9/11 Was An Inside Job

According to an Air Force insider. A fascinating interview from Daanspeak.com, a Danish 9/11 site:

'** URGENT **
PLEASE FORWARD AS FAR AND WIDE AS POSSIBLE
9.13.01
AF Intel source: pro-Bush gov't factions 'absolutely' behind Tuesday's mass devastation!
-- "The enemy is very much within"'

'TOP_VIEW has just conducted a brief yet immeasurably important phone interview -- set up by a trusted and totally reliable intermediary already known to us -- with an Air Force Reserve intelligence specialist. The interview was carried out this evening, over two days after the incredible death and devastation that took place in New York City and Washington D.C. Our Air Force source told us his superiors had activated him at about 10 AM Tuesday morning.

He absolutely refused to permit us to record the conversation, even though he was speaking into some kind of electronic gizmo that substantially altered the sound of his voice; making him sound like Darth Vader with a serious chest cold. Some portions of his statements were unintelligible, and he refused to repeat several of these. Although this source was somewhat taciturn and close-lipped, for the most part he was cooperative in terms of giving us enough time to transcribe what he was saying. Overall what is stated plainly and unequivocally is of absolutely paramount importance for every single person in this nation and the world: certainly among those of us who value our inalienable human rights and liberties and want them to remain un-imperiled, un-abrogated and unabridged.

- - - -
TOP_VIEW: We'd like to hear what you have to say about the events on Tuesday. First of all, I assume you have knowledge of the events that goes above and beyond what the public is being told by the media and the government?
Intel source: That's quite correct.

TOP_VIEW: Can you -- are you able and willing to relay this information to us?
Intel source: Well, that depends. Some of it. You're going to publish this?
TOP_VIEW: On the Internet.
Intel source: It's essential that nothing which could possibly be used to identify myself or "**" (our intermediary) is made public.
TOP_VIEW: We totally understand. Completely. That's exactly how it will be, and --
Intel source: You've known "**" a long time?
TOP_VIEW: For about 6 years, sir.
Intel source: So... he'll vouch for you? (Chuckles) Fire away.

TOP_VIEW: Well... it's becoming increasingly clear that certain federal government sectors had prior knowledge of the destruction carried out on Tuesday. Would you concur with this?
Intel source: (unintelligible)
TOP_VIEW: Excuse me? I didn't understand you.
Intel source: Never mind.

TOP_VIEW: Is it true that our government knew what was going to happen?
Intel source: You could say that. Actually there are certain (pause) groups in our government who pretty much ran the whole show.

TOP_VIEW: Are you saying that there was cooperation and collaboration between elements of our government and the perpetrators?
Intel source: No. What I'm saying is that these groups (within the federal government - TV) were the perpetrators of the action, right down the line from top to bottom.

TOP_VIEW: This is really incredibly shocking, what you're saying here. Did I understand correctly, that you say elements of the federal government were the prime force behind these so-called terrorist attacks Tuesday?
Intel source: That's correct. Absolutely.

TOP_VIEW: God, what a horrifying thing to come to grips with! What is your feeling about this sir, and exactly why are you even talking to us about this? Are you positive about what you're saying?
Intel source: (laughs) What should I answer first? I would never make this kind of statement without being fully certain it was factual. My own feeling is that it's completely sickening. It's repugnant and unacceptable and I'm completely opposed to what was done. But it's true and we all have to deal with it. There are forces within our government who are completely determined to change the structure of our society at the most basic level, and these are the kind of things they're going to be doing to make sure that (fundamental changes in our society) happens.

TOP_VIEW: What's going on in the military right now with regard to what's occurred? Do many military higher-ups know this, and if so what's their position?
Intel source: (unintelligible)
TOP_VIEW: Excuse me?
Intel source: I said some do know and some don't. Some wouldn't believe it, just like many citizens wouldn't believe it. There are certainly lots of conflict going on at the upper levels of the military right now between people aware of the true facts.

TOP_VIEW: What about yourself?
Intel source: I consider myself to be a patriotic American who believes strongly in the Constitution. I'll do whatever is in my power to uphold and defend those principles, and so will many others.

TOP_VIEW: Well that's something I wanted to get to. The primary motivation for an atrocity of this magnitude would seem to be to soften up the country for some serious curtailment of civil liberties, in the name of protecting us from such "terrorist" attacks. I've likened it to Hitler's burning of the Reichstag in Germany.
Intel source: That's a good comparison. (Unintelligible)... one of the main reasons the action was carried out Tuesday. There's also other agendas having to do with control of the Middle East oil fields, and things related to that (issue).

TOP_VIEW: Well, are people such as yourself in any way prepared to, or able to, oppose these forces?
Intel source: Speaking for myself, I'd say there's a lot I'm prepared to do and will do. Speaking to you is one of those things. And there are many more like me.

TOP_VIEW: Now, how does the attack on the Pentagon figure into this whole thing?
Intel source: I can't discuss that at all.

TOP_VIEW: Can you some time in the future?
Intel source: Maybe. I think I'll need to sign off here soon.

TOP_VIEW: Is there anything else in particular you'd care to say, any advice or whatever?
Intel source: I'd say that our way of life is facing the biggest threat in our history, and the enemy is very much within. VERY MUCH WITHIN.

TOP_VIEW: So it boils down to: what happened on Tuesday was an inside
job?
Intel source: Absolutely. All the way down the line and to a much higher level than most of you could ever imagine. There's a very intense struggle going on within our government like I said.

TOP_VIEW: It's a struggle we're all involved in, sir.
Intel source: That's quite true.

TOP_VIEW: It seems very clear to me that the Bush administration was way involved in the attacks. Would that be correct? They obviously want to bring about the exact kind of fundamental social restructuring that you mentioned.
Intel source: It's a good bet. Right now, it's best we cut this short.

Obviously, you can take this interview with the Air Force "intelligence officer" with a grain of salt, but the fact is that it jibes perfectly with everything I've learned over the past year in researching 9/11.

Why Flight 93 Crashed At 10:06am And Not At 10:03am

An excellent essay here.
Basically, 10:06am was the time when a huge seismic spike occurred in the area of the crash, and there was nothing at 10:03am. Moreover, the timing of Jeremy Glick's phone call strongly suggest the passenger revolt started a couple of minutes after 10am, which only leaves about 1 minute for the dramatic showdown between passengers and hijackers that is even described by the commission.

Okay, the 9/11 commission is lying about this (what else is new?). The question is WHY.

According to the commission--"The 10:03:11 impact time is supported by previous National Transportation Safety Board analysis and by evidence from the Commission staff’s analysis of radar, flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmission".

Okay, so I certainly don't trust the NTSB in this case, I am not convinced radar is reliable for timing when a plane crashed, the loss of ATC transmission means nothing in this case (actually that is a bit of a joke) and I don't know how infrared satellite data can precisely time a crash.

The time from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder on the other hand is significant. Either these on board items indicated that the plane crashed at 10:03am or they didn't.

One possibility is that the FDR and CVR didn't say this and the commission is covering up what was recorded in the last three minutes.

However, there is another possibility here.

Perhaps something really did happen to the plane at 10:03am--- perhaps a bomb on board exploded-- that stopped the FDR and the CVR (and this may have given an infrared signal and caused loss of radar signal). If this happened though, what happened at 10:06am to create a huge seismic shock? And how did the plane disappear into a hole? Why didn't it break up in mid-air and spread large debris all over the field near Shanksville?

One way to explain this second possibility is that the hole in Shanksville was made by a second plane, an exploding drone, as I have alluded to here before***. This is also what made the seismic signal at 10:06am. The flight 93 with the passengers may have then exploded in midair and the parts fell into Indian Lake or somewhere else entirely.

Either way, the commission is covering up the truth.

In the one case, the commission is covering up what happened during the last three minutes of flight 93 before it crashed in Shanksville. Most likely this would be that the passengers took back control and were trying to steer the plane safely home.

The other possibility, which I actually favor, is that the commission is covering up that there were two planes involved in the flight 93 incident-- 1) the flight 93 with passengers attacking the hijackers that was bombed or hit by a missile and 2) the flight 93 that was a bomb-laden drone. And the commission, either wittingly or unwittingly (someone obviously would have known but the commissioners themselves may have been oblivious to the details) merged the two planes together.

The big question is WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PLANE WITH THE PASSENGERS?

The plane that crashed in Shanksville had minimal human remains,and these could have been planted. This is why it seems likely that this plane did not have the passengers.

***A remote possibility is that the crater in Shanksville was a clever fake and the plane that was seen flying erratically right before the explosion simply flew over the crater site that was rigged to blow up and look like an airplane crash. This would be hard to set up precisely, they couldn't rule out the possibility of a witness seeing the plane fly over the crash site, overall is rather complicated and thus seems unlikely.

In Praise of Wing-Mounted Engines

Since 9/11, I have become something of an airplane afficianado, constantly looking up in the sky whenever I hear an airplane, then trying to determine what type of plane it is, and, if it is a 757 or 767, mentally comparing its image to the images of the planes from the north and south tower hits.

But apart from this habit, what I can say is that the Boeing 757 and the Boeing 767 are simply beautiful craft. There is something about the wing-mounted engine that makes the plane very aesthetically pleasing. I am not sure why this is. The only thing I can figure is that it makes the plane futuristic and space-age looking-- not unlike the Star Ship Enteprise, which in a way also has wing-mounted engines and has a very aesthetic design.

Conversely, what I find completely ugly are airplanes with fuselage mounted engines, such as the MD80, the MD90 or the Boeing 717. As far as I am concerned these airplanes are the ugly step-sisters of the aviation fleet. How unimaginative is it to just slap an engine onto the fuselage like that? There is just something very crude and inelegant about these fuselage-mounted engine planes. The only unusual feature on these planes is the tail configuration, with the tail fins mounted on top of the rudder. But even this is not particularly attractive, as far as I am concerned.

The Boeing 727, with the sculpted-into-the-fuselage third engine, is slightly better than the MD80, MD90 and the 717, but it still cannot hold a candle to the elegant beauty of the 757/767.

There is just something special, something indescribeable about the look of a plane with wing-mounted engines...

Identifying The Planes That Hit The WTC

A video taken on 9/11 shows a Boeing aircraft part near the WTC.

The part is like a lever or brace, about a foot long, roughly, it has a bolt of one end.

Here's a close-up of the part.

The part says:
BOEING CSTG
250T1115-2

I believe CSTG means "casting".

I found that flight 11 was:
Boeing 767 Serial number 22322, Tail Number 767-223ER N334AA, operated by the American Airlines.

Flight 175 was:
Boeing 767 SerialNumber 21873, Tail Number 767-222 N612UA, operated by the United Airlines.

Airplane part numbers are tracked very carefully for safety reasons-- you want to be able to indentify a faulty part very easily and where similar parts might have been used.

We have the plane tail numbers and serial numbers. If we had the right database, we would simply have to do a cross-reference search on the part serial number with the plane number.

There are a lot of aircraft parts stores on the web, I tried doing some searching but couldn't find anything close to the part. I think one needs one of the airlines' databases or an FAA database.

Obviously, the big question is if the part matches up to the right plane. Then at least we can settle the plane swapping issue, for at least one flight. So I think this is important to resolve.

If there is anyone out there who knows how to search for these things, please let me know what you can find.

Thanks!

Bush and Rumsfeld, War Criminals

The case is laid out here fairly well.

Read it and weep.

Shockingly, Insultingly, The Official Story on Flight 93 Is That NORAD Was Never Even Notified And Interceptors Were Never Scrambled

Believe it or not. And if that isn't insulting enough, there's this passage from the report:

At 9:49, 13 minutes after Cleveland Center had asked about getting military help, the Command Center suggested that someone at headquarters should decide whether to request military assistance:

FAA Headquarters: They're pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.

Command Center: Uh, do we want to think, uh, about scrambling aircraft?

FAA Headquarters: Oh, God, I don't know.

Command Center: Uh, that's a decision somebody's gonna have to make probably in the next ten minutes.

FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody just left the room.

This is after the World Trade Center has been hit twice, the Pentagon has been hit and there is a hijacked flight heading to DC. The country is facing a unparalleled threat, and HOW FUCKING CLUELESS ARE THESE FUCKING IDIOTS???????

God, this makes me angry! Why did the commission even put this in here? It is fucking insulting.

Okay, so calming down, trying to think here.

I can sort of understand why NORAD would want to cover up the FAA's warning of the flight 93 hijacking at 9:16am.

But why do they insult us (and that is really what it is), by saying NORAD was unable to scramble one fucking interceptor? An hour after the World Trade Center was first hit, a fucking hour and a half after flight 11 was recognized as a hijack, and NORAD couldn't get its act together to intercept flight 93?

Their reason is because they couldn't find flight 93 on their radar.

What a load of crap. What a stinking putrid load of horse manure. God, this is so unbelievably disgusting and insulting.

I should point out that according to Jere Longman's "Among the Heroes", United Airlines was tracking flight 93 the whole way on a big board at their headquarters.

Is the US government really trying to tell me United Airlines has better tracking capabilities for aircraft than the main US air defense system for North America? That the largest, most expensive and advanced military in the world can't find a hijacked airplane, under extreme emergency circumstances, even when the FAA is telling them where it is?

What a pathetic sick joke.

Nasty Horrible Rumors that the US Military is Setting Up Suicide Bombers in Iraq

“A few days ago, an American manned check point confiscated the driver license of a driver and told him to report to an American military camp near Baghdad airport for interrogation and in order to retrieve his license. The next day, the driver did visit the camp and he was allowed in the camp with his car. He was admitted to a room for an interrogation that lasted half an hour. At the end of the session, the American interrogator told him: ‘OK, there is nothing against you, but you do know that Iraq is now sovereign and is in charge of its own affairs. Hence, we have forwarded your papers and license to al-Kadhimia police station for processing. Therefore, go there with this clearance to reclaim your license. At the police station, ask for Lt. Hussain Mohammed, who is waiting for you now. Go there now quickly, before he leaves his shift work”.

The driver did leave in a hurry, but was soon alarmed with a feeling that his car was driving as if carrying a heavy load, and he also became suspicious of a low flying helicopter that kept hovering overhead, as if trailing him. He stopped the car and inspected it carefully. He found nearly 100 kilograms of explosives hidden in the back seat and along the two back doors.

The only feasible explanation for this incident is that the car was indeed booby trapped by the Americans and intended for the al-Khadimiya Shiite district of Baghdad. The helicopter was monitoring his movement and witnessing the anticipated “hideous attack by foreign elements”.

There are more stories like this in the linked article.

I have no idea how true this is. It sounds quite a bit like the type of rumors that would go around Iraq about now. The sad part is that with what we know the US is doing in Iraq, we can't exactly put this sort of thing past the US.

The Journal of Psychohistory

Apparently is doing a set of articles exposing 9/11.

DID BUSH KNOW ABOUT 9/11 IN ADVANCE?
Get the current Special Issue of The Journal of Psychohistory on what Bush knew about 9/11 in advance, with explosive evidence from seven new books showing how the FAA was told to ignore all the appeals from air controllers to intercept the hijacked planes, how audio tapes and photos were destroyed that pointed to collusion by the Bush team, how Rumsfeld has said 9/11 was "a blessing in disguise", and much more. Just email your postal address to psychhst@tiac.net and you'll get a full year (4 issues) of the Journal at half price ($29), starting with this special 9/11 issue.

I don't anything about this journal, but it sounds good to me.

"Psychohistory, the science of historical motivation, combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present." So it makes sense they would study 9/11.

Karl Schwarz on an A-3 Skywarrior Hitting the Pentagon, A Secret 9/11 Grand Jury, 9/11 Drug Connections and More

from this Tom Flocco article.

While I am somewhat skeptical about the idea that an A-3 hit the Pentagon, the article still has very intriguing information (even if it is hard to know how solid it is).

According to two civilian defense contractor employees working at commercial corporate facilities at Fort Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport (left), in the months before the September 11 attacks U.S. Air Force defense contractors brought in A-3 Sky Warrior aircraft under cover of darkness to be completely refitted and modified at the small civilian airport in Colorado.

The revelations are important evidence for a reportedly ongoing secret 9/11 probe because widely available Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) photographs taken during the attacks clearly show that the few aircraft parts found at the Pentagon belonged to a small jet very similar to a modified A-3 Sky Warrior--not the American Airlines Boeing 757.

snip

Air-traffic controllers from the Washington, DC sector originally said the incoming plane was a military jet according to reports; but no grand jury has called them to testify and they have been strangely gagged from speaking out.

One air traffic controller from another Northeast sector revealed to a 9-11 widow that FBI threats were made of both a personal and career nature: "You are ordered never to speak about what you saw on your screen during the attacks; and if you do, things will not go well for you and your family."
Government officials removing a large piece of covered evidence at Pentagon on 9-11Curiously, a large piece of wreckage was found in the entry hole; but the public was kept from closely observing what appears to be a sheared-off piece of wing from a much smaller jet than a Boeing 757.

snip

Also of critical importance to a 9/11 criminal investigation is the fact that Fort Collins-Loveland Regional Airport was being used as a final testing site for remote control UAVs, and that is what originally drew the attention of Karl Schwarz.

Schwarz is the CEO of a company which designs remote control/UAVs for the U.S. Army and had a $392 million dollar Defense Department order for 32 UAVs canceled "because they would see too much over in Iraq, and because we could put in a fleet of them for what our competition was paying for a couple."

Lockheed-Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control Systems UAV used in Iraq is called the Predator, which costs $45 million for each unit, has three sensors and requires a crew of 55 individuals to operate one of them, according to Schwarz.

"Our Project Medusa has 11 high-powered sensors that can all operate simultaneously, can stay aloft at least 24 hours, has the world’s most advanced hyper-spectral system augmented by two technologies to speed up pixel analysis and detect minute anomalies in the field of view (FOV) if the operator is paying attention or not, or if his human eyes cannot even see the detail that the software detects and highlights for the operator to zoom in on," said the UAV corporate CEO.

"A crew of 55 is required to operate 5 Medusa Skypods simultaneously. A single pilot operator flies them from a single laptop or personal computer. In short, 55 operators running 55 high powered sensors with far more processing and pixel engine detection power versus 55 operators running a single Predator and only one sensor capable of running at a time. The five Medusas cost about $65 million each but have far more technology capabilities and at any given time cover a far larger area with more visual assets, " said Schwarz.

"In short, they are not toys. They even have AIM 100 lasing devices and can light up targets up to 30 miles in all directions fro air strikes, artillery, mortar, or helicopters to dispose of problems...The combined area of coverage, and the number of troops they could possibly protect if all of the pet [Defense Department] aerostats were airborne at the same time, or not riddled full of machine gun holes, is about the area that a single Medusa Skypod covers...we are at least one to two years ahead of Lockheed in HAA technology...To my group it was an honor to have been asked and we proved we could deliver only to get jerked around by bureaucrats for months protecting pet projects [like the vastly inferior Lockheed Predator]. (One-Way Ticket to Crawford, Texas: A Conservative Republican Speaks Out, by Karl W. B. Schwarz, Reichenbach Publishing Company, 2004, p. 379 [821 pages])

I just don't know how legit all this is. The article weaves together a lot of strands that would be better portrayed in separate articles. I almost feel as if Flocco puts a lot of dicey material together in the hopes of just overwhelming someone with a complicated story.

Why Did the FAA Suspect Flight 93 Was Hijacked at 9:16am????

NORAD officers Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott have even admitted that the FAA warned them about flight 93 (see items 7, 8, and 9 in the link), however this point has been wiped out in the 9/11 commission report. The government changed this story and rewrote history for no apparent reason.

So what the heck happened right before 9:16am that made the FAA suspect flight 93 was a hijack?

At this point, the plane was on course, the transponder was on, there were no phone calls from passengers yet, there was no apparent message from the captain of flight 93.

What made the FAA think flight 93 was a hijack?

SOMETHING IMPORTANT IS BEING COVERED UP HERE!

What is being covered up?

What may have been a tip-off that flight 93 was a hijack?

Possibilities:
1) the pilots warned ground control before 9:16am of suspicious passengers on the plane or even the early stages of a hijack, and this is what is being covered up. However, this does not explain the struggle in the cockpit at 9:28am heard over the radio. Why would the hijackers wait so long (12 minutes) to attack the cockpit when they were already running late, why didn't the pilots secure the door better if they knew there was a good chance of a hijack and why weren't the pilots prepared for a cockpit intrusion? Also, why would the government cover this story up?

2) the FAA knew there were suspicious passengers on the flight, and were moved to take action after the WTC hits. Possible, but why would this be covered up?

3) the FAA warned NORAD of the hijacking at 9:16am, and NORAD simply didn't respond-- perhaps a mole intercepted the order and prevented it from being passed on. However, at least two NORAD officers knew of the warning, and Vice-President Cheney certainly seemed aware of some plane heading to Washington early on. While I can see why this story might be covered up, the idea that NORAD didn't know of the hijacked plane doesn't completely make sense.

4) the FAA knew flight 93 was a hijacking exercise plane, and thus gave it to NORAD as a warning to watch out for. But NORAD doesn't want to admit that it was running a hijack exercise. This makes the most sense to me in terms of what we already have hints of and this is clearly something the government would want to cover up.

Was The Flight 93 Hijacking Fake Or Real?

Reasons to think the flight 93 hijacking was fake:

1) there was a live-fly hijacking exercise happening on 9/11

2) the pilots really should not have been taken by surprise by the hijackers-- they should have alerted air traffic control of the hijackers long before the hijackers entered the cockpit:
a) the pilots and flight attendants of the flight had a special procedure planned for a hijacking, they were aware of the possibility of a hijacking
b) at least 8 minutes elapsed between when the hijack was first reported and when the struggle in the cockpit occurred. This should have given the flight attendants plenty of time to warn the pilots of the hijacking. The pilots could have easily radioed Air Traffic Control or pushed the hijacking signal on the transponder-- but they didn't!
c) the pilots should have known about the WTC attacks and hijackings shortly after 9am, almost a half hour before the cockpit struggle
d) United Airlines was warning all its flights of hijackings after the WTC attacks, the flight 93 pilots should have received the warning

3) many of the passenger phone calls have conflicting accounts, suggesting that the passengers may have been "making up" details of the hijackings

4) the fact that shortly before 10am, someone piloting flight 93 requested a flight path to go to Washington DC. Why would a hijacker do this? This sounds more like a pilot decided to call off the hijacking exercise and pilot a normal course.

5) the evidence that flight 93 was shot down is strong, yet the shoot-down is being covered-up. One reason a shoot-down may have occurred is that they didn't want the flight 93 pilots and passengers to be able to talk about the hijacking drill.

Reasons to think the flight 93 hijacking was NOT fake:
1) the unlikelihood that a "live-fly hijacking drill" would be run with ordinary passengers
2) the unlikelihood that the passengers could fake their reactions in the phone calls
3) the unlikelihood that this could be covered up.

While it is up to you to decide which set of reasons is stronger, I will point out that in the "Reasons to think the flight 93 hijacking was NOT fake" list:
1) we don't really know the key people on the flight were ordinary random passengers
2) only some of the passengers-- the key ones such as Todd Beamer and Jeremy Glick-- had to fake their reactions
3) lots of things are covered up about 9/11 and this is nothing unusual. Moreover, the crash of flight 93, by whatever reason, is the most powerful cover-up.

In the "Reasons to think the flight 93 hijacking was fake" list:
1, 2 and 3 are hard facts. 4 and 5 are speculative but suggestive.

Ed Felt's Call, The Flight 93 Timeline and Strange New Details

Ed Felt's call was taken by a 911 dispatcher in Westmoreland county, which is just west and north of the Shanksville crash site.

Since this area is in the official flight path of flight 93, we can assume that the call was made from the plane, since there is no airport in that area. The plane was probably at a fairly low altitude, which would help the chances of the call going through.

Although, where the call came from, and hence where the plane was, depends on whether one goes by the 10:03am "official" crash time or the 10:06am seismic crash time.

If the plane was going almost 600 miles an hour, and Felt made his call at 9:58am, then the plane would be about 50 miles away from Shanksville if the crash was a 10:03am (10 miles a minute and 5 minutes) but 80 miles away if the crash was at 10:06am (10 miles a minute and 8 minutes).

The 10:03am crash and 50 mile out call is consistent with Westmoreland County.

However, the 10:06am crash and 80 mile out call would have been significantly west of Westmoreland county, in Washington County.

So even this relatively straight-forward analysis runs into problems!

While it is possible that flight 93 did crash at 10:03am, what the heck produced a huge seismic signal at 10:06am? And why didn't the 10:03am crash produce a seismic signal?

Note-- here is a great timeline/flight path map for flight 93 from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Note that this timeline uses the 10:06am crash time.

IMPORTANT: Looking at this timeline/map, Tom Burnett reports a hijack at 9:20am but the hijackers didn't enter the cockpit and confront the pilots until 9:28am. What the hell happened in those 8 minutes???? Why weren't the pilots alerted to a cockpit take-over???? Then after the struggle at 8:28am, the plane didn't turn around until 9:35am. The hijackers were already running very late (even the hijacking started very late into the flight, even though the plane was already late taking off). Why did the hijackers wait so long to hijack the plane then take so long to enter the cockpit and then turn the plane around?

Then there is this info, that suggests that flight 93 tried to contact Air Traffic Control and set a course for Washington DC right before it crashed:

Though the story seems to have dropped suspiciously out of the focus of the media there were accounts right after 911 that UA 93 indeed requested a change of flight path:

John Nance (ABC): By the same token, we have this as the only one of the four airplanes that made a sudden turn and requested a change in direction. The other three, according to Lisa, we don't have any information they made any request of air traffic control. The fourth one did, and that would indicate possibly, and it could have been one of the hijackers, but it indicates possibly that one of the pilots was allowed to stay functional long enough to agree to take the plane back to Washington. He would not have had any idea what they were going to do, or wherever it was headed, and that at some point in time that still remaining pilot or pilots got into a fight, and that could have led, very much as in Egypt Air, to a tussle in the cockpit, which lost control.
(ABC, 9/12/01)


But once it was over Cleveland, the plane suddenly veered south, according to Flight Tracker. It climbed above 40,000 feet, turned sharply toward the southeast and flew over Pittsburgh. It zig-zagged slightly north and east and then south again.
At 9:56 a.m., the destination code for the plane in FAA computers was changed from "SFO," the code for San Francisco, to "DCA," the code for Reagan National Airport in Washington. That indicates an air traffic controller probably changed the destination. Typically, that is done only when it is requested by the pilots.
For reasons still unknown, the plane crashed near Somerset, Pa., seven minutes later.
(St Petersburg Times, 9/12/01)

This is interesting in light of the fact that at 9:45am, according to Longman's book, the hijackers in the cockpit said "let the guys in now" (this was on the cockpit voice recording). Perhaps the pilots were still alive and were brought back in to the cockpit to change the destination. But this also suggests to me the hijacking was faked and the pilots came back to the cockpit and were trying to cancel the hijacking exercise. Is this why the plane had to be shot down????

Finally, I should also point out this site:
http://www.flight93crash.com/
has a lot of great information on flight 93 that I need to digest.

The Flight 93 Passenger Revolt-- What Happened?

Here we get to the heart of the whole flight 93 story, and here is where things get most confused.

The first problem is the time of the flight 93 crash, which the 9/11 commission report puts at 10:03am, but seismic data puts at 10:06am.

The second problem is what the cockpit voice recorder says about the last minutes of flight 93. The 9/11 commission report says that the recording clearly shows the hijackers crashed the plane into the ground to prevent the passengers from taking back the plane. The 9/11 commission report even claims that the passengers didn't get into the cockpit. The surviving family members of the flight 93 passengers however were allowed to hear the recording, and their impression was quite different. Indeed, it seems unlikely that multiple strong passengers could not have smashed open the cockpit door being held only by two or three hijackers. But I am not going to get into that issue in detail here.

Here I will primarily analyze what the passenger phone calls say about the flight 93 revolt.

First off, which passengers even mentioned the revolt?

1) Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw-- in fact, she boils water to throw at the hijackers

2) Flight attendant CeeCee Lyles

3) Passenger Tom Burnett

4) Passenger Jeremy Glick

5) Passenger Honor Elizabeth Wainio

6) Passenger Todd Beamer

Second, when did the revolt start?

After 9:58am-- CeeCee Lyles calls her husband and says "I think they're going to do it. They're forcing their way into the cockpit."

Just past 10am-- Honor Wainio talks to her step-mom and says: "They're getting ready to break into the cockpit."

Just past 10am-- Jeremy Glick hears that the WTC has collapsed from his wife. Then he decides they will attack the hijackers.

So according to Glick and Wainio, the revolt doesn't start until after 10am. This conflicts badly with Lyles' account that indicates the revolt started before 9:58am. Furthermore, it seems hard to believe the 10:03am crash time. The passengers would have had to be incredibly efficient to get organized and attack so effectively in less than three minutes that the hijackers would have had to crash the plane.

But the oddest part of this is Ed Felt's call-- he calls 911 at 9:58am. This is his first call from the plane and he says nothing of the passenger revolt. Moreover, he seems to be hiding from the hijackers and also hears an explosion and sees smoke from the plane. So Felt's call makes absolutely no sense. Why doesn't he know of the revolt and why did he wait so late to call?

However, there are more clues-- the background sounds the people on the other end heard from the plane.

For instance, Jeremy Glick left the phone on while the attack started, and Glick's father-in-law listening at about 10:01am heard "about one minute of silence. Screams. Then silence. Then screams again."

After CeeCee Lyles says "they're forcing their way into the cockpit", her husband could hear screaming in the background, Cee Cee screamed, and then he heard a whooshing wind-like sound, then more screaming, and the call broke off.

Oddly, BEFORE the passenger revolt, according to the operator talking to Todd Beamer, she heard men and women screaming. But after he left the phone she heard only silence.

Ed Felt's wife heard a lot of background noises that seemed to come and go, like someone listening to the street noises from a ferris wheel, as she described it.

So what was happening is not at all clear. What was the whooshing sound heard by CeeCee Lyles' husband? The plane getting damaged in some way? That would fit with Ed Felt's story but it doesn't fit with Beamer's or Glick's accounts. Why were people screaming? It's not clear-- perhaps the plane was moving violently.

Finally, what happened to the hijacker with a bomb-belt that Todd beamer said was guarding the passengers? No one mentions him in terms of the passenger revolt. No one besides Beamer even mentions him at all. It's frankly hard to imagine that he even existed, since he is ignored by the other passengers and doesn't seem to have caused any trouble for the passengers storming the cockpit.

Basically, none of the accounts really fit together.

Overall, the calls almost suggest the passengers were in different planes. Oddly, this is reminiscient of the calls from the flight 11 attendants Sweeney and Ong. The calls were so different one almost had to imagine two different planes.

Another factor of course is that a few of these calls were made by cell phone, which makes them suspect. Ed Felt was talking by cell phone and his account is so different, one has to think he wasn't even on the plane. Perhaps he was on the ground involved in a terror drill, and then realized the drill was more real than he expected? He seemed more scared than the other passengers.

Well, this has me stumped. If anyone has the answers to my quesitons or has any ideas for how this all fits together let me know.

Thanks.

The Flight 93 Hijack-- What Happened

First of all, let me review this post, where I showed how unlikely it was that the flight 93 crew would be caught by surprise by a hijacking:

Quotes from Jere Longman: "Among the Heroes", Harper Collins, New York, NY, copyright 2002

Jason Dahl is one of the pilots of flight 93. Deborah Welsh is the lead flight attendant on the flight.

"Dahl and Welsh had established the secret-knock sequence that she would use to enter the cockpit. The code was changed on every flight. United flight attendants did not carry cockpit keys, which were to be used for emergencies. One key was always located in the forward part of each aircraft, sometimes in the galley, but not always in the same place"
(p. 6)

"In the event of a hijacking, flight attendants were to phone the cockpit and mention the word "trip"".
(p. 6)

This info BLOWS AWAY the official story.

These quotes tell us:
1) that the crew locked the cockpit doors, so the hijackers could not have just walked in, they would have to smash the door open.
2) the pilots can hear knocks on the cockpit door. If they can hear knocks, they can hear someone trying to ram open the cockpit door.
3) the crew members were prepared for a hijacking!

Yet according to the official 9/11 story, the flight 93 pilots NEVER notified ground control of a hijacking, either by radio or by changing the transponder code.

But based on the information above, there is simply no way the UA93 pilots could have been taken by surprise.

This is a smoking gun next to the dead body of the official story of flight 93.

The only conclusion I can draw is that the hijacking of UA93 was faked. Possibly, the hijacking was acted out as part of the live-fly hijacking drill that was taking place on 9/11.

Okay, so what did the passengers who called from flight 93 say about the hijacking? Actually, only a few of the passengers had any significant details about how the hijacking occurred (besides the fact that it was three guys with knives): Tom Burnett, Jeremy Glick, Sandy Bradshaw and Todd Beamer.

Tom Burnett gives no details on how the hijackers took over control of the plane. He does say during his 9:34am call that "they're in the cockpit." Later he seems to hear the hijackers talking about crashing the plane into the ground, but it's not clear under what cicumstances he heard this. Burnett talks about participating in the passenger revolt.

Sandy bradshaw said most of the passengers were in the back of the plane, but a few were still in first class.

Jeremy Glick says three hijackers put on red headbands, stood up, yelled, then ran into the cockpit. He doesn't say if there was any resistance for them getting into the cockpit. He says they had something they claimed was a bomb. He said they sent the passengers to the back of the plane and threatened to blow it up.

Todd Beamer said three men hijacked the plane. He says two went into the cockpit and locked the door. The third person stood in first class with what looked like a bomb around his waist. He ordered everyone to sit down, then closed the curtain that separated first class from coach. It's not clear which side of the curtain the hijacker was on.

Beamer said the hijackers had forced 27 of the passengers into the first-class compartment near the front. He and nine other passengers and five flight attendants were ordered to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane. It is not clear how he could see the other passengers with the curtain blocking.

There are two slightly conflicting accounts of what Beamer said about the pilots of the plane. According Longman, Beamer said there were two people lying on the floor in first class and the flight attendant told Beamer they were the pilots. In a newspaper account of Beamer's call, Beamer said he did not know the whereabouts of the pilots. He said a flight attendant had told him the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded. The difference is probably due to different interpreataions of Beamer's words.

In any case, we do have a major conflict about where the passengers are in the plane. Glick and Bradshaw say most of the passengers were in the back of the plane while Beamer says most were in the front.

The Beamer account actually makes very little sense. For instance, why would the hijakcers cram 27 people into the twelve seats in first class? Also, why would a hijacker stand BETWEEN the groups of passengers? That is just dumb. Moreover, it doesn't make sense that a hijacker would even be out in the passenger area and allow all the phone calls that supposedly went on. (The cell phone calls, particular Burnett's early calls are very suspect.) Moreover, the hijacker would be so badly outnumbered that he would be at risk being between groups of passengers. So that is just silly. I don't know where Beamer's account comes from-- if he is making it up or if someone gave him a bad script.

Interestingly, Tom Burnett's wife said he seemed to be walking around (Longman, page 111). Why would the hijackers let him walk around? Moreover, Burnett, although he was in first class, where all the hiajckers were, is unsure about whether they really have a bomb. He hasn't seen a bomb-- he thinks the hijackers are just making it up. Why isn't Burnett seeing the bomb the others see? Again, Burnett was using a cell phone the first time he called (when the plane would have been at maximum altitude), and thus this call may have been made somewhere besides in the plane in the air. His second call at 9:34am was apparently made by AirPhone. His third call was made by cell phone. Longman doesn't say if the fourth call was cell phone or AirPhone. In any case, my guess is Burnett was not calling from the plane and may have been participating in a terror or hiajcking drill.

In summary, there are some strange contradictions in the passenger accounts of the hijacking itself.

But it gets even weirder. My next post will be on the passengers' accounts of the passenger revolt.

Hijacker Weapons on Flight 93

Let's review what the passengers said about what the hijackers used to hijack the planes.

First off, every passenger says there were only three hijackers, though the 9/11 commisison report insists there were four hijackers. Of course, we've never been shown the official flight manifest. Many people think that one hijacker went into the cockpit very early during the flight, perhaps disguised as a pilot (or that he was in the jumpseat in the cockpit all along) but no passenger ever noted this. In fact, the passenger details of the hijacking are strikingly vague and even contradictory (this will be the subject of my next post).

As to the weapons:
Tom Burnett said they had a gun and knives and says vaguely there is a bomb on board. He says one passenger was knifed.


Mark Bingham only mentions that they say they have a bomb.

Jeremy Glick says "no guns, they have knives". He also says they have a box that they say is a bomb, it has something red around it. (Glick seems fixated on red stuff here-- he describes red headbands that no one else notices and a red band around a bomb. It's also nice of Glick to take the airport screeners off the hook!)

Linda Gronlund, who was sitting in the second row, right behind Ziad Jarrah and must have had a good view of the whole hijacking, only mentions that the hijackers have a bomb. (The supposed lead hijacker Jarrah was supposedly sitting in the first row of first class. I wonder how hard it is to get that seat on an average flight?)

Sandy Bradshaw, the flight attendant, says the flight was "hijacked by three guys with knives".

Marion Britton says the plane was hijacked and two people had their throats slit. She doesn't mention a bomb or weapons, but obviously implies knives. No other passenger says two people were killed on the flight.

Elizabeth Heymann, CeeCee Lyles and Ed Felt give no details about weapons.


Todd Beamer has a slightly different story-- that two people with knives went into the cokpit while a third hijacker had a bomb strapped around his waist with a red belt. (Possibly the bomb was initially in the box then the guy strapped it on?)

Okay, so the basic theme is three guys, knives, bomb. There are some conflicts, such as Tom Burnett saying they had a gun and the question of how many people were stabbed. Tom Burnett was in first class, seat 4B, so he would have had a good view of the hijack. But he also apparently used a cell phone to call, which makes his call being legitimate very unlikely. There is also a conflict about the nature of the bomb, but this is nothing extraordinary. Overall, there are no big problems about the hijacker's weapons.

The Planes! The Planes!

If we assume 9/11 was rigged up, that there were planners in the military who devised the attacks, who surreptitiously planned the attacks as part of the live-fly hijacking exercise run on 9/11, what would they have in mind? How would they set it up?

The 1960's Operation Northwoods is a reasonable start, where hijackings would be faked, the "hijacked" planes would be landed and substituted for remote control drones that would then be shot down. The passengers on the fake hijacked planes would be given new identities.

We know that Al Qaeda had some idea since 1995 to hijack multiple airplanes and blow them up over the ocean (Operation Bojinka).

Clearly a tactic as old as airplanes is suicide piloting the plane into some target to inflict damage. This was used effectively by the Japanese in World War II.

We also know the military/NORAD had been practicing hijacking drills, and NORAD as well as the Pentagon and the NRO had been running plane into building drills. So they were thinking about this sort of attack. Clearly these drills and exercises are what the 9/11 planners had in mind for the attacks.

The question is, if you were going to try to engineer something like the 9/11 hijacking attacks (putting aside why you would do it), HOW would you do it?

First of all, you'd have to work in the military, or be affiliated with the military, where you would have access to drone aircraft that could be piloted remotely into targets. The Air Force certainly has these-- they had used them in previous exercises. Moreover, these aircraft were often old commercial jets. While conceivably you could install remote control piloting equipment into standard commercial aircraft, this presents problems. For instance, if there are real hijackers, how do you coordinate the hijacking with the take-over by the hijackers and how do you make sure the pilots don't warn air traffic control of a hijacking? If there are no real hijackers, how do you prevent the pilots from alerting air traffic control of a problem with their plane? Plane-swapping seems to be a better solution-- where you have fake-hijacked commercial planes that are switched with remote-control drones.

How would you set-up such a plane swap? Have the Air Force or NORAD run a "hijacking exercise"-- ostensibly an exercise designed to test the air defense response to terrorist hijackings. This would be the perfect way to plan the attacks without anyone except who was in on the plan to know about it. Have the passengers on the plane think they were part of a "terror drill" and have them make calls to outside people to enhance the realism of the exercise and provide a nice confirmation that nasty terrorists indeed had taken over commercial aircraft. Part of the exercise would involve having the drones programmed to fly into targets, such as the WTC and Pentagon, and the job of air force interceptors is to shoot down these hijacked craft before the drones strike the targets. However, to make sure the interceptors DON'T do their job, extra blips could be inserted into the radar to mimic extra hijacked planes, thus making it impossible for a pilot or commander to decide which planes to go after. These extra blips would also confuse the air traffic controllers and facilitate the plane swap! Indeed, flights 11, 175 and 77 may all have been switched while the exercise was going on-- supposedly one the WTC was hit, the exercise was caled off and the extra blips removed. Supposedly.

What could go wrong?

Well, the main problem would be if a drone aircraft crashed into a target, such as the WTC or Pentagon, and people found out it wasn't the right commercial aircraft. In particular, a head-on crash into a building is unlikely to damage the tail of the plane. Yet the tail of the plane has important identifying information: the tail number, and the tail is also where the black boxes (the flight data recorder and the ccokpit voice recorder) are kept-- precisely because this part of the plane is usually the least damaged in a crash.

What if someone photographed or found the tail of a plane that crashed into a building, and they could see it was clearly the wrong plane? This would be real trouble.

This is why I believe the drone planes HAD to carry extra explosive devices to disintegrate the tail of the plane upon contact.

I think this is why no tails were found in the Pentagon or Shanksville crashes-- even though the crash was head-on and the plane blew up on contact. In a normal crash, the tail should have separated from the plane and would have been found intact away from the crash. But in fact, an odd thing about both the Pentagon and Shanksville crashes is the lack of an intact tail. The tail exploding may be why the video of the Pentagon crash has been edited so severely-- they don't want you to see the tail blowing up. Perhaps the plane was indeed a 757-- but a 757 drone that blew up abnormally upon contact.

I think this point about the 9/11 planes' tails is critical. There is also the issue of whether the planes had special reinforced wings, as I discussed earlier. Both of these are key apsects of the 9/11 physical evidence.

How Could the Flight 93 Phone Calls Been Faked?

My assumption is that flight 93 was a fake hijack, part of a hijacking drill. There are a few reason for thinking, the main reason is that it makes sense with the oddness of the phone calls and the fact that there was a live-fly hijacking drill being run by NORAD on 9/11.

I think the real passengers were making the calls. The Airphone calls may have been from a plane in the air, but the cell phone calls may have been made separately, by people on the ground.

The big question, I think, is if flight 93 was a fake hijacking, why weren't the people alarmed when they called their loved ones and heard of the WTC attacks?

This has been a puzzle to me. But I think I finally realized the answer.

These people were on a "terror preparedness" drill. They were supposed to figure out the best way to respond to a hijacking situation. They were supposed to problem-solve. And that is how they came up with the passenger revolt plan.

In terms of the calls, then, I think the flight 93 passengers (as were the passengers on flights 175, 11 and 77) were told to call their friends, loved ones and emergency personnel-- and that the "terror drill" organizers told the passengers that the people they called had been pre-briefed and were working from a script. The "callees" would then provide information to the passengers about terror attacks (such as the WTC attacks), which would help the passengers decide what to do. However, the people the passengers called were never briefed or given scripts-- they were just telling the passengers the news that they heard of the 9/11 attacks.

With this in mind, the calls make more sense.

There are still a number of discrepencies in the calls about how the hijacking was occurring, when the passenger revolt was starting and so forth. (I will do a big post in the near future outlining all the contradictions in the flight 93 calls.)

The discrepencies may be because there were no real hijackers in the "terror drill", and they were simply told to make up details about the hijackers. Another possibility is that there were two different "terror drills" run with the flight 93 passengers, each with different fake hijackers, and each drill used a separate group of the flight 93 passengers.

The remark by Tom Burnett, that he heard the hiajckers crashing the plane into the ground, may have been one hijack outcome that was discussed by the "terror drill" organizer. Much like on flight 175, one passenger called his dad and said he thought the hijackers might crash the plane into a building.

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part IX, Todd Beamer

This one is the last of this series and is probably the most famous part of flight 93, since it has the "Let's Roll" line in it.

This was the longest of the calls made by flight 93, and he talked for a long time, by Airphone. But oddly, Todd Beamer decided he didn't want to talk to his wife but rather he preferred talking to a GTE operator. The call started at 9:45am.

His description of the hijack: "Three people had hijacked the plane. Two with knives went into the cockpit and locked the door. The third person stood in first class with what appeared to be a bomb strapped aorund his waist with a red belt. He ordered everyone to sit down, then closed the curtain that separated first class from coach."

Beamer gave the number of passengers to the operator, it's not clear if he counted them, or if he got the flight manifest.

He said there were two people lying on the floor in First Class. A flight attendant told Beamer they were the pilot and co-pilot. Beamer didn't know if they were alive.

Beamer said he was free to talk. He asks the operator if she knew what the hijackers wanted. (consistent with the terror drill, problem solving idea.)

Says the plane is going down, the turns around, then he thinks it is going north. (This is quite diferent from the known flight path for flight 93.)

Beamer says a few of the passengers were going to jump the hijacker with the bomb and try to get back control of the plane.

Towards the end of the call, the operator could hear "an awful commotion", men's voices raised and hollering, women screaming "oh my god", "god help us" and "help us Jesus". Todd talks to someone away from the phone then says "You ready? Okay, let's roll." There was silence on the line, and the operator hung up at 10am.

(What was everybody so upset about BEFORE the passenger revolt? Was the plane flying badly? Why would it, since the crazy flying was supposed to occur when the hijackers tried to break up the passenger revolt?)

Now, from a newspaper article, there is more details of Beamer's call than is in Longman.

"Beamer said he could account for 37 of the plane's 38 passengers. The hijackers had forced 27 of them into the first-class compartment near the front.

Beamer, nine other passengers and five flight attendants were ordered to sit on the floor in the rear of the plane*.

He did not know the whereabouts of the pilot, copilot and the remaining passenger.** He said a flight attendant had told him the pilot and copilot had been forced from the cockpit and may have been wounded.***

Two of the hijackers were in the cockpit with the door locked behind them. The man with the bomb stayed in the back of the plane, near Beamer's group."****

*This was not in Longman.

**This was not in Longman. Is the missing passenger Ed Felt? Or the mysterious fourth hijacker no one ever saw?

***Different from Longman.

**** Completely different from Longman.

Why the differences in accounts?

Moreover, this latter account is completely different from any other account of the hijacking. Does it make any sense for a hijacking strategy: put most of the passengers up in first class, then put the flight attendants and some other passengers in the back, with one hijacker between these two groups of passengers?

Even if the hijacker had a bomb, he is incredibly vulnerable to being attacked by the passengers. This makes no sense to me.

Also, if Beamer is on the floor in the back of the plane, how can he count all the passengers in the front? How can he see past the curtain the hijacker supposedly puts up.

Finally, first class only has 12 seats and there is not so much aisle space-- how did they squeeze 27 people up there?

In an upcoming post, I will try to go over all the discrepencies and problems with the nine phone calls I have been posting about from flight 93.

Flight 93 and 9/11 Truth

My current thinking is that flight 93 is truly a weak spot for 9/11. It may even be THE MAJOR weak spot for 9/11, and the best part is that the flight is very well documented. Flight 93 even has its own book (Longman's "Among the Heroes").

Unfortunately, flight 93 also has the most emotional resonance with Americans and 9/11 since it has to do with the heroic passenger revolt story.

Thus, this is a bit of a boobytrap for 9/11 truth, and I have to wonder if the planners may have planned it that way-- make the most dramatic and emotional story also the most incoherent. But since the legend of the passengers was/is sacrosanct, no one can really question it. This almost the fingerprints of Karl Rove on it!

But question the flight 93 story we must. And my current major goal is to point out all the problems with the flight 93 story and then construct a likely alternative explanation for what happened.

An Additional Problem For My Flight 93 Scenarios: Cell Phones

Frequent commenter to this blog, Rob, makes an excellent point:

"I don't believe that ANY, ANY of the claimed "Cell phone" (note: NOT the hard-wired AirPhone...although they are VERY fishy in their own right as well) calls from the "Hijacked" planes are real, and/or were made in FLIGHT (as purported).
NOT ONE!
Wanna know why?
BECAUSE THEY ARE STILL IMPOSSIBLE TODAY, IN 2005, AS THE 'OFFICIAL' STORY CLAIMS THEY HAPPENED ON 9/11/01.
Don't believe me? I have now flow on NUMEROUS cross-country, and near cross-country US flights originating here in NYC since 9/11/01, and EVERY TIME I keep my cell phone on the whole flight...JUST to test out the preposterous claim that non-AirPhone , personal cell phone calls were placed from moving planes at altitude on 9/11.
EVERY TIME, ON EVERY ONE OF MY FLIGHTS (OVER 14 LARGE PLANE, COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS), MY CELL PHONE LOST THE ABILITY TO MAKE AND RECEIVE CALLS LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES AFTER WHEELS UP.
EVERY TIME, EVERY FLIGHT.
The ONLY TIME my phone worked, the ONLY TIMES, were when I was taxiing to and from the gate, while STILL on the ground.
Personal cell phone calls are just as impossible today, as they were on the morning of 9/11/01.
Try it sometime. ;-)
Cell calls from the hijacked planes (travelling at hundreds of miles per hour) on 9/11 ARE COMPLETE BULLSHIT."

I have also tried my cell phone a couple of times in flight and it just doesn't work-- there is no signal. The one caveat is that cell phones MIGHT work if the plane is flying close to the ground, and towards the end of flight 93, perhaps some calls got through this way. Although if the plane is flying very fast in a rural area, this would also be a problem for getting a cell phone to work. So I agree with Rob. This is a major problem that needs to be factored into my flight 93 scenarios. The cell phone problem is something I was aware of but forgot when I was putting my scenarios together. In fact, this does change the overall scheme quite a bit, and tends to favor the scenario where the calls are faked and the flight is faked.

Basically, in any flight 93 scenario, we need to account for the following:
1) planes coming from two different directions around Shanksville; the plane coming from the northwest was flying close to the ground and in a helter-skelter manner
2) quite a bit of debris falling over Indian Lake, east/southeast of the official crash site-- debris that must have originated from flight 93 and contains parts of airplane seats and some human remains
3) a crash site that cannot have come from the real flight 93-- either the crash site was faked or it was a special remote control drone
4) cell phone calls that cannot have been made from high in the air
5) phone calls made from passengers on the flights that do not tell the same story, they conflict badly with each other
6) if the hijacking was fake, a drill of some sort, how the passengers were allowed to make calls about a hijacking but didn't give away what was going on
7) the improbability of flight 93 being taken over by knife-wielding hijackers without the pilots being warned and alerting ground control
8) apparent take-off and radio transmissions from a real flight 93
9) what happened to the passengers
10) how the "real" flight 93 leaving late might have affected the planners plans
11) the "white plane" seen in the area around the time of the crash
12) a C-130 that was nearby, the same one that was also witnessed the Pentagon crash
13) an interceptor jet that at least one air traffic controller said must have witnessed what happened with flight 93
14) multiple reports that flight 93 was hit by a missile, a few witnesses support the idea that something exploded or hit a plane flying near the Shanksville crash site.

Here are some good maps of the area here flight 93 crashed: from a Popular Mechanics article debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories, this is still a nice map, and from a Democratic Underground post. The last link has some good info on eyewitnesses as well.

This needs MORE thought! Augghh! I hope this doesn't drive me insane!

Going Over the Various Flight 93 Scenarios

The more I think about this, the more I realize there are many, many possibilities for what could have happened with flight 93.

Here I will go through possible scenarios and I will try to judge which scenario best fits the evidence, or which scenario has the least “problems”. One thing to keep in mind is that, officially, flight 93 was apparently late taking off, so an important question is how much did this affect the 9/11 planners plans (if we discard the official story)?

The logic here is that “a problem” equals “+1” and “explaining a problem” equals “-1”. Big problems will be awarded 2 points, smaller problems will be awarded 0.5 points. The overall points for each scenario will be tallied up in this way.

These scenarios assume that the following are not “problems”:
1) flight 93 was shot down or damaged before crashing by another plane (the mysterious white plane or an air force jet) and this was covered up,
2) having a special drone plane (engineered and piloted by the military/NORAD/Air Force) come into the scenario,
3) creating a fake crash site for flight 93 with a bomb and a few airplane parts, human remains are planted later.
The logic is that there is clearly a cover-up over 9/11 and flight 93, and therefore these three particular aspects of the flight 93 story are basically feasible, can be covered-up easily by the government, and therefore do not pose "problems".

Flight 93 Scenarios

1-- The Official Story: the flight is hijacked by three or four terrorists, the plane is crashes on the ground in Shanksville PA in part due to a passenger revolt. Problems with this story-- the incredible lack of overall coherence in the 9/11 passenger calls (problem 1), the unlikelihood of the hijacking taking place with the pilot being taken by surprise (problem 2), the many oddities of the flight 93 crash site (problem 3), witnesses seeing planes coming from two different directions (problem 4) and the widespread nature of the plane debris (problem 5). This official scenario has +5 problems.

2-- The Conventional Shoot-Down Theory: very similar to the official story but the plane is brought down by an air force missile (or some unknown high-tech mechanism). This scenario can explain problem 5 but cannot explain problems 1, 2, 3 and 4. This scenario has +3 problems.

3A-- The Drone Theory A1: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The passengers were on a different plane, the real flight 93, that was going through a real hijacking. The real flight 93 flew near Shanskville and blew up nearby, perhaps over Indian Lake. This can explain problems 3 and 4 and 5, but doesn't explain problems 1 and 2. It also creates a new problem of dealing with the wreckage of a second plane and keeping it covered up (problem 6 = 2 points since there are many witnesses and houses around the lake). This scenario has +1 problems.

3B-- The Drone Theory A2: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The passengers were on a different plane, the real flight 93, that was going through a mock hijacking. The real flight 93 flew near Shanskville and blew up nearby, perhaps over Indian Lake. This can explain problems 2, 3, 4 and 5, but doesn't explain problem 1. It also creates the new problems of dealing with the wreckage of a second plane and keeping it covered up (problem 6) as well as how the hijacking was faked (problem 7). This has -0 problems.


4-- The Drone Theory B: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. There was never a real flight 93 and the hijacking and passenger's calls were all faked. This can explain problems 1, 2, 3 4 and 5, but brings in the new problem of faking the calls (problem 8), making the passengers disappear through new identities (problem 9 = 2 points because of level of cover-up), and how flight 93 was faked (problem 10 = 2 points because of level of cover-up). This has -0 problems.

5A-- The Drone Theory C1: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The real flight 93 went through a real hijacking but landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 3 and 4, but can't explain problems 1, 2 and 5 and brings in the big problem of dealing with live passengers and the cover-up involved (problem 9). This has +3 problems.

5B-- The Drone Theory C2: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The real flight 93 went through a mock hijacking but landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 2, 3 and 4, but can't explain problems 1 and 5. This scenario also brings in the problem of a fake hijacking (problem 7) and brings in the big problem of dealing with live passengers and the cover-up involved (problem 9). This has +2 problems.

6A-- The Two Flight 93 Theory A1: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was hijacked for real, one went into the hole in Shanksville, the other plane landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. Two planes could explain why the calls are so discordant. This can explain problems 1 and 4, but can't explain problems 2, 3 and 5. Moreover, it creates new problems of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11) and dealing with live passengers and the cover-up involved (problem 9). This has +4 problems.

6B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory A2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, one went into the hole in Shanksville, the other plane landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 1, 2 and 4, but can't explain problems 3 and 5. Moreover, it creates new problems of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11), the problem of the mock hijacking (problem 7) and dealing with live passengers and the cover-up involved (problem 8). This has +3 problems.

7A-- The Two Flight 93 Theory B1: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was hijacked for real-- one went into the hole in Shanksville, the other plane was blown up somewhere else, perhaps over Indian Lake. This can explain problems 1, 4 and 5, but can't explain problems 2 and 3. Moreover, it creates a new problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problem 6. This has +2 problems.

7B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory B2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, one went into the hole in Shanksville, the other plane was blown up somewhere else, perhaps over Indian Lake. This can explain problems 1, 2, 4 and 5, but can't explain problem 3. Moreover, it creates a new problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problem 6 and problem 7. This has +1 problems.

8A-- The Two Flight 93 Theory C1: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was hijacked for real, the Shanksville crash site was faked. Both flight 93 planes landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 1, 3 and 4, but can't explain problems 2 and 5. Moreover, it creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings in problem 9. This has +2 problems.

8B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory C2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, the Shanksville crash site was faked. Both flight 93 planes landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 1, 2, 3 and 4 but not problem 5. This scenario creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11) and brings in problems 7 and 9. This has +1 problems.

9A-- The Two Flight 93 Theory D1: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was hijacked for real, the Shanksville crash site was faked. One flight 93 plane was blown up somewhere else, perhaps over Indian Lake, the other flight 93 plane landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 1, 3. 4 and 5, but can't explain problem 2. Moreover, it creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problems 6 and 9. This has +2 problems.

9B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory D2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, the Shanksville crash site was faked. One flight 93 plane was blown up somewhere else, perhaps over Indian Lake, the other flight 93 plane landed safely somewhere and the passengers took on new IDs. This can explain problems 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. It creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problems 6, 7 and 9. This has +1 problems.

10A – The Drone and the Shootdown Theory: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The passengers were on a different plane, the real flight 93, that was going through a real hijacking. The real flight 93 flew over Indian Lake and was damaged by a bomb or a missile, spewing debris. This flight later landed and the passengers were made to disappear in some manner. This can explain problems 3, 4 and 5, but doesn't explain problems 1 and 2. It brings back problem 9. This scenario has +0 problems.

10B – The Drone and the Shootdown Theory: the plane that crashed in a crater in Shanksville was not the "real" flight 93, but a remote-control drone with an exploding tail and penetrating wings. The passengers were on a different plane, the real flight 93, that had a fake hijacking. The real flight 93 flew over Indian Lake and was damaged by a bomb or a missile, spewing debris. This flight later landed and the passengers were made to disappear in some manner. This can explain problems 2, 3, 4 and 5, but doesn't explain problem 1. It brings back problem 9. This scenario has -1 problems.

11A-- The Two Flight 93 and the Shootdown Theory D1: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was hijacked for real, the Shanksville crash site was faked. One flight 93 flew over Indian Lake and was damaged by a bomb or a missile, spewing debris. This flight later landed and the passengers were made to disappear in some manner. The other flight 93 plane landed somewhere and these passengers were made to disappear as well. This can explain problems 1, 3, 4 and 5, but can't explain problem 2. Moreover, it creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problem 9. This has +0 problems.

11B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory D2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, the Shanksville crash site was faked. One flight 93 flew over Indian Lake and was damaged by a bomb or a missile, spewing debris. This flight later landed and the passengers were made to disappear in some manner. The other flight 93 plane also landed somewhere and these passengers were made to disappear as well. This can explain problems 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. It creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problems 6 and 7. This has -1 problems.


Summary of the problems:
1) Part of the Official Story—conflicting passenger calls
2) Part of the Official Story—unlikelihood of hijacking
3) Part of the Official Story—unreal crash site
4) Part of the Official Story—planes coming from different directions
5) Part of the Official Story—widespread debris

6) Hypothetical problem-- Second plane crash at Indian Lake and cover-up (big problem, 2 points)
7) Hypothetical problem—Flight 93 hijacking was faked
8) Hypothetical problem—Flight 93 calls were faked
9) Hypothetical problem-- Flight 93 passengers were made to disappear (big problem, 2 points)
10) Hypothetical problem-- Flight 93 was faked (big problem, 2 points)
11) Hypothetical problem-- Creating an extra flight 93

This is the theory I am most partial to, as I think it can explain the most:
11B-- The Two Flight 93 Theory D2: There were two flight 93's each with some passengers, each was mock hijacked, the Shanksville crash site was faked. One flight 93 flew over Indian Lake and was damaged by a bomb or a missile, spewing debris onto the lake. This flight later landed and the passengers were made to disappear in some manner. The other flight 93 plane also landed somewhere and these passengers were made to disappear as well. This can explain problems 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. It creates the problem of where an extra flight 93 came from (problem 11). It also brings back problems 6 and 7. This has -1 problems.

I really like the idea of having two flight 93 planes, each with passengers for explaining the variation between the phone calls. In this scenario, both of the planes were participating in the live-fly hijacking drill run on 9/11. Perhaps not every person on each plane was in on the drill. People in first class, such as Linda Gronlund, may have known more about the hijacking drill than the passengers in coach. Alternatively, one flight (the real flight 93) was really violently hijacked and the second flight 93 was mock hijacked and part of the drill. What happened to the passengers is obviously not clear. Some may have been killed and others allowed to live under a new identity.

It's interesting to think how Ed Felt fits into all of this. Was he on the real hijacked flight 93? Was he somehow able to see the other mock hijacked plane that got shot at or bombed?

It's still very confusing, but I think I am getting closer to some sort of answer.

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part VIII, Ed Felt

This call is probably the most interesting yet strange ones made from flight 93. In order to do it justice, I am basically going to copy this excellent post by John Doe II at Democratic Underground on Ed Felt's call. I am removing the links-- you can get the sources from the DU article if you're interested. I have made some minor adjustments to the language and the emphases are added by me.

Edward Felt's phone call from Flight 93 was one of the first to be reported and alredy in the news on 911.

"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 traveling from Newark to San Francisco, and they were being hijacked," said Glenn Cramer, a 911 supervisor.
"We confirmed that with him several times and we asked him to repeat what he said. He was very distraught. He said he believed the plane was going down. He did hear some sort of an explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane, but he didn't know where.

"And then we lost contact with him."

There are three reasons why this phone call is very special, different from all other call from Flight 93 and highly important: Before it has to be pointed out that Glenn Cramer who made all the statements right after 911 was the 911 supervisor but it was John Shaw who was the dispatcher and actually took the call of Edward Felt. Cramer “monitored the call after Shaw alerted him that it was about a hijacking in progress.”

1.) Edward Felt mentions an explosion. This was widely reported right after 911 based on direct quotes from Glenn Cramer.
But later the mentioning of smoke and an explosion was denied: e. g. “A male passenger, Edward Felt, did call from the bathroom of the plane, but never mentioned an explosion or puff of smoke, said John Shaw, the dispatcher who took the call. “Didn't happen,” he said. Felt's wife, who heard a tape of the call, corroborated Shaw's story.”

2.) This 911 dispatch tape is sized by (FBI) Agents on the day of 911. The phone call only lasted 78 seconds. “The supervisor who took the call has been gagged by the FBI.”

The call lasted only 78 seconds so what else can possibly be on this tape that explains the seizing of it?

Jere Longman who denied the existence of the explosion claim gives some further details of the call which only helps to make the call even more strange: “Following procedure, Shaw asked for the passenger's name and cell phone number. The passenger identified himself as Edward Felt.”

But still on December 6, 2001 the caller is not identified:
“The passenger, whose name is not being released”.

Another detail given by Longman:
“Once he seemed to grow impatient with the dispatcher, but he kept his cool under the circumstances. “We're going down, we're going down”. (This detail is contained in other newspaper accounts, too). But the Commission Report doesn't mention any loss of height for Flight 93 at that time of his call.

“Ed seemed at one moment to be peering out of the bathroom, as if checking to see what was going on. (...) many voices were audible, but none that could be picked out”.

Not only do all the details of the phone call make a duration of only 78 seconds unlikely but especially striking is that neither Edward Felt mentions the ongoing counterattack of the passengers nor is it to be heard when he is supposed to peer out of the bathroom.

In one of the rare interviews of John Shaw he states:
“He told me he locked himself in the bathroom, he gave me the flight number and the tail number, everything he possibly could, and that the plane had been hijacked”

How did Felt know the tail number of Flight 93?

3.) Let's talk about Felt's behaviour
With an ongoing hijacking and a terrorist surveilling the passengers with a bomb around his waist etc it seems to be an understandable and even clever behaviour to look for a moment and sneak into the bathroom in order to alert the FBI. That might be also the reason why Felt's behaviour never strikes out as highly bizarre.
But it is very bizarre. Especially if one compares it to the behaviour of other passengers. But it's not about judging Felt as a hero or a coward. There are several reasons why his behaviour in the concrete situation of 9:58 on Flight 93 appears very, very, very strange:

There is no hijacker surveilling him. Since one minute the counterattack of the passengers is already underway. So why does Felt go into a bathroom to phone? And even more why the need to lock himself? The call was disconnected because he used his cellphone. Why didn't he use the available airfone like so many other passengers?

And as his call was disconnected at 9:59 why didn't he try then an airfone?

It makes very much sense to alert the FBI. But basically EVERY passenger has done this already. Why now? And why didn't he phone before as basically EVERY passenger? Why doesn't he say a word about the ongoing counterattack? If for whatever reasons he decided not to participate in the attack why doesn't he want to see if the others are successful?

He was sitting 2D next to three hijackers. Why didn't he mention and describe them?

How can he see the smoke outside the airplane? Does a bathroom have a window?

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part VII, Cee Cee Lyles

CeeCee Lyles was a flight attendant on flight 93. She called her husband twice from the plane.

First she left a message saying three guys hijacked the plane. She says she heard from other passengers that planes hit the WTC.

Second time she talked to her husband directly. At 9:58am, she said "feels like the plane is going down". The husband heard people crying in the background.

Then, CeeCee says: "I think they're going to do it. They're forcing their way into the cockpit."

Husband "could hear screaming in the background. CeeCee screamed and the husband heard a whooshing sound, a sound like wind." "People were screaming and the call broke off."

(Quotes from Longman)

There are a couple of interesting things here.

First, Mrs Lyles seems fairly sure the passengers will get into the cockpit. But the official story is the didn't get in.

Second, the end of the call sounds quite like the plane was damaged, "holed" perhaps, before the call ended. Interesting how people screamed AFTER the whooshing noise.

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part VI, Sandy Bradshaw

Sandy Bradshaw was a flight attendant on the flight, she called her husband. We don't know what time this is.

She says: "My flight's been hijacked by three guys with knives".

She doesn't know where they are but are flying over a river, apparently southeast.

She says most of the passengers are in the rear of the plane and a few still in first class.

She thought she saw one hijacker.

She boils water in the galley to throw at the hijackers as part of the passenger insurgency.

She ends the call by saying "Phil, everyone's running to first class. I've got to go. Bye."

There's nothing incredibly interesting here, except that at the end she seems rather matter of fact about saying goodbye to her husband.

The boiling water trick is a good detail, but if the hijackers are in the cockpit and the passengers have to break down the door to get to them, then the water probably wouldn't be much use in that situaiton. Too many people in too tight a space. Plus, she would have to carry the boiling water all the way up to the front of the plane-- it seem kind of impractical.

It would be nice if she told us where the hijackers were. Was one guarding them, or were they all in the cockpit?

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part V, Marion Britton

Marion Britton, a single, older census worker, called her friend. She said the plane was hijacked, two people were killed, "they slit their throats". The friend could hear a lot of noise on the other end.

"The plane was making a turn, Marion said.

"'We're going down' she said, 'We're going to crash'."

This one is short and we can't get too much info, but there are a couple of interesting points.

First, about two people being killed by having their throats slit.

This is odd, as no one else on the flight mentions two people getting killed like this. Only Tom Burnett mentions something similar and it is one person getting knifed.

Second, Marion talks about the plane going down but says NOTHING about the passengers who are supposed to be trying to take the plane over.

Possibly, this call was early on, and the plane jerked down and Miss Britton thought the worst. But this was the last we hear of her-- why didn't she call back if it was early on? And if it was late, why didn't she talk about the passenger insurgency?

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part IV, Linda Gronlund and Joe DeLuca

I already did a post on Linda Gronlund's call, but I want to put it in this series of posts as well. Moreover, I have some new info on her call.

Here is the call of Linda Gronlund to her sister:

"I want to let you know how much I love you; please tell Mom and Dad", Linda said. "I don't know if I'll be able to tell you again in person how much I love you. I hope I will. I'm really going to miss you." Then she said goodbye.

Emphasis added.

And then, according to this source, Linda Gronlund also told her sister the combination to her safe-deposit box.


Now, granted under stress, people say strange things, especially if they think they are going to die. But the combination to her safe-deposit box? Why? If Miss Gronlund was going to die, then her safe-deposit box would be opened as part of her estate.

Everything Miss Gronlund says sounds like something someone would say who has to go away for a long time and take a new identity. For instance, with the safe-deposit box, the bank wouldn't open it if there was no proof of death. So it would make sense if Miss Gronlund gave the combination to her sister.

Miss Gronlund's boyfriend, sitting next to her, Joe DeLuca called his dad and told him that there were terrorists on the plane and that he loved him. Interestingly, DeLuca's dad said that DeLuca sounded "sad".

Sad? Is that how you would feel if you were on a hijacked plane? Not scared or stressed or freaked out, but sad?

"Sad" sounds like how someone would feel if they unexpectedly had to go away for a long time and take a new identity.

The Flight 93 Phone Calls-- Part III, Jeremy Glick

The quotes are from Longman, "Among the Heroes".

At 9:37am, Jeremy Glick called his wife and talked to her for at least 23 minutes. He was calling from the rear of the plane. It is not clear if he is using a cell phone or an AirPhone.

He said there were "very bad men" on the plane and that the hijackers looked Middle Easter/Iranian. The started the hijacking by putting on red headbands, then "three of them stood up and yelled and ran into the cockpit."

The hijackers "sent passengers to the back of the plane and threatened to blow it up. They claimed to have a bomb. It looked like a box with something red around it."

Glick told his wife several times: "I can't believe this is happening to me".

Glick describes the plane turning, says they are near Pittsburgh, still high in the air. He saw a rural landscape.

The local police patched into his call (seems to me they do this amazingly quickly).

Eventually, his wife tells Glick the terrorists attacked the WTC and one tower fell down (so this must be around 10 am by now).

Glick says the hijackers don't have guns, "they have knives". Glick decides he is going to attack the hijackers.

The weird things about this call:

1) the detail about the red headbands-- no one else ever mentioned this for any of the 9/11 hijackings. This detail sounds bogus to me-- like something someone would add into a script. Why the hijackers even bother with this anyway?

2) the hijackers stood up and just "ran into the cockpit"? All three of them? How did they get in? Where was the bomb box? Was anyone guarding the passengers?

I suppose we could imagine one hijacker already in the cockpit, perhaps he got in by a ruse wearing a pilot's uniform. So maybe he let the three others in. But why would all four go in? To fight the pilots? Did they subdue the pilots and then go back out with the bomb and tell everyone to move to the back?

This is plausible yet it contradicts what other calls said about the hijackings.

I should also point out that Glick's call clearly shows the passenger revolt happening after 10 am, since WTC2 had just collapsed. The 9/11 commission says flight 93 crashed at 10:03am, in part because of the passenger revolt. Yet it seems highly implausible that the passengers got organized to attack AND attacked in a time span of just three minutes, causing the hijackers to finally decide to crash the plane at 10:03am.

Special Planes on 9/11?

Let's forget about flights 11, 175, 77 and 93 for a little while.

What do we know about the planes that impacted the WTC, the Pentagon, and the ground near Shanksville?

The only good pictures of course are for the plane that hit the second WTC tower, and it looks like a 757 but also is slightly different.

But in terms of the damage the planes produced, what do we know?

The planes that hit the WTC sliced through fairly substantial steel columns like a knife through butter-- even the fragile tips of the wings went through the steel columns. Did the planes have special reinforced wings?

That might explain how the wings of the plane that struck the Pentagon could penetrate the thick reinforced stone, brick and concrete outer walls.

In the Shanksville crash, it really is not very clear where the wings went-- into the hole or did they blow up? If they were reinforced wings, this might help them burrow deeply into the ground.

What about the tail of the planes, though?

There is not one picture of a tail from one of the 9/11 planes.

The funny thing about a tail is that in a head-on crash (such as occurred on 9/11), the tail always suffers the least damage, and it usually breaks off in one piece. The tail is also huge-- almost forty feet tall for Boeing 757s and 767s, and the vertical stabilizer extends some twenty feet from the top of the fuselage.

The other funny thing about the tail of the plane is that it has a lot of identifying information-- what airline and there is a specific tail number for each plane.

What happened to the tails on the 9/11 planes?

In the case of the WTC and Pentagon, they seem to have vanished into the building. This is particularly odd in the case of the Pentagon, where there was no significant damage on the thrid floor of the Pentagon. It's less obvious but still true that the tail of the planes that hit the WTC didn't slice through the steel columns like the wings did. The tail of the plane in Shanksville appeared to leave a minor mark in the ground (see previous post), but then the tail disappared and we have no idea what happened to it. In all these four situations: there are three possibilities: either the tail disintegrated upon impact, it blew off, or it wasn't there in the first place.

I think we can basically discard the last two possibilites as not true, since a) it is unlikely a plane would fly without a tail and the pictures of flight 175 show a tail, and b) no one ever reported finding an intact tail for any of the 9/11 planes, so it didn't just blow off.

Thus, we are left with the idea that the tails of all four 9/11 planes behaved strangely and disintegrated.

Is it possible the 9/11 planners used specially designed planes with hardened wings and softened tails? Or am I missing something here?

It would make sense if they designed the planes this way. They would want hardened wings for more pentrating power. And they would want disintegrating wings that didn't leave any clear evidence behind.

So this makes sense that might design it that way, but wow-- what planning.