[Nafheense]

On a recent road trip, I visited the Flight 93 National Monument in Shanksville, PA.



This image was taken from the overlook at the temporary memorial site, prior to the dedication of the first phase of the permanent memorial.

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.

There is some debate over what target the cowardly hijackers were flying Flight 93 towards, but there can be no debate that they didn't get to attack their target because of the heroic actions of the passengers and crew aboard the aircraft.

They nearly retook the aircraft when the cowardly hijackers deliberately crashed the plane. We will never know for certain how many lives were saved at the site of the hijackers' intended target, but it may well have been hundreds. Many believe that the aircraft was intended to hit the capitol building, which was occupied by at least a thousand people that day.

In a very real sense, the passengers of Flight 93 were the first Americans to fight back against Al Queda in what would become a massive global "war on terror". May they rest in peace.

[Ekzamenov]

I was going to start a thread over at History to ask about this. Several callers on the Washington Journal this morning talked about Flight 93 as a government conspiracy, (this being the big 9-11 patriotism story). One fellow said that local radio had someone reporting that they saw an explosion before it went down, wondered why he never heard that again. Another saying there were no pieces of the plane found at the crash site. There was an interview yesterday where Cheney said he ordered fighter jets up that morning.

Does anyone know exactly what happened there? Do historians agree with the conventional version?

thanks.

[qikolax]

It was hi-jacked, it went down in that Pennsylvania field.
There were plenty of pieces of wreckage. I'm not aware if the existence of a bomb can be completely discounted but it doesn't change the scenario or the outcome.

[lookanddiscover]

It was hi-jacked, it went down in that Pennsylvania field.
There were plenty of pieces of wreckage. I'm not aware if the existence of a bomb can be completely discounted but it doesn't change the scenario or the outcome.

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.

http://www.flight93crash.com/index.html

[Galinastva]

You know what I always feel badly about whenever I hear of Shanksville? It's ignored because it's not at a major city. The passengers did something incredible that day and yet it's sort of overlooked. I'm not saying some gigantic monument there would make sense, but it's like nobody even really cares about it.

[saopinax]

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.

[Blellurgews]

I was going to start a thread over at History to ask about this. Several callers on the Washington Journal this morning talked about Flight 93 as a government conspiracy, (this being the big 9-11 patriotism story). One fellow said that local radio had someone reporting that they saw an explosion before it went down, wondered why he never heard that again. Another saying there were no pieces of the plane found at the crash site. There was an interview yesterday where Cheney said he ordered fighter jets up that morning.

Does anyone know exactly what happened there? Do historians agree with the conventional version?

thanks.

Both the CVR (cockpit voice recorder) and the FDR (flight data recorder) from Flight 93 were recovered, and they corroborate the "conventional version".

Much like the other 9/11 fair stories (all the steel from the WTC was destroyed, no plane hit the Pentagon, etc), the claim that there was no wreckage in Shanksville is an outright falsehood.

For those who buy into the ridiculous claim that there was no wreckage from Flight 92, here are the State's exhibits from the trial of Moussaoui, which includes photos of the scene and of debris from the aircraft: http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notable...osecution.html

Matt

[fubyFrery]

You know what I always feel badly about whenever I hear of Shanksville? It's ignored because it's not at a major city. The passengers did something incredible that day and yet it's sort of overlooked. I'm not saying some gigantic monument there would make sense, but it's like nobody even really cares about it.

ahoy C-B-M,

i think more 'bout them passengers on the ill fated flight 93 than what happened in NYC and the pentagon.

Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife beginning at 09:30:32 from rows 24 and 25, though he was assigned a seat in row four.[33][41] Burnett explained that the plane had been hijacked by men claiming to have a bomb. He also said that a passenger had been stabbed with a knife and that he believed the bomb threat was a ruse to control the passengers.

[41] During one of Tom Burnett's calls, his wife informed him of the attacks on the World Trade Center and he replied that the hijackers were "talking about crashing this plane ... Oh my God. It's a suicide mission."[42] He ended his last call by saying, "Don't worry, we're going to do something." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93

thar struggle to fight fer that lives be an act that i don't think americans hath fergotten.

- MeadHallPirate

[sarasmid]

For those who buy into the ridiculous claim...

All you truthers out there... please provide all your 'beyond any doubt' evidence of the Bush/Cheney/neocon/Halliburton conspiracy to kill thousands so that they could kill millions to Paul Krugman... a fellow traveler of yours and he'll publish it in the New York Times.

Thanks!

In the mean time, I will ignore you, and everyone around you will know that your penis is indeed larger than your IQ.

[GooogleGuy]

All you truthers out there... please provide all your 'beyond any doubt' evidence of the Bush/Cheney/neocon/Halliburton conspiracy to kill thousands so that they could kill millions to Paul Krugman... a fellow traveler of yours and he'll publish it in the New York Times.

Thanks!

In the mean time, I will ignore you, and everyone around you will know that your penis is indeed larger than your IQ.

ahoy Tsquare,

please present any proof, anythin' whatsover that confirms that Paul Krugman be sympathetic to the "truthers".

- MeadHallPirate

[AutoCadPhotoSHOP]

FDR had no prior knowledge about Pearl Harbor.

Oswald shot Kennedy.

Americans walked on the moon in '69.

Bush/Cheney/Halliburton did not plan 9/11.

Obama is eligible to be POTUS.

OTOH, Elvis may still be alive, I saw him at the grocery store a few years back.

[Ebjjrxrd]

ahoy Tsquare,

please present any proof, anythin' whatsover that confirms that Paul Krugman be sympathetic to the "truthers".

- MeadHallPirate

Gee... and you thought this would be hard

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/cult...ver-stops.html

[himecthekWiff]

Gee... and you thought this would be hard

http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/cult...ver-stops.html

ahoy Tsquare,

thanks fer the link, and in what hath been a proud and mighty tradition ye have established...yer link once more refutes the very point ye seeked to make.

Mr. Krugman says nothin' about the Truthers. he correctly notes that certain parties benefitted wonderfully from the windfalls 'o war, which 'o course be accurate. to suggest that Mr. Krugman be sayin' that the folks ye mentioned plotted fight 93's demise, so they could reap the benefits 'o our decade long war be inaccurate.

Mr. Krugman be sayin' that the memory 'o 9/11 hath been stained by the conduct 'o our nation in the wake 'o that terrible tragedy. when ye look at the decade lost in Iraq...in Afghanistan...the lives we lost and the tens 'o thousands (hundreds 'o thousands) that were maimed and killed, the hundreds 'o millions (or be that hundreds 'o billions, or be trillions 'o dollars?) lost at sea, 'tis hard to say that the unity that came in the wake 'o 9/11 was well spent.

as an aside, i didn't know ye were a robust supporter 'o our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, since yer join date be relatively recent...but now i know.

*bows*

- MeadHallPirate

[Dwnijzhd]

Does anyone have a plausible explanation for how burning debris fell roughly 8 miles from the crash site that day?

[tattcasetle]

I'd be interested in seeing some proof that debris actually fell nearly 8 miles away.

Actually,i am not that interested in seeing what the conspiracy whackosphere has invented on this, but since this thread intended to pay respects to the heroic actions of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 has become yet another conspiracy theory circle jerk we might as well trash it the rest of the way.

I don't know why I bothered sharing the photo and my thoughts thereon.

/disgusted

[SinyugiN]

I was going to start a thread over at History to ask about this. Several callers on the Washington Journal this morning talked about Flight 93 as a government conspiracy, (this being the big 9-11 patriotism story). One fellow said that local radio had someone reporting that they saw an explosion before it went down, wondered why he never heard that again. Another saying there were no pieces of the plane found at the crash site. There was an interview yesterday where Cheney said he ordered fighter jets up that morning.

Does anyone know exactly what happened there? Do historians agree with the conventional version?

thanks.

The majority of the "evidence" that flight 93 did not crash as stated comes from a documentary called "Loose Change", where it shows what they claim was the wreckage site where there is no aircraft debris.

What none of these detractors say is if it didn't crash as specified, then what happened to it? There has to be wreckage somewhere. And if that was the case, was the phone call from a passenger to his wife [Let's roll!"] faked? I doubt that.

The same with the claim that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane, that the nearly perfectly round hole in the wall was done by a rocket. Again, if so, what happened to the plane and its passengers and crew?

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.

[Coellacag]

Back in late 1987 I was part of a unit that responded to the crash of a B-1 in La Junta Colorado. The pilot seemed to be trying to belly flop into a pasture but ended up going nose first into a small ridge. He missed his mark by 8'. My first impression of the site was that there simply wasn't enough debris. The only large parts we had were one engine that was found about a half mile away and a few chunks of landing gear. Everything else was pretty damned small. Other than the landing gear the "big" pieces were generally less than 2' long and most of the stuff was closer to being pocket sized.

A plane crash isn't like a car crash. Stuff simply disintegrates and a lot of what isn't immediately pulverized burns.

[alecoplesosse]

I'd be interested in seeing some proof that debris actually fell nearly 8 miles away.

"In a morning briefing, state Police Major Lyle Szupinka confirmed that debris from the plane had turned up in relatively far-flung sites, including the residential area of Indian Lake".

Investigators locate 'black box' from Flight 93; widen search area in Somerset crash

Actually,i am not that interested in seeing what the conspiracy whackosphere has invented on this, but since this thread intended to pay respects to the heroic actions of the passengers and crew of Flight 93 has become yet another conspiracy theory circle jerk we might as well trash it the rest of the way.

I don't know why I bothered sharing the photo and my thoughts thereon.

/disgusted

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.

Sorry if you think that exposing the truth about the shoot down of the plane is more disrespectful to the memories of the passengers than the government cover up of same.

[deackatera]

"In a morning briefing, state Police Major Lyle Szupinka confirmed that debris from the plane had turned up in relatively far-flung sites, including the residential area of Indian Lake".

Investigators locate 'black box' from Flight 93; widen search area in Somerset crash

Thanks for pitching up such an easy one here.

First, there is no confirmation that the debris found in the lake was actual wreckage from flight 93.

More importantly, your source doesn't even raise your 8 mile claim. They say 6, but if you consult a map, you find that the lake is only about a mile away.

As usual, the conspiracy whackospherevfalls short of reality.

[lrtoinbert]

Thanks for pitching up such an easy one here.

First, there is no confirmation that the debris found in the lake was actual wreckage from flight 93.

More importantly, your source doesn't even raise your 8 mile claim. They say 6, but if you consult a map, you find that the lake is only about a mile away.

As usual, the conspiracy whackospherevfalls short of reality.

Indian Lake is roughly 2 1/2 miles (not a mile) from the crash site, where eye witnesses saw debris falling only moments after they heard the jet fly over them before crashing.

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.

And are you really trying to say that the debris falling from the sky that day was from something other than Flight 93? Really? First, from where else could the debris have come, and second, the FBI confirmed that the debris found at Indian Lake was from Flight 93, if I recall correctly.

The other site where debris from the plane was found was nearly 8 miles away, around New Baltimore, PA.