"Passenger phoned husband moments before Pentagon crash
A passenger managed to reach her husband on her mobile phone moments before American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
Barbara Olson, a commentator for CNN and wife of US Solicitor General Theodore Olson, was one of 58 passengers on the Boeing 757. They had been herded to the back of the plane along with the four flight attendants and two pilots. In two brief and furtive conversations with her husband, Olson, 46, gave a few details about the plane's hijackers, CNN reported.
She mentioned that there was more than one, but the only weapons she described were knives and cardboard cutters, the network said. "What do I tell the pilot to do?" a frightened Olson pleaded.
Theodore Olson was able to alert the Justice Department's command centre of the hijacking in progress, but it was too late to help his wife and the other people aboard the plane. They were all killed when the airliner smashed into the Pentagon."
Story filed: 23:00 Tuesday 11th September 2001"
The conversation between Barbara and Ted, haunting and heartbreaking as it is, may be a clue as to what happened on that separate, particular flight. It sounds like the terrorists simply commodeered Barbara's plane using fairly crude and defensable weapons, killing no crew in the process, and probably assuring the passengers that they were just taking the plane to a safe location. If the passengers knew they were going to die - and take 10,000 other Americans with them - they certainly would have stormed the cockpit against knives and boxcutters. I would have. Grab a seat cushion and go for it. I'm a dead man anyway, so there's nothing to lose, and everything to gain, if the cockroaches can be overpowered and the crew reinstated.
I'm thinking that someone on that Newark-based flight got word (via news pager or cell phone) of the first three suicide crashes, figured out the score, and perhaps stormed the cabin to the ultimate tragic end. A crash in barren woods outside Pittsburgh was certainly not planned by the scumdogs ... either passengers fought for their lives and those of other innocents, or the military shot that plane down before it could reach its intended destination. I suspect there was some heroism on that flight we will never know about, and it probably saved thousands of people in the process.
It's all conjecture on my part, and whatever the circumstances of that flight, this has been a day of unimaginable outrage and evil. I believe in the righteousness of vengence, and more importantly .... that's something the Muslims understand intimately. They are waiting for the other shoe to fall, and if we show hesitation or weakness to drop that shoe, our lives and personal liberties will be under seige for the rest of whatever becomes of our nation's future. A defensive bunker mentality based on fear means one thing - a police state. That's unacceptable. Killing those who wish to kill us - that an unfortunate, but acceptable, alternative.