10:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Local Resident Becomes the First Person to Report the Crash of Flight 93 to the Authorities

Paula Pluta, a resident of Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, sees Flight 93 crashing behind some trees about 1,500 yards from her home and then calls 9-1-1, becoming the first person to call the emergency services to report the crash. [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001; East Bay Times, 9/10/2005] Pluta is at her home, watching television, unaware of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon. Everything has been quiet and normal. Suddenly, though, her house starts to vibrate, and things in it start rattling and shaking. She hears a roar coming from the skies above her that gets louder and louder. “I heard this noise like a dive bomber; you know, one of those planes they use in war,” she will later recall. When she looks out the living room window, though, she sees nothing unusual outside. She then goes out onto the front porch. From there, she sees a “silver streak” plummeting toward the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees. “It looked like a silver bullet,” she will describe. [Los Angeles Times, 9/12/2001; McMillan, 2014, pp. 106; Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial, 3/17/2016] Flight 93 crashes into the ground at 10:03 a.m. (see (10:03 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/9/2011; National Park Service, 5/2013, pp. 13 ] Pluta is unable to see the impact, since the plane disappears behind a line of trees before hitting the ground, but she feels the ground shaking when the plane crashes. “It hit so hard that it almost took my feet out from underneath me,” she will recall. [Los Angeles Times, 9/12/2001; McMillan, 2014, pp. 106; Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial, 3/17/2016] She also sees a huge fireball about 150 feet up in the air and a plume of smoke coming from behind the trees. [Chicago Tribune, 9/12/2001; National Park Service, 3/2017, pp. 15 ] The explosion damages the outside of her home. Pluta notices that a garage door has buckled and a latched window has been sucked open. She immediately calls 9-1-1 to report the incident. “Oh my God!” she tells the operator. “There was an airplane crash here!” She is the first of about 20 local residents to report the crash of Flight 93 to the authorities. She will promptly head to the site where the crash occurred and be surprised at the lack of wreckage there (see (After 10:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 9/12/2001; McMillan, 2014, pp. 106-107; Friends of Flight 93 National Memorial, 3/17/2016]