Flight 93: Many Questions Linger (Philadelphia Daily News)

Here's an article in today's Philadelphia Daily News investigating what really happened with Flight 93 in time for the new movie on that topic. I'm psyched that I got interviewed for it and many of the points I raised were put in the article even though I wasn't quoted much. :) Some snippets:

Many Questions Linger

Virtually everything that is known about United Flight 93, the hijacked jetliner that crashed into a coal field in western Pennsylvania, has been put into the new Hollywood feature film about the doomed voyage.

But while Greengrass tackled everything known about the flight - which the government believes was purposely crashed by its four al Qaeda hijackers because of the uprising by passengers who'd learned of the World Trade Center crashes - there were things the movie could not address.

uestions remain - most notably about the government's response. Why was the hijacked jet not intercepted by the military jets that had been sent aloft after the Trade Center strikes? Did President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney order a shoot-down as the plane neared Washington? And why didn't it happen?

"Unfortunately, we have yet to have a serious and honest investigation into what happened on 9/11," said Paul Thompson, the author of "The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute."

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14439058.htm

I was particularly glad the article brought up this point that I mentioned, because it's something most everyone has overlooked and it shows the official story of the military response as described in the 9/11 Commission report and now the new movie is basically a lie:

NORAD also told the 9/11 Commission that it hadn't been informed of the Flight 93 hijacking until it was much too late to respond. However, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold told an author in 2004, "We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and started to turn south toward D.C." That was about 27 minutes, or more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

---

I also pointed out some similar quotes from other NORAD leaders before they seemingly got together to coordinate their excuses, but unfortunately those didn't get mentioned in the article. For instance, Robert Marr, head of the NORAD sector Flight 93 was in, recalled in one interview that just a few minutes after 9/11 was hijacked he said, “We don’t have fighters that way and we think headed toward Detroit or Chicago.” He said he contacted a base in the area “so they could head off 93 at the pass.” Naturally, this and much more completely contradicts the 9/11 Commission assertion that the military didn't know Flight 93 was hijacked until after it crashed into the ground.

Thanks for posting it.

ARTCC. The military was always scrambling off after fast planes coming in from Canada or airliners off course and out of communication. Or other planes getting into military airspace that was closed. There are lots of stories of military aircraft rushing out to defend the sea coasts and shooting down civilian airplanes because they wouldn't respond.

What NORAD had to say is either poppycock or they've gone brain dead in the last 25 years. In the book by Michael Ruppert - Crossing the Rubicon - he states that the air exercises scheduled for that day to do a simulation of what would happen if aircraft were hijacked to fly into the World Trade Buildings - had all but a few of our defense aircraft able to defend the entire east coast. A few being around 5. The air exercises were also being run by Cheney.

I haven't read your book yet but will track it down.

...of airplanes was pretty much automated...the FAA would contact NORAD, and NORAD would select and send out the nearest interceptors. Sometime after the NeoCons took over the reins of government, that all changed...the authorization to release interceptors had to come from Rummy. On 911, Rummy was allegedly hard to find for roughly 30 minutes, even though he was at the Pentagon the morning of 911.

As far as the order to shoot down Flight 93 is concerned, Cheney did give the command to shoot down any airliners not obeying the order to land immediately. In fact, he gave that order three distinct times on the morning of 911, and sometime before Flight 93 crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside. Another question about Flight 93 concerns the eight mile trail of debris that led to the plane's impact point, debris that included one of the plane's engines, and eyewitness accounts that include flames coming from the fuselage of the aircrafgt as it flew overhead.

When you add in the exercises being conducted that morning, it becomes very difficult not to begin to question everything about the official 911 response.

The NeoCons have made a habit of attempting to create heroes for every single event since 911. Just about every single one of those attempts has turned out to be either totally untrue, or totally embellished. IMHO, the official story about Flight 93 falls into that category. We really don't have any idea what actually happened on that plane.

designed to give the American public heroes (those aboard Flight 93). In my opinion the airliner was shot down by the government. There's too much evidence to think otherwise (if you're paying attention). However the American public has never been accused of paying attention. They do what they're told and think what they're told to think, and Flight 93 makes them feel good about a horrible situation. However, it's a true work of fiction in my opinion.

Director of other nationalist propoganda pap such as "Bloody Sunday," and the upcoming "They Marched Into Sunlight" about the Dow Chemical protests during Vietnam.

Yeah, he's a real jingoist. :eyes:

I just don't understand the knee-jerk reaction on this board against the movie. I think Greengrass's body of work speaks highly of him, and in interviews he's hardly a Neocon plant.

It happened, and the Bush administration was clearly unprepared (in spite of warnings from Hart and from the outgoing administration, the Bush administration f$cked up their response, the Bush administration squandered the world's good will, and the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to start the war they wanted instead of hunting for the real perpetrators.

Hello? Osama? Where are you? At large? Uncaught? Still sending messages to your minions? Nice job, Bush administration.

So why avoid the topic?

One: The first flight 93 movie (the made for TV one) was a piece of propoganda. It was bad.

Two: A lot of people are just put out because the movie ignores their paranoid delusions about 9/11.

Three: Some people who don't subscribe to the paranoid delusions will still have a problem with any piece of media that views 9/11 in the context of anything other than Bush's fuckups. I personally think that view is extremist and silly. That's like saying Platoon is a bad movie because it doesn't spend all of its time in the president's office.

day. WHY didn't they happen. Aren't you even a little curious? Don't you want one of the biggest crimes in US history investigated or do you just want to swallow the lies of the Bush administration. Osama...how the hell do you even know he had anything to do with it? Because Bush and the liars in this administration said so to kick off their wars??? Because they made bad movies with a guy that didn't even look like OBL 'saying' he did it, according to trustworthy DOD, Faux and CNN? Stop being so gullible! How many times will you believe their lies?

Why must you assume that anyone who disagrees with you is either ignorant or stupid? For the love of God, if you can't accept the fact that different people can examine the same information and come to different conclusions, what the heck are you doing in a discussion forum?

Thank God for the "ignore" button.

Not exactly a persuasive post. Hysterical, but not persuasive.

The black boxes on the planes that crashed in the WTC allegedly were not found but Atta's passport was located two blocks from the crash.

last weekend. Not because I am still so emotional about 9/11, but because I am in no mood to see any movies like this until we have the complete and unvarnished truth about what happened that day.

The movie is pure propaganda. The trailers I've seen on TV turn my stomach in the way they clearly manipulate emotion.

Got to admit, though, it's a dramatic story-line. It's sure to be a hit in the beleaguered American psyche.

As I listened to radio previews for it this morning, I had to wonder if this movie will now become enshrined as the truth about what happened that day, and will effectively shut down any further questions about what really occurred.

is if this report is true and Bush gave the order to ground all flights on his way to the airport in Sarasota, why didn't he issue a shoot down order for any other hijacked flights?

to the 9-11 dungeon before too long.

What kind of son calls his mom and announces his entire name? His "mother" (Alice?) was on CNN recently simply GUSHING about how wonderful this film was. And she said she remembered when he called and said, "Mom, this is Todd Bingham". She actually said this on CNN. I just about fell off the couch.

Then yesterday Tom Ridge was on the news saying he visited the crash site, and was surprised that there was "almost no debris", just a "big crater" in the ground.

WTF????

I can't believe people are buying this propoganda. To me its timing is suspicious - not only is it right before the elections, but it's also come out right when there are more and more questions about the "official story" being asked publicly (Charlie Sheen, etc.).

You're accusing the mother of one of the people who was killed in the crash of being a co-conspirator? You'd better have some strong evidence to back up that accusation.

I think it was meant as an example of how Bingham's mother has bought into the propaganda. She may have her reasons -- like it's her way of dealing with her loss, much like those parents who have lost sons & daughters in Iraq who continue to back the war & Clueless George.

I just find it very bizarre that she thinks it's perfectly reasonable that her son would use his full name when he called her. And then, as the other poster mentioned, to ask twice, "You believe me, don't you?" That's just plain weird.

There are also many many questions about whether cell phones can even work (in some cases MULTIPLE times - for instance, Ted Olsen's wife calling him from Flight 77 two or three times) from airplanes at high altitude and speed. Just think about how hard it is, at least in my area, making and keeping a connection over a 15-mile distance. And I'm not entirely in the boondocks.

I have to admit it entered my mind, when watching the way she was speaking on CNN's Showbiz Tonight, maybe she is NOT his mother after all - she had a very strange look in her eye, was overly enthusiastic about this film about her son dying, like I said, GUSHING. She was saying everyone needs to see this, because it tells the story EXACTLY how it happened. How the heck would she know?

Watching her was truly surreal, and frankly these days, nothing would surprise me. If it were only this part of the story that was bizarre, and everything else about 9/11 made perfect sense, I'd be the first to say it's no big deal. But taken with the hundreds of other "anomolies" surrounding that day's events, it's just one more thing that makes you say, "Huh?"

Edited to add: And don't you think it's even a little bizarre that Tom Ridge would say there was almost NO debris at the crash site?? When have you ever seen an airplane crash site with almost no debris? Oh yeah, I forgot....the Pentagon!!! Twice in one day? Wow. What a coincidence.

...where did the poster state that the mother of Todd Bingham was a "co-conspirator"?

You'd better have some strong evidence to back up that accusation.

another coincidence! :puke:

I wonder what they will pull out of their sleeve just before the election? We should take bets. Actually...I wonder if there is any way we could really do that? It could get a lot of publicity! Maybe even deter bush* from doing something evil, sneaky, crooked and deceitful.

And, if he did say "Todd Bingham, "so the hell what? People do strange things under stress. A friend of mine who was raped went home and made and ate pancakes, then called her sister and said, "I was just raped. Can you come take me to the hospital? Just let me watch Seinfeld first, okay?" Guess she was just lying, huh?

I don't get the propaganda angle at all -- it's a movie, made by Paul Greengrass who is is one of the good guys, and will do a good, factual job with the movie. Regardless of what exactly happened at the end, these people did act courageously.

And, accusing his mom of something is strange and more than a bit offputting... and is the use of quotations around "mother."

about anything. And there are so many huge gaping holes in the 9/11 story that NONE of us have a real clue what happened except for the people who were there. (Just ask Paul Thompson, the wonderful researcher who is the OP, and who has done a magnificent job of laying out all the known facts.)

I would not put it past them to pull any kind of the most bizarre crap we could imagine, given how many tens of thousands (100's?) of deaths they have caused due to their outright lies and incompetence.

Take it however you will. But I don't buy one thing they say. Call me jaded, call me a skeptic. Hell, call me a conspiracy theorist. But I know THEIR story does not add up.

And I know that that woman on CNN, whether she was Todd's mother or not, was NOT acting in a rational way, almost five long years after Todd's death.

If he does a great deal of business by phone, he may be used to saying "Mark, this is Todd Bingham" "Sally, this is Todd Bingham" "Dave, this is Todd Bingham".

In times of stress, it isn't at all odd to slip into what you know.

My apologies.

This appears to be a main stream newspaper taking these questions seriously. There's been a lot of speculation about the effect this movie will have on people, mostly fearing that this movie will raise Bush's ratings. Unless I misinterpreted the review in the New Yorker, this movie may have the opposite effect. On the other hand, it just may raise the general level of anger without changing anyone's mind about Bush's policies one way or the other.

down.

edit: I notice a lot of commercials for it on AAR.

person of average intelligence to give real thought to what "really" happened on 9/11, it is this:

"Government agencies have insisted that the "black boxes" (actually orange) found at the Pentagon were too badly damaged, while the four in New York were never recovered, which was a first.

However, the Daily News reported in 2004 that two Ground Zero rescue workers claimed they helped the FBI recover three of the four "black boxes" there. Last year, Philadelphia free-lance writer Dave Lindorff reported that a National Transportation Safety Board source told him: "Off the record, we had the boxes. You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here.""

What is the point of denying the existence of the "black boxes"? Who is lying? And why?

female soldier, Jessica (whoever)a couple years back who they made that movie about..."rewriting" history as they did...saying Jessica (whoever) was injured in an enemy attack, then bravely, forceably rescued from Al Quaeda-held hospital by Spec. Forces.

While at the same time it was reported by several reliable media sources IMMEDIATELY after the 'Jessica' story THAT the 'facts' of it were 'not quite accurate.' Not only was she NOT injured by enemy fire, but Jessica (whoever) didn't need heroically rescued, as she was being well-cared for in an Iraqi hospital, which needed no "storming"...since she was given up willingly...without need of S.F. "storm-in's."

Face it...without Heroes of EPIC proportions, the CONTINUED evils and unjustified, overwhelming "costs" of falsely-created War would have no basis.

Historicaly (or hysterically), average "joe's" NEED these self-created epic Heroes to justify their addiction to War.

huge dose of fear this movie and all the hype around it provide, quite timely too. Fear & Heroes, hand in hand.

He is a socialist from the UK much further left then you and undoubtedly not a man of violence after making a film on the C-IRA bombing Omagh that killed 32 people...

and he may be a socialist, but his movie is total speculation and propaganda.

Absolutely no one alive knows what happened inside that plane. IMHO, this film is Jessica Lynch la partie deux.

P.S. Thank you for all of your hard work and research, Paul. I enjoyed watching you on Confronting the Evidence: A Call to Reopen the 9/11 Investigation.

...

and what is his film about?

:toast:

could you pass out a couple of these for me? ;-)
http://911research.wtc7.net/materials/flight93/flight93.pdf

thanks!

Thank you! :)

Remember those? While I have complete and utter sympathy for those who went through the unbelievable suffering on that flight, and for the families who live with that knowledge and grief, I have no interest in seeing a "movie of the week" portrayal of it that reduces it to a level that most Americans can digest. Is this REALLY the time for a movie like that? I say.. no.. not yet. It's an entire movie fabricated around spotty cell phone calls and some cockpit tapes... EVERYTHING else is dramatized for your entertainment, and maximized for your emotions.

Not interested, no thank you.

In September of 2001, I was working at BEA in Liberty Corner -- the same office as Ed Felt.

He was one of the inventors/developers of "Tuxedo" -- a pretty amazing group from Bell Labs, Unix Systems Laboratories, and Novell that made up the core team when BEA was founded.

I never worked on a project with him, but I knew him by sight and occassionally exchanged a nod or greeting in passing. Folks in the office who didn't know him, almost certainly knew of him.

In the weeks that followed the news of his death on September 11th, I heard alot about Ed as people in our office shared their stories and their grief.

The same themes came up over and over again. Idealistic gentle, generous, supportive, integrity, terrific sense of humor. Privileged to know him / work with him. "You never saw Ed get angry or lose his temper."

When others had questions, he took the time and gave his full attention as he enthusiatically shared his wealth of knowledge and experience.

Engineers building on his work said they rarely walked out of his office without some new insight or deeper understanding that made their own work more rewarding.

He sought and valued the unique knowledge and perspective that others had to offer.

One of his colleagues described the amazing job interview he had with Ed. He felt like he was "blowing it" when a gap in his understanding became evident. To his surprise, Ed shifted into teaching mode and the interview transformed in an inspiring seminar/exchange of ideas.

He is a man who is sorely missed, but there's some comfort in knowing that he was truly "present" and lived his short life to the fullest. His life inspires the people who knew him personally, and those (like me) who got to know him a little through others, to reflect on their own lives take the time to give more of ourselves to the people around them.



Felt reaches 911 just before crash

OK...so according to the story, Todd Bingham called his mom from his cell phone from thousands of feet in the air. Now have you ever tried to use your cell on a plane in the air?

I did (yes, bad Taverner, bad bad, never do that, etc...) and it WILL NOT work until you are near the transponders, e.g. no more than say a couple hundred feet of the ground. I put this to the test on my last business trip and found that I did not get reception until the plane was landing.

So how in the name of fuck did Todd Bingham call his mom? How? The only way would be to use one of those sattelite phones...

I can see propaganda for free on POX TV.

From the Washington Post:
"United 93," Hollywood's first big-budget film about the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is faithful to the major aspects of the tragic morning it depicts. The movie tracks the key events detailed in the 9/11 Commission Report, the most definitive source on the subject: the commandeering of the United jet by four terrorists, the panic of the passengers and the heroic rebellion that ended with the plane crashing in a field near Shanksville, Pa.

But the movie, which opens nationwide today, is a dramatic re-creation that includes scenes and images that go far beyond what is known about the attacks.

Those scenes raise questions: How far can a dramatic movie go in imposing its own reality before it distorts the public's understanding of the event? And with memories of 9/11 still vivid and raw, is it too soon for such films to be made?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12521202/

You couldn't pay me enough to see this movie. I will remember my friends lost on that flight without the interference of someone's idea of what may have happened, thank you very much!

Actually its about as close to a documentary as film could get... of course it creates stuff NO_ONE knows what exactly happened on the plane and they NEVER will known the entirity in enternity, still gives no reason to slate a very carefully made film.

People will believe what they see on the screen regardless of the truth.

I'm not going to contribute to the profit margin of the producers who are making money because people died.

Better destroy all of those ww2 films now then eh?

Ever watched one of them?

Believe what you will and feel how you do but I'm sticking to my opinion that this is fiction and I personally won't see it.

And there was no need for you to get snippy.

Goodbye.

normally if those boxes didnt survive, there would have been a big comission studying the survivability of black boxes. A ton of experts would have weighed in with the pros and cons of various means of fabricating those black boxes... kinda like what happened with skyscrapers after 9-11... lot of talk about the steel... do we need to up the ante on how hot the steel can get so that people can leave the building.

but on black boxes... nothing. No one is saying anything about lessons learned. A goodly number of boxes didnt make it. and no one is asking why.

...that if the boxes were in the towers when they collapsed, they would be subject to circumstances not "normal" by aircraft crash standards - namely millions of tons of steel pressing down for an extended period of time, and possibly prolonged extreme heat from the fires.

or the Pentagon

"Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of the four “black boxes” from the jetliners that struck the towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BUN410B.html

as it is just opening today in my city.

I plan on seeing it tonight and will then be in a position to offer a comment on it.

But so far, it seems to be getting good reviews as being not sensationalist or "feel good" or propagandish at all.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/united_93/

Edit: 94%

The trouble with putting real events into movie form
is getting everything exactly correct so people who
don't know the facts won't just remember the film
version.

I think there is a question about the shoot down.
Maybe this film won't be real enough.

I think there is a question about the shoot down.
Maybe this film won't be real enough.

It deals with 81 mintues of time of what happened within the palne it does not go anywhere else. It doens't deal with what was happening outside the plane. SO its not wrong about that.

"At precisely 0938 hours, an alarm was sounded at Langely Air Force Base, and those whom were on call, drinking coffee, were scrambled. Thus the 119th Fighter Wing was off for an intercept.

They, the Happy Hooligans, a unit of 3 F-16 aircraft, were ordered to head toward Pennsylvania. At 0957 they spotted their target; After confirmation orders were received, A one Major Rick Gibney fired two sidewinder missiles at the aircraft and destroyed it in mid flight at precisely 0958;

He was awarded a medal from the Governor one year later for his heroic actions. As well as Decorated by Congress on 9/13/2001. The Happy Hooligans were previously stationed in North Dakota, and moved to Langley Air Force base some months before 911 occured on a "Temporary assignment."

http://www.letsroll911.org/articles/flight93shotdown.html

the plane was shot down....and I have never seen this info or this site...so...am I just gullible or is this legit?

?

... I hate movies like this. They are ok, if they are covering something that happened 20 year ago, or 50 years.

But the truth is nobody has much of a clue what happened on or even to flight 93 IMHO. And seeing a melodramatic puff piece full of nothing but speculation about it isn't helpful.

I'll be staying home. I'm tired of the MYTHS of America overtaking the REALITIES.

But the truth is nobody has much of a clue what happened on or even to flight 93 IMHO

Do people really know the absolute truth about atrocities carried out 20 or 50 yrs ago?

I have NEVER heard anything from any of the flight controllers. They are the ones who are required to track the planes as it flies through different air space. If a plane deviates from the flight path for just a minute it sounds everything off. I mean they don't fuck around with this, why was this allowed for these four planes???? It was pretty evident on the radar screen that two planes were flying into Manhattan.

Some of them are actually in the movie, playing themselves.

...the air traffic controllers from this list:

<http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=334030>

(after you access the link, scroll down to find the cast list)

Becky London - Jean Hoadley Peterson
Cheyenne Jackson - Mark Bingham
Chip Zien - Mark Rothenberg
Chloe Sirene - Honor Elizabeth Wainio
Christian Clemenson - Thomas Burnett
Corey Johnson - Louis J. Nacke II
Daniel Sauli - Richard Guadagno
David Alan Basche - Todd Beamer
David Rasche - Donald Freeman Greene
Denny Dillon - Colleen Fraser
Erich Redman - Christian Adams
Gary Commock - First Officer Leroy Homer, Jr.
J.J. Johnson - Captain Jason M. Dahl
Jamie Harding - Ahmed al Nami
Jay Oliva - John Talignani
Jodie Lynne McClintock - Marion R. Britton
Joe Jamrog - John Talignani
John Rothman - Edward P. Felt
Kate Jennings Grant - Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas
Khalid Abdalla - Ziad Jarrah
Leigh Zimmerman - Christine Snyder
Lewis Alsamari - Saeed al Ghamdi
Libby Morris - Hilda Marcin
Liza Colon-Zayas - Waleska Martinez
Lorna Dallas - Linda Gronlund
Marceline Hugot - Georgine Rose Corrigan
Masato Kamo - Toshiya Kuge
Michael J. Reynolds - Patrick Driscoll
Nancy McDoniel - Lorraine G. Bay
Olivia Thirlby - Nicole Miller
Omar Berdouni - Ahmed al Haznawi
Opal Alladin - Cee Cee Lyles
Peter Hermann - Jeremy Glick
Peter Marinker - Andrew Garcia
Polly Adams - Deborah Welsh, Flight Attendant
Ray Charleson - Joseph DeLuca
Rebecca Schull - Patricia Cushing
Richard Bekins - William Cashman
Simon Poland - Alan Anthony Beaven
Starla Benford - Wanda Anita Green, Flight Attendant
Susan Blommaert - Jane Folger
Tara Hugo - Kristin White Gould
Tom O'Rourke - Donald Peterson
Trieste Dunn - Deora Frances Bodley
Trish Gates - Sandy Bradshaw

just asking?

A jet that is piloted into the ground has a very small debris field.

A jet that breaks apart in the air can have a very large debris field, depending on what caused it to break apart and how high it was when it began to break apart.

My understanding is the debris field was several miles long.

I also understand there was talk about explosions on board.

Odd that there even is a debris field, since 93 supposedly dove straight into the ground.

However, even odder is that all of the debris is ahead of the crash site, yet what little wind there was that day was blowing from the south.

I was mid Atlantic 9/11 and the flight from Heathrow was turned back. Heathrow and Frankfurt were already plane parking lots and we were returned to Glasgow. Having left Heathrow that morning we landed at Glasgow at about 7pm. Other than the fact that the Twin Towers had been hit by two planes and a plane had hit the Pentagon we knew nothing and the TVs were turned off at arrivals so there was no visible news. I 'phoned my daughter just to say that for whatever reason I wasn't calling from San Francisco where I should have been enjoying myself at a swing dance camp. I returned a panic call from my dancer friends in London to say yes I was fine still not really knowing what the problem was other than the fact that three planes were hardly likely to be coincidence. I had no real notion of the days events until I walked back into my house 7 hours later. A couple of days later I was out dancing and bumped into one of the girls who also was at the time was an American Airlines stewardess. I asked her about the one which was decked <United Flight 93> and she said quite simply "it was shot down". I guess she'd learned that thought the jungle telegraph. Nothing I've heard since really seems to contradict that.