Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

CNN ^ | 12/27/04 | Jamie McIntyre

[wagglebee]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

[Rokke]

Do you realize New Baltimore is 8 miles away in the opposite direction of flight 93's flightpath? In other words, Flight 93 was never closer than 8 miles to New Baltimore. But, New Baltimore was downwind of Flight 93's crash site on the day Flight 93 impacted the ground. And the resulting fire ball travelled hundreds and possibly thousands of feet into the air. Certainly debris from the explosion did. So is it really hard to understand how singed pieces of paper could float downwind after being blown high into the air in a fireball?

[TexKat]

The DOD transcript has not been posted yet. The CNN transcriber could have misunderstood, however I got a FR post from a new freeper on the day of Rumsfeld speech who posted that Rumsfeld stated shot down. But when I checked on that freeper yesterday, I found that evidently she/he had signed up just to make that one post.

[Andrew LB]

But what of the piece of engine?

[Chode]

pls see #36... i knew about the engine but i didn't consider it a large field, just the engine and some skin etc. along the way

[Cold Heat]

I recall watching the talk that day and I recall Runny was talking off the cuff and he nearly forgot about the crashed plane and added it in before he finished his thought.

I thought he said "brought down".

If he did not,I did not catch it and it would certainly have been a simple flub.

[Rokke]

I have personally witnessed 2000lb bombs broaching on impact and landing over a mile from their original point of impact. A 1000 pound piece of engine landing a mile away from a 500 mph impacting aircraft just isn't that surprising. I had a buddy fly into the ground several years ago, and some hunters recovered his foot more than a mile away from his crash site several months later. It had been buried in the snow and was decently preserved. Crash sites and explosions are strange things. No two are the same, and none of them make sense to anyone who isn't an expert in the field.

[paleocon patriarch]

Please don't confuse the loyal sycophants with facts.

[BykrBayb]

violent movements during the takeover took the plane OUTSIDE of the DESIGN ENVELOPE and one of the engines snapped off.

You mean the passengers punched the terrorists so hard the engine fell off?

[Howlin]

Lookie here.

[BykrBayb]

Explosion? From what?

[Howlin]

Hello.

[Howlin]

but i still think that flight was shot down by our jets due to the debris field being so large

Please post a man of the debris field.

[Ronaldus Magnus]

the engine is the easiest to explain... violent movements during the takeover took the plane OUTSIDE of the DESIGN ENVELOPE and one of the engines snapped off.

I fully admit that your theory and all the alternate theories posted on this thread by all the other aerospace engineering PhD's make at least as much sense as flying the vertical stabilizer off transcontinental jet at 240 knots over Jamaica Bay or the 50 gallons of Jet A in a 13,000 gallon tank that spontaneously exploded off Long Island.

a four engine plane can fly a long time on three engines, any fighter pilot worth his salt would put a load of 20mm through the cockpit windows and put it down right then and there!!!

And from post #40:

In point of fact, we actually failed to shoot it down before it crashed and the defense dept. got criticized for that as well.

Those are some radically different excuses. You Kool-Aide drinkers ought to at least get your stories straight!

[Howlin]

You'll be needing this:

[Rokke]

When a 757 travelling at approximately 500mph flies into the ground, it explodes.

[Liberty Valance]

I do so hope the dems and other assorted idiots focus on this kind of side-show. We should be so lucky...
but I doubt it.

[Howlin]

"Eight miles away in New Baltimore, Melanie Hankinson said she found singed papers and other light debris from the crash, including pages from Hemispheres Magazine, United's in-flight magazine. Stoe said authorities initially insisted crash debris could not have traveled over a mountain ridge more than eight miles from the crash.

How about providing some information that says that her claims are true?

[Howlin]

Explosion? From what?

Are you serious?

[rahbert]

do they have engine data to confirm that the engines were
intact on impact???

the flight was fairly close to camp david and 120 or so miles from wash dc. a shootdown would have to had happened
fairly close to where flt 93 went down in order to avoid a crash in a populated area.

i can understand a shootdown being necessary, as well as the desire to keep the fact of it a secret. it would be interesting to know if the wreckage bore evidence of
sidewinder fragmentation.

[Rokke]

"i can understand a shootdown being necessary, as well as the desire to keep the fact of it a secret."

What rationalization would there be to keep a shootdown secret? If anything, it would be helpful to broadcast the fact that we did shoot one down.