What really happened on Flight 93?

Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism ^ | October 17, 2001 | Stuart Buck

[gordgekko]

Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism

What really happened on Flight 93?

By Stuart Buck

I'm not a paranoid, conspiracy theory buff. But I can't help wondering what really happened to Flight 93, the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.

Beamer

Bingham

Burnett

Glick

We've all read the many stories about the guys on board Flight 93 who heroically decided to fight back -- Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham, Thomas Burnett, Jeremy Glick. I do not question their heroism. Their names should be remembered and taught to schoolchildren, like Nathan Hale or Paul Revere.

But there is one fact that makes me wonder whether the real reason Flight 93 crashed was because of the heroic struggle of the passengers onboard.

The fact is this: the 911 call that one passenger made from a bathroom. On September 11, and for a couple of days afterwards, there were several newspaper stories that mentioned a statement made by Glenn Cramer, a local emergency dispatcher. He said that a passenger on Flight 93 had called 911, with the frantic message that the plane had been hijacked. In Cramer's words, "He heard some sort of explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, and we lost contact with him."

This, of course, was before the plane crashed.

Not long afterwards, the FBI began to stifle the story of the 911 call. As the Washington Post reported:

FBI agents quickly took possession of the tape of that 911 call, which constitutes the only public evidence so far of what went on during the doomed plane's last moments. The FBI declined to provide any information about the tape's contents or the identity of the caller.

Nor did the FBI allow the dispatcher who took the call to talk any further to the media. A story on September 11 said this: "[Westmoreland County spokesman] Stephens said the passenger gave the dispatcher information about the situation on the plane, but said the FBI has ordered details not to be released." (Mike Wagner & Ken McCall, Pennsylvania Crash Might Yield Important Evidence, Cox News Service).

The FBI's attempt to quash the explosion/911 story seems to have worked ? the story has completely vanished from the American media. Completely. In a LEXIS search of all newspapers and magazines, I could find only one story after September 15 that mentioned the 911 call and the explosion (and that story was on September 17). No one -- literally no one has mentioned that 911 call and the explosion in an American newspaper since. (Neither does any news story mention Glenn Cramer -- the emergency dispatcher who took the 911 call -- after September 17.)

Isn't that odd? I know that the stories of the other phone calls from Flight 93 were much more heroic and inspiring. But isn't it strange that we have heard simply nothing whatsoever about what could have caused the explosion that the 911 caller heard? Nothing?

And it's not like the 911 call was the only evidence. Witnesses on the ground confirmed hearing a pre-crash explosion. ABCNews reports: "One eyewitness to the Pennsylvania crash, Linda Shepley, told television station KDKA in Pittsburgh that she heard a loud bang and saw the plane bank to the side before crashing." A September 12 story says that some witnesses "said they heard up to three loud booms before the jetliner went down." (Outside Tiny Shanksville, A Fourth Deadly Stroke, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, p. A-13). Another reporter noted, "Witnesses reported eerie sounds from the aircraft as it fell. Some people heard an explosion, and others heard sputtering." (Danny Butler, Passengers might have tackled hijackers, Herald Sun, p. 8.) And the Daily American, a local Pennsylvania newspaper, printed this recollection:

Laura Temyer of Hooversville RD1 was hanging her clothes outside to dry before she went to work Tuesday morning when she heard what she thought was an airplane. "Normally I wouldn't look up, but I just heard on the news that all the planes were grounded and thought this was probably the last one I would see for a while, so I looked up," she said. "I didn't see the plane but I heard the plane's engine. Then I heard a loud thump that echoed off the hills and then I heard the plane's engine. I heard two more loud thumps and didn't hear the plane's engine anymore after that."

Some suggest that the hijackers set off a bomb. After all, some of the other passengers who made phone calls said that the hijackers claimed to have a bomb with them.

But the FBI has announced that NO bomb went off aboard Flight 93. On September 24, FBI spokesman Bill Crowley said, "The conclusion of the investigation is that no explosives were used on board the plane." (Tom Gibb, FBI Ends Site Work, Says No Bomb Used, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 25, 2001, p. A1.)

Even if there had been a bomb, wouldn't the noise show up on the cockpit voice recorder? One would think so, but even though the FBI recovered the voice recorder within two days of the crash (see Bill Heltzel & Tom Gibb, 2 Planes Had No Part in Crash; Business Jet Military Cargo Plane Were in Area of Hijacked United Flight 93, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Sept. 16, 2001, p. A-10), they have not yet released the slightest hint that there was any explosion recorded thereon. Again, an oddity, considering the extraordinary amount of detail that they have released about other aspects of the overall investigation. (All that the FBI has said about the voice recorder is that it recorded screaming and sounds of a struggle, see Kevin Johnson & Alan Levin, Recorder captures passengers' fight with hijackers, USA Today, Oct. 4, 2001, p. A3, as well as some conversation that is being translated, see Amy Worden & Diane Mastrull, Flight 93 voice recorder caught little, Philadelphia Inquirer, Sept. 21, 2001.)

I want to reiterate that I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I should also make it clear that I wouldn't mind at all if, as some people have speculated, Flight 93 crashed because the military shot the plane down. I see no ethical principle that would forbid such an action. I'm just interested in finding out what really happened, and a healthy dose of skepticism about the official story seems warranted here. With all that has come out about the hijackings, no one has even attempted to explain the explosion that apparently took place aboard Flight 93.

Stuart Buck is a clerk for Judge Stephen F. Williams of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, and a recent graduate of Harvard Law School. His website can be found at http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com.

Enter Stage Right - A Journal of Modern Conservatism

[Jefferson Adams]

Either way they are all heros.

I totally agree. But I also think that it's time for "our" government to quit lying to us.

[uncitizen]

Excellent point about the crater looking like a complete plane hit it. Why did it take 12 hours before we were allowed to see pictures of the site, and when we did there was nothing there but a crater?

[weegee]

Good point (if it was hit by a missle there wouldn't be the time to make a call).

Could the booms people heard be sonic booms from the fighter planes overhead?

Some footage of smouldering grass was shown repeatedly on the networks as footage from the crash. Some footage was shown. Not much footage of the Pentagon was shown (in comparison to the coverage of NYC). So I don't buy that angle of suppressed footage either.

I've also seen a rant piece that the media is suppressing the fact that one of the counter-terrorist posse on the plane was a homosexual an not getting "credit" as such. We shouldn't go poking our eyes into other peoples' bedrooms but suddenly it gets thrust in our faces. I've never understood that; defining your whole life around a sexual practice. Don't know if any of the other heroes in that group were virgins, tax protesters, generous in their tithing to their church, liberals, conservatives, draft dodgers, etc. It matters not to the actions they took to prevent that plane from doing further damage.

[discostu]

But since then Bush has said that he gave the AF permission to shoot the plane down, and there was a report that they had scrambled jets to get it but said it went down before they got there. Why cover up shooting the plane down AND admit to trying to shoot the plane down? Doesn't make sense to me.

[RobRoy]

Just curious. What would happen if someone sitting next to one of the emergency doors was to open it just before he saw the smoke?

Could it be a cloud from decompression? Would it have caused decompression at that altitude? Would it have caused a sound heard from the ground as a bang?

I am just wondering if someone at least "though" that taking their own life and opening that door in flight would screw up the flight enough to help the others get cotrol away from the terrorists. I can imagine someone doing that.

[Question_Assumptions]

This was hardly the only phone call from that flight. From the interviews I've heard, there were open phone lines to several places until the lines went dead when the plane crashed. And given that the plane hit in one piece, there seems to be absolutely no evidence that the plane suffered a bomb explosior and no evidence that it was shot down. I wish people would give this a break.

[RobRoy]

HOLY COW! I'll proofread next time. Sorry folks.

[michaelje]

Ditto. While I do believe that they are heros either way, I agree, the Fed govt must stop feeding us misinformation.

[babble-on]

All I was saying was he shouldn't deny he's launching a conspiracy theory when that's what he's doing. May be a good theory. We will never, ever know if its true. I don't particularly care myself. If US jets shot it down they were certainly justified in doing so, if heroes on board brought it down its good they did. I am glad that the Capitol and/or the White House, whatever the target was, are still standing.

[gnarledmaw]

Dear Stuart,

I hope you have slipper grippers on the bottom of your tub.

Love,
The FBI

[HoustonKevin]

I'm not a paranoid, conspiracy theory buff.

If it walks like a duck...

...and it quacks like duck!

Then damn it! ..It must be a paronoid, Conspiracy Butt, opps, Buff.

[CHICAGOFARMER]

wake up you dudes.

flying straight down a 737 757 and jet will exceed the speed of sound, break the sound barrier.

you guys have emotional hype not backed by logic and common sense of physical laws.

By the way if a part breaks off due to violent actions flying at the speed of sound parts will come off. This is caused by loss of control (American citizens fighting wiht the bad guys)

[NoControllingLegalAuthority]

If US jets shot it down they were certainly justified in doing so, if heroes on board brought it down its good they did

Yes, both options are fine. The "hero" version sounds better to the public.

I just have a few follow-up questions.

Why won't the FBI release the transcripts of FAA controller conversations re: United 93? It's not like the crash happened mysteriously and requires a lot of investigation to determine cause.

Second, if the jets failed to make an intercept in time, WHY NOT? They are supersonic aircraft. It was a wartime situation and they were airborne within range to make an easy intercept.

Third, at what exact time did the president order the shoot down? Timeline would be relevant to this discussion. The crash of United 93 took place at 10:37 AM EDT. The inability of controllers to contact this aircraft and its unauthorized change of course well before its crash would allow plenty of time for intercept. This was perhaps the only airliner still in the air in the United States after 10:15 AM. What other aircraft would have distracted the Air Force at that point?

Finally, why would a shoot down have to be a missile? The F-16 is equipped with 20 MM Vulcan cannon with over 500 rounds carried. This is a 6,000 round-per-minute gun, easily capable of downing the airliner.

[babble-on]

Hope you're not expecting ME to answer those, which doesn't mean that there are no answers, or that you will necessarily ever get those questions answered to your satisfaction. Who was that shadowy figure on the grassy knoll anyway?