I live near Camp David and have been there many times and I can’t see any real reason to hit it. There are no people that really live directly in the area so all you’d take out is a camp. I can somewhat see the symbolisam of it but not really.
I’ve heard that another good place to hit would be Ft Detrick in Frederick, MD I actually own a house less than one mile from there and know that it’s a major comm center for the US.
Personally I think it was heading for something in DC, the White House or the Capitol, though the Pentagon is another intersting idea that I hadn’t thought about.
Hitting the city that is home to Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, etc. would surely be a slap in the face to America.
A listener who was near the Somerset crash site called in to a radio station I had on this morning. He said that before the plane went down, there were one or two loud explosions after which flames errupted on the plane. This suggests that the plane itself was shot down, then fell.
Another caller said that the plane seemed to take a nosedive directly into the ground, suggesting that the pilot may have realized what was happening and decided to crash the plane as quickly as possible.
[slight hijack]
Has anyone noticed the importance of yesterday’s date?
September 11 = 9/11 = 911
My room mates were also saying that yesterday was World Peace Day, a day we as a nation helped found. This was absent from all news reports. Are my roommies wrong about the date or was it just overlooked by the press?
I believe it is a strong possibility that the Pennsylvania flight was actually shot down by the military. By the time that it was hijacked, we were starting to become aware of what was happening and it would have been absolutely necessary to shoot down any more planes that were hijacked. If it was shot down, a rural area would be the best choice for the location. The reason that this information may not have been released is that the news of shooting down one of our own passenger jets would be to much to much to bear for the Americvan people and we did not really know what was happening or how people would react at that time.
It’s remotely possible that it was shot down, but that would assume an amazingly fast response by the FAA, National Command Authority, and the military. There is no formal communication process in place between the FAA and the Pentagon. Had there been an avenue for passing the kind of information necessary, the attack on the Pentagon could likely been averted.
If the terrorists followed the case as reported in the other hijackings, the flight crew would have been ejected from the flight deck, possibly killed.
Most likely, especially as this has already been reported as being the case, that the passengers and/or crew fought for control of the aircraft. It has been reported that an executive of a biomedical devices company from California made a cell call to his wife, and said something to the effect of “we’re all going to die anyway. Three of us are going to do something”.
That, of course, is the result of using simple weapons in your hijacking: A bunch of pissed-off passengers and crew can put a major kink in the terrorist’s plans.
I don’t understand what explosion he would hear - and be able to tell the dispatcher about - before the plane ditched?? it might lend some credence to reports of the plane being shot down. Or perhaps the plane became overstressed from the steep dive & started breaking up.
I’m thinking that the reporter has accidentally combined two different accounts. I heard reported late yesterday that an eyewitness on the ground reported hearing an explosion and seeing white smoke.
Anyone got links clearing this up one way or another?
If the plane was pushed over into a steep dive and then picked up speed, air rushing over the top of the wings would cool considerably until the water vapor condensed. This would look like white smoke. Further, a quick and drastic change in the stick might cause a bang as flaps etc. try to move quickly against the force of air and the hydrolic pressure builds up very quickly.
I am not saying that this is what happened. I’m not even saying that this is what I think happened. I’m just saying that such a maneuver would cause something that might be taken for an explosion and smoke.
CNN just said that they have been told there had been substantial evidence that the target for the third plane was supposed to have been the White House, not the Pentagon.