[cyslespitocop]

According to interrogation of prisoners who were privy to the 9/11 operation, the capitol building was Flight 93's target. We may never be totally certain, but they say it was, so that's the best we'll get.

As for how the plane went down, it was intentionally ditched by the terrorists. It's not clear if the passengers made it into the cockpit or not, judging by what was said on the flight recorder, it sounds like the terrorists were hoping the door would hold them back, but when it became clear it wouldn't before they got to their target, they put the plane into a nosedive.

[catermos]

Do you know of pictures of the crash site from that day, or where this wreckage was taken? Where did they do forensics on the plane and human remains (usually some large warehouse)?

Here's a website I found with some interesting stuff about this.

United Flight 93

A commercial jet slams into the ground at Mach I. The impact plus fireball are going to make finding human remains a little problematic.

[kertionderf]

What remains were found have been seperated into 3 caskets(for 40 people!) and those will finally be buried at the crash site.

[PriniMai]

According to interrogation of prisoners who were privy to the 9/11 operation, the capitol building was Flight 93's target. We may never be totally certain, but they say it was, so that's the best we'll get.

Had flight 93 hit the Capitol building and a number of legislators were killed we would be living in a very different U.S. and world today. I can't imagine anything resembling restraint would have followed.

[eXC3Kvnn]

In the struggle, either intentionally or accidentally the airplane was likely put into a very steep descent. What happens when that occurs is the airplane will break the speed of sound. Professional pilots have to use extreme caution when doing an emergency descent to avoid this problem. The hijackers certainly weren't professional pilots, and in my opinion this is what ultimately caused flight 93 to crash ... the struggle wound up putting the airplane into a descent during which the speed of sound was broken.

Since commercial airplanes are not designed for mach 1, this ultimately made the engines fall off, gave the sound of an explosion, and made the airplane's descent unrecoverable even if the passengers overpowered the hijackers.

RIP to the innocents on board that airplane.

Flight 93 would have been doomed even if the passengers did manage to get control of the aircraft.

I saw a very interesting C-SPAN interview with F-16 pilot Maj. Heather Penny who said she was going to ram her unarmed F-16 into the tail and her wingman was going to ram the cockpit.

"The people on flight 93 were heros, but they were going to die no matter what." ~~ quoted from Maj. Penny at 23:35 in the video.

[U5pz6B71]

....

The problem with most conspiracy theories is what Benjamin Franklin so eloquently stated: "two people can keep a secret, so long as one of them is dead." In this day and age there is simply too much for an individual to gain by telling, books, movie deals etc.

Along the same lines I recall a statement by a NASA official talking about the claim of the moon landings being faked.

“It would have been easier to have gone to the moon than to have faked it and kept a secret all this time.”

[vioppyskype]

Americans walked on the moon in '69.

They certainly did.

New NASA Photos Show Footprints on the Moon



In new photographs taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we can see the landing sites of some lunar craft, as well as the tracks left by those who flew in them. What creatures left these prints? A semi-dormant species known as the Earth astronaut; to be precise, Alan Bean and Pete Conrad, the crew of the Apollo 12 mission in 1969.

The windless moon preserves tracks in dust pretty nicely. In addition to this Apollo 12 shot, NASA has released images of the Apollo 14 and Apollo 17 landing sites.


New NASA Photos Show Footprints on the Moon | Popular Science

[Kitdowstyhodo]

Had flight 93 hit the Capitol building and a number of legislators were killed we would be living in a very different U.S. and world today. I can't imagine anything resembling restraint would have followed.

It would have also had to have left on time, and it probably would have succeeded then. IT leaving late allowed the passengers to learn about the WTC, which told them they were doomed if they didn't take back the plane.

But even if they'd completely failed to stop Flight 93, because it was late, everyone had left the Capitol Building.

[rozneesitcn]

Flight 93 would have been doomed even if the passengers did manage to get control of the aircraft.

I saw a very interesting C-SPAN interview with F-16 pilot Maj. Heather Penny who said she was going to ram her unarmed F-16 into the tail and her wingman was going to ram the cockpit.

"The people on flight 93 were heros, but they were going to die no matter what." ~~ quoted from Maj. Penny at 23:35 in the video.

That doesn't sound right to me. Weren't they nowhere near the plane when it went down? If the plane has changed direction again and the passengers had radioed that they had control, sounds like plenty of time to call off the fighters.

[DrBrightonone]

May we never forget the courage and sacrifice of the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93, who lost their lives not as victims but as heroes fighting back against the attack on our nation that day.

Hear, Hear! (Or is it 'Here, Here!' I never remember that...)

Many believe that the aircraft was intended to hit the capitol building...

Too bad they didn't know that; a lot of mistakes are made in the heat of battle.

I have no doubt that those people were very brave.
I have considerable doubt that U.S. fighter jets were unable to get to Flight 93 before it went down, and I have even more doubt that debris falling roughly 8 miles from the crash site didn't come from a separate incident before the actual impact of the plane.

I think it was Rutgers, but some University recently released a paper detailing the FAA/NORAD timeline of 9/11. Hijackings are a rare occurance, so having several in parallel overloaded our handling of the situation; furthermore, most air traffic control is handled by each plane sending out a radio beacon ID, which the attackers turned off. For each plane, first they had to determine that the issue wasn't just radio silence due to some comparatively minor problem, then they had to try to find the plane using only basic radar rather than their usual automated tracking equipment while it was 'mixed in' with all the usual air traffic, the finding being either before or after notifying the military, who also had to decide what if any aircraft to scramble from what location, on 'short notice' since we didn't have the expected advance notice of hostile aircraft approaching US airspace from the outside. Apparently a fighter had just gotten into position to track (and potentially shoot down, once it caught up more) the Pentagon plane, and it notified authorities of that crash. They were in the process of determining what planes should intercept 93 (including the unarmed planes mentioned in an earlier post) when it went down on its own.

Interesting that the debris was falling momentarily after the crash, when a 9 mile per hour wind would have taken at least 15 minutes to blow it there, if it were even possible for a burning seat cushion to blow on the wind for over 2 miles.

That would imply the debris was akin to a child's balloon accidentally released while standing in a field, not a piece of an airplane flying at Mach 1+ that may have started to fall apart in flight before the crash dispersed material at initially supersonic speeds.

Had flight 93 hit the Capitol building and a number of legislators were killed we would be living in a very different U.S. and world today. I can't imagine anything resembling restraint would have followed.

True. My first thought is that we'd actually be better off without a goodly number of 'veteran legislators', but I'm not sure that replacements chosen 'in the heat of the moment' might not be worse.

[bunkalapa]

That doesn't sound right to me. Weren't they nowhere near the plane when it went down?

They were between the plane and DC

If the plane has changed direction again and the passengers had radioed that they had control, sounds like plenty of time to call off the fighters.

They were ordered to intercept flight 93.

It crashed 124 miles from DC. Not that far away when you consider that the cruising speed for an F-16 is 577 MPH.

[piramirra]

"I saw a very interesting C-SPAN interview with F-16 pilot Maj. Heather Penny who said she was going to ram her unarmed F-16 into the tail and her wingman was going to ram the cockpit."

They were between the plane and DC

They were ordered to intercept flight 93.

It crashed 124 miles from DC. Not that far away when you consider that the cruising speed for an F-16 is 577 MPH.

Yeah, less than 15 minutes from DC. And why in the world would an unarmed fighter jet be scrambled to stop this plane?

[Rffkwfct]

Yeah, less than 15 minutes from DC. And why in the world would an unarmed fighter jet be scrambled to stop this plane?

Basically because they didn't have time to arm the F-16s.

I highly recommend that those who are interested watch the interview that I linked to. Maj. Penny explains why they had to take off unarmed in detail at around 20 minutes into the video.

Major Heather Penney on September 11, 2001 - C-SPAN Video Library

The passengers of flight 93 likely saved the lives of at least one those F-16 pilots. They were sent on a kamikaze mission to intercept flight 93.

[UriDepkeeks]

Basically because they didn't have time to arm the F-16s.

I highly recommend that those who are interested watch the interview that I linked to. Maj. Penny explains why they had to take off unarmed in detail at around 20 minutes into the video.

Major Heather Penney on September 11, 2001 - C-SPAN Video Library

The passengers of flight 93 likely saved the lives of at least one those F-16 pilots. They were sent on a kamikaze mission to intercept flight 93.

I had no idea about any of that.

"So, you were prepared to take your own life, if necessary to bring down that plane..."

"Of course."

The woman has nerves of granite. What a hero.

Great interview. Thanks

[Breevereurl]

I watched on a documentary that, during 9/11, the American military was still on a Cold War footing, despite the fact that the Cold War ended 10 years previously.

The documentary explained that, during the attacks, there were just three fighter planes defending the 123 million people in America's north eastern states and only 14 on alert for the 48 contiguous states.

[HawksBurnDown]

Actually we were on a post cold war footing. During the cold war we would have had armed fighters in the air or ready to scramble at a moments notice 24/7. After the cold war air defense became lax.

I bet they've always got armed fighters ready to scramble now. I live about 12 miles east of an Air National Guard base and after 9/11 I noticed at least a tenfold increase in the number of fighter jets in the air. Before it was relatively uncommon to see one. Nowadays I see and hear them all the time.