I’m a little confused here. According to this account in a Sept. 13 New Hampshire newspaper, an FAA employee said an F-16 fighter was following Flight 93:
The same news was repeated in an AP story that same day: http://www.portland.com/news/attack/010913faa.shtml
Was there an F-16 following Flight 93, or wasn’t there?
Military jets were, indeed, sent to intercept and, if necessary, shoot down Flight 93. They were not able to reach the airplane before the crash.
I have to wonder about the details of the account you mentioned, though - it was actually two jets sent after the airliner, not just one.
According to my brother-in-law, Flight 93 wasn’t shot down OR crashed because of a hostage revolt - he claims Flight 93 was crashed into it’s target successfully. The target being the field in PA.
Apparently, the military had a major communications bunker hidden underground - top secret of course. The hijackers were determined to wipe it out, so it was one of their four primary targets (the others being the twin towers and the Pentagon or White House).
Naturally, I rolled my eyes when he told me this, but I’ve wondered where he got this “information” from. Has anyone else heard anyone spouting that Flight 93 hit it’s target and wiped out a major part of the communications network?
I can’t see why the goverment would cover up Flight 93 being shot down. I think all the world realises that they would have had little choice, and if it came to it they would be making the hard decision to save other lives. Awful, to make the military fire upon it’s own citizens, but better than having them used as weapons against other citizens.
Hmmmm. These guys were wanting to hit very visible, very symbolic targets that might also have a detrimental effect on the American economy and political structure. A field – even a “major communications bunker” – doesn’t qualify. Even if it did, crashing a passenger plane on top of a bunker hidden underground isn’t likely to do any damage to the bunker.
Sounds like maybe your brother-in-law has been listening more to the voices in his head than to the voice of reason.
RR
This week’s Newsweek has an article with excerpts from the cockpit voice recorder in addition to transmissions from the airplane heard by ground controllers.
Their reconstruction of the available information was that the airplane was flown into the ground. It even raised the question as to whether there was some struggle between the terrorists as whether to crash or not.
Dateline NBC had an interview earlier this month with the two F-16 pilots that were tasked with intercepting the airliner. The fighters were on station over D.C. when the call came to intercept the airliner. They said they did not get there before the crash. They were quite thankful for the heroism of the passengers. Otherwise they would have faced the possibility of firing on U.S. citizens.
Of course, facts will not persuade someone dedicated to the “religion of conspiracy”.
That disagrees with this USA Today story, Oct. 2,
By my calculations, an F-16 leaving from Langley AFB could have reached Flight 93 in about 11 minutes. Can you post a link showing what time the 2 fighters you mention took off, and from what base? I couldn’t find this information.
OK… just so you know - when it comes to aviation, USA Today is about as reliable as The National Enquirer. Possibly less so. I mean, the Enquirer got more details correct in their JFK, Jr. crash reporting.
For example:
#1 - who was this “employee”? Is he (or she) an air traffic controller? A pilot? The janitor?
#2 - there is no reason on God’s green earth (or above it, for that matter) for an F-16 to perform “360 degree turns to remain close to the commercial jet”. Commercial jets and F-16’s easily match speeds. An F-16 would cruise alongside such a jet, at the same speed, with no problems whatsoever.
Even when intercepting a small, slow plane turning full circles is extremely unlikely. If the top speed of the small plane is below the minimum stall speed of the F-16 (and those are pretty rare conditions) the F-16 would most likely perform “S-turns” off the right wing of the interceptee, a common technique for maintaining spacing between airplanes of very different speeds. Or so I have been informed by the FAA, whose information I hold more reliable than USA Today, particularly since I do fly very slow aircraft, may have to actually deal with an F-16 off my wing, and I most certainly might be shot down if I fail to comply with their directives.
In other words, what is stated in this quote makes no sense to someone who actually flies in/over North America.
Maybe you should look elsewhere than the general media? Do a google search for aviation press and organizations. There’s probably even a preliminary statement on the official FAA site (www.FAA.gov, in case you were wondering) It’s not just the quantity of links that matters but the quality. If the Journal of the American Medical Association and CNN report divergent views on the same medical topic which source of information are you more likely to believe?
11 minutes can be a long time during an in-flight emergency - it’s quite possible that, given the uncertainties and delays of September 11, that the F-16’s weren’t scrambled for Flight 93 until shortly before the crash.
The hijackers weren’t stupid - by turning off the transponders as they did the situation initially looked like an equipment failure, not a hijacking, and (at least up to Sept 11) you don’t send the military to take care of equipment failures. With the WTC crashes the system attention was focused on NYC. It wasn’t until after the Pentagon was hit that anything was scrambled to protect DC, and Flight 93 happened very shortly after that.
I didn’t realise you knew him. 
It was obvious that he was wrong, but I wondered if this was a widespread conspiracy theory that I’ve somehow missed on the net. He told me this on the day of the attacks, so we were still sitting there wondering “What next?”. A communications bunker may have made sense if many more attacks were planned for the following days, as a means of hampering military communication. However, I don’t believe there ever was such a bunker.
For Cazzle’s BIL: Actual underground communications bunkers.
http://www.thebunker.net/press-hayworks-0801.htm
The Grand Tour of FEMA’s Cold War era “Building 710” at the Denver Federal Center, still in use and now on the Historic Register.
http://www.fema.gov/reg-viii/historic2.htm
The Nassau County (NY) Emergency Operations Center.
http://www.ftldesign.com/cgaux1311/wtcceoc.htm
Even the relatively small Nassau County Center looks like something that wouldn’t be much affected by having a 747 crash into it. I can’t imagine the Feds building a secret underground communications bunker that wouldn’t even be up to Nassau County’s specs.