A Clear Cover-Up Over When Flight 93 Was Hijacked

According to this timeline from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the hijacking started at 9:20am. It is not clear how they determined this exact time. They reference Tom Burnett's call, but according to Jere Longman's "Among the Heroes", Burnett's first call ended at 9:27am and only lasted ten seconds. The sounds of the cockpit struggle were heard at 9:28am, which would fit with a hijack starting around 8:20am. Certainly Burnett didn't call just as the hijack started. He must have called a few minutes after the hijack started, presumably when he thought it was safe for him to talk. So this puts the hijack starting time around 9:20am or earlier.

What time did the hijacking start?

The reason this is important is because the initial "official" time-line for flight 93 said the FAA reported flight 93 to NORAD as a possible hijacking at 9:16am. However, this 9:16am time was later rejected by NORAD and in the 9/11 commission report, they claim the FAA never warned NORAD of flight 93 being a hijack.

As I posted on earlier, the pilots and flight attendants of flight 93 had a special system worked out in the event of a hijacking which involved the flight attendant phoning the cockpit and using a code-word. There would be time for the flight attendants to alert the cockpit if the hijackers got out of their seats at 9:20am or earlier but didn't attack the cockpit until 9:28am.

What I suspect is that the pilots actually signaled to ground control that they had a hijack starting somewhat before 9:16am, say 9:14am. Given the urgency of what had already happened that day, this message would be passed onto the FAA and NORAD very rapidly. I think there is almost no doubt that NORAD was warned of flight 93 at 9:16am, and that this is being covered up.

I know of no interview with the air traffic controller who handled this hijacking message and very likely this person is being kept incommunicado with the press.

Why would the 9/11 commission deny that NORAD was informed of flight 93?

Here is what they said in their report:

In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that at 9:16, NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA. This statement was incorrect.There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.

How is that for logic? Flight 93 couldn't have been hijacked because it was "proceeding normally".

So, a hijack is only apparent when a plane deviates from its course and turns off its transponder?

HOGWASH!

Almost certainly the FAA did notify NORAD of a hijacking at 9:16am, since a NORAD officer even confirmed this in testimony (William Scott testimony, May 23, 2003).

Clearly, the commission is trying to cover up how miserable the US air defense response was to the hijacked flights, and flight 93 was the most pathetic response of all (there was no response according to the official story). So the commission has basically rewritten history and said that NORAD was NEVER NOTIFIED by the FAA.

What is even worse is that the other cover-up is that there was an interceptor following flight 93, but this has been covered-up as well. This is presumably because it raises too many questions about whether there was a shootdown of flight 93 by the interceptor.