Flight 93 Shot Down On 9/11?

[Ravenous Yam]

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42112

 

DAY OF INFAMY 2001

Rumsfeld says 9-11 plane

'shot down' in Pennsylvania

During surprise Christmas Eve trip, defense secretary contradicts official story

 

 

© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

 

 

WASHINGTON – Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been questions about Flight 93, the ill-fated plane that crashed in the rural fields of Pennsylvania.

 

The official story has been that passengers on the United Airlines flight rushed the hijackers in an effort to prevent them from crashing the plane into a strategic target – possibly the U.S. Capitol.

 

During his surprise Christmas Eve trip to Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the flight being shot down – long a suspicion because of the danger the flight posed to Washington landmarks and population centers.

 

 

Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000?

 

 

Donald Rumsfeld

 

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."

 

Several eyewitnesses to the crash claim they saw a "military-type" plane flying around United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked passenger jet crashed – prompting the once-unthinkable question of whether the U.S. military shot down the plane.

 

Although the onboard struggle between hijackers and passengers – immortalized by the courageous "Let's roll" call to action by Todd Beamer – became one of the enduring memories of that disastrous day, the actual cause of Flight 93's crash, of the four hijacked airliners, remains the most unclear.

 

Several residents in and around Shanksville, Pa., describing the crash as they saw it, claim to have seen a second plane – an unmarked military-style jet.

 

Well-founded uncertainty as to just what happened to Flight 93 is nothing new. Just three days after the worst terrorist attack in American history, on Sept. 14, 2001, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record newspaper reported that five eyewitnesses reported seeing a second plane at the Flight 93 crash site.

 

That same day, reported the Record, FBI Special Agent William Crowley said investigators could not rule out that a second plane was nearby during the crash. He later said he had misspoken, dismissing rumors that a U.S. military jet had intercepted the plane before it could strike a target in Washington, D.C.

 

Although government officials insist there was never any pursuit of Flight 93, they were informed the flight was suspected of having been hijacked at 9:16 am, fully 50 minutes before the plane came down.

 

On the Sept. 16, 2001, edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice President Dick Cheney, while not addressing Flight 93 specifically, spoke clearly to the administration's clear policy regarding shooting down hijacked jets.

 

Vice President Cheney: "Well, the – I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft."

 

NBC's Tim Russert: "And you decided?"

 

Cheney: "We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time ...

 

"It doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act, if, in fact, they feel it's appropriate."

 

Russert: "So if the United States government became aware that a hijacked commercial airline[r] was destined for the White House or the Capitol, we would take the plane down?"

 

Cheney: "Yes. The president made the decision ... that if the plane would not divert ... as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out. Now, people say, you know, that's a horrendous decision to make. Well, it is. You've got an airplane full of American citizens, civilians, captured by ... terrorists, headed and are you going to, in fact, shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those Americans on board?

 

"... It's a presidential-level decision, and the president made, I think, exactly the right call in this case, to say, I wished we'd had combat air patrol up over New York.'"

[Biggie]

If it was shot down, then it was the right thing to do. Who knows where it would have crashed and how many more would have died?

[Sparq]

What matters is that they WOULD have shot it down either way, given the chance...whether they actually did, or the problem took care of itself, we may never know.

[ToadMan]

I think that it is a huge dilemma question. I mean one the one hand you have the lives of all the people that would be at the target site. On the other hand, by shooting the plane down, you are now responsible for those deaths.

 

Makes me think, it would be a hard call to make.

 

Peace

[wentwj68]

The people on board the plane would die either way, sense it was already shown that the hijackers were willing to kill themselves and all onboard. I think there's a lot of coverup with 9/11 in general, but as to if the plane was shot down as itself, other than the fact that they would have then lied to the american people, it wouldn't have probably mattered in the end.

[ToadMan]

Indeed. But one has to ask, did they actually know that the plane was going to crash into a target. I mean THAT plane. We must consider the possibility that the plane was hijacked by another group, and they just planned to take the people hostage. If that where the case, then most of those lives could have been saved. The problem is that at the time the decision was made, nobody could have know what the intentions of those hijackers where. Retrospectively we know, but at THAT time, we couldn't have.

 

Peace

[Sparq]

It'd be a reasonable assumption that an aircraft hijacked within a short time of two others is part of the same attack. Especially when it's headed for DC. If the hijackers are making no demands to have a holding pattern cleared and be allowed to land somewhere, and the flight is dometic (ie not enough fuel to escape the country), then it's a fairly safe bet that they do not plan to land, or get out alive. Tail it with a couple fighters if you're unsure, but as soon as the jet starts dropping altitude or vectors toward what appears to be a prime target, it's time to end it. The passengers are guaranteed to die either way, so you don't let the plane reach its target. I'm sure it is a difficult decision to make...but really, there's only one sensible choice.

 

On a barely related note, I saw at least three F/A, F, or CF-18s in the air over Ottawa today, as well as what appeared to be a Stratotanker. Combat air patrol, anyone?

Edited January 5, 2005 by Sparq

[leftofnormal38]

im gonna stick with the idea that the people put up a fight which eventually led to it crashing. i dont believe it was shot down...but then again the american gov't is very shady. such as that they supposedly knew that pearl harbor was gonna happen and let it happen and sinking our own ships, blaming it on some other country to get to support for a war...yea i'll stop there

[wentwj68]

I agree that the likelyhood that the hijackers were the same group were pretty much garaunteed. I know some cell phone calls were made from the plane, Not sure exactly how much information was leaked but I'm sure they could have gathered more information linking them together (ie similar hijacking methods). And while I agree that we needed to be ABSOLUTELY sure before ending those lives, if it was going to hit another target, and we didnt' do anything, there'd be even more lives lost that we could have saved. Either way it's a horribly tough decision, and I'd like to believe it was the crew that put up a fight, but... like i said, either way I think it would have caused the least number of deaths. Just a horrible situation.

[Dan #2]

isn't rumsfield on his way out of the white house anyway? He and Colin Powell know some dirty secrets and i know that Powell didn't always agree with Bush...

 

maybe they will continue to 'slip up', because no matter how gruesome, the truth is better than myths.