# What caused hijacked Flight 93 to crash? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 26, 2004, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503 "2004-03-26T04:10:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/21 "2004-03-26T17:39:48Z")
So, I shouldn’t be expecting an _Airport '75_ scenario and having one of the flight attendants flying the plane and then expecting an experienced pilot to be dropped into the plane in midair using a tether? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/22 "2004-03-26T17:43:20Z")
> [@AV8R](#): > > I agree that a pilot who has only flown small airplanes would certainly crash if he/she attempted to land an airliner on his own, but suppose they managed to overpower the hijackers and this passenger/pilot takes over while the plane is straight and level. There would be several hours of fuel on the plane, and ATC would have time to get an _experienced pilot of that type of plane on the radio_. With a lot of back and forth talk of airspeeds, flaps, power settings, angle of attack, isn’t it possible that the passenger/pilot could be “talked down” to a successful landing? (Especially if he had experience shooting ILS approaches)? Keep in mind that no matter _who_ is talking a non-pilot down, acclimation to the controls takes a LONG time. It isn’t like playing a video game, and a novice is likely to use much bigger inputs than a pilot would, resulting in much bigger corrective movements, and before you know if the plane is madly yawing up and down in an the aerial equivalent of a fishtail. Figuring out where the landing gear and throttle are would be comparatively easy. ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/23 "2004-03-26T18:20:52Z")
> [@AV8R](#): > > I agree that a pilot who has only flown small airplanes would certainly crash if he/she attempted to land an airliner on his own, but suppose they managed to overpower the hijackers and this passenger/pilot takes over while the plane is straight and level. There would be several hours of fuel on the plane, and ATC would have time to get an _experienced pilot of that type of plane on the radio_. With a lot of back and forth talk of airspeeds, flaps, power settings, angle of attack, isn’t it possible that the passenger/pilot could be “talked down” to a successful landing? (Especially if he had experience shooting ILS approaches)? **AV8R** if we accept that the passengers are in control of the airplane and someone with some flight experience is sitting in the left seat, the biggest danger is the first few minutes. As **LSLGuy** said, even small control inputs can become very big problems very quickly. The person would have to maintain straight and level flight while figuring out how to communicate with ATC. If they are smart they’d put someone in the right seat to work the radios while the guy/gal in the left seat concentrates solely on flying. If they can survive the minutes it takes to get someone familiar with the 757 on the line, the next steps would be turning the autopilot back on. I think we’ve had this discussion before, but the airplane in question was capable of an autoland. Rather than have a light-airplane pilot attempt to land a 757, they would talk the pilot through setting up the autoflight system so the airplane would land itself. Once again, this would most likely take two people. One to talk, and one to program “the box”. What airspeeds to fly, when to configure, the ILS frequency, etc have to be dialed in while the airplane is keeping itself right-side up. It would be VERY stressful for the poor soul in the left seat, but would offer a higher chance of success than attempting to land it manually. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/24 "2004-03-26T20:38:02Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > I’d hardly call that credible. I agree. I was only offering a link I found. FWIW, perhaps an investigation by a credible news agency looking into the witness allegations is in order. It should be relatively easy to establish any credibility as to witness staments concerning the mysterious white plane, the comment one of the main engines crashed some distance from the main crash site and the alleged seismic recording of an explosion. Even if it could be established that one of the main engines did indeed crash some distance from the rest of the plane, basic research could determine whether an ordinary (ordinary?) crash of this type would cause an engine to separate and crash some distance away. Until the FBI releases a report (the NTSB web sites states the FBI is in charge of the investigation), speculation will remain. Eyewitness accounts of events are notoriously inaccurate. If we follow just the evidence claims, this should support or refute the eyewitness accounts. ---
**Author:** ![Flash-57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/839c29/32.png) [@Flash-57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flash-57)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/25 "2004-03-26T21:08:34Z")
> [@Cillasi](#): > > I think we shot it down … and the truth was quashed. Now, I’m not a military expert, but it seems to me that a plane that was shot down in mid-flight would have had a much larger debris field than Flight 93 had. Heck, when the most-recent space shuttle broke up, debris was scattered over 4 or 5 states. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/26 "2004-03-26T22:15:17Z")
> [@Flash-57](#): > > Now, I’m not a military expert, but it seems to me that a plane that was shot down in mid-flight would have had a much larger debris field than Flight 93 had. Yep. 93 left a crater, ergo it hit the ground intact. Maybe the mysterious white plane got ahead of the airliner and shot a cloud of Bat-Webbing into the jet engines and over the wings, which reshaped the airfoil of the wings and disrupted the vehicle’s lift, causing a stall, and then the webbing magically evaporated ten minutes later, leaving a crashed aircraft with no obvious cause. The perfect crime. Yeah, that’s it. That’s what happened. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2004, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/27 "2004-03-26T23:51:18Z")
> [@Cillasi](#): > > IMHO, I don’t think the powers that be thought the American people could handle the idea of our fighter jets shooting down a civilian aircraft, despite what had already happened at the WTC and the Pentagon, and the truth was quashed. Strange, then that shortly after the disaster, Vice-President Cheney confirmed on “Meet the Press” that the President had given the order to shoot down any plane that refused to respond, even a domestic airliner, and that they were willing to justify that decision. As summarised [here](http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/962011/detail.html): > [@](#): > > Cheney: President Gave Shootdown Order For Flight 93 > > After the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush gave the military orders to intercept and shoot down any commercial airliners that refused instructions to turn away from Washington, Vice President Dick Cheney said Sunday. > > “I wholeheartedly concurred in the decision he made, that if the plane would not divert, if they wouldn’t pay any attention to instructions to move away from the city, as a last resort our pilots were authorized to take them out,” Cheney said on “Meet the Press.” > > … > > That plane crashed in a rural area of southwestern Pennsylvania. “As it turned out, we did not have to execute on that decision,” Cheney said. > > “People say that’s a horrendous decision to make. Well, it is. You’ve got an airplane full of American citizens – civilians – captured by terrorists. Are you going to in fact shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those Americans on board?” > > … > > "If we … had the opportunity to take out the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center, would we have been justified in doing it? I think absolutely we would have. " If they had actually shot it down and wanted to cover it up, why would Cheney confirm that they had the order from Bush to do so? Also, Cheney’s basic approach to force is to use it and admit it, since he thinks that’s one of the best way to impress one’s enemies that you’re serious. Covering up would go contrary to all his instincts on the use of force. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 7:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/28 "2004-03-27T07:50:23Z")
> [@AV8R](#): > > With a lot of back and forth talk of airspeeds, flaps, power settings, angle of attack, isn’t it possible that the passenger/pilot could be “talked down” to a successful landing? (Especially if he had experience shooting ILS approaches)? I realize this question wasn’t directed at me, but I am a lightplane pilot and I do shoot ILS approaches. I don’t think that ILS experience would do me much good in a jumbo jet, however. You need experience in a particular airplane to shoot a good ILS (it takes precision on the controls), and since I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout flyin’ no jumbos I can’t imagine I’d do anything like a decent job of it the first time. Myself, I’d opt for the “HELP! Someone tell me how to program this thing for autoland!” solution. > [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > Was the data from the flight recorder analyzed? What did it show? Flight 93 was the only one of the four hijacked planes where the black boxes were recovered with information intact so yes, it has been analyzed. The results, however, have not been released as far as I know. Apparently the FBI is sitting on them. > [@](#): > > Can the ATC force a mic in the cockpit to transmit sound?? No. > [@BobT](#): > > So, I shouldn’t be expecting an Airport '75 scenario and having one of the flight attendants flying the plane and then expecting an experienced pilot to be dropped into the plane in midair using a tether? Tee-hee-hee. No. > [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > Keep in mind that no matter who is talking a non-pilot down, acclimation to the controls takes a LONG time. It isn’t like playing a video game, and a novice is likely to use much bigger inputs than a pilot would, resulting in much bigger corrective movements, and before you know if the plane is madly yawing up and down in an the aerial equivalent of a fishtail. Actually, the term I hear most often is “porpoising” Anyhow - _over_control is more of a problem with aircraft than undercontrol. As a general rule (very general) the more high performance an aircraft, the less force and movement needed to control it. And another major difference between real-life jumbo jet flying and video games (including MS Flight Simulator) is that in real life there is not “reset” button. “Game over” is quite final. This adds yet another layer of pressure-to-perform whose effect can be quite detrimental. > [@Duckster](#): > > Even if it could be established that one of the main engines did indeed crash some distance from the rest of the plane, basic research could determine whether an ordinary (ordinary?) crash of this type would cause an engine to separate and crash some distance away. If the plane was making wild gyrations prior to the crash it IS possible that an engine tore free. Engines have dropped off airplanes before - there was a rather spectacular case of this in Chicago with a DC-10 some decades back if I recall correctly. And all points about airplanes potentially going from “everything is fine, straight and level” to bizarre movements to impact and death in less than a minute is quite possible. When something goes wrong at altitude it can go very wrong very fast. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/29 "2004-03-27T09:21:07Z")
This is my take on the link posted by **Duckster**. Throughout, please keep in mind that eyewitness reports can be extremely unreliable, particularly when the witness is inexperienced in the area under question - in this case, non-pilots frequently do not have the knowledge to understand what they are seeing, and even pilots can be poor eyewitnesses to a crash. > [@](#): > > THE unmarked military-style jet swooped down at high speed through the valley, twice circled the smouldering black scar where Flight 93 had careered into the ground just seconds earlier and then hurtled off over the horizon. OK, just what the does this mean? What is “unmarked”? No tail numbers whatsoever? No military insignia? A really boring paint job? What is “military-style”? An actual military airplane? What the average Joe _thinks_ a military plane should look like, frequently meaning a fighter? (Actually, most military planes look pretty much like boring civilian planes - tankers, freighters, cargo carriers… the fighters are a minority) What does all this “swooping” and “hurtling” mean? Was the speed unusual - or was the plane just unusually low? (The closer an object is to you, the faster it appears to go). I’ve had plenty of folks comment about how fast we pilots land at the local airport compared to how we fly at altitude, but the fast is, landing speed is half (or even less) of cruise speed - it’s an illusion of distance that makes cruise seem slower than landing, nothing more. If a jet was lower than folks normally see one fly it may well _appear_ to be moving at high speed when, in fact, it may be flying _slower_ than usual. > [@](#): > > At least six eyewitnesses saw the mysterious aircraft on the morning of September 11 last year. But the US authorities deny it ever existed. That’s not the story I heard. I heard it was a business jet on its way to land per the national “get on the ground” order asked by ATC to divert to check out the crash site, confirm the plane had crashed, then asked to get their butt on the ground like everyone else. Which is 100% consistent with the eyewitness accounts of a jet “swooping” in, circling briefly, then leaving. > [@](#): > > So when George Bush laid a wreath yesterday at the crash site in a remote valley outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, he was one of only a handful of people who know what really happened to the 40 innocents and four hijackers aboard the doomed United Airlines Boeing 757-200. The Prez had no more clue than the rest of us. Truth is, even if everything the FBI, NTSB, and the Mysterious Mythical Spook Squads was aired in public we still wouldn’t know “what really happened” those last minutes/seconds on Flight 93. I’m sorry if that bothers anyone, but sometimes _you just don’t know_. Not every question has an answer, this isn’t a novel or Hollywood movie where a scriptwriter can give you insight into the final seconds with artsy camera angles and stuff. It’s real life. And in real life, sometimes questions remain. This doesn’t require a government conspiracy, just the very human _lack_ of omniscience. > [@](#): > > What was the white jet doing there and why won’t they admit to its presence? The government denies the presence of a _military_ jet. Do you know how many “white jets” there are in service? _Thousands._ It like asking someone to describe a car they saw and you get an answer of “it was a blue, four-door sedan”. Gee, that narrows it down to one in several thousand. > [@](#): > > Why did other witnesses see smoke and flames trailing from Flight 93 as it fell from the sky, indicating a possible explosion aboard? This was typed by a weasel, right? I mean _possible explosion_, really! I saw smoke come out the tailpipe of a motorcycle last Saturday night, it was a _possible explosion_. It does not require an explosion to produce smoke, or even fire, from an airplane engine. I’ll like the jumbo pilots delve into that if they care to do so, but I just have to be really skeptical of a statement like that. > [@](#): > > Or - and this is proving to be the most uncomfortable question of all - in the moments before the airliner piled into the black, spongey earth at 575mph did an American fighter pilot have to do the unthinkable and shoot down a US civil airliner? I’m not sure why, in the context of that day, this question is uncomfortable at all. Aside from the willingness the current administration has shown to commit violence and mayhem, I fail to see how admitting to a shoot-down would be seen in a bad light. A lot of people have _criticized_ the goverment for _not_ shooting down the hijacked airplanes. This administration has _nothing to lose_ by admitting a shoot-down. It just doesn’t make sense. And if the airplane WAS doing 575 mph just prior to impact, AND doing some strange manuvering brought on by a struggle for cockpit control, it is entirely possible that the forces actually on the airplane might have started a break-up, leading to the shedding of parts - including an engine. But, again, I’ll let people more knowledgable about big Boeings comment on that. I’ll _certainly_ take the word of the jumbo pilots here over a reportor at the _Mirror_. > [@](#): > > Susan Mcelwain, 51, who lives two miles from the site, knows what she saw - the white plane rocketed directly over her head. “Rocketed” Lovely word. Is is a jet? Or is it now a rocket-propelled craft? Nice choice of words to slant the story, don’t you think? Definitely gives an impression of excessive speed, yes? > [@](#): > > “It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50ft above my mini-van,” she recalled. "It was so low I ducked instinctively. It was travelling real fast, but hardly made any sound. IF an airplane was traveling at 500+ mph and IF it overflew a “minivan” by a mere 40 or 50 feet I would expect the woman would have mentioned something about being buffeted by the airplane’s wake. Trust me, she would have noticed. Most people do not really have a good idea of just how big one of these planes really are - their experience with them these days is largely through a jetway into a small door, which doesn’t give you a grasp of the sheer _size_ of these things. Most folks I know grossly underestimate the altitude of an airplane passing overhead. I’ll admit **I** tend to grossly underestimate their altitude and their size and I’m a pilot! Those things are _huge_. > [@](#): > > "Then it disappeared behind some trees. A few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured the jet had crashed. The ground really shook. So I dialled 911 and told them what happened. Did she see the “mystery jet” - or maybe it was _Flight 93_ she saw go over her head? > [@](#): > > I didn’t think much more about it until the authorities started to say there had been no other plane. The plane I saw was heading right to the point where Flight 93 crashed and must have been there at the very moment it came down. Again - maybe it WAS Flight 93 she saw go down? At 500+ mph there’s no way she could have gotten a really good look at the airplane. The plane she saw WAS at the crash site at the moment of the crash _because it was the crashing airplane!_. At least, that seems a reasonable explanation to me. > [@](#): > > "There’s no way I imagined this plane - it was so low it was virtually on top of me. It was white with no markings but it was definitely military, it just had that look. WTF does THAT mean? “It had the look” :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side. I haven’t found one like it on the internet. It definitely wasn’t one of those executive jets. OK… she’s viewing this airplane _from below_, right? not the usual perspective, correct? Is her description accurate, or influenced by the unusual viewing angle, altitude, and speed? I’d have trouble identifying a car that passed me at 100 mph - how accurate would I be regarding a vehicle passing at 500 mph? Much less so. > [@](#): > > "Then they changed their story and tried to say it was a plane taking pictures of the crash 3,000ft up. This is pretty darn strange - supposedly an airplane overflew the scene to _observe_ but this is the first I’ve heard about “taking pictures”. Has “observe” somehow fermented in this witnesses brain and become “photograph”? How reliable is this witness? Has anything influenced her memory of events? > [@](#): > > "But I saw it and it was there before the crash and it was 40ft above my head. Big Boeing pilots - what would you reckon would be the effect of a jet passing overhead at 40 feet at 500+ mph? Seems to me you’d get knocked around a bit, that would be a mighty brisk breeze as the thing went by, wouldn’t it? > [@](#): > > Mrs Mcelwain, who looks after special needs children, is further convinced the whole truth has yet to come out because of a phone call she had within hours from the wife of an air force friend of the family. So… that’s a wife of a friend of a friend story? That’s even less reliable than a friend of a friend story, right? > [@](#): > > "She said her husband had called her that morning and said ‘I can’t talk, but we’ve just shot a plane down,’ " Susan said There is an entire thread about “mysterious news events” reported on 9/11/01, most of which I remember hearing about on the news, most of which _never happened_ [Mysterious news reports of other incidents on 9/11/2001](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=246296&highlight=news+events) Come to think of it, that was another **Mojo Jomo** thread… > [@](#): > > “If they shot it down, or something else happened, everyone, especially the victims’ families, have a right to know.” OK, yeah, sure - and if they _don’t know_ exactly what happened folks have a right to know that to, although it appears to many that is not an acceptable answer whether it is truthful or not. And even if we DID know exactly what happened AND the truth was told some whacko conspiracy theorist would still be in the wings offering alternative explanation(s). > [@](#): > > He was working at the Rollock Inc. scrapyard on a ridge overlooking the point of impact, less than half a mile away. “I heard this real loud noise coming over my head,” he told the Daily Mirror. “I looked up and it was Flight 93, barely 50ft above me. It was coming down in a 45 degree and rocking from side to side. Then the nose suddenly dipped and it just crashed into the ground. There was this big fireball and then a huge cloud of smoke.” Huh. It’s 50 feet above him, coming down at a 45 degree angle, _but it hits a mile away_. That doesn’t add up. It’s _impossible_. Especially if, just prior to impact, the nose suddenly drops to an even _steeper_ angle. Either he’s way off on the angle of approach, or else that airplane was a lot higher than he thought it was when it went over him. > [@](#): > > But did he see another plane? “Yes, there was another plane,” Lee said. “I didn’t get a good look but it was white and it circled the area about twice and then it flew off over the horizon.” OK… I have no problem with this. He saw a second plane, admitted he didn’t get that good a look, it circled and left. Which jibes with the story I heard about a business jet taking a look then departing. > [@](#): > > India Lake also contributes to the view there was an explosion on board before the Newark-San Francisco flight came down. Debris rained down on the lake - a curious feat if, as the US government insists, there was no mid-air explosion and the plane was intact until it hit the ground. An airplane does not have to explode in order to break up in flight. > [@](#): > > “It was mainly mail, bits of in-flight magazine and scraps of seat cloth,” Tom said. “The authorities say it was blown here by the wind.” But there was only a 10mph breeze and you were a mile and a half away? Tom raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes and said: “Yeah, that’s what they reckon.” In other words, it was _lightweight_ debris that could have been thrown up into the air by the force of impact, then on descent carried by a light breeze. Also, just because the wind at ground level is 10 mph doesn’t mean the wind 100 feet higher isn’t stronger - particularly in air disturbed by the recent passage of a jet. > [@](#): > > Light debris was also found eight miles away in New Baltimore. A section of engine weighing a ton was located 2,000 yards - over a mile -from the crash site. Theorists point out a Sidewinder heat-seeking missile attacks the hottest part of aircraft - the engine. > > The authorities say the impact bounced it there. But the few pieces of surviving fuselage, local coroner Wallace Miller told us, were “no bigger than a carrier bag”. If the airplane was coming in at over 500 mph and “rocking” from side to side as one eyewitness described it might have been on the verge of a break-up even if it was _mostly_ intact at impact. Yes, a sidewinder targets the engines - and an engine part was found a little over a mile away. Are these two facts related? Or just juxtaposed? Was that engine fragment burned, charred, or otherwise marred by the evidence of an explosion? Or was the metal sheared, as if by blunt force or other physical twisting, rending, ripping forces? THAT’s the critical question to ask. If the engines were rear-mounted on Flight 93 (were they? I don’t know) then they would have been on the last part of the airplane to hit the ground and thus subjected to less force than the from of the airplane. I would expect bigger pieces from the rear of the airplane for that reason. I also have to ask what expertise a local coroner has in investigating plane crashes or analysing the forces involved based on the wreckage. > [@](#): > > Nearly all the passengers were reduced to charcoal on impact and the largest piece of human tissue found was a section of spine eight inches long. Nice gruesome touch. And factually wrong. Impact does not “reduce” a person to charcol, _fire_ does that. Impact can certainly rip someone apart, but it takes heat, and lots of it, to crispy-critter a human body. At best, this is very sloppy writing. > [@](#): > > CURIOUSLY, military officials insist there was never any pursuit of Flight 93, although they were informed that it was a suspected hijack at 9.16am, 50 minutes before the plane came down. Lack of pursuit of the hijacked airplanes has been covered in other threads on these message boards. I’m getting a little tired here, though, and I’ll skip fussing with the link. > [@](#): > > A few minutes before the crash Bill Wright, piloting a single-engine Piper, could see Flight 93 three miles away, but was suddenly told to turn away and land immediately without explanation. First of all, anyone in a “single engine Piper” is going to stay the heck away from a big jet. You don’t have to be told to turn away. Second, EVERYBODY FLYING ABOVE THE ENTIRE US had been told to **land immediately** with no explanation given other than “national emergency”. This is not news. This is not mysterious. It is _irrelevant_ to the crash of Flight 93, at least as far as causes of the crash are concerned… > [@](#): > > At 9.58am a 911 call - the last mobile phone contact from Flight 93 - was made from one of the airliner’s toilets by passenger Edward Felt. > > Glenn Cramer, the emergency supervisor who answered it, said on the day: "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.” This is pretty darn vague. “Some explosion” - what? A ball of fire? An engine backfire? What? “White smoke” - it doesn’t require an _explosion_ to generate smoke from an engine. A freakin’ _bird strike_ could do this - I know, because I was riding on a jumbo that once sucked up a bird into an engine and it got plenty scary for a bit. But it _wasn’t_ an explosion, not by a long shot, despite the bang and the smoke. > [@](#): > > Glenn Cramer has now been gagged by the FBI. Really? I am dubious. Or perhaps he was informed that it wasn’t a good idea to speculate about a crime under investigation, which isn’t that much different from other criminal cases where the authorities don’t like to see irresponsible speculation from the media. > [@](#): > > Also, according to sources, the last seconds of the cockpit voice recorder are the loud sounds of wind, hinting at a possible hole somewhere in the fuselage. What caused the smoke and explosion? Why the wind sounds? WHAT sources? The only people who have heard those tapes are the investigators involved, and the relatives of those aboard. Who spilled the beans? This isn’t something you can download off the Internet. And look at all the qualifiers: “hinting”, “possible” - c’mon! There might have been smoke - but I’m not yet convinced of an actual explosion. Wind sounds could be the sound of air rushing past a fuselage at high speed - there is _always_ the sound of wind inside a moving airplane. That background noise you hear isn’t just the engines. > [@](#): > > The FBI’s later explanation for the white jet was that a passing civilian Fairchild Falcon 20 jet was asked to descend from 34,000ft to 5,000ft some minutes after the crash to give co-ordinates for the site. The plane and pilot have never been produced or identified. Why should they be? Do we routinely publish the photos, names, and addresses of every witness to a crime scene? Perhaps the pilot(s) involved asked not to be identified - hey, I sure wouldn’t want every flake and conspiracy nut bothering me about what I saw. > [@](#): > > Susan Mcelwain says a Falcon 20 was not the plane she saw. Right. And she’s an idiot. It’s got rear mounted engines, right? It’s a sort of T-tail, which from below might look “spoiler like”. Doesn’t strike me as a total mis-match to her description. > [@](#): > > FURTHER verification that some kind of military aircraft was operating in the area is scientifically irrefutable. > > At 9.22am a sonic boom - caused by supersonic flight - was picked up by an earthquake monitoring station in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles from Shanksville. Do you have any idea how many military jets are in the air on a _normal_ day? The presence of a military jet, even pre-9/11, was not that remarkable. A sonic boom 60 miles away may or may not be related to Flight 93. This is another juxtaposition of facts that may or may not be related. > [@](#): > > But nobody - official or otherwise - has categorically said the group got into the cockpit or that their actions led to the crash. Those final, agonising moments are mere presumption. As is most of this article. No one has “categorically” said anything because _nobody alive knows the answer_ > [@](#): > > President Bush and his team have the whole story. So why aren’t they telling the rest of us? What if the truth is _they don’t know?_ > [@](#): > > Sources claim the last thing heard on the cockpit voice recorder is the sound of wind - suggesting the plane had been holed Or it’s the sound of wind passing over the site _after_ the crash - the box did, after all, survive the crash and it’s not unknown for them to capture a brief time post-crash. At best, sloppy journalism. More likely, in my opinion, it’s twisting a story to sell more papers and truth can go hang. I’m not impressed. ---
**Author:** ![jimmmy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@jimmmy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimmmy)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/30 "2004-03-27T14:19:37Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Flight 93 was the only one of the four hijacked planes where the black boxes were recovered with information intact so yes, it has been analyzed. The results, however, have not been released as far as I know. Apparently the FBI is sitting on them. Hail to thee Broomstick on some fine points. I bow to your superior knowledge and information. I would quibble with the quoted statement however. The FBI has allowed the families of the 93 Hero-victims to listen to the cockpit recordings. The families were allowed to ask the FBI questions on thier analysis. [http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/911/showcase/chi-020419flight93,0,2369725.story](http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/specials/911/showcase/chi-020419flight93,0,2369725.story) ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/31 "2004-03-27T15:43:11Z")
> [@Really Not All That Bright](#): > > The Phoenix was, IIRC, designed _specifically_ for the F-14. For whatever reason nothing else can be mounted on the pods closest to the engine nacelles. It’s also a really damn big missile, and probably too heavy for the F-16. If I may hijack… The AIM-54 weighs about a thousand pounds. The multipurpose weapons rail and LAU-93 used on an F-14 weigh about the same but there is no nice flat fuselage bottom on an F-16 to mount them on anyway. The F-16 regularly carries heavier bomb loads under its wings but a moot point as its fire control radar is not designed for the AIM-54 anyway. The AIM-54 does okay at long range on targets that don’t do a lot of evasive maneuvering and has look down capability so it may well be suited to that task. That may be a moot point considering rules of engagement. I don’t think any US pilots would be ordered to shoot a civilain airliner that is out of close visual range. They’d want to make damn sure they are sure what they are firing at. I know it was possible to read side numbers at ten miles with the F-14’s television camera but I suspect they’d want to be much closer still. Not sure what you mean by the “pods closest to the engine nacelles.” If you mean the pylons under the wing roots this is not true. Each pylon can carry two missles. An AIM-9 (sidewinder) on the sideways facing B rail and any other missle (AIM-9, AIM-7, AIM-54 AMRAAM) on the downward A rail. The AIM-9 launches by its motor fire by sliding straight forward off the rail. Other missles, all radar guided, launch by first being ejected downwards by explosive charges in the launcher before the motor is fired. I have seen AIM-7s mounted there often but never an AIM-54 due to logistics of safely lifting an heavy missle that high. AIM-54s are carried on the belly stations between the engines but I’ve never seen more than two because mounting them on the rear stations can cause an aft GC problem. ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/32 "2004-03-27T16:02:13Z")
> [@](#): > > "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side. I haven’t found one like it on the internet. It definitely wasn’t one of those executive jets. The FBI came and talked to me and said there was no plane around. That sounds **exactly** like an executive jet, probably a [**Gulfstream**](http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/images/g4-1.jpg) or [**Lear**](http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=244705&PHPSESSID=6c707770865e5a465c20bb52ab3eddc3). Rear mounted engines are the norm for bizjets. A T-tail looks like a spoiler on a car and the two upright fins at the side are the winglets at the wing tips. The observations may have been correct but IMO the conclusion is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/33 "2004-03-27T16:14:41Z")
> [@jimmmy](#): > > Hail to thee Broomstick on some fine points. I bow to your superior knowledge and information. Thank you, thank you. > [@](#): > > I would quibble with the quoted statement however. The FBI has allowed the families of the 93 Hero-victims to listen to the cockpit recordings. The families were allowed to ask the FBI questions on thier analysis. My second post did mention the relatives had heard the tape. However, I do not assume that the average person is qualified to make any sort of substantive analysis of such a tape. I don’t think the average pilot is, either. I’m certainly not. I do think allowing the families to listen to the tape was a right and proper thing. I believe that it shows the families just how scanty the information is the FBI and NTSB has to work with. I think it can be… I don’t know, maybe not comforting, but it may fill a need to learn everything possible about their relatives’ deaths. I am still adamantly opposed to _public_ release of ANY cockpit voice recording, however. It would be nothing but voyeurism, on part with publishing morgue and autopsy photos. I feel you need a justification for seeing/hearing the last minutes of a human life, or the shattered remains of an accident or crime victim, beyond just idle curiousity. Actually, re-reading my prior posts, they’re remarkably coherent for having been written at 3:30 am. Apologies for any spelling errors or lack of clarity, I _was_ half asleep. ---
**Author:** ![Shrinking\_Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/34 "2004-03-27T17:07:36Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Or it’s the sound of wind passing over the site _after_ the crash - the box did, after all, survive the crash and it’s not unknown for them to capture a brief time post-crash. Is this possible? I thought the voice recording mechanism would be in the cockpit, and the box is (usually) in the tail - I don’t see how this would survive the impact and continue recording? ---
**Author:** ![pilot141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e0b2c6/32.png) [@pilot141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pilot141)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/35 "2004-03-27T17:37:39Z")
Wow, good post **Broomstick**. I’ll add that your assertions about people’s inability to gauge aircraft altitude are spot on. Heck, I’ve flown military low-level routes in a bizjet (T-1/Beech 400) at 500 feet and 300 knots, and people on the ground are hard pressed to even identify the type of aircraft. If I was (according to the one witness) TEN TIMES lower (flying at 50 feet) and 200 knots faster, the airplane would be over her head before she heard it, and she would be buffeted crazily with turbulence and noise after I flew by. Jeez, fifty feet above the ground is only safe for helicopters. In a previous life I flew big transports, and there were special qualifications to fly at 500 feet, and even more specialized qualifications and training (and equipment) to fly at 300 feet. It is a BIG DEAL to go from 500 feet to 300 feet AGL in the big-airplane world. My conclusion is that this witness saw the Falconjet that was vectored into the area, but her assumptions about speed and altitude are wildly inaccurate. For a reference, use an airshow experience. The USAF Thunderbirds get a lot of waivers, but they still must maintain a minimum of 500 feet above people. That means that when that solo F-16 sneaks up on you from behind at near-supersonic speed, he’s 500 feet up. Seems a lot lower, doesn’t it? As to this: > [@](#): > > At 9.58am a 911 call - the last mobile phone contact from Flight 93 - was made from one of the airliner’s toilets by passenger Edward Felt. > > Glenn Cramer, the emergency supervisor who answered it, said on the day: "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.” Anything out of the ordinary can sound like “an explosion”. The 757 has pod-mounted underwing engines. During extreme maneuvering one of these engines may physically depart the aircraft. The snapping of metal as it separates would sound like an explosion. This could also rupture fuel lines and even the fuel tanks if the engine hit the wing. Guess what jet fuel streaming from a wing looks like? Yep, white smoke. I don’t expect a passenger on a hijacked airliner to say “Hmm, that looks like Jet-A atomizing as it enters the airstream”, though. I would expect someone investigating this to explore some other options, rather than taking everything said by witnesses as irrefutable truth. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/36 "2004-03-27T20:00:22Z")
Well, yeah, I have started two threads on 9/11 lately because that horrible morning still haunts me. It was an enormous trauma for my country and I still seek to understand exactly how it happened. I hope someday I’ll be able to let go of it, but as of now the memories still trouble me. Especially since it affected me personally, as I was working at a DoD site that morning and my family was at home near Dulles where a rogue plane (a rumored sighting of Flight 93, probably) was said to have been sighted. I’ve been following the “9/11 Unanswered Questions” thread over at Salon Table Talk and trying to sort out the unfounded conspiracy theories from actual information. Also, please note my Doper name is **Jomo** Mojo. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Zamboni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@The\_Great\_Zamboni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Zamboni)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/37 "2004-03-27T20:58:42Z")
I have no investigative experience, but even I know that “corner-of-the-eye” witnesses tend to become very ignorant of what happened. They fill in details to give reporters what they want to hear and give investigators meaningless or false information. Most of these people are trying to figure out the situation themselves and may believe they saw something that never occured. Regarding the crash of Flight 93, it was definately a crash, not an explosion. On one news program, I watched video shot from overhead that showed a large crater and marks where the wings had hit. The plane looked to have hit at a high, possibly cruising speed, but I don’t really know. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/38 "2004-03-27T22:58:07Z")
> [@Shrinking Violet](#): > > > [@Broomstick](#): > > > > Or it’s the sound of wind passing over the site after the crash - the box did, after all, survive the crash and it’s not unknown for them to capture a brief time post-crash. > > Is this possible? I thought the voice recording mechanism would be in the cockpit, and the box is (usually) in the tail - I don’t see how this would survive the impact and continue recording? I wouldn’t call it a common phenomena, but plane crashes are a bit capricious. Also, a small, lightweight object is more likely to survive a crash than a large, heavyweight object. A microphone is a small, lightweight object, and a CVR or FDR blackbox is designed to survive a crash. If the wires linking them don’t snap immediately - admittedly a tall order, since, as you pointed out, the mike is in the front of the airplane and the black boxes usually towards the rear - then yes, it is possible for post-crash sounds to be recorded for a _very_ brief time. If a post-crash fire doesn’t destroy the link, then lack of power to drive the recorder will bring a halt to the proceedings. Recall that a video tape survived the crash of the _Columbia_, a crash involving even greater speeds, temperatures, and forces than a plane crash. Sometimes something (or even some_one_) is just in the right place at the right time to ride out an accident. In reference to **pilot141** ’s last post - if Flight 93 was a 757 it would have a particularly vicious wake for an airplane its size. ATC is _constantly_ warning folks to watch out for the wake, which can cause problems even for a much bigger airplane than a 757. If one really did zoom by directly overhead at 50 feet I’d expect it would be rather like sitting in a hurricaine - and I don’t mean the eye part of the storm. No mention of the breeze? Then it had to be some distance away, much farther than 50 feet. > [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > Also, please note my Doper name is **Jomo** Mojo. Noted, and my apologies. Boys and girls, post carefully, particularly when afflicted with insomnia in the wee hours ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/39 "2004-03-29T03:26:04Z")
> [@sunfish](#): > > > [@Broomstick](#): > > > > Remember that airplanes follow Newtonian physics. If they’re in motion then tend to stay in motion. Then tend to continue along their course until something alters that course. So, in cruise flight, assuming the airplane is optimally trimmed (that is, adjusted for maximum efficiency and minimum need to fuss with stuff) and the atmosphere is calm, if you take your hands and feet off the controls the airplane will tend to continue at the same speed, altitude and heading. Even if you don’t have the autopilot on. > > Isn’t this essentially what happened with Payne Stewart’s plane? IIRC it only crashed once it ran out of fuel. Before this thread retires, I thought I’d give an answer to this: Yes, that is essentially what happened to the Payne Stewart charter Lear. The problem happened during climb, the jet continued to climb until it reached an equilibrium point, then continued on until running out of fuel. Since it was configured to climb rather than land, the resulting descent ended in an impact rather than a touch down. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503/40 "2004-03-29T05:04:24Z")
> [@Padeye](#): > > That sounds **exactly** like an executive jet, probably a [**Gulfstream**](http://www.aoc.noaa.gov/images/g4-1.jpg) or [**Lear**](http://www.jetphotos.net/viewphoto.php?id=244705&PHPSESSID=6c707770865e5a465c20bb52ab3eddc3). Rear mounted engines are the norm for bizjets. A T-tail looks like a spoiler on a car and the two upright fins at the side are the winglets at the wing tips. The observations may have been correct but IMO the conclusion is wrong. And it sounds exactly NOT like an F-16, which does not have a T-shaped tail and has only one, centrally mounted, engine, with the intake underneath the front of the fuselage. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-caused-hijacked-flight-93-to-crash/236503.md?page=3)