't mean that is who actually made the call. It's sad, but, this administration has told us nothing but lies from day 1, that I find myself questionning every bit of info we were fed by the media abour 9/11.

[benburch]

136. Along that path lies insanity.

Some things just happen the way they were said to happen.

It is what Bush and his GOP Crime Syndicate did AFTER that point in time that is the punishable Treason.

[Grateful for Hope]

137. I don't agree

I think it is insane to trust anything that we are, or have been, told by the administration and the media.

Fact is, none of us know what really happened.

[benburch]

139. Well, in this case I *do* know some of it.

A member of my network knows an Air Traffic Controller who was watching Flight 93, and saw it intercepted and shot down on radar.

I prefer to have some facts before I assume anybody, even the GOP Crime Syndicate, is making up reality out of whole cloth.

[Grateful for Hope]

141. Who are you to call someone you don't know paranoid?

Shades of Frist here, I think.

We are each entitled to believe what we want to believe, and second-hand info is not exactly factual in my estimation.

[benburch]

142. Paranoia is when you believe people are plotting against you...

...utterly without evidence.

As in this case.

[Grateful for Hope]

143. How do you know what I believe?

This has become personal attack which is against DU rules.

[benburch]

144. Because you just told me what you believe.

You believe that everything the administration says is a lie.

And that is paranoia, even given their track record.

And if you feel attacked, my apologies, that was not my intention. My intention was to attack your IDEAS not your self.

[Grateful for Hope]

145. You know what I don't believe.

But, you don't know what I do believe. I don't believe the entire offical 9/11 story. And, even you do not believe the entire story or you would not be spreading a story around about 93 being shot down.

I do believe that some elements of the official story may be true, and, it would be far easier to believe the whole thing than to question it. Questioning it requires some critical thinking skills, and a willingness to step out of a safe place where all is what it seems or all is what we are told.

It is not being paranoid to question the obvious holes in the official version. In fact, it is unwise not to question when we have seen how this event was used to justify, for instance, the Iraq war.

[benburch]

146. Stick to what we have evidence of then...

...we know they used this to trash the Constitution, cause a war, and get Bush close enough to steal a second election.

But unless I had evidence that there was a shoot-down, I wouldn't even claim that, as the other evidence would be easily explained by the struggle in the cockpit resulting in a high speed crash.

[Grateful for Hope]

148. Benburch

I am objecting to being told what to "stick to". You have the right to address what you think is important, and so do I.

It is your tone of "knowing better than I do" that I find offensive.

I appreciate an alternative viewpoint, which you have expressed very well, but, I don't appreciate your efforts to force it on me.

As an aside, I usually enjoy your posts as I think you contribute a lot here to DU.

[benburch]

154. I wouldn't dream of forcing it on you!

But I will tell you, bluntly, when I think you or anybody else is wrong.

It doesn't make me many friends, but its the way I am constructed.

[Grateful for Hope]

156. Understood

and, duly noted.

[Atman]

37. The GTE Air Phone and a cell phone ARE NOT THE SAME THING!

Different technologies completely. I don't think anyone doubts GTE Airphones worked in the air...that's what they're designed to do! But not cell phones!

[JVS]

38. I know they aren't the same thing. What I'm saying is just because..

your cingular might not work at 30,000 feet, doesn't mean that there is no way that you made a call. People act as though cellphones not working up there means that all stories of people making phone calls are fishy.

Phantom Power asked how they left the voicemails etc. My answer is, they could have been using airfones

[longship]

48. Bing!

You're correct.

For those who still think cell phones can't work in an airliner...

Nobody has ever said that cell phones absolutely won't work in an airplane at altitude. What they *have* said is that connections are problematic and the length of a call is likely to be short before it loses connection.

Cell phone is point-of-sight transmission. Depending on atmospheric conditions, distance to the cell tower, etc. one can place a cell phone from an airliner, even at altitude. Just don't expect the call to last very long.

Note that these airliners were not flying at altitude for the entire time. Once the hijackers took over, and shut off the transponders the FAA could no longer track their altitude or their identity. As their targets were effectively at ground level they would have to fly at low altitudes for a good amount of time prior to impact with the buildings. One does not just dive a 757 down thousands of feet in a few minutes, at least not while maintaining control of the aircraft or not having the wings peel off. At lower altitudes cell phone service would be dramatically improved.

So anybody who says that the cell phone calls on 9/11 are fake, don't understand what they're talking about.

[Jazz2006]

113. Different altitudes, different phones, etc.....

At various altitudes, some phones work (i.e. airphones work at higher altitudes than <name your cellular provider here> and some services work at different altitudes than others, no matter what your local carrier is.

Most of the reported cell calls seem to have taken place when the flights in question were at relatively low altitudes so it's not at all surprising that they would get through. It is not at all surprising that others would get through on airphones at much higher altitudes (and not at all surprising that the distinction would not necessarily be made in the conversations that were going on at the time).

Personally, I've used, in flight (from a passenger perspective and not counting crew perspective) my blackberry, my cell phone, and airphones without documenting the altitudes for posterity... but I'm quite sure that I've used them above the 7k figure bandied about here.

[iconoclastNYC]

161. How does anyone know what altitutudes they were at?

I don't think we do. I think people who support the official conspiracy theory just assume since its unlikely that these calls could be placed on cell phones that they must have been made on airphones or else they must have been at lower altitudes. But I never seen anyone cite a source.

[benburch]

52. Well, in Beemer's case, he used Airfone.

I have indeed used a cellphone in flight. From Motorola's corporate jet in fact. It works. You get a lot of dropped calls. And the signal is crap. But if you are by a window it works. These were old Motorola "brick" analog cell phones in the early 90s.

We also used our ARDIS radio modem in flight and were able to connect and send Radiomail.

[ronnykmarshall]

57. Oh so the plot THICKENS!!

Motorola's CORPORATE JET!!!!! Hurrrmph!

I see now .... very clearly.

Let us review.

1. You have dismissed the LOGICAL explanations of robot planes, area 51 and so on.

2. You "ex" knows the GTE operator that "spoke" to someone on flight 93.

3. You ADMIT that you've been on a CORPORATE JET owned by Motorola a CELL PHONE company!

My friends, I think the evidence to SO CLEAR.

:silly:

[JVS]

62. Wow it's just like Perry Mason!

[benburch]

64. LOL!

I was once one of Motorola's shining stars. We had a product called the "Envoy Personal Wireless Communicator" (code name "Alarm Clock") which was not only almost the first PDA ever, but was also the first PDA with wireless email, We had this in 1993. It failed due to being hellishly expensive to use and also because General Magic delivered us software that was 40 different sorts of garbage. Totally incompetent crap. I *did* tell my VP that this was gonna happen and that we should develop our own software, but I was not listened to.

I still have my prototype Envoy, though. I am rather proud of making the hardware, at least, work so far ahead of anybody else in the business. I was the software guy for the hardware team, and I wrote all the test code and diagnostics required to test everything. I even had to test and debug the processor which was a new custom job just for our project.

More about the Envoy;

http://www.blakespot.com/nino/html/pdas_envoy.html

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

110. General Magic

I worked at Perfect.com in its early days. We had great ideas and a great engineering team. Many of the people in the firm were wonderful. But many in upper management were atrocious. The company was split in two: upper management and everyone else. The CEO had been a (the?) project manager at General Magic. He was widely despised. I'm not at all surprised to hear their software stunk.

[benburch]

111. I feel sorry for you.

We really should tattoo all those guys with a scarlet letter so they will never get to screw up a company again.

The system they delivered was FULL of memory leaks. As you used it, cruft built up in the system heap, and it was soon unusable and you'd lose all of your data.

Worse, the backup and restore software, and the widget to plug it in to your computer were buggy and hard to obtain to begin with.

So there was literally NO reliable way to use one. The Magicians all had 4 MB PCMCIA RAM cards in the second slots of their envoy that had been tagged with the letters RAM in the first three bytes and so would be used as an extended heap by the software. So, they could actually use the things for weeks at a time. But users did not have any way to "bless" a RAM card and in any case a 4 MB PCMCIA card was about $800 then. The configuration the things came in was useless.

I will also note that we finally had to put twice as much flash and RAM in the Envoy as first we were told we had to. Magic never had a good memory budget; As far as we could figure they named values out of thin air chosen so as not to scare us off initially, but the also had approximately zero plans for how to keep memory usage low, and in fact wasted LOTS of memory on features nobody ultimately would use. I will always remember the day I argued that we should lay out the board for larger memories, but make it still compatible with the small ones they had told use to place and after much tribulation I won the day. That saved us a complete "board spin" later on.

And I am *so* sorry that my early and repeated predictions of Magic's ultimate failure to deliver software that worked were correct, but even more sorry that they did not let me put a FORTH interpreter on the machine and develop a much simpler PDA OS inspired by the Sharp Wizard. To this day I am still certain that we could have made Envoy a success with my FORTH based system.

HAD Magic's system worked, it was a clever concept for a user interface. But a clever demo is not a product.

[benburch]

112. BTW, here was the Magic CAP logo.

I've always loved the logo, anyway...

[formercia]

120. Pulling a Rabbit out of a hat:

Prestedigitation. The perfect logo for the company it seems.

A startup must have a good logo.

[benburch]

126. And remember Rocky's comment on that.

"That trick NEVER works!"

[formercia]

127. About '92

I wrote a kernel for a 68HCxx microcontroller without a compiler. Every clock cycle was audited and it ran like a dream. I hate sloppy code.

Tight is Right.

[benburch]

129. Amen.

In '88 I did a Digital Announcer for Northern Telecom that ran on a Z-8 at 20 MHz. I could do 2:1 speech compression and decompression in software in real time and still manage the other events in the system. It was designed to have 1% headroom in code cycles, and was built that way. You wouldn't believe the trouble we had getting the go-ahead with that tiny a headroom! They simply did not believe that anybody could meet a budget like that!

[formercia]

130. It's amazing what you can do by hand.

I optimized mine because I had to get the clock slowed down to minimize power consumption, so it had to be made up for with efficient code.

Those were the days. Now there's plenty of RAM and ROM to play with.

[benburch]

131. Sometimes.

As recently as 2000 I was writing assembler for a 68HC908 where we had to optimize for execution time and EEPROM size.

So, there is still some work for we machine language fossils.

But I agree, not much.

I wonder when the last person to write an actual application in assembler will pass on?

[formercia]

134. Hangin' in there

never again..:)

[WhoWantsToBeOccupied]

165. Lousy management

I realized pretty quickly that things were hopeless with the management we had, so I bailed out early. I had many friends who stayed as the inevitable problems accumulated. They told me they suffered through countless 80-hour weeks and holier-than-thou CEO lectures. Over time, budget cuts led not to management cuts but layoffs of the talented people who were building the company's products. Eventually, investors figured out management was the problem and they were all gone. But I was long gone... and most of the company's talented engineers. What a waste of ideas and money.

Sadly, this story has probably been repeated a million times.

[redqueen]

76. ...

:loveya:

[Bouvet_Island]

157. It aint very comparable

those old bricks transmitted at a steady 2-3 and I think more Watts, and the mast equipment had way different range as well. Then those actually were frying people's brains. A modern cell phone pulses at if I remember it right 1/8 of a watt. The heigth is significant since the outgoing signal decreases in intensity exponentially, It is a limited amount of energy, spread out on an increasing spere. The speed is significant as well since it would have to switch senders rather fast, you can probably ignore any particularly favorable cases since an airplane travelling 400 mph won't stay above a sender for very long. Not discounting anyones experiences, only saying there's a physical limit that probably wouldn't be too hard to find.

If the victim families say they recognized phone numbers etc, it seems to me that would indicate the plane was flying low at the time.

I am not trying to lecture ben about cell phones here, only saying this cell phones on a plane theory is something that could probably be scientifically proven or qualified, the discussion wouldn't have to be based on trusting more or less anonymous witness testimony.

[iconoclastNYC]

162. Nobody uses analog anymore

We use digital phones which makes your anecdotal evidence even more irrelevant.

[Grateful for Hope]

163. I work for a cell phone company in IT (more than 7 years)

and have asked some engineers there if cell phones work in flight (just a general question...didn't provide cruise altitude, speed, etc. as I don't know what the variables were). In late 2001, most cell phones were digital (although the company I work for had, as late as 1999, more analog than digital phones).

The answer I got is that it depended on altitude, and, that, while phones could connect, the connection would likely be very, very brief (depending on the speed of the aircraft also).

[greyl]

26. Yes, they can.

We've been over this before in the September 11 forum.

[Beaverhausen]

47. We don't know what altitude the jet was when these calls were made

[petgoat]

149. "We don't know what altitude the jet was"

Why not? Is the Flight Recorder a secret? If so, why?

[Roland99]

51. Interesting info on calls made from the various flights

http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/phonecalls.html

* Flight 11
o Madeline Sweeney's phone call: Flight attendant Sweeney allegedly placed a cell phone call to her ground manager Michael Woodward starting at 8:21 and talked for 25 minutes, until the plane crashed. The caller related many details such as wounds by victims of the hijackers to seat numbers of the hijackers. 2 There are conflicting reports on whether the call was recorded.
o Betty Ong's phone call: Flight attendant Betty Ong allegedly called Vanessa Minter at American Airlines reservations at 8:21, and talked for 23 minutes, until the plane crashed. Nydia Gonzalez also listened in from 8:27. The FBI refused to release a recording of the first 4-1/2 minutes of the conversation, but during the 9/11 Commission's January 27, 2004 hearing, the recording was played. 3 4
* Flight 175
o Peter Burton Hanson's phone call: Passenger Peter Burton called his father and reported details of the hijacking. The call was repeated as he was cut off several times.
o Brian Sweeney's phone call: Passenger Brian Sweeney attempted to call his wife but could only leave a message. 5
o unnamed female flight attendant call: There appears to be no public evidence of this call.
* Flight 77
o Barbara Olson's calls: Barbara Olson allegedly placed two calls to her husband, Ted Olson. The only known evidence of these calls are statements by Olson, the first on September 12th.
* Flight 93
o calls to family members and friends: at least thirteen passengers made over 30 cell phone calls, most of them short and some repeated. 6
o the last call: At 9:58, a frantic passenger called from a bathroom to report an explosion and smoke. The tape of this 911 call was seized by the FBI. The 911 operator who took the call, Glenn Cramer, was told by the FBI not to discuss the call.

And the big experiment:

Project Achilles Report Parts One, Two and Three
http://physics911.net/projectachilles.htm

Although we cannot say yet to what degree the heavier aluminum skin on a Boeing 700-series aircraft would affect cellphone calls made from within the aircraft, they would not be without some effect as windows take up a much smaller solid angle at the cellphone antenna. Signals have a much smaller window area to escape through, in general.

As was shown above, the chance of a typical cellphone call from cruising altitude making it to ground and engaging a cellsite there is less than one in a hundred. To calculate the probability that two such calls will succeed involves elementary probability theory. The resultant probability is the product of the two probabilities, taken separately. In other words, the probability that two callers will succeed is less than one in ten thousand. In the case of a hundred such calls, even if a large majority fail, the chance of, say 13 calls getting through can only be described as infinitesimal. In operational terms, this means "impossible."

At lower altitudes the probability of connection changes from impossible to varying degrees of "unlikely." But here, a different phenomenon asserts itself, a phenomenon that cannot be tested in a propellor-driven light aircraft. At 500 miles per hour, a low-flying aircraft passes over each cell in a very short time. For example if a cell (area serviced by a given cellsite) were a mile in diameter, the aircraft would be in it for one to eight seconds. Before a cellphone call can go through, the device must complete an electronic "handshake" with the cellsite servicing the call. This handshake can hardly be completed in eight seconds. When the aircraft comes into the next cell, the call must be "handed off" to the new cellsite. This process also absorbs seconds of time. Together, the two requirements for a successful and continuous call would appear to absorb too much time for a speaking connection to be established. Sooner or later, the call is "dropped."

This assessment is borne out by both earwitness testimony and by expert opinion, as found in Appendix B, below. Taking the consistency of theoretical prediction and expert opinion at face value, it seems fair to conclude that cellphone calls (at any altitude) from fast-flying aircraft are no more likely to get through than cellphone calls from high-flying slow aircraft.

[Xithras]

81. 93 was NOT at cruising altitude, it was a little over 6000 feet.

First off, I fly from NorCal to LA on a halfway regular basis, and the only place my phone dies is over the Tehachapi's where the towers peter out. That commuter hop typically doesn't top 15,000 feet. Calls do drop a LOT, but you can make calls.

Flight 93 wasn't even that high. If you read the transcripts, both radar and other pilots fixed the planes altitude at a little over 6000 feet before it went into its dive. It was at cruising altitude when it was hijacked, but the first thing the hijackers did was put the plane into a 180 degree turn and drop altitude. Nobody can be sure, but it's believed that they did this because they were navigating visually.

At 6000 feet, your cellphone will work just fine.

[petgoat]

150. Where do you get the information that they dropped altitude

after the hijacking? They flew right over Pittsburgh Int'l Airport. I've always supposed they
must have done this at a high altitude because otherwise they might tangle with traffic and attract
attention. If they flew over Pittsburgh at low altitude, why didn't FAA call NORAD?

[0007]

85. Another good point!

[libhill]

184. It's called a script -

one of the "passengers", I forget which one, called his wife and identified himself using first and last name - wtf? I mean, if you're married to some one, you identify yourself by first name, right? As in, "This is Joe", not as in, "this is Joe Smith". I believe Flight 93 landed in Cincinnati, the passengers were taken off, and were either terminated, or tucked away in some secret witness program. Even the mayor of Cincinnati stated at the time that a Flight 93 had landed there. Why would he make some crap like that up out of the blue?

[redqueen]

11. That's the only thing I don't like about that movie...

they're not showing the whole truth... once again.

[Missy M]

14. I'm with you. I believe as the passengers were fighting...

to take back control of the plane, it was shot down. I believe the passengers were trying to have the plane land safely, which is certainly what anyone in that situation would want.

[Master Mahon]

16. The thing that's always bothered me

is that there weren't any arabs on board?
Non on any of the other flights either.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.victims.html

Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77
Guess they went straight to 'virgin hood'!
http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm

[benburch]

19. Not much left to autopsy there, if I recall correctly.

Just "parts". Most of them not much larger than a Eisenhower Dollar.

[Master Mahon]

27. All were identified

thru forensic testing.
<>
No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airline sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. I did give American the opportunity to “revise” their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only “passenger” body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg,
<>

[benburch]

128. Can you prove that?

Scans of the public records will do.

But I don't think you CAN prove it.

[smitty]

18. What proof is there that United 93 was shot down? I haven't seen anything

anything persuasive or convincing to support that contention.

[Orsino]

24. The only evidence I've seen...

...is the reluctance of the media to ask that question of anyone who might know. And Rumsfeld's little slip.

[DoYouEverWonder]

31. A debris field that extends for 8 miles in front

of the official crash site points to a shot down.

Eyewitnesses saw the plane falling apart over Indian Lake. There are also reports of body parts being recovered from the lake.

[regnaD kciN]

43. The hijackers flipped the plane...

...on other occasions, planes that have been flipped have broken apart in mid-air. The structural forces were too much for the airframe to bear. And a jet that breaks up in that way will have a large debris field, just like the space shuttle Columbia did when it broke up over Texas.

[benburch]

46. I hadn't seen that the plane was rolled?

But a lot depends on how you roll it.

IIRC, The prototype 747 was taken through a barrel roll by its test pilot on one occasion, and he was dressed down severely, but the aircraft was undamaged.

[longship]

67. That's a great story.

But possibly false. I worked at Boeing in the 80's and I heard that it was a B-47, which undoubtedly would have easily survived a barrel roll. I also heard that the test pilot was dressed down severely, but in the version I heard, they then quietly gave the man a promotion and a raise.

I'm not too sure that a 747 could do that manuver. Maybe, though.

[Xithras]

83. It was a 707, and it did actually happen (he was neither fired or promoted

n/t

[Xithras]

82. At a much lower speed.

The plane was actually a Boeing 707, not a 747, and the test pilot did the roll during a low speed demonstration flyby. There's video of it on the net if you want to do a search.

IMO, the most likley explanation is that the roll broke open the cargo door. As the plane flipped all of the luggage in the hold would have slammed forward in a high g impact with the cargo door. Those doors aren't meant to take that kind of impact under that kind of airframe stress, so it's conceivable that the door busted open and that the underside of the plane may have started to disintegrate. It's a simple, practical explanation for the luggage debris that was found some distance from the site.

[petgoat]

151. "explanation for the luggage debris"

"Pennsylvania state police officials said on Thursday debris from the plane
had been found up to 8 miles (13 km) away in a residential community where
local media have quoted residents as speaking of a second plane in the area
and burning debris falling from the sky."

http://www.flight93crash.com/flight93_secondary_debris_field.html

Busted doors don't explain fire.

"By Wednesday morning, crash debris began washing ashore at the marina. Fleegle
said there was something that looked like a rib bone amid pieces of seats, small
chunks of melted plastic and checks."

[DoYouEverWonder]

84. Then the debris field

should have been behind the final crash site, not in front of it.

[benburch]

92. Light weight debris can move a considerable distance on the wind.

In the radar image of the Columbia Shuttle Breakup above, notice how the whole debris cloud moves with the winds and expands.

[DoYouEverWonder]

105. I don't think

we are comparing apples and oranges.

The space shuttle burning up upon reentry and scattering debris over a wide area is not surprising. Even still most of the debris was found behind the final spectacular break up of the capsule that was caught on film. From what I remember the debris field went from CA to TX.

However, even if Flight 93 did break up in the air, most of the debris would still be behind the crash site. I don't think there was any significant sightings or pieces of debris behind the crash site, only ahead of it.

Plus, has evidence in the one picture of the supposed explosion when 93 crashed, shows that it was a very calm day. Wind wouldn't be as much of a factor.

[benburch]

107. No, the light weight debris would move with the wind.

Assume a calm five knot wind to the east. Now if a piece of paper or insulation fluttering down from 6000 feet takes fifteen minutes to come to earth, then we have a one and a quarter mile defection.

And in fact then average time for an 8x10 sheet of paper to fall a mile is considerably longer than that, though utterly unpredictable.

And the initial velocity of the debris factors into this too.

[DoYouEverWonder]

118. Here's the pic of the debris field

All of the debris came down ahead of the crash site?

Here's another map marking debris.



One engine was found a significant distance ahead of the crash site. Engines are pretty heavy objects.

Plus the wind that morning was at about 9 knots and blowing from the S - SW, so if wind was a factor the debris should have been blow to the north not the to the south where the debris field is.

[petgoat]

152. " light weight debris would move with the wind"

It would scatter. Here we have the debris concentrated in a few places.

[LostinVA]

20. I agree with everything you said

I will qualify it with I think there's a 65-75% chance the plane was shot down...

[devilgrrl]

23. It was hijacked by a bunch of Saudi Arabians...

that were being investigated by the FBI but were allowed to go through with their dastardly deed to cater to PNAC's whims.

[SmokingJacket]

34. I think you're most likely correct.

The idea of the movie bothers me not for its content (haven't seen it, don't know what it says) but because it seems emotionally exploitative.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

39. benburch, ITA with you..

I remember driving to work on the morning of 9-11. I left my house between 9:45 - 9:50 am CDT and as I pulled out of the parking lot in my building, CBS radio had an eyewitness on live that said he had seen that plane being shot down. He sounded completely credible to me. However, by the time I got home that afternoon, the entire story of Flight 93 was totally different.

I have no doubt that the passengers tried to do something, but like you I think during the process, that plane was shot down. Just because I think the plane was shot down doesn't make the passengers acts any less heroic to me. They did what they had to do...

[benburch]

41. Beemer and the other passengers were true heroes.

Along with the NYC firefighters and police who were actually climbing the WTC towers to rescue people before they collapsed.

[dchill]

132. There were a LOT of heroes that day...

too bad none of them were members of the Bush Administration. It took "W" three days to go to Ground Zero and stand on a pile of rubble with a megaphone, co-opting everyone there for his War On Terra.

I trust "our" government about as much as I trust the wind.

[dysfunctional press]

40. exactly right- shooting it down was the RIGHT thing to do...

covering it up was/is wrong.

[Ammonium]

42. I dunno...

So lemme get this straight. According to the government, Flight 93 hits the ground at 580mph and leaves a nice little impact crator in the ground. Yet is leaves a debrit field 8 miles long? Something just doesn't mesh here. Also there was no wreckage, bodies, luggage, nothing. Look at the pictures, do you see any place wreckage?

The shot down thing is a myth too. Remember Pan-Am? It was blown up and left massive pieces of debits. So did TWA-800 that many think was shot down by a missle.

Pan-Am






TWA-800




Flight 93 was certainly not in Penn. where the government is telling you it was. None of the photos show any signs of airplane, anywhere. You need to wake up and accept the hard reality that you've been had. The government has lied to you, again. The facts are infront of you, just open your eyes to the hard reality.

[benburch]

44. You cannot compare 93 and Lockerbie.

VERY different events, dynamically. An external missile hit or cannon fire makes for a very different sort of failure than a high explosive bomb in the pressurized cargo hold of an aircraft at cruising altitude. Apples and Oranges. You learn NOTHING about the one from the other.

[Ammonium]

63. Sure you can

How are they different? A pressurized cabin in an airplane at cruising altitude is only pressurized to 8psi. You could shoot out one of the windows at 35,000 feet and nothing would happen other than the cabin depressurizing. The plane would not explode like in the movies, that shit just doesn't happen.

What goes up must come down and there's going to be debrits no matter what causes the plane to come down. Sidewinder missles aren't considered high explosive bombs? News to me...



Flight 93, landed in cleveland. Search for it, the information is there and there are eye witnesses.

[benburch]

69. An internal bomb is dynamically VERY different from an external one.

A sidewinder explodes with a proximity fuse. It does not strike the aircraft intact. The damage is done by high velocity shrapnel. In the modern sidewinder this is about 200 pre-formed titanium rods. It would poke holes in a pressurized cabin, but, as you point out, the cabin is only at about 8 PSI and can be expected to remain largely intact. And the sidewider would hit only a heat source, and so the engines on the wings or the APU in the tail would be the only choices for it.

An internal bomb creates a very high over-pressure in what is already a pressurized vessel. It can be expected to literally burst at every seam.

[Ammonium]

98. It matters very little but examples of planes brought down by explosion

An internal bomb one would think would produce a far greater blast than a missle fired from an F-16. If you follow that line of thinking and then look at the size of the pieces of the Pan-Am plane that were recovered then you must accept the fact that if flight 93 were shot down there would be even larger pieces. Yet there are none. Are are no large wing sections, tail sections, langing gear, cockpit, simply none of that exists in any of those photots I posted, or any other pictures you'll find. If flight 93 were shot down there would be luggage strone about all over those trees and the grass but there is not.

Regardless of how a plane is brought down there is still massive amounts of debrits. Air planes do not simply vaporize because they are shot by a missle.

[benburch]

109. Because the aircraft hit the ground largely intact...

It did so at a MUCH higher velocity.

There are many examples of aircraft that have hit the ground in that manner being reduced to teeny-tiny bits. Nothing large identifiable at all.

For example, the American Eagle ATR crash in Roselawn, IN on Halloween 1984. The only large bit of debris was part of the tail.

"As dawn broke Nov. 1, serial photos of the crash site showed a recently harvested farm field of about 40 acres with debris resembling confetti scattered in an oval pattern, and a bullet-shaped indentation in the soft soil, marking the path of the airplane as it dug into the ground. There was little debris recognizable except for the tail section." - http://www.lowellpl.lib.in.us/planecr.htm

And you can find DOZENS of similar examples.

[seatnineb]

122. That tail section is still pretty large:

American Eagle Flight 4184:


Flight 93:


The Flight 93 story is full of shit......pure and simple.

[benburch]

123. That tail section is about 6' in size.

And like I say, there are a dozens of other examples;

Here, in fact, is a whole page I just located; http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/analysis/compare/jetcrashdebris.html

The wreckage of Flight 93 is exactly what one would expect in such a calamity - To assert otherwise is either dishonest or foolish.

[Name removed]

133. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[benburch]

138. How horribly rude!

Why do you think you have a right to talk to another DUer like that?

And if you had even read the posting you replied to, you would have seen a link to exactly those examples. (At least, to a few of them.)

[seatnineb]

158. O.K..........I'll try this again.

If the plane hit the ground nose first......

Then how did the fragile cockpit end up in the woods?

In the words of coroner Miller:

It hit... and, um... the front portion, the cockpit, and first class section broke off, and bounced into that area which is...obviously, there's no trees there now, but... the treeline came all the way out. And then the rear two-thirds of the plane just telescoped right into the crater. When I got here, you looked across there and you couldn't even tell that there was a plane there.

...The cockpit bounced, and flew into those, into those trees. And it just... it exploded...an explosion. And everything just, uh... everything just blew into pieces... (strains to pick up debris) ...like this. Lot of these. Now, there were some quite large pieces, of course, that, uh... the biggest piece I think they said was, uh, a section of the fuselage that had four windows. That was the biggest.

http://www.airdisaster.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5977...

(THX to Stickdog for this great find)

[benburch]

159. You clearly understand nothing about aircraft failure in a wreck.

I've studied the matter for a number of years, and there is nothing whatsoever odd about that crash site.

The only really odd things are;

1. Bush telling the FBI not to pursue OBL

2. Bush ignoring specific warnings

3. Bush using the whole matter as his Reichstag Fire

All of the rest - the events of that day - happened much as we saw them except for flight 93, which possibly did not "crash" due to any event on the aircraft, but instead likely was shot down (properly so) by the USAF, which would have been the big news the next day except the Todd Beemer story surfaced, and this made the shootdown less than a political "win".

So, I am NOT an apologist for the government. I just think that making shit up about this whole sordid mess only weakens our case against Bush and makes all of us look like loons.

Lets hang him out to dry based on what really happened rather than some fantasy that belongs in Wilson and Shea's "Illuminatus!" trilogy.

[seatnineb]

164. You did not answer the question.

How did the cockpit bounce into the woods?

And how does debris fall from the plane ....before it crashes?

Residents of nearby Indian Lake reported seeing debris falling from the jetliner as it overflew the area shortly before crashing.
(Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 9/14/01)

[petgoat]

166. Again I'll dispute your notion that the shootdown was proper.

That the passengers were going to attack was known by the FBI. The plane would have been
over rural territory another ten minutes. Jim Hoffman suggests that the debris patterns
indicate that the plane was headed west when it was shot down, which would probably mean
the passengers had successfully taken control of the plane.

[Nikki Stone 1]

54. Ok, I'll bite. No plane in Pennsylvania? Where was 93 then?

I'm not up on the various 9/11 theories about flight 93, so educate me.

[benburch]

94. Since he won't answer...

They seem to think that all four planes were spirited away to a secret government airstrip. (The Area 51 insanity I referred to above.)

I'm sorry, but that is literally insane.

Almost as insane as thinking that the WTC buildings were packed to the rafters with bombs labeled; "Property Of GOP Crime Syndicate - If found drop into any mailbox. Return postage guaranteed." But they think that, too.

[DoYouEverWonder]

117. Thanks for the pic of the debris field

I was looking for that one.

[Junkdrawer]

45. Here's the "official" story...

...


In the White House bunker, a military aide approached the vice president.

"There is a plane 80 miles out," he said. "There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?"

"Yes," Cheney replied without hesitation.

Around the vice president, Rice, deputy White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, tensed as the military aide repeated the question, this time with even more urgency. The plane was now 60 miles out. "Should we engage?" Cheney was asked.

"Yes," he replied again.

As the plane came closer, the aide repeated the question. Does the order still stand?

"Of course it does," Cheney snapped.

The vice president said later that it had seemed "painful, but nonetheless clear-cut. And I didn't
agonize over it."

It was, "obviously, a very significant action," Cheney said in an interview. "You're asking American pilots to fire on a commercial airliner full of civilians. On the other hand, you had directly in front of me what had happened to the World Trade Center, and a clear understanding that once the plane was hijacked, it was a weapon."

Within minutes, there was a report that a plane had crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania-what turned out to be United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that had been hijacked after leaving Newark International Airport. Many of those in the PEOC feared that Cheney's order had brought down a civilian aircraft. Rice demanded that someone check with the Pentagon.

On Air Force One, Bush inquired, "Did we shoot it down or did it crash?"

It took the Pentagon almost two hours to confirm that the plane had not been shot down, an enormous relief. "I think an act of heroism occurred on board that plane," Cheney said. Later, reports of cell phone conversations before the plane crashed indicated that some passengers had fought with the hijackers.

....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42754-2002Jan26

[peacetalksforall]

49. In a nutshell, mr benburch. Bravo! n/t

[ronnykmarshall]

53. FREEPER!!!!

You know damn good and well that

1. The first plane that hit the North Tower was a robot controlled airplane (RCA).

2. The second plane that hit the South Tower was another RCA with laser beamed missles attached to the bottom.

3. A UFO was hovering next to the south tower and flew away when the RCA crashed. The UFO controlled the robots on the RCA.

4. A missile hit the Pentagon not an airliner or RCA.

5. Flight 93? RCA!! DUH?

6. All the passengers are being held on a secret island.

7. Elvis is also on that same island.

:sarcasm:

[Nikki Stone 1]

55. Elvis was involved in 9/11? No kidding!

:D :D :D

[ronnykmarshall]

73. Elvis was the master mind!

Following the murder of Marlyn Monroe by the Kennedy's, Elvis's life mission was to destroy the Democratic Party. The famous picture of Elvis w/ Nixon? All part of the plot. But Elvis didn't count on Nixon being such a fuck up.

When Elvis "died" he fled to his secret island to work on his master plan. He helped elect Reagan by working with Iran to take the hostages. Carter lost the his bid for a second term. . Elvis did it.

The assignation attempt on Reagan was not part of Elvis' plan. That was of course the work of Bush.

Elvis didn't trust the Bush family and knew that they would totally fuck up his plans. He threw his hands up when Bush 1 was nominated and picked dumb ass Dan as his VP. "Yer on yer own, George. I ain't gonna help ya" the King told GHWB in 1988.

Even with out the assistance of Elvis, Bush was elected in 1988. But that's when Bush's arrogance got the best of him. President-elect Bush ordered all supply shipment to Elvis be cut off. Elvis fumed! Elvis had to rely on Priscilla to have supplies shipped to the island. That's where Micheal Jackson come into the picture. MJ took over the financial burden of keeping the King supplied with food, clothing and most of all BOOZE! But this came at a price. You guest it. Lisa-Marie.

Feed, clothed, liquored up and happy, Elvis sat back and laughed as Clinton cleaned Bush's clock in the 1992 election. Elvis, fearing the Democratic party would take a permanent majority set his sights on 1994. Newt? Pawn of Elvis.

The years of laying back during Daddy Bush's single term of office dulled Elvis' once razor sharp attention to detail. That and of course the gallons of scotch. Clinton survived the 1994 GOP take over of congress and was easily re-elected in 1996. BUT, the King had an ace up his sleeve. Monica. Elvis always could hook up a hoochie momma when ever he wanted.

Elvis was the brain behind the "election" of 2000. Katherine Harris? A former Elvis lover. George W and Jeb? Drug runners for Elvis. Even Elvis put aside his dis-taste for the Bush family when it came to some good blow.

Following the install of Bush 2 into the White House, Elvis worked side by side with Condi, another member of Elvis' stable of Fascists Fem Fucks (FFF) to put the wheels in motion of "The Master Plan" (9/11).

The plan was working perfectly. America was attacked. Bush was hailed as a hero. The Democrats were scared shitless to question anything. The war was on. 2004? A cake walk for Elvis. In fact he planned the whole thing while chowing down on a big ol' slab of coconut cake and carton of chocolate milk. (served to him by Condi in a french maid's out fit and leather boots)

Things were going as planned until one faithful day. People woke up. People actually LISTENED to what Bush was saying ... or trying to say. Elvis threw his hands up and said "Gawd damn, that sum bitch is fucking STUPID .... fuck it!"

Elvis has left the building.

[Nikki Stone 1]

77. "Katherine Harris? A former Elvis lover." ROTFL!

:D:D:D

[LuckyLib]

96. LOL! What a belly laugh at the end of a long week. Thanks!

[DemoTex]

61. Benburch's is the voice of reason.

As an ALPA trained airline accident investigator, I agree with him 100%.

[Jazz2006]

65. I suspect that it was shot down, too....

And at first, I wondered why the * admin would cover that up - I mean, frankly, it would be the right decision in the circumstances, as horrible as such a scenario would be to countenance.

Later, I came to the view that the admin decided that it could take advantage of the fact that the passengers fought back and that it could avoid admitting that it made a decision that would still equate to "the gov't killed citizens on purpose" regardless of the optics, and that it could also shamelessly use the guts and bravery of the passengers to its own advantage.

I'm glad that the movie did not pander to the * admin and did not portray it in a favorable light.

[petgoat]

147. "it would be the right decision in the circumstances"

The shootdown was premature. The FBI was listening to the calls and knew
the passengers were planning to attack. There was a pilot among the passengers.
The plane was going to be over Blair Witch territory for another ten minutes, so
what was the rush to shoot it down?

Jim Hoffman believes the scattered debris to the SE shows that the passengers had
turned the plane around. If so, it looks like it was headed toward Pittsburgh.
I wonder if the hole in the ground can be interpreted to support that hypothesis.

[etherealtruth]

66. Can't find a thing to disagree with

[formactv]

119. That plane was probably headed for Building 7, WTC

So that the dynamite would look like a plane crash.

[benburch]

140. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

:rofl:

Thanks! I needed a laugh!

[petgoat]

153. Well, why would the hijackers file a flight plan for Washington

if they intended to fly to Washington?

[benburch]

155. If you have a flight plan...

there is just a chance you'll be allowed through.

They knew they were late.

[flyarm]

68. I BELIEVE CHENEY GAVE THE SHOOT DOWN ORDER..

and only the pres has the right to do that..so they are covering up who gave the illegal shoot down order!

these fuckers would never want the country to know cheney was the actual pres that day!!
while little lord pissypants sat in a classroom reading a book about goats!

cheney lied and gave the order..i would bet my life on it!

from a flight crew from one of the airlines involved..
fly

[benburch]

71. I believe you are right.

Though most people would have given him a "pass" on that given the events of the day.

I would have charitably judged the president to be incapacitated through fear and soiled diapers, and so the VP would be correct in assuming command in the emergency.

Clearly SOMEBODY needed to be in charge, and it wasn't DimSon.

[Junkdrawer]

86. See Post 45 above - The Washington Post said that on Jan. 26, 2002...

I think that's even in the 9/11 commission report.

[BrklynLiberal]

70. There is no way to know what actually happened on board that plane and

that is why I would NEVER go to that exploitation movie,aside fromt he fact that I would not want to relive that tragedy.
The rest of your explanation makes sense to me.

[benburch]

72. Nope, there isn't.

But I can make my own hypothesis given what I do know, and that's it.

Feel free to make your own, too.

[Beam Me Up]

74. Please remove this thread from GD and put it in 9/11 forum where it

belongs.

[benburch]

78. Likely it will end up there.

But somebody in the mod team must like it here, as it has been on for three hours...

[Jade Fox]

80. I agree......

They would have been idiots not to have shot the plane down, considering where it was obviously headed.

But that kind of necessity is too much for Americans. We like our heroic fantasies. And having been totally asleep at the wheel on Sept. 11, Bushco created one along with a compliant press.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

87. A theory I've mentioned repeatedly

If there were indeed suicide bombers on the plane and they thought that the passengers were about to take over, they could have blown up the plane themselves on purpose--because, if the suicide bombers are anything like the kamikazes of World War II, the greatest shame is to be captured ALIVE, because then your comrades will suspect you of chickening out.

Even in a MIHOP scenario, the plotters REALLY don't want any of the hijackers alive at the end.

[satya]

88. Link to Rumsfeld saying plane was shot down (audio)

NPR, All Things Considered, 12/24/2004
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=2&prgDate=24-Dec-04

[Twist_U_Up]

89. Wake up folks

Why weren’t the fighter jets that tailed flights 11 and 175 as they crashed into New York’s WTC, rerouted to intercept flights 77 or 93, before they crashed into the Pentagon and Pennsylvania?

[benburch]

91. Fuel?

Have you any concept of how much fuel a fighter consumes?

And were those aircraft even armed? Do we know?

[Twist_U_Up]

97. Let me get this right.........

NORAD

March 18, 2004

1. Was NORAD aware of the four hijacked planes veering off course even before being reported by the FAA? If not, please explain why NORAD which monitors 7000 flights a day, was unable to track the four aberrant flights.

Linda Slobodian writes in “Norad on Heightened Alert: Role of air defence agency rapidly transformed in wake of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks”

“Where was Norad, the multimillion-dollar, 24-hour eyes and ears of North American skies, when the hijacked planes embarked on their sinister missions?

Ironically, Norad was doing its job: peering 300 kilometres out into the Air Defence Identification Zone encircling North America. Its task: to help assess, within two minutes, if each of the 7,000 incoming aircraft every day is friend or foe….

When the second plane hit the other World Trade Center tower, Norad swiftly shifted its attention to help prevent possible further attacks.

Norad was instrumental in getting fighter jets -- normally on 15-minute alert -- airborne within eight minutes. ”
http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2001/calgaryherald101301.html

2. Why weren’t the jets able to intercept the hijacked planes if they were airborne within eight minutes of notification?

3. Why did NORAD wait until after the second plane hit the WTC to try and prevent possible further attacks?

[benburch]

100. The aircraft were in Maine if I recall correctly.

You compute it.

And you cannot resort to their reheat speeds, either, as you can only be on reheat about 15 minutes before your tanks are dry and you are bailing out.

[Ammonium]

93. um

nevermind please delete this

[mirandapriestly]

95. Nobody said

it was "spirited away to Area 51 by the Bilderbergers or the Bavarian Illuminati or the Discordians." except you. Who are you trying to fool?

I guess pro-official conspiracy theories can get recs and be shown in "greatest". The interest does not come from from those who share the OP's view, however.

[benburch]

106. Look carefully at the following message.

:sarcasm:

[mirandapriestly]

115. I know it wasn't intended to be verbatim

but it sounded like ridicule of posters who theorize on what happened,. I agree with the rest, though. It's ridiculous government propaganda.

[robinlynne]

108. They played a bit of the 93 tape on tv last week, and when air control was

talking to flight 93, another plane also answered the air control guy, saying ti was at the same coordinates. I don't remember ther details, but I remember that clearly, because I was surprised that wasn't censored out of the tape.

[Jazz2006]

114. Yes, it crashed.

In Pennsylvania.

It was not spirited away to Area 51 by the Bilderbergers or the Bavarian Illuminati or the Discordians.

The passengers did try to save themselves instead of crashing into a building or a field.

I don't doubt for a second the possibility that the plane was shot down before it crashed. I'm not yet sure that it was, but I wouldn't doubt it.

And if it was, my guess is that the shootdown has been suppressed because it's not the kind of thing any goverment wants to say out loud, "We deliberately killed a plane full of American citizens" especially when they have a ready made fallback position and a ready made fall guy.

Never mind the added benefits to the Bush admin in being able to sweep it all away saying that it was just another conspiracy theory... we (Democrats) handed it to him on a silver platter by being so discordant amongst ourselves and letting him get away with anything and everything. .

The movie, on the other hand, does not do that. It shows up Bush and his administration and shows them up as the inept bunch of fools they are, wholly incompetent, absent, screwed up every step of the way.

The movie is very well done as it draws so much attention to the Bush admin's failures without ever pretnding to be anything more that what it is.

[rman]

116. You expect us to take your belief as truth?

You sound so sure of yourself saying "what REALLY happened..."

Then it turns out your take on flight 93 is nothing but a belief.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

121. Don't Forget

Delta 1989.....

[tomreedtoon]

124. What about the Space Aliens and the Illuminati?

In another thread I tackle this "conspiracy theory" nonsense. Here it is...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=84907&mesg_id=85033

In the end, it doesn't matter. The plane was hijacked, it crashed, people died. And no one but God can ever know the entire truth...no matter how many conspiracy nuts think they're smarter than God. (Which is pretty much all of them.)

And as tempting as this is to use United 97 and "Let's Roll" as an occasion to hang another crime around Bush's neck, it's specious enough, and pointless enough, that it won't really do him any harm.

[Woody Box]

125. There is only ONE true statement in your post

It was not spirited away to Area 51 by the Bilderbergers or the Bavarian Illuminati or the Discordians.

This is certainly right. All your other claims are certainly wrong. So your post deserves the attribute "not completely false". Congratulations! :yourock:

[politrix]

167. Ooh, They had BOXCUTTERS!!!

That's almost as dangerous as running with scissors.

The story is fake. They had the courage to fight them at the END of the flight but, a plane full of men can be held hostage by some idiots with razors?

I guess, we should arm all our troops with this deadly weapon.

[Sinti]

168. I can't get my head around the boys with box cutters either

How many of you would smack that box cutter out of the fool's hand and tell him to sit down and STFU? I'm a relatively small 5'3 female, and I can't fathom a dude with a box cutter taking me down. Maybe I'm hard-headed, but I know a lot of other hard-headed women, I'm not unusual. Especially if they starting slicing at people, as the news story goes. No way, your box cutter is a match for my foottogroin-finishing move. You're definitely going to need a gun. Come on now.

Apparently, though, according to the propaganda on Discovery Channel, they had tear gas that they filled the plane with before they went into the cockpit. To me, this story doesn't ring true any better than the box cutters. Did they have gas masks? So many questions, and nary an answer in sight.

[Grateful for Hope]

169. I know

I question how anyone can believe 19 box-cutting, novice "pilots" were able to take over four planes and manage to crash three of them into their intended targets.

It borders on the ridiculous.

[politrix]

170. "Cats Against Bush"...

Damn, that's so fucking cool.


MUCH cooler than a planeload of grown men AND women being hijacked with razor blades. Shit, just grab your coat and use it to deflect the tiny little tinsy blade.

How could ANYONE make a whole movie off the premise that BOXCUTTERS caused a catastrophe?

HOW could ANYONE with ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER want to see a movie about boxcutters?

Don't you realize that the entrie movie pivots around the boxcutters?!? No boxcutters, no hijack, no movie, no great reviews.

It's "The Boxcutter Movie" and I'm horrified at ANYONE who would go and ashamed of anyone who liked it and disgusted by anyone who believed it.

Hey, those of you that have a clue - let's start calling it "The Boxcutter Movie" - that way, it keeps the TRUTH inperspective and I BET it will shut everyone else the fuck up.

How stupid - a movie starring boxcutters...

[politrix]

171. Slipping On An Icy Sidewalk Is MORE DANGEROUS

Than boxcutters.


And, they're trying to make HEROES out of these people? Shit, if you're gonna LIE - say they had flamethrowers. NOw, THAT'S heroic.

[Grateful for Hope]

172. Animals are so wise

that, if my cats could talk, they would agree with that statement.

I also don't buy the apparent flight prowess of those "boxcutters" who supposedly successfully hit their targets.

[smb]

173. It Still Doesn't Make Sense...

...to invoke an unsupported speculation (the flight was shot down) when the available facts (the passengers were beating down the cockpit door) suffices to explain the phenomenon (the flight crashed in the hinterlands of Pennsylvania).

"Occam's Razor" is not the brand of box cutter used by the terrorists.

[Sinti]

175. Actually, the suggestion is that the shooting down makes the debris

field make more sense. Occam should not be offended by this line of reasoning, IMO.

[politrix]

176. No. Taking Over A Cabin With Boxcutters Isn't Possible.

Sorry.

I have more respect for the pilots than that.

Highschool kids would kick your fucking ass for you if you came at them with boxcutters.

You HONESTLY believe they could make two men get up from flying the plane with boxcutters. You believe the pilots were such bitches?

That movie would be an INSULT to me if I were onboard - telling the world some pussies with razors killed me.

My friends would be ashamed FOR me - except, they would KNOW that didn't happen.

You disrespect the dead everytime you tell someone these MEN lost their lives to wimps with razors. Shit, most Arabs aren't even that BIG physically. Anyone who thinks that obviously doesn't know how to fight.

I bet they wouldn't taken over a plane full of black guys with no boxcutters.

Shit, just grab a seat cushion and something hard to hit them with and have it - end of story. I'd come back and haunt you if you told people I died from some boxcutters.

They would've been getting hit with luggage and all kinds of shit. Silverware, glasses, shoes.

It just doesn't stand up. A plane full of women would've taken those wimps out.

My sister would've saved the whole fucking plane by herself - just by distracting them and making them have to fight her and turning their backs on everyone.

They were too outnumbered and you don't understand the anatomy of a fight. It couldn't happen. You need guns and you need enough men to cover everyone because people will jump you.

When people heard phone calls from the flight, they would've heard these guys getting their asses kicked. PERIOD.

[Sinti]

177. Box cutters were not needed - they merely required the threat of a bomb

In fact, box cutters are a laughable excuse for a weapon in any case. However, some dude says he has a bomb and will blow the plane up if you try and rush him. Would you take that chance?

[politrix]

178. He Better Show It

Like people with bombs do.

Otherwise, I'd be pretty fucking stupid.


He'd be getting his ass kicked all over that plane, believe me. And, I'd rush him anyway - a hijacking Arab with a bomb can't be bartered with, historically speaking - you better stand up and try to save yourself.

Ultimately, I would've found out that he had no bomb, as I kicked his fucking ass.

[Sinti]

179. They would have probably shown some device that was supposed to detonate

the bomb. Some plastic thing would have been enough. :shrug: Who knows what really happened.

Seeing that, in the pre-9/11 context, I would have held my water. I wouldn't have wanted to incite what could potentially be an itchy finger, and have all those other folks on my now-dead conscience.

This is a typical scenario for a hijacking, actually. They threaten with a bomb, they land somewhere, make demands, their demands are met, they release their hostages and eventually get caught later on. At least that's what the TV tells us. :)

Box cutters with no bomb, however, that would be a very different story.

[politrix]

180. "Who knows what really happened"

Ah...

Indeed.


So, what the hell is that stupid movie talking about? Made up shit. Propaganda. Who knows what really happened?

Hold that pose...

[Sinti]

181. Propaganda baby. Got to keep Pavlov's dogs in line

A full on criminal investigation with real professionals, experts, and all the trimmings would probably turn up a lot of things we can't even imagine. Maybe when we're a democracy again we'll get one. :)

[petgoat]

185. I agree. The bomb threat was a big inhibitor.

Who has the right to say "he's bluffing" and make the entire group take
the risk that he's wrong? But after they had the phone calls, they
decided to risk the bomb.

It's easy to say in hindsight that you'd fight, you'd run away from the
guards trying to force you into the showers, but at the time you just
want to believe everything is going to be all right.

[smb]

182. The Passengers DID Start "Kicking Ass"...

...once they found out that the old world (hijacker = clown who wants free ride to Cuba, so just sit tight and you'll probably be OK when it's all over) was gone.

[politrix]

183. Or, So They Tell You

You don't know what happened.


THE END.

[dabluz]

186. Hey , that serial # on flight 93....

is still being used.Idenity #s change but not serial #s
http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNumSQL.asp?NNumbertxt=592ua
oops! My bad, wrong serial#