The Crash of Flight 93

The official story of the flight 93 is that it hit the soft ground of reclaimed strip mine near Shanksville PA at almost 600 miles per hour. And that it wasn't shot down but rather the hijackers crashed it on purpose.

The official story, via Jere Longman ("Among the Heros"), is that the plane was upside-down when it hit the ground at a 45 degree angle-- at which time the front of the plane broke off and disintegrated, there was a huge explosion, yet most of the fuselage "accordioned" and burrowed some 30 feet into the soft ground. Most of the rest of the plane blew up into tiny bits. It is not clear where the tail went or how intact it remained. No one has reported finding the tail. Normally the tail is a rather stable structure and being farthest from the impact would lose much of the momentum from the impact, should be detached upon the explosion, and thus would not be shredded to the same degree as the other parts.

Overall I find the crash pattern odd. I actually don't think it is consistent with the plane being shot down-- but it might be consistent with the plane having a bomb on board. Or soemthing even stranger.

One thing I find odd is how the front of the plane broke off yet the rest of the fuselage burrowed into the gorund. Longman compares this to the point of a pencil breaking off as you strike something hard with the pencil but in the case of flight 93 the ground as apparently very soft. No matter how hard I try to push a pencil at a 45 degree angle into a banana, the point doesn't break off. Sure the ground was hard and a plane is relatively fragile and the plane was going VERY fast, but I can't see how the front quarter of the fuselage breaks off (the cockpit plus first-class) and there is an explosion BUT still the rest of the fuselage, including the tail, burrows so deeply into the ground that you cannot even see it. It's possible I suppose but it is just odd.