Chapter 7: Anomalies in the Official Accounts of American 77 and United 93

This chapter covers the anomalies in the official accounts of American Flight 77 and United Flight 93. These “anomalies” are features in the official accounts of these flights that would not be expected on the assumption that these accounts are true.

Part I: American Flight 77

I. Is the 9/11 Commission’s New Story about American 77 Believable?

One of the things that would not be expected, on the assumption that the official account of American Flight 77 is true, is that three years after 9/11, the original official story about this flight would be replaced with a radically different story. According to the original story, told in a press release of September 18, 2001, called “NORAD’s Response Times,” NORAD was notified about American 77 at 9:24 AM, roughly 14 minutes before the Pentagon was hit.¹⁷⁹

This report raised a difficult question for the military. Why were the F-16s from Langley Air Force Base, about 130 miles away, not able to get to the Pentagon in time to prevent the attack? This question leaves aside the perhaps more important question of why the Pentagon, surely the most well-protected building on the planet, had to rely on fighters from an Air Force base 130 miles away, when there were always fighters at nearby Andrews Air Force Base on alert to protect Washington D.C. and the Pentagon. Even if we accept the [absurd] idea that the Pentagon needed to rely on fighters from Langley, those fighters could have easily reached the Pentagon in 14 minutes. In their 2006 book, the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, in fact wrote: “[I]f the military had had the amount of time they said they had . . . , it was hard to figure how they had failed to shoot down [the plane].”¹⁸⁰

The 9/11 Commission would avoid this conclusion by providing a new story, according to which the FAA had not told the military about American 77 at 9:24. In fact, the 9/11 Commission claimed, the FAA never did notify the military, until after the Pentagon was struck.

There was, however, an FAA memo that went in the opposite direction: Whereas the Commission claimed that the 9:24 notification time was too early, this memo stated that the FAA had notified the military much earlier than 9:24. This memo, written on May 22, 2003, was created in response to a request that day by the 9/11 Commission, during a public hearing, to clarify the FAA’s notification of the military about the flights, especially American 77. This memo said:

Within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately established several phone bridges that included . . . DOD [the Department of Defense] . . . . The U.S. Air Force liaison to the FAA . . . established contact with NORAD on a separate line. The FAA shared real-time information . . . including information about . . . all the flights of interest, including Flight 77 . . . NORAD logs indicate that the FAA made formal notification about American Flight 77 at 9:24 a.m., but information about the flight was conveyed continuously during the phone bridges before the formal notification.¹⁸¹

According to this memo, therefore, the military had been told about Flight 77 long before 9:24.¹⁸²

During the 9/11 hearing the next day, Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste read this memo into the record and said: “So now we have in question whether there was an informal real-time communication of the situation, including Flight 77’s situation, to personnel at NORAD.”¹⁸³ A military general, Craig McKinley confirmed this point, saying that the FAA was indeed in contact with the military.

Given the way this conversation was going, the 9/11 Commission would be expected to say that the FAA told the military about Flight 77’s troubles even before 9:24, so the military definitely should have been able to intercept the flight and prevent any attack on the Pentagon. But this is not how it went.

Rather than saying that the FAA had told the military about this flight before 9:24, the Commission declared: “NEADS [NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector] never received notice that American 77 was hijacked.”¹⁸⁴ By making this assertion, the 9/11 Commission had to state that military officers had given false testimony. The Commission said:

In public testimony before this Commission in May 2003, . . . NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77. This statement was incorrect.¹⁸⁵

The 9/11 Commission complained that NORAD’s original story, which had been repeated by generals during the 9/11 Commission Hearings of 2003, had made it appear that the military was notified in time to respond, raising questions about the adequacy of the response. Those accounts . . . overstated the FAA’s ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning. . . Thus the military did not have 14 minutes to respond to American 77, as testimony to the Commission in May 2003 suggested.¹⁸⁶

This new official story by the 9/11 Commission got the military off the hook for not preventing the attack on the Pentagon. But this new story is not believable for two reasons. The first reason is that the 9/11 Commission accuses the military leaders of telling an irrational lie. If the Commission’s new story, according to which the military was completely guiltless, were the truth, why would military leaders have invented the original story, which implied that the military was guilty – guilty of standing down or at least incompetence? This would have been a completely irrational lie. The second reason why the Commission’s new story is unbelievable is that it contradicts many previously established facts. Below are four examples.

A. The FAA Memo: The earlier-quoted FAA Memo of May 22, 2003, stated that the 9:24 notification time was wrong by being too late, not too early. The Commission dealt with this point by simply ignoring it – even though 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste had read this memo into the Commission’s records.¹⁸⁷

B. Wald’s NYT Story: Four days after 9/11, Matthew Wald of the New York Times published a story entitled “Pentagon Tracked Deadly Jet but Found No Way to Stop It.” This story said: “During the hour or so that American Airlines Flight 77 was under the control of hijackers, up to the moment it struck the west side of the Pentagon, military officials in a command center on the east side of the building were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. But . . . the fighter planes that scrambled into protective orbits around Washington did not arrive until 15 minutes after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.”¹⁸⁸ The 9/11 Commission dealt with this story by simply ignoring it.

C. Indianapolis Ignorance: The FAA’s air traffic control center in Indianapolis was handling the flight when it started showing signs of being in trouble. The 9/11 Commission claims that the Indianapolis Center did not notify the military even when, at 8:56, it lost this flight’s transponder signal, its radar track, and its radio. Why? Because the Indianapolis controller concluded, the 9/11 Commission claimed, that “American 77 had experienced serious electrical or mechanical failure,” after which it had crashed.¹⁸⁹ Why would the controller have made this conclusion at this time, when it was known that two planes had already been hijacked, one of which had crashed into the World Trade Center? Because, the Commission claimed, no one at Indianapolis Center “had any knowledge of the situation in New York” until 9:20. But this claim strains credulity. Television networks had started broadcasting images of the World Trade Center at 8:48. These images included, at 9:03, the crash of the second airliner into the South Tower. Millions of people knew about these events. How can we believe that no one at Indianapolis Center “had any knowledge of the situation in New York” until 9:20? General Mike Canavan, director of civil aviation security, told the 9/11 Commission: “[A]s soon as you know you had a hijacked aircraft, you notify everyone. . . . [The notification] gets broadcast out to all the regions.”¹⁹⁰

D. Military Liaisons: The Commission’s account, according to which the military did not know about Flight 77, is contradicted by the presence of military liaisons at the FAA’s headquarters in Washington and its Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. The Commission claimed that, although the fact that Flight 77 was lost was known at Herndon by 9:20 and at FAA headquarters by 9:25, this knowledge did not get passed to the military. However, Ben Sliney, the operations manager at the Command Center, said:

[A]t the Command Center . . . is the military cell, which was our liaison with the military services. They were present at all of the events that occurred on 9/11. . . . If you tell the military you’ve told the military. They have their own communication web. . . . [E]veryone who needed to be notified about the events transpiring was notified, including the military.¹⁹¹

Conclusion: The 9/11 Commission’s new story about Flight 77 is impossible to believe. This story rests entirely on the assumption that the “NORAD tapes,” which the Pentagon gave to the 9/11 Commission in response to a subpoena, had not been doctored. But Philip Zelikow was a good friend of Steven Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence,¹⁹² generally considered Rumsfeld’s “right-hand man.” There was also plenty of time for the tapes to be doctored, as they were not delivered until about a month after they had been subpoenaed.¹⁹³ The suggestion that the tapes had been doctored is speculative, of course, but so is any suggestion that they had not been doctored. It should not simply be presupposed that the tapes, as delivered to the 9/11 commission, provide “the authentic military history of 9/11.”¹⁹⁴ The authenticity of the tapes must be evaluated in light of the total evidence.

II. Was the Pentagon Attacked by Al-Qaeda?

It has been widely thought that the 9/11 Truth Movement is hopelessly divided about how the Pentagon was damaged: Some believe that the Pentagon was struck by a Boeing 757, perhaps American Flight 77, while others believe that there was no 757. Some of those in the latter camp even suggest that those who believe that the Pentagon was struck by a 757, perhaps American 77, have endorsed the official theory about the Pentagon.

However, to focus on this contrast is to focus on a secondary issue. The primary issue is the following: who was responsible for the Pentagon attack? People who regard the Pentagon as struck by a 757 and perhaps even American 77 have endorsed the official theory only if they hold that the Pentagon was attacked by Flight 77 under the control of al-Qaeda. The crucial point in the official account is that the attack on the Pentagon was planned and carried out by al-Qaeda, not by our own military.

Given this perspective, there is consensus in the 9/11 Truth Movement regarding the central issue about the Pentagon attack, because all members of the 9/11 Truth Movement hold that the Pentagon was not struck by American 77 under the control of al-Qaeda.

This point can be illustrated with reference to a paper by Frank Legge and another paper by David Chandler and Jon Cole. Legge leans toward the 757 view, saying that “it cannot be conclusively proved that no 757 hit the Pentagon.”¹⁹⁵ Chandler and Cole incline to the American 77 view, saying that “the physical evidence does not rule out the possibility that it was American Airlines Flight 77 that actually crashed into the Pentagon.”¹⁹⁶ There are six points that demonstrate the consensus about the Pentagon within the 9/11 Truth Movement because they show that Legge and Chandler-Cole reject the official view of the Pentagon as fully as those who believe that the Pentagon was not struck by a Boeing 757.

1. The Pentagon Should Not Have Been Struck

The Pentagon was probably the best protected building in the world. Without some kind of stand-down order, it simply could not have been attacked, especially by amateur hijackers. Legge has articulated this point, saying: “[The Pentagon] should have been well defended. . . . There was ample time to send up fighters to intercept, as is the normal procedure.”¹⁹⁷ Chandler and Cole asked, rhetorically: “How could the Pentagon, the hub of the US military, have been so poorly defended that it could be hit . . . . after the buildings in New York City had already been hit and other hijacked planes were known to still be in the air?”¹⁹⁸

2. Cheney’s Confirmation of a Stand-Down Order

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Dick Cheney entered the bunker under the White House — technically the PEOC (the Presidential Emergency Operations Center) — “shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58.”¹⁹⁹ However, according to virtually all reports, including statements by Richard Clarke²⁰⁰ and David Bohrer (Cheney’s photographer),²⁰¹ Cheney had entered the PEOC closer to 9:15 AM. The most important of these reports came from Norman Mineta, who was the Secretary of Transportation. In testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Mineta said that he “arrived at the PEOC at about 9:20 AM,” shortly after which he overheard an ongoing conversation involving Cheney, which occurred “[d]uring the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon.” Mineta said:

“[T]here was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, ‘The plane is 50 miles out.’ ‘The plane is 30 miles out.’ And when it got down to ‘the plane is 10 miles out,’ the young man also said to the Vice President, ‘Do the orders still stand?’ And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, ‘Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?’”

What were “the orders”? Mineta assumed, he said, that they were orders to have the aircraft shot down. But no aircraft approaching Washington was shot down. Mineta’s interpretation also made the young man’s question unintelligible. Given the fact that the airspace over the Pentagon is categorized as “forbidden,” meaning that commercial aircraft are never permitted in it, plus the fact that two hijacked planes had already crashed into the Twin Towers, the expected orders, if an unidentified plane were approaching that airspace, would have been to shoot it down. Had Cheney given those orders, there would have been no reason for the young man to ask if the orders still stood. His question made sense only if the orders were to do something unexpected: not to shoot it down. The most natural interpretation of Mineta’s story, accordingly, was that he had inadvertently reported that he had heard Cheney confirm stand-down orders.

This interpretation would also make sense of what the 9/11 Commission did in response to Mineta’s story: Its Report did not mention Mineta’s story, and by claiming that Cheney entered the PEOC “shortly before 10:00,” the Commission claimed, implicitly, that there was no time for the exchange with the young man described by Mineta. This portion of Mineta’s testimony was also removed from the Commission’s video archive.²⁰²

Mineta’s testimony, combined with the 9/11 Commission’s reaction to it, provides strong evidence, convincing to at least most members of the Truth Movement, that Washington insiders, including Cheney, were behind the Pentagon attack. Chandler and Cole asked: “Why was Norman Mineta’s testimony about Cheney’s response to the approach of the aircraft discounted in the 9/11 Commission report?”²⁰³ Legge, calling Mineta’s testimony “crucial,” wrote: “There is little doubt that Cheney had it in his hand to block this attack [on the Pentagon].”²⁰⁴

3. Hani Hanjour’s Incompetence

The official story is rendered especially dubious by its claim that the Pentagon was struck by a Boeing 757 flown by al-Qaeda’s Hani Hanjour. As the title of a New York Times story revealed in 2002, Hanjour, who had been taking lessons in a single-engine plane, was known as “a trainee noted for incompetence,” about whom an instructor said: “He could not fly at all.”²⁰⁵

And yet on September 11, 2001, before Hanjour had been declared by authorities to have been the pilot of the plane that hit the Pentagon, a Washington Post story said: “[J]ust as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. . . . Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill.”^”206 A Post story the following year stated: “[A]viation experts concluded that the final maneuver of American Airlines Flight 77 . . . was the work of ‘a great talent.’”²⁰⁷ This was clearly impossible: A man who could not safely fly a single-engine plane could not possibly have flown a giant airliner with “extraordinary skill,” like “a great talent.”

Legge agrees that Hanjour’s “poor flying skills” rule out the possibility that he flew a 757 into the Pentagon.²⁰⁸ Chandler and Cole ask, rhetorically: “How could an untrained pilot have performed the difficult maneuvers?”²⁰⁹

4. Wedge 1 Required an Extraordinary Maneuver

Moreover, the extraordinary maneuver would have been so difficult in a 757 that the official story could not be saved by simply choosing a less incompetent al-Qaeda trainee. Ralph Kolstad, who was a top US Navy pilot before becoming a commercial airline pilot, has said: “I have 6,000 hours of flight time in Boeing 757’s and 767’s and I could not have flown it the way the flight path was described.”²¹⁰ If the maneuver could not have been executed in a 757 by one of America’s top pilots, it could not have been executed by any of the alleged hijackers.

It might be thought that this point would rule out the 757 view, but Legge is able to affirm this view with “the possibility that the plane was hijacked by an on-board device, pre-programmed to take over the autopilot,”²¹¹ and Chandler and Cole agree.²¹²

5. Al-Qaeda Would Have Crashed into the Roof

If al-Qaeda masterminds had wanted only to strike the Pentagon, they would not have targeted Wedge 1, thereby requiring an amateur pilot to fly a trajectory that even an expert professional probably could not have executed. The masterminds would have had the pilot simply crash into the roof, thereby having a 29-acre target. Chandler and Cole say that the plane was not flown by al-Qaeda, because if it had been, it most likely would “have simply dived into the building.”²¹³

6. Al-Qaeda Would Not Have Targeted Wedge 1: Still More Reasons

The targeting of Wedge 1 provides still more reasons to conclude that al-Qaeda was not in charge. First, al-Qaeda operatives would have wanted to kill the secretary of defense and top military officers. But their offices were as far from Wedge 1 as possible. Second, Wedge 1 was the only part of the Pentagon that had been renovated, making it less vulnerable to attacks, so an attack on Wedge 1 caused less damage than would have an attack on any other section of the Pentagon. Third, the renovation was not quite completed, so Wedge 1 was only sparsely occupied. Accordingly, whereas the attack on Wedge 1 killed 125 Pentagon employees, a strike on any other part of the Pentagon would have caused many more deaths.

Summary: Points 4 through 6 show that the al-Qaeda “mastermind” behind the attack on the Pentagon would have been the stupidest mastermind conceivable. A rational assessment of the evidence shows that the Pentagon attack was not engineered by al-Qaeda. Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement have differing beliefs about what damaged the Pentagon, but they can and do have consensus on the fact that the Pentagon was not struck by American 77 under the control of al-Qaeda.

III. A Final Question: Did Barbara Olson Make Calls from American 77?

One of the best-known features of the official story of 9/11 is that Barbara Olson — a commentator on CNN and the wife of US Solicitor General Theodore “Ted” Olson — made two calls to her husband from American 77 shortly before it struck the Pentagon. Ted Olson reported that the first call lasted “about one minute”²¹⁴ and the second one “two or three or four minutes.”²¹⁵

The success of Ted Olson’s reports is shown by the fact that virtually everyone, it seems, “knew” that the hijackers had box-cutters, even though the reported Olson calls were the only “phone calls from the planes” in which box-cutters, called “cardboard cutters,” were mentioned.

In the first five years after 9/11, there were many reasons given as to why these reported calls from Barbara Olson were improbable, perhaps impossible — whether from cell phones or seat-back phones. Then in 2006, the FBI, providing evidence for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui,²¹⁶ indicated that the calls could not have been made in either way. On the one hand, the FBI ruled out the possibility that Barbara Olson could have used a cell phone, saying: “All of the calls from Flight 77 were made via the onboard airphone system.”²¹⁷ On the other hand, the FBI report indicated that, although Barbara Olson did attempt a call from a seat-back phone, it was “unconnected” and (therefore) lasted “0 seconds.”²¹⁸ This anomaly in the official account of Flight 77 has thus far not been mentioned by the mainstream press, with only (to my knowledge) one exception.²¹⁹

Part II: United Flight 93

I. The Reported Calls to Deena Burnett

The anomaly about the reported Olson calls provides a bridge to United Flight 93, because one of its distinctive features is that there were more reported phone calls from this flight than from the rest of the flights combined. These reported calls are of great importance, because it was the “phone calls from the 9/11 planes” that first convinced the public that America had been attacked by al-Qaeda hijackers. Evidence that these calls had been faked would, therefore, be of utmost importance. From the evidence in the previous point, it would appear that the Olson calls were somehow faked.

Strong evidence for fakery is also provided by the reported calls of Tom Burnett from United 93. His wife, Deena Burnett, reported that she had received “three to five cellular phone calls” from him.²²⁰ She knew he was using his cell phone, because, the FBI report from that same day said, “Burnett was able to determine that her husband was using his own cellular telephone because the caller identification showed his number.”²²¹

This gives us another major anomaly. On the one hand, it seems impossible to dismiss Deena Burnett’s testimony as based on either dishonesty or confusion, so we have no reason to doubt that her caller ID indicated that she was called from her husband’s cell phone. On the other hand, cell phone calls from United 93’s altitude at that time of over 40,000 feet were, given the technology available in 2001, so unlikely that they can be called impossible. Even Deena Burnett herself, having been a flight attendant, wrote: “I didn’t understand how [Tom] could be calling me on his cell phone from the air.”²²²

Indeed, even the FBI — in spite of having recorded on 9/11 that Deena Burnett had reported that her caller ID indicated that her husband had called her from his cell phone — stated, in its report provided for the Moussaoui trial, that Tom Burnett’s calls were made from a passenger-seat phone.²²³

There would seem to be no escape from the conclusion that the calls to Deena Burnett, having not come from her husband flying at roughly 40,000 feet on United 93, had in some way been faked. And if one call was faked, this raises the likelihood that all of the reported calls were faked — because if United 93 and the other 9/11 planes had really been taken over in surprise hijackings, no one would have been prepared to fake a single call.²²⁴

II. When Did the Military Know that United 93 Was in Trouble?

Another question about United 93 is when it showed signs of being in trouble. There were contradictory reports. In 2003, NORAD officials told the 9/11 Commission that the FAA reported “a possible hijack of United Flight 93” at 9:16²²⁵ and that the Langley fighters had been scrambled at 9:14 to intercept United 93. But the 9/11 Commission in 2004 called both of these claims “incorrect,” saying instead: “By 10:03, when United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, there had been no mention [to the military] of its hijacking.”²²⁶

The FAA controller in Cleveland had detected signs of hijacking at 9:28 — even hearing “We have a bomb on board” — and yet the Cleveland FAA reportedly did not contact the military. The 9/11 Commission, trying to explain why not, gave an unbelievable account of incompetence and even stupidity in the FAA.²²⁷ Besides being unbelievable, the 9/11 Commission’s claim was contradicted by at least four prior reports.

First, in his 2004 book, Richard Clarke said that during his White House videoconference, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey reported, at about 9:35, a number of “potential hijacks,” which included “United 93 over Pennsylvania,”²²⁸ while both Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers were listening. The 9/11 Commission was able to claim that the military did not learn of Garvey’s report by denying that Rumsfeld and Myers were involved in the video conference.

Second, an ABC program on the first anniversary of 9/11 had Karl Rove, David Bohrer (Cheney’s photographer), and Cheney himself discussing the hijacked United 93 and considering it “the biggest threat.”²²⁹ Brigadier General Montague Winfield, who had taken a leadership position in the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, recalled: “We received the report from the FAA that Flight 93 had turned off its transponder, had turned, and was now heading towards Washington, DC.”²³⁰

Third, General Larry Arnold, the commander of NORAD’s US continental region, indicated in a January 2002 interview that the military learned about UA 93’s troubles between the crash into the second tower and the attack on the Pentagon: “By this time,” he said, “we were watching United Flight 93 wander around Ohio.”²³¹ He also said that at 9:24: “Our focus was on United 93, which was being pointed out to us very aggressively I might say by the FAA.”²³² This report by Arnold, who was involved in the events, differed radically from the 9/11 Commission’s claim, according to which the FAA never contacted the military about United 93.

Fourth, the 9/11 Commission’s claim was also, of course, incompatible with the testimonies, quoted above, about the military liaisons at the FAA Command Center. It seems impossible for us to say what was really going on with UA 93. But we can confidently say that the 9/11 Commission’s account was false.

III. Did the Military Shoot United 93 Down?

Rumors that the military had shot down Flight 93 existed from the start. Major Daniel Nash, one of the pilots from Otis Air Force Base sent to fly over New York City, reported that when he returned to base, he was told that a military F-16 had shot down an airliner in Pennsylvania.²³³ This rumor became sufficiently widespread that it came up during General Richard Myers’ confirmation interview with the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 13. Chairman Carl Levin, saying that “there have been statements that the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot down,” added: “Those stories continue to exist.”²³⁴

Myers replied: “Mr. Chairman, the armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft.”²³⁵ That same day, NORAD said: “Contrary to media reports that speculate that United Airlines Flight 93 was ‘downed’ by a U.S. fighter aircraft, NORAD-allocated forces have not engaged with weapons any aircraft, including Flight 93.” NORAD said that this should put an end to the rumors.²³⁶

But the rumors continued. In 2002, for example, Susan Mcelwain, who lived near the crash site, reported that within hours of the crash, she had received a call from a friend who said that her husband, who was in the Air Force, had called and said: “I can’t talk, but we’ve just shot a plane down.”²³⁷

Although the 9/11 Commission did not directly acknowledge this controversy, it made a three-fold argument to rule out the possibility that UA 93 could have been shot down. The first argument was that the military did not know about the hijacking of United 93 until after it had crashed. As we have seen, there is much evidence against this claim.

The second argument was that Cheney, having not arrived in the PEOC until almost 10:00, did not give the shootdown authorization until sometime after 10:10, and that Richard Clarke, who had asked for this authorization, did not receive it until 10:25.²³⁸ This claim is also refuted by strong evidence. These claims were meant to rule out the possibility that UA 93 was shot down, because it, the Commission said, came down at 10:03 (or 10:06), But Clarke himself indicated that he, after asking for the authorization shortly after 9:30 and then being “amazed at the speed of the decisions coming from Cheney,” received the authorization between 9:45 and 9:50.²³⁹ Also, a Newsday story published two weeks after 9/11 said that the authorization was given “after Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon,” meaning about 9:38.²⁴⁰ In 2003, U.S. News and World Report wrote: “Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order [to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane] to Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.”²⁴¹ Colonel Robert Marr, the head of NEADS, said that he had “passed that [order] on to the pilots,” so that “United Airlines Flight 93 [would] not be allowed to reach Washington, DC.”²⁴² So there was plenty of time for the plane to have been shot down.

The Pentagon’s third argument was that the military was not in position to shoot UA 93 down. But a reporter in Nashua — which is where the Boston Air Traffic Control Center is — wrote: “FAA air traffic controllers in Nashua have learned through discussions with other controllers that an F-16 fighter stayed in hot pursuit of another hijacked commercial airliner until it crashed in Pennsylvania.”²⁴³ Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said: “We responded awfully quickly, . . . and, in fact, we were already tracking in on that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.”²⁴⁴ A CBS story then said: “U.S. officials were considering shooting down the hijacked airliner that crashed in western Pennsylvania, but it crashed first. . . . [A]dministration officials say that, had the jetliner continued toward Washington, the fighter jets would have shot it down.”²⁴⁵

Still other stories reported that the military was in position to shoot United 93 down.²⁴⁶ So the claim by the military and the 9/11 Commission was very strongly contradicted by numerous reports.

The Alleged Crash Site

The falsity of the official story about Flight 93 is further suggested by descriptions of the alleged crash site. One television reporter said: “There was just a big hole in the ground. All I saw was a crater filled with small, charred plane parts. Nothing that would even tell you that it was the plane. . . . There were no suitcases, no recognizable plane parts, no body parts.”²⁴⁷ A newspaper photographer said: “I didn’t think I was in the right place. . . . I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal. There was nothing.”²⁴⁸

Debris, instead, was found many miles away, and much of it was debris that could not have blown there. John Fleegle, an employee at Indian Lake Marina, reported that the debris that washed ashore included “pieces of seats, small chunks of melted plastic and checks.”²⁴⁹ Newspapers reported that debris was found in New Baltimore, which was beyond a mountain ridge more than eight miles from the alleged crash site.²⁵⁰

Also, although Flight 93 reportedly was carrying more than 37,000 gallons of fuel when it crashed, tests of the soil and groundwater at the official crash site found no evidence of contamination.²⁵¹

Perhaps the strangest feature of the crash site was that there were evidently two of them. According to CNN reporter Brian Cabell, speaking from the official crash site, the FBI had “cordoned off a second area about six to eight miles away from the crater.” He then asked: “Why would debris from the plane . . . be located 6 miles away?”²⁵²

The Flight Path(s)

Parallel to this evidence of two crash sites was evidence for two flight paths. According to the Flight Data Recorder, the plane came in from the north, a path that was confirmed by some witnesses in the Shanksville area. But other residents reported that the plane came from the east, with people fishing at the Indian Lake Marina reporting that the plane flew right over the lake.²⁵³

Conclusion: This chapter has shown that there are many anomalous features in the official stories of Flights 77 and 93, which deserve the attention of future official investigations of the events on September 11, 2001.

Endnotes

179. “NORAD’s Response Times,” North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 18, 2001 (www.standdown.net/noradseptember182001pressrelease.htm).
180. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006), 259. Kean and Hamilton wrote: “. . . how they had failed to shot down at least one of the planes.” The context shows, however, that they had in mind American 77 (along with United 93).
181. “FAA Clarification Memo to 9/11 Independent Commission,” May 22, 2003 (http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2004081200421797).
182. Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 259.
183. 9/11 Commission Hearing, May 23, 2003 (http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm).
184. The 9/11 Commission Report, 2004 (www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf), henceforth 9/11CR, 34.
185. 9/11CR 34.
186. Ibid.
187. 9/11 Commission Hearing, May 23, 2003 (http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm).
188. 188 Matthew Wald, “Pentagon Tracked Deadly Jet but Found No Way to Stop It,” The New York Times, September 15, 2001 (http://www.attackonamerica.net/pentagontrackeddeadlyjet.html).
189. 9/11CR 24.
190. 9/11 Commission Hearing, May 23, 2003.
191. 9/11 Commission Hearing, June 17, 2004.
192. Philip Shenon, The Commission, 205.
193. Ibid., 208.
194. Michael Bronner, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes,” Vanity Fair, August 2006: 262-285, 264. For my discussion of Bronner’s essay and my reasons to believe the tapes to have been doctored, see the first chapter of my book, Debunking 9/1 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2006), entitled “9/11 Live or Distorted: Do the NORAD Tapes Verify The 9/11 Commission Report?”
195. Frank Legge, “What Hit the Pentagon? Misinformation and its Effect on the Credibility of 9/11 Truth,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, February 15, 2010 (http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2009/WhatHitPentagonDrLeggeAug.pdf).
196. David Chandler and Jon Cole, “Joint Statement on the Pentagon: David Chandler and Jon Cole,” 911Blogger, January 7, 2011 (http://911blogger.com/news/2011-01-01/joint-statement-pentagon-david-chandler-and-jon-cole).
197. Legge, “What Hit the Pentagon?
198. Chandler and Cole, “Joint Statement on the Pentagon.”
199. 9/11CR 40.
200. Clarke, Against All Enemies (Free Press, 2004), 1–4.
201. “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings,” ABC News, September 11, 2002 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/abcnews091102.html); “Sept. 11’s Moments of Crisis: Part 2: Scramble,” ABC News, September 14, 2002 (http://enigma911.110mb.com/cache/abcnews/sept11_moments_2.html).
202. See Gregor Holland, “The Mineta Testimony: 9/11 Commission Exposed,” 911truthmovement.org, 1 November 2005 (http://www.911truthmovement.org/archives/2005/11/post.php ).
203. Chandler and Cole, “Joint Statement on the Pentagon.”
204. Legge, “What Hit the Pentagon?
205. Jim Yardley, “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence,” The New York Times, May 4, 2002 (http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9-11/suspects/flying-skills/pilot-trainee-noted-for-incompetence.txt).
206. Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, “On Flight 77: ‘Our Plane Is Being Hijacked,’” The Washington Post, September 12, 2001 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A14365-2001Sep11).
207. Steve Fainaru and Alia Ibrahim, “Mysterious Trip to Flight 77 Cockpit,” The Washington Post, September 10, 2002 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/13/AR2007081300752_pf.html).
208. Legge, “What Hit the Pentagon?”
209. Chandler and Cole, “Joint Statement on the Pentagon.”
210. Alan Miller, “U.S. Navy ‘Top Gun’ Pilot Questions 911 Pentagon Story,” OpEdNews.com, September 6, 2007 (http://www.rense.com/general78/pent.htm).
211. Legge, “What Hit the Pentagon?”
212. Chandler and Cole, “Joint Statement on the Pentagon.”
213. “The Pentagon,” GlobalSecurity.org (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/pentagon.htm).
214. “Interview with Theodore Olsen [sic],” 9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September 11, 2001Intelfiles.com, March 14, 2008 (http://intelfiles.egoplex.com:80/2008/03/911-commission-fbi-source-documents.html).
215. “America’s New War: Recovering from Tragedy,” Larry King Live, CNN, September 14, 2001 (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/14/lkl.00.html)
216. United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/flights/P200054.html). These documents can be more easily viewed in an article by Jim Hoffman, “Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights” (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html).
217. “T7 B12 Flight 93 Calls- General Fdr- 5-20-04 DOJ Briefing on Cell and Phone Calls From AA 77 408,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, May 20, 2004 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/18886083/T7-B12-Flight-93-Calls-General-Fdr-52004-DOJ-Briefing-on-Cell-and-Phone-Calls-From-AA-77-408).
218. See “Barbara Olson” under “Flight 77” in Hoffman, “Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights” (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html).
219. This exception is “9/11: The Unofficial Story,” November 27, 2009, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Fifth Estate(http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2009-2010/the_unofficial_story); also available on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/user/SaveOurSovereignty3#p/u/3/8SK1PWIGs48).
220. “Interview with Deena Lynne Burnett,” Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 11, 2001 (http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/2001-09-11-FBI-FD302-deena-lynne-burnett.pdf).
221. Ibid.
222. Deena L. Burnett (with Anthony F. Giombetti), Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves (Longwood, Florida: Advantage Inspirational Books, 2006), 61.
223. Thomas Burnett, Jr., United Airlines Flight #93 Telephone Calls (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/docs/exhibit/ThomasBurnett.png). According to this report, Burnett placed two calls from row 24 ABC and one call from row 25 ABC (although he had been assigned a seat in row 4).
224. See David Ray Griffin, 9/11 Ten Years Later: When State Crimes Against Democracy Succeed(Olive Branch [Interlink Books] 2011), Ch. 5, “Phone Calls from the 9/11 Planes: How They Fooled America.”
225. 9/11 Commission Hearing, May 23, 2007 (http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm).
226. 9/11CR 38.
227. 9/11CR 28-30. See the discussion in my 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2008), 11–13.
228. Clarke, Against All Enemies, 7.
229. “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings,” ABC News, September 11, 2002 (s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/abcnews091102.html).
230. Ibid.
231. “Conversation With Major General Larry Arnold, Commander, 1st Air Force, Tyndall AFB, Florida,” Code One: An Airpower Projection Magazine, January 2002 (http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/2002/articles/jan_02/defense).
232. 9/11 Commission Hearing, May 23, 2003.
233. Kevin Dennehy, “I Thought It Was the Start of World War III,” Cape Cod Times, August 21, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/analysis/norad/capecodtimes082102_ithought.html).
234. General Myers Confirmation Hearing, Senate Armed Services Committee, September 13, 2001 (http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/mycon.htm).
235. Ibid.
236. Jonathan Silver, “NORAD Denies Military Shot Down Flight 93,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 14, 2001 (http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010914norad0914p3.asp).
237. Richard Wallace, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?” Daily Mirror, September 12, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/evidence/mirror_whatdidhappen.html).
238. 9/11CR 37.
239. Clarke, Against All Enemies, 7–8.
240. Sylvia Adcock, Brian Donovan and Craig Gordon, “Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses,” Newsday, September 23, 2001 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2001/newsday092301.html).
241. Chitra Ragavan and Mark Mazzetti, “Pieces of the Puzzle: A Top-Secret Conference Call on September 11 Could Shed New Light on the Terrorist Attacks,” U.S. News and World Report, August 31, 2003 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/030908/8sept11.htm).
242. “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings,” ABC News, September 11, 2002 (s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/abcnews091102.html).
243. Albert McKeon, “FAA Worker Says Hijacked Airliners Pilots Almost Collided Before Striking World Trade Center,” Telegraph (Nashua), September 13, 2001 (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/587567/posts).
244. “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with PBS NewsHour,” PBS, September 14, 2001 (http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1882).
245. “Feds Would Have Shot Down Pa. Jet,” CBS News, September 16, 2001 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/12/archive/main311011.shtml).
246. Dave Foster, “UST Grad Guides Bombers in War,” Aquin, December 4, 2002 (http://www.stthomas.edu/aquin/archive/041202/anaconda.html); Matthew L. Wald with Kevin Sack, “‘We Have Some Planes,’ Hijacker Told Controller,” The New York Times, October 16, 2001 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2001/nyt101601.html); William B. Scott, “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3 2002 (http://web.archive.org/web/20020917072642/http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm); Pamela S. Freni, Ground Stop: An Inside Look at the Federal Aviation Administration on September 11, 2001 (Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2003), 41.
247. Newseum, Running Toward Danger (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 148.
248. Ibid., 149.
249. Debra Erdley, “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 14, 2001 (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_12967.html).
250. Erdley, “Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away”; Bill Heltzel and Tom Gibb, “2 Planes Had No Part in Crash of Flight 93,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 16, 2001 (http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010916otherjetnat5p5.asp); Richard Wallace, “What Did Happen to Flight 93?” Daily Mirror, September 12, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/evidence/mirror_whatdidhappen.html).
251. On the remaining fuel, see John O’Callaghan and Daniel Bower, “Study of Autopilot, Navigation Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 Digital Flight Data Recorder Information,” National Transportation Safety Board, February 13, 2002 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/31594959/9-11-NTSB-Autopilot-Study-Flight-AA77-UA93). On the lack of contamination, see “Environmental Restoration begins at Somerset Site,” WTAE-TV, October 2, 2001 (http://html.thepittsburghchannel.com/pit/news/stories/news-100064120011002-151006.html), and “Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 2001 (http://www.postgazette.com/headlines/20011003crash1003p3.asp).
252. “America Under Attack: FBI and State Police Cordon Off Debris Area Six to Eight Miles from Crater Where Plane Went Down,” CNN, September 13, 2001 (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/13/bn.01.html).
253. “Homes, Neighbors Rattled by Crash,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 12, 2001 (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_12942.html); Robin Acton and Richard Gazarik, “Human Remains Recovered in Somerset,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 13, 2001 (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_47536.html); Richard Gazarik and Robin Acton, “Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 14, 2001 (http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_12969.html).