I'm curious what info and reports are available that support the idea that the flight (93?) was shot down. Any takers? I don't want to hear any bologna, but some real reports. Not administration bashing, world-wide conspiracy nonsense. Just the facts. Oddly enough, my search here showed very little discussion on that specific episode in the 9/11 saga.

If there were nothing but facts to provide, there would be no questions to debate. So, all you will hear are opinions and conspiracy theories.

OK, maybe what I am after is viable theories, and eye witness reports. Rather than ramblings about NWO pedophile Satan worshiping neo-pagans being controlled by lizard-like shape shifting aliens. I just want a little focus.

...official report has stated that flight 93's pilots lost control of the jet and it plummeted straight into the ground.

...distant photos of the crash scene show an obvious fire scorched pit with no visual jet parts...

yet numerous reports have wreckage from the aircraft strewn across many miles from the site.

... you have the official report... you have reports contradicting the official report...

Plus, of course, conspiracy theorists, while able to dispute endlessly about the tiniest details that they feel show inconsistencies in the official account, only seem to be willing to provide any details of their own, even when asked for, in the vaguest possible way: that (on a more rational level, perhaps) "they" (the government, the military) did it, but if asked why, all they can say is, well, because "they" are evil; or, going further into the realms of fantasy, that there's some vast shadowy conspiracy, which is only ever explained in the vaguest terms, mentioning the usual suspects like the NWO, Zionists, etc, etc.

In short, you will, I feel, be lucky to ever get a straightforward and reasonably detailed answer from any.

And also, of course, don't forget that in the minds of some, even those who do provide eyewitness reports, like those who saw the planes hit the WTC, were just deluded by the sinister and shadowy Them, so, if it suits the conspiracists, even people saying what they saw with their own eyes can't be trusted.

The idea of this plane being shot down is the only wrinkle in the theory that seems possibly true to me. I was wondering if MAYBE someone had some compelling evidence. I just don't have the patience to wade through what I consider the garbage that usually surrounds it.

Yes, that's what I've thought myself; since, by then, they'd already seen what had happened three times, is it impossible that they (not They, they meaning the air defense authorities) might have decided that, since here was a fourth that had obviously also been hijacked, that it was the lesser of two evils to bring it down before it could get to wherever its target was, the White House, say? But if i've tried to float that idea, the response seems to be that that's too straightforward, and it has to be part of some vast wider plot.

Really? So you get that "all or nothing" mentality? Shame.

My next question would be then, what evidence is there that points to this possibility?

I live about 20 minutes from the site and the coroner said that he left after 1/2 hour because there was nothing there but a ditch. I went there and I looked at it as well. Nothing there at all! I just don't understand how people just left that fact alone. It was so obvious.

Maybe an approach you could try is to look for what actual evidence (if any), there is to support 93 crashing? I feel like it was probably shot down and that the "crash" site is unlike any I have heard of.





Well, you probably didn't get a "straightforward" answer because kooks like you who question the official story are so wrapped up in the realms of fantasy that you cannot be reasoned with.

I've never fell for the missile's/dynamite hitting the towers theory.. but I have wondered time to time if that flight 93 was, in fact, shot down due to its' apparent threat & suspected target.

I tend to think it was shot down. Then again, I tend to think a lot of what happened on 9/11 isn't portrayed as it really happened.

Also, the area the plane crashed, you can see the pit that is suppossed to be the area it hit. Extending from this pit are two "strips" that look as if they would be where the wings plummeted into the earth.

There are photos however of that area that show these "strips" in the ground had been there prior to 9/11, therefore they were not created when the plane crashed.

Just another thing that would lead me to believe the plane was shot down.

There are also plenty of people from the area that say they saw a white plane flying around shortly before Flight 93 had "crashed".

I can look for links to all of this info later. I'm just not in the mood to at the moment.

If it was shot down. You would have think there were remains (large ones) all over the ground.

I don't believe it was shot down by anything. Honestly.

Well, if it crashed, you would also think you'd see plenty portions of the plane all over the ground. Yet other then the government telling us the plane crashed there, you don't see anything that would have you believe that is true.

Also, I'm fairly certain parts of the plane were found miles away from the supposed crash site. If it crashed, the plane parts would all be right there. If it was blown apart in the sky, then it would make sense that parts of the plane would be scattered about, like they were.

Agreed, completely.

Except this part of one of the engines


And these parts of the fuselage




And these other bits of wreckage




And then there was the cockpit voice recorder - found 25 feet underground at the impact site


And the flight data recorder - also found buried underground at the impact site




When an airplane - which is made essentially from relatively thin aluminum and other lightweight materials - impacts the ground at between 560 and 580 miles per hour (while also inverted and at an approximate 40 degree nose-down attitude), the airframe tends to disintegrate into lots of tiny little fragments (and obviously, as shown by the pictures above, some larger fragments and pieces were left behind as well). Some of the fragments are either small enough or light enough - or both - to be carried long distances not only by their own momentum, but even by relatively mild winds - like the approximate 10 mph winds reported around the crash site on September 11th. My understanding is that the debris found about 8 miles away were very light materials, such as paper and nylon, that could easily be held aloft long enough to travel that far. The other wreckage that was found a half-mile away could also be the result of exterior pieces of the aircraft coming off as it was hurtling towards the ground.


The fact that some small pieces of wreckage were found far away from the impact site and the rest of the wreckage at the impact site was essentially pulverized into mostly tiny fragments, doesn't mean that it had to have been shot down. The evidence does fit a crash as documented, whereas, an aircraft that was destroyed mid-air by a missile by gunfire (if the fighter used its guns rather than a missile) would spread wreckage over a huge area, rather than the 70 or so acres where almost all the wreckage and human remains were found.

Could it have been shot down...? Sure... I suppose anything is possible.

But was it? I don't think anyone will ever know for absolute sure, but to me, the evidence doesn't support that theory.





Cz

EDITED: for typos

If it was shot down, what missile would have been used? Would such a missile possibly ignite the plane's fuel, mid-air? If so, why this picture?




Image of the smoke cloud left by United Airlines Flight 93 after it crashed into a field in Somerset County- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


STOYSTOWN, Pa. -- It was a remarkable shot that produced a one-of-a-kind image: a green pasture, red barns in the distance and, against a brilliant blue and cloudless sky, a lone mushroom cloud of dark gray smoke.

Taken the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, seconds after United Airlines Flight 93 plunged into a nearby field, the eerie photo was, and still is, according to the FBI, the closest thing it's got to an image of the crash itself.

Val McClatchey snapped the single picture with her new digital camera. The wife and mother had been sitting on the edge of her sofa, clutching her second cup of coffee and watching the smoking towers of the World Trade Center on TV, when she heard the sudden surge of a plane engine, followed by a violent, house-shaking boom. Mrs. McClatchey grabbed the camera and ran onto the front porch of her house along Indian Lake.

"I didn't even aim. I was just like, 'Oh, my God,' " she said. She dropped the camera, jolting the battery loose, then tried in vain to call her husband, son and daughter. She had no idea what she'd captured until the state police put a call out to people in the area, asking for photos, debris and other evidence. She took a printout of her photo to the police, she said, and, within an hour, FBI agents were at her house.

Link

Photo under fire

Local woman forced to defend shot's integrity

By KIRK SWAUGER
The Tribune-Democrat

SHANKSVILLE — If a picture’s worth a thousand words, Val McClatchey’s is the Da Vinci Code.

Her photograph of a mushroom cloud of gray smoke rising above the bucolic countryside – snapped just moments after the crash of Flight 93 – has become a target for 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Five years later, the 50-year-old Indian Lake woman is frustrated by allegations the photo is a masterful hoax.

“It’s extremely disturbing,” said McClatchey, owner of Mtn. Lakes Realty near Indian Lake.

“My main focus,” she added, “is to protect the integrity of the photo.”

Conspiracy theorists, specifically the blog Killtown, contend the photo is an elaborate fraud that starts with McClatchey and winds up to the highest levels of the federal government.

Killtown suggests the photograph is a fake, claiming the gray smoke looks more like a plume from an ordnance blast than the black cloud from a jet crash.

“If it really was an ordnance blast not too far beyond the white barn and white farm house, then this would be a true smoking gun and one of the clearest examples of complicity in the 9/11 attacks by the U.S. government, because what else could have caused such a large explosion and who else would have been behind it?” Killtown wrote.

McClatchey is incensed at the allegation.

“These people are making all these conspiracy theories about the very country that fought to give them the freedom to write the garbage they do,” McClatchey said. “They’re the biggest hypocrites in the world.”

McClatchey says she will not respond directly on the blogs.

“The more fuel you add to it, the worse it gets,” she said. “Sooner or later, like a fire if you don’t put oxygen in it, it’s going to die.”

Joanne Hanley, Flight 93 superintendent for the National Park Service, agreed.

“I think what Val is going through is shameful,” Hanley said.

“Just because something is on a blog doesn’t make it true. People need to realize that.

“It’s also hurtful to the families. They’re discrediting the heroes and what they did. I think it’s unnecessary, and I think people should focus their energies on something positive.”

On Sept. 11, 2001, McClatchey said, she was watching the “Today” show when reports broke of planes hitting the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

As she was trying to call her husband from an area with spotty cell-phone coverage, she said, she heard the sudden surge of a jet plane and saw a silver flash outside.

“All of a sudden, ‘Boom!’ ” McClatchey said. “The house shook, my electricity went out. I was sitting on the edge of the sofa at the time, and it knocked me off balance. You could tell something happened outside.”

McClatchey said she ran a short distance to the door, saw smoke and instinctively grabbed her month-old digital camera from nearby.

She said she managed to snap just one photo.

“I didn’t realize any of the significance,” she said.

Her photo has come to symbolize the crash, specifically how the war on terror began in the rolling hills of Somerset County.

An enlarged version is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, and it has appeared in U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, Time and newspapers across the country.

Through all the controversy, McClatchey said, she cherishes the bonds she has forged with Flight 93 families.

“They are the most wonderful people I’ve met,” she said. “I admire their strength and courage.

“It restores your faith.”

Link

It doesn't have to be a part of any plot, it would simply be the fact they won't tell us if it was shot down. And then of course that they would have created the story about passangers on the plane confronting the hijackers. You know, sort of along the same lines as the Pat Tillman incident, when they spun a story about how he died saving those around him when in actuality he was killed by friendly gun fire.

Friday, 19 April, 2002, 07:26 GMT 08:26 UK

Relatives Hear Flight 93 Hijack Tapes

Relatives of some of the people on board one of the airplanes hijacked on 11 September have been listening to the screams and struggles from the flight's final minutes.




Alice Hoglan's son Mark Bingham was on the flight.


Afterwards, the families said the plane's cockpit voice recording showed their loved ones had died heroes.

United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers tried to overpower their hijackers, killing all on board.

The recording was played in an unprecedented private session at a hotel in Princeton, New Jersey, on Thursday.

Many of the 100 relatives were visibly upset after hearing the recording of the final 30 minutes of the doomed flight.

One relative, Hamilton Peterson, whose 66-year-old father, Donald, was on the flight, said he had mixed emotions about what he had heard.

"My impressions are that today is a very bitter-sweet day. Obviously the enormity of the tragedy is here, but also it's a very proud moment," he said.

"These were clearly people who were informed of the unthinkable. They digested it and acted upon it in no time at all and, if anything, I consider it another Normandy and I think it's a message to the world that the American spirit is alive and kicking."

"I felt incredible pride" said Deena Burnett, whose husband Tom was among the victims.

"It was obvious they all acted heroically."


The relatives were under strict instructions from the FBI not to reveal the contents of the tapes as they may be used in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who is accused of being an accomplice of the hijackers.

But speaking before the session, Alice Hoglan, whose 23-year-old son Mark Bingham died, said they had been warned they would hear a woman pleading for her life and that several minutes would be filled with shouting and violence in English and Arabic.

"Still, I feel compelled to listen. I owe it to the memory of Mark to learn all I can," she said.


Opposition

Airline pilots and aviation experts opposed the decision - taken by the head of the FBI - to allow relatives to hear the recording.

They fear that it could set a precedent, allowing such tapes to be heard in the future and expose pilots and airlines to litigation.

The authorities are insisting that this is a special, one-off case.

Many of those who heard the tapes say they have helped them come to terms with their relatives' deaths.

Flight 93 was the last plane to be hijacked on 11 September, after it left Newark airport in New Jersey.

A total of 44 people, four of them hijackers, were on board.


Transcript of Cockpit Audio Tapes From UA Flight 93 Convey Suicidal Murder By Crazy Maniacs

Witnesses in Somerset County, PA Describe Plane Crash of UA FLight 93

By Ken Zapinski, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, September 12, 2001


STONY CREEK TOWNSHIP, Pa. -- Kelly Leverknight was watching news of the attacks on New York and Washington when she heard the plane.

It sounded like it was flying low above her home in rural Pennsylvania, moving from west to east. It was an odd enough sound that she stepped outside to have a look.

"I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down," said Leverknight, 36. "It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there.

"Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke."

Leverknight and dozens of her neighbors raced to the Shanksville-Stonycreek School where they found their children safe. The plane, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco, had plunged into a reclaimed coal mine surrounded by corn fields, leaving a 200-yard swath of debris with no individual pieces bigger than 2 feet across.

Witnesses said they thought the wings of the Boeing 757 were wagging from side to side as it plunged toward the earth. A Congressman said later that law enforcement authorities speculated that the hijackers wanted to crash the plane into the presidential retreat at Camp David, Md. It was not known why they didn't make it.

"When it decided to drop, it dropped all of a sudden, like a stone," said Tom Fritz, 63. Fritz was sitting on his porch on Lambertsville Road, about a quarter mile from the crash site, when he heard a sound that "wasn't quite right" and looked up in the sky.

"It was sort of whistling," he said. "It was going so fast that you couldn't even make out what color it was."

The explosion unleashed a firestorm lasting five or 10 minutes and reaching several hundred yards into the sky, said Joe Wilt, 63, who lives a quarter mile from the crash site.

"The first thing I thought it was was a missile," Wilt said. The impact shattered windows in his basement and knocked a shelf full of household objects off the wall.

Westmoreland County emergency dispatchers received a last-ditch 911 cell phone call from a passenger at 9:58 a.m., just minutes before the crash. Dispatch supervisor Glenn Cramer told the Associated Press that the call came from a passenger who had locked himself inside one of the plane's bathrooms. "We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked," Cramer quoted the caller from a transcript of the call.

The curious were kept more than 3 miles away from the crash site, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. Residents of Somerset County set up camp near the police lines, scratching their heads at how their small county became the scene of an international terrorist incident.

Terry Butler works at Stoystown Auto Wreckers, which is in the flight path of the doomed plane. Butler was pulling a radiator from a 1992 Dodge Caravan when he heard the plane's engines.

He was listening to the news and was surprised because he had heard that all flights nationwide were grounded, and he didn't think there were supposed to be any planes in the air at the time. He looked up and behind him saw the plane come out of the clouds, low to the ground.

"It was moving like you wouldn't believe. Next thing I knew it makes a heck of a sharp, right-hand turn." He said the plane banked to the right and appeared to be trying to climb to clear one of the ridges, but it continued to turn to the right and then veered behind a ridge, "like somebody grabbed the wheel."

He said the plane disappeared behind a tree line on a ridge. "I knew it was going to crash," Butler said. About a second after it disappeared, he heard the boom and saw the smoke rise above the trees. "It was eerie."

Standing near that ridge late Tuesday, truck driver Chuck Auckerman pondered how it could have happened.

"It's unbelievable. They attack the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and then they hit Somerset County," Auckerman said. "What the heck is in Somerset County?"


Link

Ken Zapinski


If someone is going to suggest that the reporter is actually a government agent planting false stories, they are welcome to undertake due diligence, and report back.

Ken Zapinski, Post-Gazette Business Columnist

If you've talking about the same video that I've seen then this is not true. The story that I saw showed the 'strips' that are claimed to be the wing marks and then showed survey photos taken a long time before the crash which proved they were there before the crash and therefore the crash was a fake. Pretty convincing, but I did more searching. I came across another site which compared the original survey pictures and the crash site pictures in depth. It proved the 'strips' pointed out in the survey were both in a different location and a different size than the crash 'strips'. Of course, if you're willing to believe the crash site was faked by someone just digging/blowing a hole in the ground then it's not too much of a stretch to suggest they could also dig a couple of 'wing ditches' too, but the 'strips already there' story is false.

It's worthwhile mentioning that the site I found that comparison on was a pro-CT site and commented on by pro-CT posters, it was a while ago but I'll see if I can find a link.

I don't know if you've read this already but there was an old thread - here - that went into a great deal of detail about Flight 93. It's 10 pages long, but worth a read as it probably all the pro-shoot down arguments you're likely to find will be in that link and a great deal more!

I think part of the problem with the Flight 93 impact site is that air crashes generally occur at low speed, take-off or landing, so the impact energy available for breaking up the aircraft is lower and there are large pieces of the aircraft left, and this is what people expect to see. Crashes at cruise speed are rare, but here is one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SilkAir_Flight_185
Note the similarity with the Flight 93 scene: There was not a complete body, body part or limb found, as the entire aircraft and passengers disintegrated upon impact.

I think you're absolutely correct Swanny.

I recall once mentioning the kinetic energy of a 200,000 pound aircraft impacting the ground at 700 FPS or so, trying to describe the unspeakable energy involved....and having people scoff about the term....

There don't appear to be any eyewitnesses, or recorded evidence, or testimony that strongly suggest UA-93 crashed after being engaged in some way by a fighter aircraft. That is not to say it could not have occured. I just accept what seems to be credible.

So, I guess what I have posted does not answer the main question of listing any supporting information.

I posed the question of what missile would have shot the airplane down, given what is commonly known through the news or government sources.

First, we are told F-16s from the 119th Wing, N.D. Air Guard could have arrived, possibly, if they did other than what is reported (Washington, D.C.; New York). So, what missile would they use?

They can carry AMRAAM and Sidewinders. I don't know about other armaments in this case being considered. The AMRAAM is radar guided, and could be used maybe twenty miles away. But, who is to say you shoot down the right plane from that distance? You could get in closer, but what if someone sees the incident or takes a picture? Then, stories come into conflict. What then? What if several people see it blow up in the air, but the government says the opposite? Lots of things to go wrong with not telling the truth, in this case.

So, let's say a Sidewinder missile is used from a close-in pursuit. Perhaps it knocks off an engine, which tumbles or in someway breaks up as it hits the ground. Does that cause the plane to crash? There was an engine piece found within a few hundred yards. Does this suggest a missile strike? I don't think so.

Even so, if an F-16 flew near UA-93 and fired a Sidewinder, and if that ignited a wing comparment, it might have been witnessed, but wasn't. If all 38,000 lbs. of fuel had ignited, it could have been a loud explosion witnessed by people on the ground.

Some reports may include sounds, like a bang or something, but who is to say the hijackers did not cause some unusual throttle noise? Or, maybe reports of noise really coincide with the crash.



AMRAAMs mounted on the wingtips, and the smaller Sidewinders next to them.

Raytheon Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile

Raytheon AIM-9M Sidewinder


Different ranges and altitudes may place limitations on how a missile is best used-

Air-to-Air Missile Non-Comparison Table

"She was standing right here (where the clothesline was) and she watched it come right over, and it flew off that way."

Linda Shepley then says, "A lot of people say it was shot down. But, then I ask them, did you actually see it fly over?"

But an eyewitness, Linda Shepley, said she had an unobstructed view of Flight 93's final two minutes and has reached the opposite conclusion. She recalls seeing the plane wobbling right and left, at a low altitude of roughly 2,500 feet, when suddenly the right wing abruptly dipped straight down, and the Boeing 757 plunged into the earth.

"It's not true," said Shepley of the persistent rumors. "If it had been shot down, there would have been pieces flying, but it was intact - there was nothing wrong with it."

FBI Is Silent, Fueling "Shot Down" Rumors

Just to the southeast of the impact site is what is described as a catchment basin for water.




Somewhere, along a few hundred yards in that direction, was found some part of an engine.




There is a section of one of the engines currently on display in France.

NYS MUSEUM ANNOUNCES WORLD TRADE CENTER EXHIBIT IN FRANCE

Albany, New York -- 4/07/08

ALBANY, NY, USA) – The New York State Museum and Le Caen Memorial in Caen, France have organized a major exhibition exploring the personal and historical significance of September 11, 2001, which will open at Le Caen Memorial June 6. Link


Experts on the scene tell PM that a fan from one of the engines was recovered in a catchment basin, downhill from the crash site. Jeff Reinbold, the National Park Service representative responsible for the Flight 93 National Memorial, confirms the direction and distance from the crash site to the basin: just over 300 yards south, which means the fan landed in the direction the jet was traveling. "It's not unusual for an engine to move or tumble across the ground," says Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 out of New York City in 1996. "When you have very high velocities, 500 mph or more," Hynes says, "you are talking about 700 to 800 ft. per second. For something to hit the ground with that kind of energy, it would only take a few seconds to bounce up and travel 300 yards." Numerous crash analysts contacted by PM concur. Popular Mechanics, UA-93

Shot down. Crashed. Either way it would have made contact with the ground.

Yeah. I think so. >.O

I have to agree with you on the scattered remains of the airplane.

I think you're hinting at the most plausible scenario here.
The idea of the craft being shot down is not too outlandish, given the circumstances. However, the data points to no such thing occurring.
We of course know that there were reports of banging noises and things like that, on the ground in the vicinity, and allegedly on the airplane by one caller in a restroom (although I seem to recall those claims being denied after the fact).

But I think the flight data recorder, as well as the cockpit recorder points to the reality of the situtation.

The final 4 minutes of that flight were borderline aerobatic, based upon the FDR readings. Large 20 degree aileron deflections, back and forth, concurrent elevator deflections of upwards of 12 to 15 degrees, again sharply executed at cruising speed, and exceedingly abrupt pilot control wheel deflections a full 90 degrees left and right...as if he was trying to tear the wings off of the vehicle.

The aircraft's pitch angles abrubtly changed, reaching 30 degrees nose up, and as much as 50 to 60 degrees nose down. Vertical loads exceed 4 gs positive and 1.5 gs negative, again, abruptly, and frequently all throughout these few minutes.

Basically, that airplane was being jerked around violently for the last 4 minutes of the flight.

No maneuver was anything but an abrupt jerking...and while g loads were dangerously high for a loaded 757, they didn't exceed structural limits in and of themselves. However, the control surfaces were not designed to be exposed to such repeated loads over and over again. From reading this data, it is clear to me that the possibility of some structural failure is clear. Not catastrophic (as in a wing falling off) but certainly I'd be suspect of the aileron and elevator surfaces and linkages, and some structural degradation throughout the wings may well have occurred with such manhandling at between 300 and 500 KTS.

Obviously, the "pilot" was attemtping to disrupt a passenger revolt by jerking the airplane around. As to any sounds that might have been heard in the aircraft or outside on the ground...a 757, very low to the ground, at flight speed, makes a hell of a fearsome noise. Most people have never had the opportunity to hear such a thing. There may have been sounds associated with structural degradation of control surfaces, linkages, or a spar cracking or something of that nature. Various creeks and bangs are certainly to be expected when things are pressed in an airframe like that.

It would also not be unexpected that some stressed piece of frame may have disengaged from the aircraft due to this abuse...a piece of engine cowling, some fractured sheet metal...etc...prior to impact.

It seems clear that UA93 crashed exactly as the official story indicates it did. From my perspective, the combination of voice recordings, and FDR plots is conclusive, and explanatory.



A side note to this tragedy:

I recall listening to the tapes and hearing a passenger say something to the effect that if they didn't do it now (break through the cockpit door), that they were going to die.

Of course they were attempting it, and we don't know if they succeeded in those last seconds or not, but if they did manage to break through, wrest control of the aircraft, and kill the hijackers...prior, of course, to the final dive to the ground...

...would they have lived anyway?

What would they have done, suddenly sitting there at the controls of a 757 jet, skimming along at a couple thousand feet at 400-500 KTS... a complex jet aircraft, with no cockpit crew to fly it?

Can you imagine that?

I suppose, if they could communicate and perhaps someone with some cool was sitting there in that cockpit, they at least had a fighting chance...

You simply don't see something like this happen in air crashes. A 200,000 pound vehicle slamming into the ground, almost 60 degrees nose down, at cruising speed.

Most all air crashes occur at approach speeds, about 20-25% of the speed this vehicle was moving. The energy of an impact such as UA93s was unspeakable, and totally destructive. The aircraft and pasengers were essentially vaporized. Such an impact would immediately cause hundreds of tiny bits, some very very small, a few larger, to reflect off at hundreds of miles per hour in the direction of flight...roughly speaking, on various ballistic trajectories that would obviously result in their falling to the ground often great distances from the impact sight. Other debris would be thrust upward by the heat, and carried by wind.

The largest piece of identifiable human remains found at the site was a segment of spinal cord with three vertebrae attached to it, for God's sake... (I hate even talking about such horrors...).

You cannot imagine the energy required to cause this result. Engineers and scientists and appropriately qualified investigators can imagine it, and do understand it.

What was found at the UA93 impact sight was in fact, expected.

I recently saw an episode of mythbusters where they tackled something similar. The question was whether a passenger with no flight experience could be talked down by someone in the control tower. Both Jamie and Adam tried out a full size airline simulator and first tried landing with no outside input. They both predicatbly crashed quickly. One of them, not sure which, wasn't even sure what any of the controls did. Then they each tried again but with someone on the radio playing as ATC talking them in. The guy on the radio only had access to the info that an air traffic controller normally would (radar, input from the person at the controls). Both of them were able to land the simulator and safely. One of them if I recall correctly had a near perfect landing.

In my opinion, had the airplane been shot down, there would be more recognizable debris than a high speed collision at a sharp angle (what likely happened). As mentioned by another poster, there are two missles that could have been used. The AIM 9 or sidewinder is a heat seeking missle. Good out to at most 15 miles (often used at far less than that, it is a visual weapon) it would home in on an engine. The AIM 120 AMRAAM can be used out to greater than 40 miles and would go for the main body of the aircraft. In either case, with such a large aircraft, multiple large pieces would result. These large pieces would then fall/glide to the ground at terminal velocity, far less than the engine assisted 500+ mile an hour velocity of what was reported. These large pieces may create separate impact areas and while hitting the ground at a far lower speed would have far more recognizable wreckage.

I think they might have had a fighting chance. Depends on the nature of the person at the controls.
Landing with no outside input, well, that's a crash.

I think, if they could've operated the radio, and were able to get in communication with Washington Center, what you'd have seen would've been a radar controller on one mic, a 757 captain on another, both giving tutorials and inputs on how to steer and what to look at and how to read the glass panel displays in front of their faces, etc...a very tough, nerve wracking job which would require some exceeding cool heads on the ground, and aboard the craft.

Decades ago, a student pilot in a light Cessna got lost one afternoon in the local area west of Philadelphia.
I heard her calls of distress on the unicom and assumed the position of the ground controller to help her. She had about 15 hours total time, was in a non-transponder equipped Cessna 150 Commuter, scared ****less, extremely distressed, and hadn't learned about radio navigation at all.

I acted as psychologist, and instructor that day. Now there was an advantage here. She knew how to fly the airplane. She didn't know anything else (at least it wasn't a girl who's dad had had a heart attack and died at the controls and she was left alone without any idea...).

I lost about 10 pounds sweating that day. I had one guy pinning a sectional chart up on the wall beside me, with plotter and pencil in hand so he could plot lines on the chart for me so I could pinpoint her, another girl was on the phone to the Philadelphia TCA, and I talked to them, and her, concurrently....there was alot going on...all at the same time.

I introduced myself to her, talked her into a comfort zone, had her read her fuel quantiuties, heading, and altitude, and then talked her through operating her VOR. She was in a bad place....approaches to PHL were at low altitudes in that area. What she gave me pinpointed her, and I got her to safe altitude, and turned in the right direction, and eventually, she saw her home field and recognized where she was.


It took about 40 minutes...which seemed like about a year.


Now, that...which involved a student pilot capable of actually flying the airplane, was nothing compared to a person who finds himself sitting at the controls of a large airliner...in flight...ahving perhaps never even seen the flight deck of an aircraft before that moment! In the case of UA93, we'd have people "flying" the airplane who were going to need to be taught how to fly it from scratch! (Blood pressure medication, anyone?) Getting them to hold her on course and at altitude is possible. However, landing an airplane is a delicate balancing act, requiring smooth inputs, and a gradual, balanced bleed off of velocity and altitude, trimming the aircraft for a very different flight realm, and making all that work on approach to a runway at some large airport. The people flying it have no feel for the plane, no idea how to do this, and would have to rely on the words of the controllers and pilot on the ground, and not react to what the seat of their pants was telling them, and then, set a 200,000 pound behemoth on the ground, keep it on the runway, and stop it.

IF they were lucky enough to have a couple folks on that flight deck who managed to get her on final and were in fact somewhere remotely close to getting her on the ground...I think we'd be talking about a crash of some sort...

A fighting chance...with negative odds.
But maybe, just maybe, they could've gotten her on the ground in less than 4 pieces, and most of the passengers might survive...maybe all of them.

Whatever the results might have been, it was a better alternative than what happened.

The joy of modern aircraft is autoland...assuming there is an airport nearby they are capable of landing at.

I can see a novice being talked in via instructions with a well qualified instructor on the microphone and enough time and fuel. Flipping the right switches, dialing in the right airspeeds ans altitudes with the right autopilot knobs. For manual flying, there are real problems. It's counterintuitive. Pulling on the stick will not increase altitude, and decreasing your power does not decrease your speed...in the long run. And there is no way to indoctrinate a novice in this dichotamy in the short run. Autopilot landing would be the only way, unless the new pilot actually had some significant stick time, even iffy with that.

"Stick and Rudder" by Wolfgang Langewiesche, written in the '40s, is the way flying works...even with today's jetliners. Some things just never change.

^ Referring to the above two posts, it's worth remembering, perhaps, for those who doubt that the hijackers would have been able to take control of a 757 or 767, that they didn't need to do that. Landing was what they didn't need to worry about.

You're right, Mr. B.
Autoland is a possibility.
But I have a hard time visualizing the novice sitting at the controls of an airplane, and not instinctively responding to the airplane...or at least wanting to, as it executes it's approach. Not understanding what's going on, hearing the sounds, seeing the sights, the attitude changes, etc...it's just nervewracking to think about...precisely because what an airplane does at low speed is quite counterintuitive...

Low on approach, pull the stick back, right?
Woops. Pulling the stick back, as you know, is a sure ticket to descending alot faster...fatally faster.

Yep...I've got a copy of "Stick and Rudder" here myself...perhaps the textbook of how to do it all! Still as viable and accurate today as it was many decades ago!

Absolutely correct!

I have in my life, flown many a person around...non pilots, taking a ride.
Many of them I could teach to handle the aircraft in flight...making a turn, flying a heading...stuff like that.

But their hands never touched the controls during takeoff or landing. That's where the real flying comes into play. The terrorists couldn't have done that, and didn't train to do that, because they didn't need to do that.

Hi all

eggumby could I ask if you would like to hold a poll on this - its your thread so I thought I would ask if you would like to start it - could I also just mention that I think this thread is a useful contribution to my "organising the 9/11 debate" thread posted today

Thanks

What poll do you have in mind?