9/11 Unveiled (part 8 of 10): Flight 93

by Enver Masud

There’s no hard evidence that Flight 93 ploughed into the ground at the Pennsylvania ‘crash site.’

Rare television footage from September 11, 2001 contradicts the generally accepted explanation that United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., 125 miles from Washington, DC, after four passengers attacked the hijackers in an attempt to gain control of the airplane.

According to The 9/11 Commission Report, at 8:42 United Airlines Flight 93 took off from Newark, NJ, bound for San Francisco. It’s last “normal contact” with the FAA was at 9:27.

Around 9:28 the Cleveland, OH, controller heard “a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin.”

Other transmissions followed, and at 9:30 Ziad Jarrah, the alleged hijacker—a fragment of whose passport was found at the crash site—(CNN, August 1, 2002), was heard saying, “There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands [unintelligible]. Please remain quiet.”

“The FBI believes Jarrah, a Lebanese national, was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93, . . . U.S. officials believe the plane’s target was the White House.”

CNN adds that Jarrah “was stopped and questioned in the United Arab Emirates in January 2001 at the request of the CIA, nearly nine months before the attacks”.

At 10:01 another aircraft is reported to have witnessed “radical gyrations in what investigators believe was the hijackers’ effort to defeat the passenger assault.”

However, television footage from September 11, 2001 tells a different story.

NBC Reporter: “The debris here is spread over a 3 to 4 mile radius which has now been completely sealed off, and is being treated according to the FBI as a crime scene. This is one of those cases where the pictures really do tell the story . . . one of the most horrifying aspects of this is how little debris is visible . . . that’s all you see, just a large crater in the ground, and just tiny, tiny bits of debris . . . the investigators out there, and there are hundreds of them, have found nothing larger than a phone book.”

A Fox News reporter is heard talking to a Fox affiliate photographer Chris Kanicki [sic].

Fox Reporter: “I’ve seen the pictures, and it looks like there’s nothing there except a hole in the ground.”

Chris : “Basically that is right . . . The only thing you could see was a big gouge in the earth, and some broken trees . . .”
Fox Reporter: “Any large pieces of debris?”

Chris: “There was nothing that you could distinguish that a plane crashed there . . . nothing going on down there, no smoke, no fire . . .you couldn’t see anything, you could see dirt, ash, and people walking around.”

Fox Reporter: “How big would you say that hole was?”

Chris: “From my estimate it was 20 to 15 feet long . . . 10 feet wide.”

Fox Reporter: “What could you see on the ground other than dirt, ash?”

Chris: “You couldn’t see anything . . . just dirt, ash, and people walking around.”

Both NBC and Fox reporters make no mention of  the Boeing 757’s fuselage, tail, landing gear, and engines which would have been found at the “crash site” had the plane plunged to the ground while the “pilot struggled with hijackers.”

Elias Davidsson, a researcher in Iceland,  reveals anomalies that cast doubt on the authenticity of the transcript from Flight 93’s Cockpit Voice Recorder. He writes (The Events of September 11, 2001 and the Right to the Truth, April 14, 2008, p16):

The transcripts of CVRs from other crashes around the world . . . mention numerous engine and ambient sounds . . . The transcript of Flight UA 93’s CVR does not mention any such sounds and particularly no crash sound at the end . . . the released transcript differed significantly from authentic CVR transcripts by failing to mention the aircraft’s ID, the name of the person and agency who issued the transcript and the date the transcript was issued. Furthermore, serious discrepancies have been revealed between what family members heard when the transcript was first played to them by the FBI on April 2, 2002, and what the 9/11 Commission reported to have heard.

Popular accounts of Flight 93 mention several phone calls describing the passengers’ struggle with the hijackers, but this is contradicted by the FBI.

According to an FBI report presented as evidence in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006, Griffin writes (Canadian, October 8, 2007):

there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. . . . (These two low-altitude calls from Flight 93 were, according to the FBI report, the only two cell phone calls made from all four flights).

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad, said “the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania.”

The Pentagon says Rumsfeld “simply misspoke.”

There’s also the statement by Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

While questioning Norman Y. Mineta, Former Secretary of Transportation, Mr. Hamilton asked Mineta about an “order given, I think by the President, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists.”

The video of Mineta’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission has been removed from the archives of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, but links to a copy may be found at The Wisdom Fund’s website (twf.org).

Vice President Cheney admitted to giving the order to shoot hijacked aircraft.

Philip Shenon, an investigative reporter at the New York Times where he has worked since 1981, in The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation (Twelve, 2008, p264), narrates this exchange between Cheney and Tim Russert (Meet the Press, April 4, 2004):

Russert asked Cheney what was the most difficult decision made during the course of the day [September 11, 2001].

“Well, I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft,” Cheney said, referring to the decision to order military jets to shoot down passenger planes that approached Washington.

Russert asked: “And you decided . . .”

Cheney corrected Russert. “We decided to do it.” He was referring to himself and Bush.

“So if the United States government became aware that a hijacked commercial airliner was was destined for the White House or the Capitol, we would take the plane down?” Russert continued.

“Yes,” Cheney said somberly.

There is yet another twist to the saga of Flight 93.

ABC affiliate WCPO in Cleveland reported:

A Boeing 767 out of Boston made an emergency landing Tuesday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport due to concerns that it may have a bomb aboard, said Mayor Michael R. White. . . . United identified the plane as Flight 93.

However, in February 2006, Liz Foreman, whose name was attached to the original story, stated that

an Associated Press bulletin, was posted on WCPO.com during the morning of September 11, 2001. The story stated that Flight 93 landed in Cleveland. This was not true. Once the AP issued a retraction a few minutes later, we removed the link.

On April 28, 2009, Pilots for 9/11 Truth reported that Air Traffic Control radar shows Flight 93 airborne after its reported crash.