CHAPTER 19 - THE PENNSYLVANIA CRASH SITE
Summary
(1) Varying sources put the Flight 93 crash time sometime between 10:03 and 10:10. This was an eternity for an air disaster since timelines are ordinarily dissected to the thousandth of a second (New York Observer). Early mainstream media reports unanimously said 10:10 (NYT, CNN, WAPO). This was based in part on interviews of flight controllers from multiple FAA regions (New York Observer). The FAA almost a year later said 10:07 (FAA). DOD-contracted seismologists concluded 10:06 (San Francisco Chronicle, Daily Mail-Morgan, Philadelphia Daily News). However, the 9/11 Commission said 10:03 (Com-30, 461-462 FN 168), based partly on a cockpit voice recorder tape which came under tampering allegations, as we will discuss shortly. An authoritative researcher of anti-official Flight 93 arguments is Rowland Morgan, former journalist for the Independent and Guardian and co-author of the 2006 book, “Flight 93: What Really Happened On The Heroic 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight,” which was adapted for an August of 2006 article he wrote for the Daily Mail. This article will be cited frequently (Daily Mail-Morgan).
(2) The Flight 93 crash site was a crater in the ground with some trash and no recognizable plane parts such as an engine, tail, wings, or large fuselage parts. Numerous witnesses said it resembled a tiny commercial dumpsite and contained no discernable indicators that it was a plane crash site (AP, WAPO, CNN, Boston Globe, Newseum, Daily Mail-Morgan, Independent, Philadelphia Daily News, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). The plane was said to have completely incinerated upon impact (Independent), but some plane crash experts were baffled by the lack of wreckage (Daily Mail-Morgan). Despite the incineration narrative, the FBI belatedly announced that it had recovered a red bandana and a passport belonging to the hijackers, which were presented in the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial (Daily Mail-Morgan).
(3) Debris fields from the Flight 93 crash were found two, six, and eight miles away from the main crash site. Several witnesses saw trash raining down from the sky like confetti for miles, including clothes, books, paper, and human remains (Reuters, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). The FBI cordoned off three and six to eight mile wide areas to search for evidence (CNN). A one-ton engine piece was found over a mile away from the crash site (Independent, Philadelphia Daily News, Daily Mail-Morgan). A piece of fuselage the size of a dining room table was recovered two miles from the crash site (Daily Mail-Morgan).
(4) Several local residents heard a missile, whistling, and/or loud explosions just before Flight 93 went down (WAPO, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Daily News). Other witnesses saw smoke trailing from the flight (Mirror). Others saw an F-16 fire missiles and catch one of Flight 93’s engines before it plummeted (Daily Mail-Morgan). However, a smaller number of additional witnesses said they saw the plane dive into the ground intact with nothing wrong with it, including a local scrap yard worker who was widely reported to have been the nearest eyewitness of all (Philadelphia Daily News, Daily Mail-Morgan). However, those witnesses strangely omitted from their narratives the well-established fact that the plane (or Flight Data Recorder) was upside when it impacted (Daily Mail-Morgan, NYT, USA Today).
(5) The FBI initially did not rule out a shoot down, despite vigorous military denials (Reuters). However, the next day the FBI switched positions and said there was nothing inconsistent about the crash site with the plane going into the ground intact (Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Independent), despite strong doubts expressed by aviation experts (Independent, Daily Mail-Morgan).
(6) When the FBI was forced in April of 2002 to let the relatives of the deceased listen to the cockpit voice recorder tape, it ended with struggling sounds followed by a loud rushing sound (Philadelphia Daily News, Daily Mail-Morgan). However, when the judge of the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial ordered the FBI to play it to the jury, it ended with the hijackers shouting praises to Allah (CNN). This added to the already-present allegations of tape-tampering and suggestions that the rushing sound resulted from a hole in the plane caused by a missile strike. Interestingly, unlike the other three hijacked flights of 9/11, the FBI was in charge of the Flight 93 investigation rather than the National Transportation Safety Board (Daily Mail-Morgan).
(7) One dozen witnesses saw a low-flying, small, white, unmarked military-style jet flying in the vicinity before Flight 93 crashed. After the crash, the plane circled the crash site and departed (Philadelphia Daily News, Mirror, Independent, Daily Mail-Morgan). The description fit planes used by U.S. Customs for aerial drug shipment interdictions (Independent). The FBI initially denied any other planes were in the area at the time of the crash (Mirror, Independent, Daily Mail-Morgan). However, after numerous witnesses came forward over the next few days following the attacks, the FBI backtracked and announced that a Fairchild Falcon 20 business jet was asked by the military to descend from 37,000 ft to 5,000 ft to assist emergency responders by providing crash site coordinates (Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Independent, Daily Mail-Morgan).
This explanation did not harmonize with the witnesses’ accounts of a military jet that flew very low to the ground and was in the area before Flight 93 crashed. Furthermore, this was more than half an hour after all non-military aircraft in the United States had been ordered to land at the nearest airport due to the unfolding 9/11 attacks. Therefore, it was made no sense for the military to ask an unlawfully airborne civilian jet for such help at a moment when no one knew whether there were additional hijacked aircraft in the sky (Independent, Philadelphia Daily News). Furthermore, such help was unnecessary due to the extremely high density of emergency phone calls emanating from near the crash site (Daily Mail-Morgan). Finally, neither the FBI nor the military ever identified the pilot or the passengers aboard the purported Fairchild Falcon 20, nor did any come forward (Independent, Philadelphia Daily News).
(8) Minutes before the Flight 93 crash, passenger Edward Felt called 911 from his cell phone and told the dispatch supervisor Glenn Cramer that there had been an explosion and white smoke was coming from the plane (AP, CNN, WAPO, Philadelphia Daily News). Felt’s wife and family members later listened to the call and confirmed this (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) after the New York Times lied and claimed she said the opposite (NYT). FBI agents immediately confiscated the tape of Felt’s 911 call (WAPO) and Cramer was legally gagged (Mirror, Independent) after briefly speaking to the media about what he heard.
(9) Local electricity flickered and went out before and/or during the Flight 93 crash. Contrasting claims attributed this to either to a fighter jets’ weapons system’s electromagnetic pulsing or the shock wave sent from the impact site (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review). Others suggested Flight 93 could have been brought down using a militarized electromagnetic interference system since the FBI acknowledged there was also a C-130 Air Force cargo plane within 25 miles of Flight 93 when it crashed and at least twenty-eight C-130 Air Force cargo planes were known to be equipped with this technology (Independent, New York Times Magazine).
(10) In July and August of 2002, the Air Force and Army secretly incarnated remains from Flight 93 (WAPO), resulting in subsequent rejected requests by the media to observe plane wreckage, debris, or an inventory of these things (BBC, PR Newswire). Regarding this action, Senator Bob Graham, Chairman of the 2002 Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 acknowledged that federal agencies were collaborating to keep information out of the public’s hands (BBC).
(1) Sources:
CNN, 9/12/2001, “September 11: Chronology of Terror”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
FAA, 8/12/2002, “Fact Sheet: Chronology of Events on September 11, 2001 (August 2002)”
New York Observer, 2/16/2004, “Stewardess ID’d Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show”
New York Times, 9/13/2001, “AFTER THE ATTACKS: UNITED FLIGHT 93; On Doomed Flight, Passengers Vow to Perish Fighting”
New York Times, 10/16/2001, “‘We Have Some Plane,’ Hijacker Told Controller”
Philadelphia Daily News, 9/16/2002, “Three-Minute Discrepancy in Tape; Cockpit Voice Recording Ends Before Flight 93's Official Time of Impact”
Rowland Morgan, 2006, “Flight 93: What Really Happened On The Heroic 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight”
San Francisco Chronicle, 12/9/2002, “H-Bomb Sensor Yield New Benefits/Cold War-Era Instruments Useful in ‘Forensic Seismology’”
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept 11, 2001”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 30, 461-462 Footnote 168
(2) Sources:
Associated Press, 9/11/2001, “Hijacked Passenger Called 911 on Cell Phone”
Boston Globe, 9/12/2001, “Frantic 911 Call Preceded Crash Outside Pittsburgh”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Newseum (Washington D.C. based journalism-themed nonprofit organization), 7/16/2002, “Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11” (forward by Tom Brokaw)
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/12/2001, “Outside Tine Shanksville, A Fourth Deadly Stroke”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Homes, Neighbors Rattled by Crash”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Scene of Utter Destruction”
Washington Post, 5/12/2002, “Hallowed Ground”
(3) Sources:
CNN, 9/13/2001, “‘Black Box’ from Pennsylvania Crash Found”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/13/2001, “Investigators Locate ‘Black Box’ from Flight 93: Widen Search Area in Somerset Crash”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/14/2001, “Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away”
Reuters, 9/13/2001, “FBI Does Not Rule Out Shootdown”
(4) Sources:
Boston Globe, 9/12/2001, “Frantic 911 Call Preceded Crash Outside Pittsburgh”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
New York Times, 9/11/2002, “FLIGHT 93; Refusing To Give In Without A Fight”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
USA Today, 9/11/2019, “The Holy Ground of Flight 93, One of 9/11’s Enduring Mysteries”
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Jetliner Was Diverted Toward Washington Before Crash in Pa.”
(5) Sources:
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away”
Reuters, 9/13/2001, “FBI Does Not Rule Out Shootdown”
(6) Sources:
CNN, 4/13/2006, “On Tape, Passengers Heard Trying to Retake Cockpit; 9/11 Jury Relives Final Minutes of Hijacked United Flight 93”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Philadelphia Daily News, 9/16/2002, “Three-Minute Discrepancy in Tape; Cockpit Voice Recording Ends Before Flight 93's Official Time of Impact”
(7) Sources:
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/16/2001, “2 Planes Had No Part In Crash of Flight 93”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site”
(8) Sources:
CNN/Associated Press, 9/11/2001, “Hijacked Passenger Called 911 on Cell Phone”
FBI, 9/12/2001, Glen Cramer Interview Notes
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
New York Times, 3/27/2002, “A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PENNSYLVANIA CRASH; Cockpit Tape Offers Few Answers but Points to Heroic Efforts”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/21/2002, “‘It Hurt to listen’: A Wife Describes Pain of Hearing 911 Call from Flight 93”
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Jetliner Was Diverted Toward Washington Before Crash in Pa.”
(9) Sources:
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
New York Times Magazine, 11/19/2000, “Professor Scarry Has a Theory”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Homes, Neighbors Rattled by Crash”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site”
(10) Sources:
BBC News, 2/14/2007, “9/11 questions”
PR Newswire, 3/1/2006, “Experts Call for Release of 9/11 Evidence”
Washington Post, 2/28/2012, “Portions of 9/11 Victims’ Remains Taken to Landfill, Report Says”
Flight 93 Crash Time Is Highly Disputed
Early mainstream media reports put the Flight 93 crash at 10:10. Examples include reports by CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. The New York Observer commented that the New York Times established their timeline by “drawing on flight controllers in more than one F.A.A. facility.”
The FAA, in a press release almost one year after the attacks, put the crash at 10:07. The 9/11 Commission Report concluded 10:03, but with the caveat:
“The precise crash time has been the subject of some dispute.”
The footnote (footnote 168, pgs. 461-462) to this statement said the 9/11 Commission based its conclusion on a combination of flight recorder data, cockpit voice recorder data, infrared satellite data, and traffic control transmissions. But it also acknowledged that this did not agree with seismograph data it reviewed. According to the Philadelphia Daily News
“…a written study commissioned by the Department of Defense - carried out by seismologists from Columbia University and the Maryland Geological Survey - also determined impact was at 10:06:05.”
Similarly, Rowland Morgan, former journalist for the Independent and Guardian and co-author of the 2006 book, “Flight 93: What Really Happened On The Heroic 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight,” said in an August of 2006 article he wrote for the Daily Mail:
“Seismic records, consolidated from four seismology stations in the region, originally pegged the impact time at 10.06am. It was only later that the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission decreed that the correct impact time to have been at 10.03am.”
Likewise, the San Francisco Chronicle interviewed one of the seismologists of the aforementioned DoD study, Columbia University seismologist Won-Young Kim. Kim said:
“…nearby instruments did determine the exact time when… Flight 93, hit the ground near Shanksville, Pa… It occurred exactly five one-hundredths of a second past 10:06”
However, the aforementioned 9/11 Commission footnote asserted that the seismic data the seismologists used was too weak. It also stated that Won-Young Kim later backtracked in an e-mail sent to the 9/11 Commission the same month the final report was released. This timing suggests the 9/11 Commission informed Kim at the last moment that his study had been overruled and offered him a way to save face via an accommodating e-mail. The footnote stated:
“…the seismic data on which they based this estimate are far too weak… one of the study’s principal authors now concedes that ‘seismic data is not definitive for the impact of UA 93.’ Email from Won-Young Kim to the Commission… July 7, 2004…”
In any event, such a wide timing discrepancy for a commercial airliner crash was practically unheard of before Flight 93. The New York Observer summarized:
“The official impact time according to NORAD… is 10:03 a.m. Later, U.S. Army seismograph data gave the impact time as 10:06:05. The F.A.A. gives a crash time of 10:07 a.m. And The New York Times, drawing on flight controllers in more than one F.A.A. facility, put the time at 10:10 a.m… In terms of an air disaster, seven minutes is close to an eternity… National Transportation Safety Board [personnel]… ordinarily dissect the timeline to the thousandth of a second.”
Furthermore, the cockpit voice recorder, which ended at 10:03 and upon which the 9/11 Commission partly based its conclusion, contained a bizarre anomaly. The FBI kept the contents of the voice recorder secret until it was forced in April of 2002 to let the relatives of the deceased listen to it under heavy security. When they did, they reported that there was no sound of impact, as is typically the case after such a crash according to Philadelphia Daily News. Rather, the tape ended with a “rushing sound” and then went silent. Then, in yet another twist, when the judge of the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial ordered the FBI to enter the recording as evidence, it ended completely differently – with the hijackers shouting praises to Allah, per CNN.
Sources:
CNN, 9/12/2001, “September 11: Chronology of Terror”
CNN, 4/13/2006, “On Tape, Passengers Heard Trying to Retake Cockpit; 9/11 Jury Relives Final Minutes of Hijacked United Flight 93”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
FAA, 8/12/2002, “Fact Sheet: Chronology of Events on September 11, 2001 (August 2002)”
New York Observer, 2/16/2004, “Stewardess ID’d Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show”
New York Times, 9/13/2001, “AFTER THE ATTACKS: UNITED FLIGHT 93; On Doomed Flight, Passengers Vow to Perish Fighting”
New York Times, 10/16/2001, “‘We Have Some Plane,’ Hijacker Told Controller”
Philadelphia Daily News, 9/16/2002, “Three-Minute Discrepancy in Tape; Cockpit Voice Recording Ends Before Flight 93's Official Time of Impact”
San Francisco Chronicle, 12/9/2002, “H-Bomb Sensor Yield New Benefits/Cold War-Era Instruments Useful in ‘Forensic Seismology’”
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept 11, 2001”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 30; Footnote 168, pgs. 461-462
Flight 93 Crash Site Completely Devoid of Plane Wreckage
According to numerous eyewitnesses quoted both in the media and in a 9/11 journalism-themed book published by the Washington D.C.-based journalism-themed nonprofit “Newseum” (forward written by NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw), the Flight 93 crash site was completely devoid of plane wreckage.
For example, the Newseum quoted Jon Meyer, a reporter with WJAC-TV, as stating:
“I was able to get right up to the edge of the crater.… All I saw was a crater filled with small, charred plane parts. Nothing that would even tell you that it was the plane.… There were no suitcases, no recognizable plane parts, no body parts. The crater was about 30 to 35 feet deep.”
Likewise, it quoted Scott Spangler, a photographer with a local newspaper, as stating:
“I didn’t think I was in the right place. I was looking for a wing or a tail. There was nothing, just this pit.… I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal. There was nothing.”
CNN/Associated Press quoted eyewitness Mark Stahl as stating:
“There’s a crater gouged in the earth, the plane is pretty much disintegrated. There’s nothing left but scorched trees.”
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette quoted Frank Monaco of the Pennsylvania State Police as stating:
“If you would go down there, it would look like a trash heap. There’s nothing but tiny pieces of debris. It’s just littered with small pieces.”
It also quoted eyewitness Ron Delano as stating:
“If they hadn’t told us a plane had wrecked, you wouldn’t have known. It looked like it hit and disintegrated.”
The Pittsburg Tribune-Review quoted Pennsylvania State police Major Lyle Szupinka as stating:
“If you were to go down there, you wouldn’t know that was a plane crash. You would look around and say, ‘I wonder what happened here?’ …The best I can describe it is if you’ve ever been to a commercial landfill… You have papers blowing around and bits and pieces of shredded metal.”
The Washington Post stated:
“[Coroner] Wally Miller… was stunned at how small the smoking crater looked, he says, ‘like someone took a scrap truck, dug a 10-foot ditch and dumped all this trash into it.’”
The Boston Globe stated:
“The Boeing 757… creat[ed] a crater nearly 20 feet wide and 15 feet deep… It left a charred image burnt into the tall grass, but nothing recognizable as an airplane. Captain Frank Monaco, commanding officer of the Pennsylvania State Police, said nothing larger than a telephone book remained.”
The Independent said the apparent lack of large debris was attributable to a 500 mph impact which caused the plane to be “disintegrated into pieces no bigger than two inches long.”
Alternatively, the Philadelphia Daily News reported over two months after 9/11 that “much of the wreckage was found buried 20-25 feet below the large crater.”
However, Rowland Morgan, former journalist for the Independent and the Guardian, and co-author of the 2006 book, “Flight 93: What Really Happened On The Heroic 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight,” said even after the site was fully excavated, investigators did not find “any significant debris.” In an August of 2006 article he wrote for the Daily Mail, he stated:
“…the absence of any significant debris — including tail and wings — bewildered… some crash experts. They found it hard to believe that an airliner up to 155ft long, with two engines each weighing more than six tons, could have penetrated the ground so completely as to utterly disappear… only a one-ton segment of an engine was ever recovered, again more than a mile from the crash site.”
Despite the purported incineration, the FBI belatedly announced that it had recovered a red bandana and a passport belonging to the hijackers, which were presented in the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial, per Morgan.
Sources:
Boston Globe, 9/12/2001, “Frantic 911 Call Preceded Crash Outside Pittsburgh”
CNN/Associated Press, 9/11/2001, “Hijacked Passenger Called 911 on Cell Phone”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Newseum (Washington D.C. based journalism-themed nonprofit organization), 7/16/2002, “Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11” (forward by Tom Brokaw)
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/12/2001, “Outside Tine Shanksville, A Fourth Deadly Stroke”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Homes, Neighbors Rattled by Crash”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Scene of Utter Destruction”
Washington Post, 5/12/2002, “Hallowed Ground”
Flight Debris Disperses Up to Eight Miles, Some Locals Allege Shoot Down, FBI Denies
After Flight 93 went down, debris fields were found two, six, and even eight miles away from the main crash site. Reuters reported:
“Pennsylvania state police officials said on Thursday debris from the plane had been found up to 8 miles (13 km) away in a residential community where local media have quoted residents as speaking of… burning debris falling from the sky.”
Likewise, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported the following:
“[Local residents and employees] reported what appeared to be crash debris floating in Indian Lake, nearly six miles from the immediate crash scene.
The same outlet also said employees of the Indian Lake Marina 1.5 miles from the crash site:
“…saw a cloud of confetti-like debris descend on the lake and nearby farms minutes after hearing the explosion that signaled the crash.”
Marina employee Carol Delasko said she saw a cloud of debris that “stretched several hundred feet across rising about 200 feet into the air moments after the crash,” and “it just looked like confetti raining down all over the air above the lake.” Nearby resort secretary Theresa Weyant said, “You looked up and it and you saw shiny stuff floating in the sky… like confetti.” Local resident Terry Lowery said, “It just looked like it was raining down.” Bags full of debris collected by employees and residents included “clothing, books, papers, and what appeared to be human remains.”
CNN reported that the FBI cordoned off both a three-mile wide area and a six to eight mile area around the crash site to search for evidence.
The Independent reported that a one-ton engine piece was found over a mile away from the crash site. The Philadelphia Daily News said regarding the engine:
“That information is intriguing to shoot-down theory proponents, since the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757’s two large engines.”
The biggest piece of debris found, according to the Independent and Daily Mail, was a piece of fuselage the size of a dining room table recovered two miles from the crash site.
Interestingly, several local residents claimed to have heard a missile or other strangle sounds just before Flight 93 went down. For example, the Boston Globe reported:
“Witness Joe Wilt, 63, said he heard a whistling like a missile, then a loud boom as he stood in the doorway of his Shanksville home across the road from the site.”
The Washington Post quoted local resident Tom Fritz, who lived a quarter-mile from the crash site, as stating:
“[The sound] wasn’t quite right… It was sort of whistling… It was going so fast that you couldn't even make out what color it was… The first thing I thought it was, was a missile.”
According to the Philadelphia Daily News, Ernie Stuhl, the mayor of Shanksville, said:
“I know of two people… that heard a missile. They both live very close, within a couple of hundred yards… One fellow served in Vietnam and he says he’s heard them, and he heard one that day.”
The same article quoted local resident Laura Temyer (who was also interviewed by the FBI) as stating:
“I heard like a boom and the engine sounded funny. I heard two more booms – and then I did not hear anything. I think the plane was shot down.”
The Philadelphia Daily News reported that some witnesses interviewed immediately after the crash said “the engine seemed to race but then went eerily silent” during the plane’s final descent. The Mirror reported that “other witnesses” saw “smoke and flames trailing from Flight 93 as it fell from the sky, indicating a possible explosion aboard.”
Rowland Morgan went even farther. In a short adaptation from his book, he wrote for the Daily Mail:
“[Witnesses] claim they saw an F-16 move closer in and fire what were probably two Sidewinder missiles, one of them catching at least one of the Boeing’s huge engines, after which the ‘plane dropped like a stone’.”
He further added that there were officially three F-16’s over Washington by 9:40, over twenty minutes before Flight 93’s crash, which could have reached Shanksville, Pennsylvania in minutes.
However, the testimonies of other witnesses seemed to contradict the missile theory. For example, the Philadelphia Daily News interviewed local resident Linda Shepley who said she saw a plane wobbling about at about 2,500 feet and then dive into the ground. She then stated:
“It's not true. If it had been shot down, there would have been pieces flying, but it was intact - there was nothing wrong with it.”
Likewise, local farmer Nevin Lambert said:
“I didn't see no smoke, nothing.”
Local scrapyard worker Lee Purbaugh was possibly the nearest eyewitness of all. His testimony was cited by the Philadelphia Daily News, the Independent, and the Mirror, among others. He told the first outlet:
“There was an incredibly loud rumbling sound and there it was, right there, right above my head – maybe 50ft up… I saw it rock from side to side then, suddenly, it dipped and dived, nose first, with a huge explosion, into the ground. I knew immediately that no one could possibly have survived.”
However, Rowland Morgan skeptically pointed out:
“Not once did Purbaugh mention the plane being upside down, as the 9/11 Commission, the FBI, and the Pentagon all maintained it was.”
(The upside crash was also reported by media outlets such as USA Today and the New York Times.)
Also, while Shepley and Purbaugh said they saw the plane dive at a steep angle, other witnesses said it was still flying relatively level very low altitudes. Examples, per Morgan, include Terry Butler at about 500 feet and Eric Peterson at about 300 feet.
In a September 13th article entitled, “FBI Does Not Rule Out Shootdown of Penn. Airplane,” Reuters reported that:
“Federal investigators said… they could not rule out the possibility that… [Flight 93] was shot down… [even though the] Defense Department… vigorously denied reports suggesting the U.S. military could have downed the hijacked flight…”
However, the next day the Pittsburgh Tribune Review (headline: “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away”) paraphrased and quoted FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley:
“…Crowley said experts from the National Transportation Safety Board had checked weather reports and determined that lightweight materials might well have traveled over the mountain by a southwest wind that reached a speed of 9 knots. ‘The NTSB says it is not only plausible, but probable…’”
No mention was made of the one-ton engine piece found over a mile away or the large fuselage piece two miles from the crash site. The Independent quoted the FBI as ultimately concluding:
"Nothing was found that was inconsistent with the plane going into the ground intact."
Nevertheless, aviation experts interviewed by the Independent were “very doubtful” of the FBI’s explanation. Likewise, Rowland Morgan skeptically commented:
“The FBI also claimed metal fragments found up to eight miles away could have been carried there by the wind, even though the breeze was very light.”
We have already seen that the 9/11 Commission, citing the cockpit voice recorder among other sources, said that Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 despite seismology stations in the region putting the crash as at 10:06. We further saw that the FBI kept the contents of the voice recorder secret until it was forced in April of 2002 to let the relatives of the deceased listen to it under heavy security. The relatives reported that the tape ended with struggling sounds followed by a loud “rushing sound.” The tape then went silent at 10:03 with no sound of impact. However, when the judge of the 2006 Zacarias Moussaoui trial ordered the FBI to play the recording as evidence, it ended completely differently – with the hijackers shouting praises to Allah.
Accounting for all this, Morgan considered that the crash really did take place at 10:06, but the final three minutes of the tape were edited out. He said the alternative ending played during the Moussaoui trial “confirmed suspicions of tape tampering” for many skeptics and asked whether the rushing sound heard by the relatives could “have been made by the plane being holed [by a missile]?” Finally, Morgan drew attention to the fact that, unlike the other three hijacked flights of 9/11, the FBI was in charge of the Flight 93 investigation rather than the National Transportation Safety Board.
Sources:
Boston Globe, 9/12/2001, “Frantic 911 Call Preceded Crash Outside Pittsburgh”
CNN, 9/13/2001, “‘Black Box’ from Pennsylvania Crash Found”
CNN, 4/13/2006, “On Tape, Passengers Heard Trying to Retake Cockpit; 9/11 Jury Relives Final Minutes of Hijacked United Flight 93”
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
New York Observer, 2/16/2004, “Stewardess ID’d Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show”
New York Times, 9/11/2002, “FLIGHT 93; Refusing To Give In Without A Fight”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Philadelphia Daily News, 9/16/2002, “Three-Minute Discrepancy in Tape; Cockpit Voice Recording Ends Before Flight 93's Official Time of Impact”
Pittsburg Channel 9, 9/15/2001, “FBI Explains Other Planes At Flight 93 Crash”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/13/2001, “Investigators Locate ‘Black Box’ from Flight 93: Widen Search Area in Somerset Crash”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/14/2001, “Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/16/2001, “2 Planes Had No Part In Crash of Flight 93”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away”
Reuters, 9/13/2001, “FBI Does Not Rule Out Shootdown”
USA Today, 9/11/2019, “The Holy Ground of Flight 93, One of 9/11’s Enduring Mysteries”
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Jetliner Was Diverted Toward Washington Before Crash in Pa.”
Witnesses See Low-Flying Military Style Jet; FBI Says Unnamed Civilian Jet Assisted Military Despite Grounding Orders
According to Rowland Morgan, a total of 12 witnesses saw a low-flying, small, white, unmarked military-style jet flying in the vicinity before Flight 93 crashed. After the crash, the plane circled the crash site and departed. The Independent pointed out that US Customs used planes fitting this description to execute aerial drug shipment interdictions.
Local resident Susan Mcelwain was driving near her home two miles from the site. She told the Daily Mirror:
“It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50 ft above my mini-van… A few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees… [from] Flight 93... The [first] plane I saw was heading right to the point where Flight 93 crashed and must have been there at the very moment it came down… It was white with no markings but it was definitely military, it just had that look. It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back… and with two upright fins at the side… It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets.”
Indian Lake Marina employee Tom Spinelli, a mile and a half away from the crash site, told the Daily Mirror:
“I saw the white plane. It was flying around all over the place like it was looking for something. I saw it before and after the crash.”
Nearby eyewitness Mark Decker told the Morgan:
“As soon as we looked up we saw a mid-sized jet flying low and fast. It appeared to make a loop or part of a circle, and then it turned fast and headed out… It had to be flying real close when that 757 went down.”
Jim Brant, owner of the Indian Lake Marina, saw the white plane circling the crash site immediately after seeing a fireball rise into the air. He then stated, per Morgan:
“It reminded me of a fighter jet.”
However, Lee Purbaugh, who served three years in the Navy, said he saw the white plane but did not believe it was military, per the Independent. His rationale for this belief was not reported.
The FBI initially denied any other planes were in the area at the time of the crash. However, after numerous witnesses came forward over the next few days, regional media outlets such as the Pittsburg Post Gazette and Pittsburgh Channel 9 News reported that the FBI had announced that there actually were two other aircraft within 25 miles at the time of the crash. One was a C-130 military cargo plane. The other was a Fairchild Falcon 20 business jet which the military asked to descend from 37,000 ft to 5,000 ft to assist emergency responders by providing crash site coordinates.
This explanation did not harmonize with the accounts of witnesses who said the white plane they saw had the appearance of a military jet, flew very low to the ground, and was in close proximity before the crash.
Furthermore, the Independent pointed out that this was more than half an hour after all non-military aircraft in the United States had been ordered to land at the nearest airport due to the unfolding 9/11 attacks. Therefore, it seemed extremely unlikely that the military would ask for such assistance from an unlawfully airborne civilian jet at a moment when no one knew whether there were additional hijacked aircraft in the sky. The Philadelphia Daily News echoed:
“…officials have never identified the pilot nor explained why he was still airborne roughly 30 minutes after the government ordered all aircraft to land at the closest airport.”
Finally, neither the FBI nor the military ever identified the pilot or the passengers aboard the purported Fairchild Falcon 20, nor did any come forward publicly on their own initiatives. Morgan added that asking for such help was completely unnecessary due to the extremely high density of emergency phone calls emanating from near the crash site.
Per the Mirror, Eyewitness Susan Mcelwain later bemoaned:
“The FBI came and talked to me and said there was no plane around. Then they changed their story and tried to say it was a plane taking pictures of the crash 3,000ft [actually 5,000] up. But I saw it and it was there before the crash and it was 40 ft above my head. They did not want my story…”
Sources:
Daily Mail, 8/19/2006, “Flight 93 ‘Was Shot Down’ Claims Book,” by Rowland Morgan
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburg Channel 9, 9/15/2001, “FBI Explains Other Planes At Flight 93 Crash”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/14/2001, “Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/16/2001, “2 Planes Had No Part In Crash of Flight 93”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site”
Reports of In-Flight Explosion and Smoke Ignored; 911 Dispatch Supervisor Gagged
According to both the 9/11 Commission Report (pg. 12), at 9:32 (about 4 minutes after the Flight 93 hijack began), Cleveland controllers heard over radio a hijacker’s voice state:
“Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board.”
The same claim was made by the Flight 11 (pg. 5) and Flight 175 (pg. 7) hijackers.
At 9:58, just minutes before the Flight 93 crash, passenger Edward Felt called 911 from his cell phone. The call was received by dispatcher John Shaw and monitored by Shaw’s supervisor, Glen Cramer. Then next day, Cramer told the Pittsburg Post Gazette:
“We got the call about 9:58 this morning from a male passenger stating that he was locked in the bathroom of United Flight 93… He did hear some sort of an explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, but he didn't know where.”
Similarly, the Washington Post reported:
“Dispatch supervisor Glenn Cramer told the Associated Press that the [9:58 cell phone] call came from a passenger who had locked himself inside one of the plane’s lavatories… ‘He heard some sort of explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, and we lost contact with him.’”
Likewise, the notes from Cramer’s 9/12/2001 FBI interview stated:
“The caller… heard some sort of explosion aboard the aircraft… The male caller also stated that there was white smoke somewhere on the plane.”
Sometime after this interview, according to the Mirror and the Independent, Cramer was “gagged by the FBI” so he could no longer speak about the call in public. In November, the Philadelphia Daily News reported:
“Authorities have never explained the report, and the 911 tape itself was immediately confiscated by the FBI.”
Likewise, the Washington Post stated:
“FBI agents quickly took possession of the tape of that 911 call… [and] declined to provide any information about the tape’s contents…”
The following March, the New York Times dismissed Cramer’s statement, citing contradicting accounts by John Shaw and Edward Felt’s wife Sandra. The article stated:
“Earlier reports have said that… Edward Felt… said in a 911 call from a restroom that he saw a puff of smoke and heard an explosion, leading some to cite this as evidence that the plane was shot down by the military to prevent it from crashing into sensitive targets. But the 911 dispatcher, John Shaw, and others who have heard the tape, including Mr. Felt's wife, Sandra Felt, say he made no mention of smoke or an explosion…”
The notes from Shaw’s 9/11/2001 FBI interview did not specifically say whether Felt mentioned smoke or a prior explosion, but they did say:
“The male caller gave no indication of bombs or guns aboard Flight Number 93.”
However, in April, in an article that repeatedly quoted Sandra Felt (the New York Times article did not), the Pittsburg Post Gazette reported the exact opposite, stating that Sandra and several other family members, along with two FBI agents all heard Edward speak of smoke and explosion. The article stated:
“…Edward’s widow, Sandy, his brother, Gordon, and his mother, Shirley, were led to a small conference room at the Princeton Marriott Forestall Village Hotel, where they were joined by two FBI agents… the agents handed each of the Felts a typed transcript of the 911 call, and then played it… [Edward Felt] went on to describe an ‘explosion’ that he heard, and then white smoke on the plane from an undetermined location.”
In August, the Independent reported that Cramer’s statement and subsequent gagging had contributed to the development of a belief by some that a bomb went off aboard Flight 93.
Along this line, the FBI’s interview with GTE Verizon supervisor Lisa Jefferson said that another Flight 93 passenger, Todd Beamer, said one of the hijackers had “a bomb strapped to his waist with a red belt.” Finally, the Mirror reported that their sources said:
“…the last seconds of the cockpit voice recorder are the loud sounds of wind, hinting at a possible hole somewhere in the fuselage.”
Nevertheless, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the FBI reached a conclusion just 5 days after 9/11 that it would stand by in the years to come:
“The FBI said it found no evidence of a bomb.”
Sources:
CNN/Associated Press, 9/11/2001, “Hijacked Passenger Called 911 on Cell Phone”
FBI, 9/11/2001, John Shaw Interview Notes
FBI, 9/12/2001, Glen Cramer Interview Notes
FBI, 9/11/2001, Lisa Jefferson interview Notes
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
Mirror, 9/12/2002, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?”
New York Times, 3/27/2002, “A NATION CHALLENGED: THE PENNSYLVANIA CRASH; Cockpit Tape Offers Few Answers but Points to Heroic Efforts”
Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/2001, “We Know It Crashed, But Not Why: FBI is Silent, Fueling ‘Shot Down’ Rumors”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/12/2001, “Day of Terror: Outside Tiny Shanksville, A Fourth Deadly Stroke”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 12/7/2001, “Dispatcher Honored for Flight 93 Efforts”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/21/2002, “‘It Hurt to listen’: A Wife Describes Pain of Hearing 911 Call from Flight 93”
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, 9/16/2001, “2 Planes Had No Part In Crash of Flight 93”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 12
Washington Post, 9/12/2001, “Jetliner Was Diverted Toward Washington Before Crash in Pa.”
Localized Electrical Disruption Said to Suggest Missile Targeting or Militarized Electromagnetic Interference
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the local mayor Barry Lichty said the entire town’s electricity went out at the time of the crash. John Fleegle was a manager at the Indian Lake Marina about 1.5 miles from where Flight 93 crashed. He told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that, as he watched television coverage of the World Trade Center with some of his colleagues:
“All of a sudden the lights flickered… Then we heard engines screaming close overhead. The building shook. We ran out, heard the explosion and saw a fireball mushroom.”
Fleegle also related a subsequent conversation he had with a retired Air Force officer who said:
“When your lights flickered, [it was because] they [fighter jets] zap the radar frequency on everything before they shoot. Your lights didn’t flicker from the impact—your lights flickered because they zapped the radar system before they shot it.”
However, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review also quoted retired four-star Army general William Kernan who disputed the missile claim, saying:
“Regarding an aircraft engaging an airborne target having an electrical disruption on the ground, no, this would not be a result of lock on or any electromagnetic pulsing.”
Kernan blamed the electrical disruption on a shockwave sent from the crash site, even though John Fleegle explicitly said he experienced the disruption before the crash occurred.
Interestingly, another theory suggested in the media was that Flight 93 could have been brought down using militarized electromagnetic interference. The Independent and New York Times Magazine ran articles which pointed out that, according to research by Harvard academic Elaine Scarry, the US Air Force and Pentagon had:
“…conducted extensive research on ‘electronic warfare applications’ with the possible capacity to intentionally disrupt the mechanisms of an airplane in such a way as to provoke, for example, an uncontrollable dive.”
Scarry further pointed out that at least twenty-eight C-130 Air Force cargo planes were known to be equipped with this technology and, according to the FBI, there was indeed a C-130 within 25 miles of Flight 93 when it crashed.
Sources:
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93”
New York Times Magazine, 11/19/2000, “Professor Scarry Has a Theory”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001, “Homes, Neighbors Rattled by Crash”
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/14/2001, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site”
Remains of Flights 77 and 93 Secretly Incinerated; No Public Release of Inventory
In July and August of 2002, per the Washington Post, a series of secret memos produced by the Air Force and Army gave orders for remains from Flight 77 and Flight 93 to be incinerated. The article stated:
“The report cites Army and Air Force memos from July and August 2002 directing that an unspecified number of ‘remains from the Attack on the Pentagon’ be incinerated… The report indicates that unidentified remains from the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Shanksville, were disposed of in a similar manner.”
In March of 2006, PR Newswire reported that Judicial Watch and the 9/11 Consensus Panel filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Defense Department to publicize a complete inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from the four hijacked flights of 9/11.
In February of 2007, the BBC reported that “trying to prove or disprove these alternative theories [regarding Flight 77 and Flight 93] is not easy” because “we found that simple requests, such as asking to see the plane wreckage of flight United 93 at Shanksville, or flight American Airlines 77 at the Pentagon, were refused after months of delay by the authorities.” The same report also quoted Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the 2002 Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, as stating that there was “collaboration of efforts among agencies and the administration to keep information out of the public’s hands.”
Sources:
BBC News, 2/14/2007, “9/11 questions”
PR Newswire, 3/1/2006, “Experts Call for Release of 9/11 Evidence”
Washington Post, 2/28/2012, “Portions of 9/11 Victims’ Remains Taken to Landfill, Report Says”