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!
Kevin Keogh
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=c9bcfc4109bba9233dac8f977ca42f63+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0914crash+exclude=1+template=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/attack_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=5ba3e65848bd282a93fc29daad2950fd+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=8645c9c0130640100268897f618afb1d+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=+template=news1.html
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-95791220010912-130955.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=0bbb71fbc9617727ec833aa1b36956ce+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=bb53c043ed890decba22a64fd945b6cc+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=16c9cba672d4eaf6f418e746b07f9e11+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=7e693a290deecbe0352a471be13855c1+cat=news-regional-terrorism+related_name=0912crash+template=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."
