U.S. Investigators "changed" official Flight 93 Story

posted by ewing2001 on Thursday August 07, @05:18PM

AP -Thu, Aug 07, 2003

Gov't: Hijacker Crashed Flight 93 on 9/11

Update: Flight 93 Families Dispute FBI's Theory AP (Aug 08)

(AP) - U.S. investigators now believe that a hijacker in the cockpit aboard United Airlines Flight 93 instructed terrorist-pilot Ziad Jarrah to crash the jetliner into a Pennsylvania field because of a passenger uprising in the cabin.

This theory, based on the government's analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the plane's controls.

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... Citing transcripts of the still-secret cockpit recordings, Mueller told congressional investigators in a closed briefing last year that, minutes before Flight 93 hit the ground, one of the hijackers "advised Jarrah to crash the plane and end the passengers' attempt to retake the airplane."

Hoglan said the FBI's transcript quotes one hijacker after fighting breaks out in the cabin asking another hijacker in the cockpit in Arabic, "Finish her/it now?", and she believed they were discussing whether to crash the plane. The response from the second hijacker, she remembered, was either "wait" or "not now."

Jarrah is thought to have been the terrorist-pilot because he was the only one of the four hijackers aboard known to have a pilot's license. The congressional report also describes the hijackers wearing bandanas and carrying knives, and passengers reported seeing the captain and co-pilot lying on the floor of the first-class section, presumably dead.

Mueller's depiction of the events was disclosed in a brief passage far into the 858-page report to Congress. Previous statements by FBI and other government officials have been ambiguous about what occurred in the cockpit.

The same cockpit recording was played privately in April 2002 for family members of victims aboard Flight 93, and the FBI also provided them with its best effort at producing an understandable transcript. Some family members believe passengers used a food cart as a shield and successfully broke into the cockpit.

"It is totally obvious listening to that flight recorder that they made it into the cockpit," said Deena Burnett, who lost her husband, Thomas E. Burnett Jr., on Flight 93. "You cannot listen to the tape and understand it any other way."

She declined to discuss specifics of the tape because federal prosecutors have asked families not to describe the recording. She remembered hearing a hijacker telling Jarrah in Arabic to crash the plane deliberately, as Mueller described, and Jarrah refusing.

Burnett also said U.S. authorities, including Assistant U.S. Attorney David Novak, told families in April 2002 that the recording indicates passengers made their way into the cockpit.

Hoglan said the hijackers inside the cockpit are heard yelling "No!" at the sound of breaking glass — presumably from the food cart — and that the final spoken words on the recorder seemed to be an inexplicably calm voice in English instructing, "Pull it up."

She said the English voice toward the end of the recording was so distinct that she believes it's evident the speaker was inside the cockpit.

The FBI has been loath to publicly put forward a contradictory theory out of sensitivity to the families and because of uncertainty about what happened.

People who have heard the recording describe it as nearly indecipherable, containing static noises, cockpit alarms and wind interspersed with cries in English and Arabic. Near the end of the tape, sounds can be heard of breaking glass and crashing dishes, lending credence to the theory that passengers used the food cart to rush the cockpit.

Separately, the data recorder showed the plane's wings rocking violently as the jet flew too low and too fast for safe flight.

Intelligence officials believe the likely target for Flight 93 was the White House, based on information from Abu Zubaydah, a senior al-Qaida terrorist leader in U.S. custody who is believed to have played a key role in organizing the Sept. 11 attacks.

Prosecutors have sought a judge's permission to play recordings from Flight 93 during the terrorism trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only defendant in a U.S. case prosecutors have directly tied to the attacks. Moussaoui is accused of conspiring with the hijackers. Novak, the prosecutor quoted by Burnett and other family members, is one of the lead attorneys in the Moussaoui case.

The government has said it can link Moussaoui to Jarrah, using a telephone number found on a business card recovered at the Shanksville, Pa., crash site.

William Bunch aka Scoopmeister (Flight93crash.com Board) about the Crash:

PhyllyNews -November 15, 2001

"...press the mayor for details, and he will add something surprising. "I know of two people -- I will not mention names -- that heard a missile," (Ernie) Stuhl said. "They both live very close, within a couple of hundred yards. . .This one fellow's served in Vietnam and he says he's heard them, and he heard one that day." The mayor adds that based on what he knows about that morning, military F-16 fighter jets were "very, very close."

Phyllynews -Sep. 16, 2002

"...A Daily News investigation has found a roughly three-minute gap between the time the tape goes silent - according to government-prepared transcripts - and the time that top scientists have pinpointed for the crash. Several leading seismologists agree that Flight 93 crashed last Sept. 11 at 10:06:05 a.m., give or take a couple of seconds. Family members allowed to hear the cockpit voice recorder in Princeton, N.J., last spring were told it stopped just after 10:03.

The FBI and other agencies refused repeated requests to explain the discrepancy.

The cockpit voice recorder a roughly 30-minute tape loop, is supposed to record the sounds inside the cockpit right up until the moment of impact and usually does.

What's not told

The broader significance is that the three-minute gap points to how little is really known about how and why Flight 93 crashed - even as the saga of the doomed jetliner and cell-phone calls from some of the 40 passengers and crew continue to captivate the nation.

"That's part of the whole war aspect - we don't want to tell about what we did and didn't do," said Vernon Grose, a former National Transportation Safety Board member who says he still has questions about the Flight 93 crash. He said he doubts there will ever be "a nice, open public hearing with eyewitnesses telling what they saw."

...the three-minute gap is certain to fuel ongoing debates on the Internet over how Flight 93 really crashed, and whether the plane could have been shot down by military jet fighters that were sent aloft as the Sept. 11 hijackings unfolded. The government insists there was no shootdown.

Numerous witnesses in the Shanksville area have told the Daily News and other publications since last September that a mysterious, low-flying unmarked white jet, military in nature, circled the area at the time of the crash. The FBI has claimed this was a business jet that had been asked by air-traffic controllers to inspect the Flight 93 crater.

The debate has also been driven by the wide debris field from Flight 93 - including papers found eight miles away - and by conflicting accounts over whether a 911 caller reported an explosion and white smoke on board.

Documentary Producer Willy Brunner recently released his german documentary "Aktenzeichen 9.11 ungeloest" which put the focus on Flight93, too.

However, the author implied, that Flight93 didn't crash in Shanksville, but was shudown elsewhere.

His conclusion: The impact of the "hole" could have been forced by a bomb.

Flight 93 Families Dispute FBI's Theory

AP -Fri, Aug 08, 2003

WASHINGTON - Families of passengers who rebelled against hijackers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 said Friday the FBI theory that the terrorists deliberately crashed the plane into a Pennsylvania field was based on "limited and questionable interpretations" of the cockpit recording.

The theory — described by FBI Director Robert Mueller and disclosed deep within a congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks — suggests insurgent passengers may not have successfully fought their way into the cockpit and grappled to seize the plane's controls, as has been popularly perceived.

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