>>202163
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.aviation.piloting/c/Z_Cq8g3x17g
Kevin Keogh
unread,
Sep 15, 2001, 11:17:40 PM
to
We have a 911 tape that contains the sound of an explosion and descriptions
of white smoke before Flight 93 went down. We haven't been allowed to hear
this tape or even learn the name of the dispatcher who took the call. But we
have been treated to every minute detail of every other cell phone call from
the plane, I assume with the blessings of those conducting this "criminal
investigation."
Various witnesses report unmarked military planes circling the scene of the
accident. FAA employees report F-16's following the plane before the
accident. The DOD now admits that the military was monitoring the plane and
"was in a position to intercept it." More witnesses to the crash variously
report a "sonic boom," a loud bang and a noise the "sounded like thunder"
BEFORE the plane hit the ground. Other witnesses report seeing parts falling
off the plane into Indian Lake (3 miles away from the "crash site"), into
their yards, and onto their homes. Note that this is east of the crash site
and the official word is the plane was going in an "easterly" direction when
it crashed.
We have a significant percentage of debris up to 8 miles from the crash site. We have what appears to be at least three distinct fields as well as a swath of debris spread out over perhaps 25 or more square miles. We have the plane's large engines found "at a considerable distance from the crash site." We have a crater that is too small and shallow to account for the crash of an entire 757.
We have an investigation more concerned with securing the crash site than
with finding the black boxes. We get this sort of answer from deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz when told that the FBI has not yet ruled out that
Flight 93 was shot down, "I have no information on it at all. In fact,
that's the first I heard, and I'm going to look into it." A few hours later,
FBI lead investigator Bill Crowley flatly denies the same military
involvement that he said he couldn't rule out earlier in the day.
We know the Greater Pitt air traffic tower was ordered cleared immediately
before the crash. We know that every other radar tower in a position to
track these planes was ordered to be cleared by the FAA. We know air traffic
controllers warned pilots in the vicinity to "get as far away from that
plane as we could as fast as we could." We know several Congressmen
discussed getting authorization to shoot down the plane.
But I suppose we should thank God that all those brave passengers figured
out how to explode their plane exactly when they did to miraculously save a
reluctant Air Force pilot from having to execute his gruesome orders. Now
that's a movie plot that packs a wallop!
stickdog
From: http://www.wtaetv.com/pit/news/stories/news-96165420010915-120945.html
(September 15th)
The FBI said that a civilian business jet flying to Johnstown was within 20
miles of the low-flying airliner, but at an altitude of 37,000 feet.
That plane was asked to descend to 5,000 feet an unusual maneuver to
help locate the crash site for responding emergency crews. The FBI said
that is probably why some witnesses say they saw another plane in the sky
shortly after Flight 93 crashed at 10:10 a.m. Tuesday in a grassy field near
Shanksville, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The FBI said there was also a C-130 military cargo aircraft about 17 miles
away that saw smoke or dust near the crash site, but that plane wasn't armed
and had no role in the crash. That plane was flying at 24,000 feet."
From:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010915/us/attacks_plane_crash_10.html
(September 15th)
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said that the military had been
monitoring the plane and was in a position to intercept it.
``I think it was the heroism of the passengers on board that brought it
down, but the Air Force was in a position to do so if we had had to,'' he
said on PBS's ``NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.''
From:
http://triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=170881+sid=c9bcfc4109bba9233da
c8f977ca42f63+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0914crash+exclude=1+t
emplate=news1.html
Speculation continued to swirl around reports that a military fighter jet
was seen in the vicinity immediately after the crash. According to the
Nashua (N.H.) Telegraph, FAA employees at an air-traffic control center near
Boston learned from controllers at other facilities that an F-16 "stayed in
hot pursuit" of the 757.
By 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Air Force had taken control of all U.S. airspace,
the unidentified controller told the Telegraph. A few minutes later, the
Boeing crashed in Stonycreek Township.
The F-16 made 360-degree turns to stay close to the 757, the Telegraph
reported. "He must've seen the whole thing," the FAA employee said of the
F-16's pilot.
Crowley confirmed that there were two other aircraft within 25 miles of the
United flight that were heading east when it crashed, scattering debris over
8 miles.
Military planes sometimes "shadow" airliners that are in trouble or have
lost radio communications, as part of efforts to re-establish contact.
An Air Force spokeswoman at North American Aerospace Defense Command in
Colorado, Capt. Adriane Craig, said the military could neither confirm nor
deny whether an airplane was following the United 757. Neither NORAD nor
the Air Force releases information about where its jets are flying at any
given time, or what their patrol routes are over metropolitan areas, Craig
said.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, President
Bush's nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said fighters and
other aircraft were mobilized Tuesday in response to the hijackings. Air
Force Gen. Richard Myers emphatically denied that Flight 93 was shot down.
"The armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft," he said. "When it became
clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS radar
aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other
aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked, but we never
actually had to use force."
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility that the terrorists had a
bomb on board the plane, the FBI's Crowley said. "We have no information to
lead us either way. We need them (the flight recorders) to determine if that
happened," he said.
A passenger, Mark Bingham, 31, of San Francisco, Calif., was able to call
Westmoreland County 911 and tell a communications officer that the plane had
been hijacked and the terrorists had a bomb. There was a sound of an
explosion before 911 lost contact with Bingham.
Crowley said the FBI and NTSB have not determined whether a bomb exploded
inside the aircraft before it crashed. Residents of nearby Indian Lake
reported seeing debris falling from the jetliner as it overflew the area
shortly before crashing.
State police Maj. Lyle Szupinka said investigators also will be searching a
pond behind the crash site looking for the other recorder and other debris.
If necessary, divers may be brought in to assist search teams, or the pond
may be drained, he said.
Szupinka said searchers found one of the large engines from the aircraft "at
a considerable distance from the crash site."
"It appears to be the whole engine," he added.
Szupinka said most of the remaining debris, scattered over a perimeter that
stretches for several miles, are in pieces no bigger than a "briefcase."
"If you were to go down there, you wouldn't know that was a plane crash," he
continued. "You would look around and say, `I wonder what happened here?'
The first impression looking around you wouldn't say, `Oh, looks like a
plane crash. The debris is very, very small.
"The best I can describe it is if you've ever been to a commercial landfill.
When it's covered and you have papers flying around. You have papers blowing
around and bits and pieces of shredded metal. That's probably about the best
way to describe that scene itself."
From:
http://us.news2.yimg.com/f/42/31/7m/dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010913/ts/att
ack_pennsylvania_dc_4.html
Federal investigators said on Thursday that they have not ruled out the
possibility that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down over Pennsylvania,
after three other hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon (news - web sites).
As speculation about what happened aboard the Boeing 757 intensified, FBI
(news - web sites) agent Bill Crowley told a news conference that it was too
early in the crash investigation to rule out any possibility. He declined to
say whether evidence actually pointed to an explosion before the San
Francisco-bound jetliner crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh on
Tuesday, killing 45 passengers and crew on board.
``We have not ruled out that. We haven't ruled out anything yet,'' Crowley
said when asked about reports that a U.S. fighter jet may have fired on the
hijacked airliner to prevent it from reaching a target, possibly in
Washington.
His remark prompted deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to say he would
look into the matter. ``I have no information on it at all. In fact, that's
the first I heard, and I'm going to look into it,'' Wolfowitz, the No. 2
Pentagon official, told a briefing.
From:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010913/ts/attack_pennsylvania_dc_5.html
(12 hours after the previous report)
Flight 93, which crashed soon after three other jetliners slammed into the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon, was the only hijacked plane not to hit
a U.S. landmark. That fact has brought intense speculation about what
brought the plane down.
Earlier this week, Pentagon officials vigorously denied initial reports that
a military fighter had shot down the United Airlines jet.
At a news conference on Thursday morning, Crowley told reporters that FBI
investigators had not ruled out the possibility. But he later retracted the
statement, saying unequivocally ``there was no military involvement in what
happened here.''
The Pennsylvania state police said debris from the crash had shown up about
8 miles away near a residential area where local media quoted some residents
as seeing flaming debris from the sky. But investigators were unwilling to
say whether the presence of debris in separate places evinced an explosion.
State Police Major Lyle Szupinka said debris found in the residential area
was small enough to have been carried by air currents after impact.
From:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/PA_airplanecrash010911.html
One eyewitness to the Pennsylvania crash, Linda Shepley, told television
station KDKA in Pittsburgh that she heard a loud bang and saw the plane bank
to the side before crashing.
From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14327-2001Sep11.html
Leaders of Congress – including Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle
(D-S.D.), Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), House Majority Whip
Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) –
were told at a briefing by the Capitol Police that the hijacked plane might
have been bound for the Capitol or Camp David, the presidential retreat in
Thurmont, Md., 85 miles southeast of the crash site, according to
participants in the meeting.
The participants discussed the possibility of shooting down the aircraft,
said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). "The question I heard asked was: 'Who has the
authority to order a commercial jetliner shot down by the military?' " Pence
said. However, the congressional leaders soon learned that the plane had
already crashed.
From: http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/20010913flightpathreg2p2.asp
About 10 minutes later, Full's phone rang. It was Kurt Sopp, the airport
authority's security manager. Full said Sopp told him that he had been
informed by Pittsburgh International Airport's air traffic control tower
"that there was a plane within 10 miles in the Pittsburgh airspace that they
had no contact with whatsoever, and they had reason to believe it was
possibly a hijacked aircraft, and they were taking appropriate action by
moving personnel out of the control tower."
That was all Full learned of the plane. He had no idea of its altitude,
heading, speed or apparent destination. "It meant to me that it was pretty
damn close to the airport, especially when they told me the control tower
was beginning to move personnel out of the tower," Full said. "I didn't ask
for any of those particulars. I didn't even look at the clock for a time."
Full got off the phone with Sopp and alerted Pittsburgh officials. Full
alerted City Communications Chief John Rowntree. But even as Rowntree was
learning about the mysterious plane, it continued on its southeast path,
away from Allegheny County.
As the plane neared Somerset County, air traffic controllers in Cleveland
alerted their counterparts at John P. Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County
Airport that a plane was about 12 miles away, "heading directly at the
airport at about 6,000 feet," said Joe McKelvey, the airport's executive
director.
"The Johnstown tower chief told me that under the circumstances, he was
going to evacuate the tower," McKelvey said. "Before either one of us could
get off the phone, the aircraft had already passed us by."
From: http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010913somersetnat3p3.asp
Dennis Fritz, director of the municipal airport in Johnstown, Pa., said the
FAA called him several times as the plane approached his city, and even
warned him to evacuate the tower for fear the jet would plow into it.
"They said the plane was very suspicious, and they didn't know what it was
doing," Fritz said. Flight 93 crashed into a field 14 miles south of
Johnstown.
From:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/live/news/news_story.html?rkey=170399+sid=5ba3
e65848bd282a93fc29daad2950fd+cat=news-regional-terrorism+template=news1.html
Utility workers from Verizon installed additional telephone lines in the
area for investigators and police. Highway crews from the state Department
of Transportation also helped to control traffic along Lambertsville Road
for several miles leading to the sit. "We're here to guard things in the
area," said equipment operator Don Pritts. "We were out here all night. I
guess we'll stay until we're told to go home."
FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley said the recorder was found at about 4:20
p.m. in the 8-foot-deep crater caused by the crash. Crowley said the
recorder would be analyzed by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Eight miles away in New Baltimore, Melanie Hankinson said she found singed
papers and other light debris from the crash, including pages from
Hemispheres Magazine, United's in-flight magazine. Crowley said the material
could easily have been carried on the wind.
From:
http://www.triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=170501+sid=8645c9c01306401
00268897f618afb1d+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=+template=news1.h
tml
Meanwhile, investigators also are combing a second crime scene in nearby
Indian Lake, where residents reported hearing the doomed jetliner flying
over at a low altitude before "falling apart on their homes."
"People were calling in and reporting pieces of plane falling," a state
trooper said. Jim Stop reported he had seen the hijacked Boeing 757 fly
over him as he was fishing. He said he could see parts falling from the
plane.
From:
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/pit/news/stories/news-95791220010912-130
955.html
Finding any substantial evidence from the plane will be difficult. Any
remaining debris is very small. WTAE-TV's Paul Van Osdol also reports that
some debris has been spotted up to two miles away from the crash scene. Some
has been washing up on shore at nearby Indian Lake.
Several residents gathered debris, placed it in a plastic bag and carried it
to police. Officials do not want residents to touch any possible debris.
They should contact police, instead.
At least four witnesses who were at the crash scene within five minutes of
the crash told WTAE's Paul Van Osdol that they saw another plane in the
area. Somerset County resident Jim Brandt said that he saw another plane in
the area. He said it stayed there for one or two minutes before leaving.
Another Somerset County resident, Tom Spinello, said that he saw the plane.
He said that it had high back wings. Both men said that the plane had no
markings on it, either civilian or military. The FBI said that it does not
think that it was a military plane, but it would not rule out the
possibility of it being a civilian plane.
The plane first flew near Cleveland but quickly turned around, reportedly
flying erratically and losing altitude. One passenger who called
Westmoreland County 911 said he was inside a locked bathroom. Dispatcher
Glenn Cramer said the unidentified man repeatedly said, "We're being
hijacked!"
"He heard some sort of explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane
and we lost contact with him," Cramer said.
FBI officials had a tape of that call in custody. They would not comment on
its contents or the speculation of a struggle on board.
Witnesses reported seeing military aircraft in the air just after the crash,
and there were rumors that Flight 93 was shot down.
As Flight 93 approached Cleveland, radar showed the plane banked left and
headed back toward southwest Pennsylvania. Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White
said air traffic controllers reported hearing screams on a plane with which
they had communicated.
Johnstown-Cambria County Airport tower chief Dennis Fritz said his tower,
located about 20 miles from the crash site, got a warning call from
Cleveland Air Traffic Control.
The Cleveland tower said the plane had done some unusual maneuvers,
including a 180-degree turn away from Cleveland, and was flying at a low
altitude.
From: http://www.wtaetv.com/pit/news/stories/news-95909320010913-100904.html
Crowley said that debris from the crash has been found in New Baltimore,
Pa., which is 8 miles away from the crash scene, and Indian Lake, which is 2
1/2 miles away from the crash scene. Crowley said that NTSB officials said
that it is probable that the debris in New Baltimore is from the crash.
The debris found in New Baltimore include paper and nylon, Crowley said. He
said that the debris found is lightweight and easily can be carried by the
wind. At the time of the crash, there was wind speed of 9 knots per hour
heading to the southeast. Both Indian Lake and New Baltimore are southeast
of the crash scene.
WTAE's Jim Parsons reported Wednesday that debris had been found miles
off-site and removed. State Police Maj. Lyle Szupinka confirmed Thursday
that debris had been discovered in the residential community of Indian Lake
northeast of the central crash site.
Jim Brant, owner of Indian Lake Marina, said he rushed outside Tuesday
morning when he heard the roar of jet engines overhead, then saw a fireball
rise into the air. The wind was strong that morning, Brant said, and within
minutes debris from the crash was "falling like confetti."
Also on Thursday, the Pennsylvania State Police arrested two photographers
for breach of security. A police officer said that two stringers from New
York City were given permission to take pictures of one portion of the crash
scene, but they went into a restricted area and immediately were arrested.
Szupinka said that anyone who took debris would be prosecuted if the
evidence is not returned. He said those people should call state police in
Somerset at 814-445-4104.
Crowley said a robotic helicopter developed by Carnegie Mellon University in
Pittsburgh had not been used to find the black box. The copter, which can
create 3-D color images of the terrain, may be used at some point in the
search, Crowley said.
From: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/13/penn.attack/
Investigators say they've found debris from the crash at least eight miles
away from the crash site.
A second debris field was around Indian Lake about 3 miles from the crash
scene. Some debris was in the lake and some was adjacent to the lake. More
debris from the plane was found in New Baltimore, some 8 miles away from the
crash.
State police and the FBI initially said they didn't want to speculate
whether the debris was from the crash, or if the plane could have broken up
in midair.
Investigators later said the debris was all very light material, such as
paper and thin nylon the wind would easily blow. The wind was blowing
towards Indian Lake and New Baltimore at 9 knots [10.5 mph]. "According to
the NTSB, it is not only possible that the debris is from the crash, it is
probable," Crowley said.
From: http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010912somerscenenat4p3.asp
A handful of people working near or driving through a rural area of Somerset
County watched as the plane flipped over and disappeared with a smoky boom
at 10:06 a.m. yesterday, between the tiny communities of Lambertsville and
Shanksville.
"It didn't look like a plane crash because there was nothing that looked
like a plane," Barron said.
"There was one part of a seat burning up there," Phillips said. "That was
something you could recognize."
"I never seen anything like it," Barron said. "Just like a big pile of
charcoal."
"My instinct was to run toward it, to try to help" said Nina Lensbouer,
Tim's Lensbouer's wife and a former volunteer firefighter. "But I got there
and there was nothing, nothing there but charcoal. Instantly, it was
charcoal."
"The biggest pieces you could find were probably four feet [long]. Most of
the pieces you could put into a shopping bag, and there were clothes hanging
from the trees."
Later in the afternoon, state police allowed reporters to enter the crash
area. It was incongruously serene. Under a bright sun, the site where all 45
aboard the plane were killed was most remarkable for how unremarkable it
appeared.
The apparent point of impact was a dark gash, not more than 30 feet wide, at
the base of a gentle slope just before a line of trees. There were few
recognizable remnants of the plane or the passengers and crew. The trees
beyond were still faintly smoldering but largely intact. "If you would go
down there, it would look like a trash heap," said state police Capt. Frank
Monaco. "There's nothing but tiny pieces of debris. It's just littered with
small pieces."
From: http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010912crashnat2p2.asp
The Washington Post reported that leaders of Congress – including Senate
Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott,
R-Miss., House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas and House Minority Leader
Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. – were told at a briefing by the Capitol Police that
the hijacked plane might have been bound for the Capitol or Camp David, the
presidential retreat in Thurmont, Md., 85 miles southeast of the crash site,
according to participants in the meeting.
The participants discussed a possible shoot down of the aircraft, said Rep.
Mike Pence, R-Ind. "The question I heard asked was: 'Who has the authority
to order a commercial jetliner shot down by the military?' " Pence said.
However, the congressional leaders soon learned that the plane had already
crashed.
Some witnesses reported that the plane was flying upside down for a time
before the crash; others said they heard up to three loud booms before the
jetliner went down.
Authorities weren't ready yesterday to pronounce the crash a result of
terrorism. But a telling detail came minutes before the plane went down when
dispatchers at the Westmoreland County Emergency Operations Center
intercepted a frantic cell phone call made to 911 by a passenger aboard the
doomed flight.
"We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked!" the man told dispatchers in
a quivering voice during a conversation that lasted about one minute.
"We got the call about 9:58 this morning from a male passenger stating that
he was locked in the bathroom of United Flight 93 traveling from Newark to
San Francisco, and they were being hijacked," said Glenn Cramer, a 911
supervisor.
"We confirmed that with him several times and we asked him to repeat what he
said. 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."
Agents seized the 911 dispatch tape from Westmoreland County as part of
their investigation.
Dennis Fritz, the air traffic manager, got a call from controllers in
Cleveland warning the Johnstown airport which has no radar of its own
that a large aircraft was 20 miles south and had suddenly turned on a
heading for Johnstown.
"It was an aircraft doing some unusual maneuvers at a low level, which is
unusual for an aircraft that size," Fritz said last night. "It happened so
quickly."
He said workers in his own tower scanned south, toward the horizon, with
binoculars, but couldn't see any aircraft, leading Fritz to believe that the
plane was flying somewhere in the 2,800 foot high ridges in that part of the
Allegheny front.
Then, somewhere within the air zone, about 15 miles south of Johnstown, the
plane turned again toward the south.
Shortly before it went down, another call was made to the Westmoreland
County 911 center from a Mount Pleasant Township resident who said he could
see a large plane flying low and banking from side to side. The impact
"sounded like dynamite," said Lucy Menear, 83, who lives less than a
half-mile from the crash site. "It seems as though everything was falling
apart."
The priority of the FBI and state troopers was to protect the scene. There
were 20 FBI agents on hand yesterday, and another 30 were expected last
night. The contingent of 100 state troopers was expected to swell to 150.
They planned to spend last night spaced out along the crash perimeter within
each other's eyesight to ward off curiosity seekers and prevent anyone from
tampering with evidence. Two curiosity seekers were arrested for trying to
get through the perimeter, one of them aboard an all-terrain vehicle.
Also on hand were officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Pennsylvania
Emergency Management Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration and United
Airlines. A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was en route.
Last night police and National Guard sealed off the airport to regular
traffic, at one point shutting down state Route 219 a four-lane highway that
is only 500 yards from airport property. It was later reopened, but access
roads to the airport remained sealed.
From:
http://www.triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=170044+sid=0bbb71fbc961772
7ec833aa1b36956ce+cat=news-regional-gbgstory+related_name=0912crash+exclude=
4+template=news1.html
A pilot in the air Tuesday morning said air-traffic controllers warned him
to "get far away" from what he believes was the doomed Boeing 757 that
crashed in Somerset County. Bill Wright of Greensburg said he was flying a
single-engine Piper airplane over Youngwood yesterday morning when officials
at the Cleveland En Route Traffic Control in Oberlin, Ohio, ordered him to
land at Arnold Palmer Regional Airport near Latrobe.
Wright - an assistant fire chief with the Greensburg Volunteer Fire
Department - said he had taken off from Jimmy Stewart Airport in Indiana
County and had been flying over northern West Virginia when air-traffic
controllers radioed, asking him to return to the airport. "They told us to
get back to Indiana as soon as was practical," Wright said. "A few minutes
later, they said get back there right away. Then they called and told us to
put it down (at Arnold Palmer Regional) in Latrobe. They told us to get to
the closest airport."
At the end of the last transmission, he said, air-traffic controllers "asked
us if we could see another aircraft off our left wing, and we did."
When he reported visual contact with the other aircraft, Wright said, "they
told us to get as far away from that plane as we could as fast as we could."
"It just looked like a large airplane," the pilot added, noting a passenger
in his plane reported seeing the plane's wings "wave."
Wright declined to speculate on what may have caused the aircraft to wobble.
From:
http://www.triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=169771+sid=bb53c043ed890de
cba22a64fd945b6cc+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0912crash+exclude
=3+template=news1.html
Just minutes before United Airlines Flight 93 crashed into a secluded
section of Somerset County, a passenger locked in a bathroom tried to call
for help on his cellular telephone. "We are being hijacked!" the passenger
told a Westmoreland County dispatcher.
The call came in to Westmoreland County's emergency dispatch center at 9:58
a.m. Within two minutes or so, the airliner carrying 38 passengers and seven
crew members slammed to earth near the village of Shanksville. Westmoreland
County 911 shift supervisor Glenn Cramer told the Tribune-Review it was a
male passenger who made the last-minute attempt to notify authorities about
the situation on board the ill-fated jetliner.
The caller told an unnamed dispatcher that he was a passenger on board
Flight 98 from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, and barricaded himself in the
aircraft's lavatory. "He said, 'I'm locked in the bathroom and we're being
hijacked,'" Cramer said.
The caller then gave the dispatcher information that investigators may be
able to use to piece together just how the Boeing 757 crashed. "He said he
heard some type of explosion and saw some white smoke from the plane. Then
we lost contact with him," Cramer said.
The call lasted less than three minutes according to Cramer. Westmoreland
County officials refused to release the name of the dispatcher who took the
911 call.
FBI agents were in Greensburg about 90 minutes after the 911 call was
received and took possession of the only copy of audio tape detailing the
passenger's call from aboard the jetliner. Dan Stevens, spokesman for the
Westmoreland County Public Safety Department, said the Federal Aviation
Administration and the FBI were notified almost immediately about the 911
call from the doomed plane.
From:
http://www.triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=169474+sid=16c9cba672d4eaf
6f418e746b07f9e11+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0912crash+exclude
=2+template=news1.html
Next door to the media staging site, Lucy Menear, an elderly woman, wearing
a red sweatshirt that identified her as one of the world's best
grandmothers, looked out at the scene and shook her head. She said she'd
never seen anything like it in the 55 years she's lived in her home at the
intersection of Lambertsville Road and Little Prairie Lane.
Menear said she was in her living room watching TV yesterday morning when
she heard what sounded like thunder and got up to see what had happened.
The various agencies worked in concert to keep passersby, reporters and
photographers at bay, while authorities worked to secure the crash site
located beyond a small ridge, just out of the reporters' range of vision.
State police spokesman Trooper Thomas Spallone said police arrested two
unidentified members of the media who attempted to sneak through a wooded
area onto the crash site. He said the reporters were handcuffed and were
being held temporarily at the command center.
FBI spokesman John Gera told anxious reporters that authorities wanted to
secure what he described as a "large crime scene" before allowing the media
beyond the initial staging area some 1,500 yards from the crash site.
As Gera spoke, state police helicopters and military aircraft hovered
overhead, patrolling the airspace above the crash site. Late yesterday
afternoon, the state Department of Environmental Protection coordinated a
bus tour that eventually took three bus loads of reporters and photographers
to the crash site.
From:
http://www.triblive.com/news/news_story.html?rkey=170055+sid=7e693a290deecbe
0352a471be13855c1+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0912crash+templat
e=news1.html
Two Somerset County men rushed to the scene of Tuesday's plane crash hoping
to help with the rescue effort. They found a scene of devastation. "You
couldn't see nothing," said Nick Tweardy, 20, of Stoneycreek Township. "We
couldn't tell what we were looking at. There's just a huge crater in the
woods."
Little remained of United Airlines Flight 93, which had departed from
Newark, N.J., at 8:42 a.m. yesterday on its way to San Francisco with 45
people aboard. It crashed in what FBI agents are calling a "terrorist act,"
likely linked to yesterday's attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
FBI Special Agent Jeff Killeen said air traffic controllers had no
communication with the pilot of the Boeing 757 before the crash.
And he said the investigation will be slow because the impact of the plane
left "scant" evidence that will require "painstaking collection."
The largest piece of wreckage he could identify looked like a section of the
plane's tail, he said.
Bits of metal were thrown against a tree line like shrapnel, said state
police spokesman Trooper Thomas Spallone of Troop A in Greensburg.
"Once it hit, everything just disintegrated," he said. "There are just
shreds of metal. The longest piece I saw was 2 feet long."
Hours after the crash, teams of crime scene analysts from the FBI and Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, plus state police, the Pennsylvania
National Guard, and state agencies - Department of Emergency Management and
the Department of Environmental Protection - cordoned off the area within a
4-mile radius of the crash and began the painstaking task of collecting
evidence.
"We're finding more debris in various locations," Spallone said.
"Over 100 state troopers secured the area. Our job is not to let anybody in
here until the federal accident reconstruction teams from the FBI and
(Federal Aviation Administration) can get in here and examine the shreds of
evidence left," said Capt. Frank Monaco, commander of Troop A.
"All that is left is small pieces of the airplane."
Law enforcement authorities learned of the hijacking from a frightened
passenger on the airplane who called Westmoreland County 911 from a cellular
telephone. The man said he was hiding in the plane's restroom, 911 officials
said. According to a transcript of the tape, the passenger told a police
communications officer in Greensburg that the plane had been hijacked.
There was noise, and then the line went dead. FBI agent Wells Morrison said
agents confiscated the tape recording of the call.
Members of the Army National Guard make their way toward the scene where a
United Airlines flight 93 crashed in a wooded area 12 miles north of
Somerset. Authorities said there were no survivors on the 757, which
originated in Newark NJ, and went down en route to San Francisco. (Barry
Reeger/Tribune-Review)
FBI Agent Bill Crowley in Pittsburgh said the bureau has classified the
crash as a terrorist act and "not so much as a hijacking."