[Orangedog]

I wonder what their target was.

What was the flight's destination. If it was California, then it might have been the Transamerica building in San Francisco or the Golden Gate bridge. If the plane was headed north, it could have been the Sears Tower. Think big, well known, and close to television news cameras. I think they chose the WTC because not only was it symbolic of American Capitalism, but they knew that at least one person with a camera would get footage of the first tower being hit, and that every news camera in NYC would be trained on the WTC after that for the second plane.

[bonesmccoy]

If so, that would suggest that a second plane should have been hitting the same target or near to it. If the modus operandi was to launch two planes at similar targets (which seems plausible), they are still interested in hitting targets in the Western US.

Certainly, the modus operandi was to send two attacks at NYC (each plane hit one WTC tower) and two attacks at Washington (one plane hit the Pentagon and the other apparently the White House or Capitol Building).

If the story here is correct, there should have been another report of another plane from DFW with similar circumstances. AA is the big carrier out of DFW.

I just ran the AA flight schedule from DFW for Sept 12 2002. The arrival time of the first flight from DFW gets to SFO at around 9:30 AM.

Let me do a thought experiment with you. Take at face value the story reported here by another Freeper (regarding seeing 4 suspicious ME men agitated on a morning flight from DFW to SFO while it was delayed).

If the modus operandi is to pick two flights leaving at similar times from the same airport, I would say check the AA flights leaving for LA at the same time.

It turns out the AA schedule says that the first DFW flight to LA leaves at 7 AM CST and arrives at 8 AM PST in LA. If you know anything about LA, there aren't many people in their offices in LA at 8 AM. It's the middle of rush hour and people are still driving. If their goal was to inflict maximum casualties, then the logical flight to pick was the next one. That flight appears to leave just after 8 AM CST (almost simultaneous to the DFW-SFO flight)! It would have arrived in LA at around 9:30 AM PST, coinciding with the timing of the attack in NYC's WTC.

If they were plotting to attack a West Coast target, they may have been identified by the passengers on the SFO flight. I sure hope the FBI has already thought of this and has already run the passenger lists for the morning of 9-11-01 at DFW!

[WarSlut]

DFW to SFO, so either one could have been potential targets.

Sears Tower would be my guess, just for the fact that there would have been plenty of fuel remaining when airliner reached Chicago. They would propably hijack a flight out of LAX if the Transamerica Building or the Golden Gate had been the primary target... but you never know.

[nicko]

the target might have been close...flying several hours would have spent much of the aircraft fuel, and diminished the explosive impact- my guess would be that it was somewhere near Dallas...maybe Austin...