# I wonder if we shot down the fourth plane

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [September 12, 2001, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026 "2001-09-12T06:30:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2001, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026/1 "2001-09-12T06:30:01Z")

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I haven’t seen this on the board, or even heard it discussed on the news, but I wonder:

The fourth plane was known to be highjacked after the first three had crashed into strategic targets. I wonder if we saw it heading towards another strategic target and shot it down.

I’m not generally a conspiracy-type. And if in fact we did shoot it down, it was probably the right thing to do. But I wonder.

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**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2001, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026/2 "2001-09-12T06:45:36Z")

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I’ve heard a couple of different rumors. One is that the regular pilot crashed the jet to prevent it being used as a weapon. The second rumor is that F16’s shot it down to prevent the same. I await to see what the truth is. If either of those rumors is true, I understand why it happened.

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**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2001, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026/3 "2001-09-12T06:45:48Z")

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I’ve wondered about that as well. For one thing, if the pilot was somehow able to force the plane to crash after the hijack, why didn’t that happen on the other planes? I guess it’s possible that the pilot thought of a way to disable the plane that didn’t occur to the other pilots, or he somehow got a chance to do something they didn’t have the opportunity to do.

There’s also the fact that the pilots probably didn’t know what the terrorists plans for the plane were - when a plane is hijacked causing it to crash is not the typical response, generally you try to cooperate with the hijackers and do what you can to make sure it gets on the ground safely.

For these reasons I think either the terrorist who took over control of the plane made a mistake which resulted in the premature crash, or it was shot down.

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**Author:** ![Bill\_H](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a5b964/32.png) [@Bill\_H](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_H)\
**Post date:** [September 12, 2001, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026/4 "2001-09-12T06:54:19Z")

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Looks like this is already being discussed in MPSIMS. Mods, please close.

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**Author:** ![k.os](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e0b2c6/32.png) [@k.os](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k.os)\
**Post date:** [September 13, 2001, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-wonder-if-we-shot-down-the-fourth-plane/81026/5 "2001-09-13T02:41:18Z")

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just before the thread gets locked, I’ll post the [link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86509) to the thread where this is discussed. I made a couple of points there and would welcome any input, since most of it is pure speculation.