Flight 93

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Reading the transcript from the cockpit voice recorder made me sick.

I am glad that the passengers stood up to the challenge and tried to regain control of the aircraft.

Nothing can justify this sort of brutality, and the deaths of so many innocent people.

Your thoughts?

[BrooklynRider]

My gosh. I'm missing all this news. You have a link?

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

It's available on CNN.

Here:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/04/12/flight93.transcript.pdf

Looks like an exhibit in the Moussaoui trial, although the reality in these trials is that the tape, not the transcript of it, is the real evidence. The transcript is just for convenience.

[ablarc]

Allah is great.

[lofter1]

Moussaoui should be sentenced to a long lonely life in a very small cell.

He loves death too much and should not be given that gift from the American people.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Allah is great.

Yes, and relevantly it seems as though He is also "The Most Gracious One".

Previous to reading this, I personally had thought that either Sarah Ferguson or Lord Vader had held this title.

[User Name]

Moussaoui should be sentenced to a long lonely life in a very small cell.

He loves death too much and should not be given that gift from the American people.

Nah.

Just toss him in GP and let whatever happens happen.

[Marksix]

what about Hollywood's movie about the flight? they've been looking for five years for an angle to make a fast $ out of 9/11 and timed the opening to coincide with the trial. Talk about cynical....same with Oliver Stone's forthcoming movie.

[ablarc]

what about Hollywood's movie about the flight? they've been looking for five years for an angle to make a fast $ out of 9/11 and timed the opening to coincide with the trial. Talk about cynical....same with Oliver Stone's forthcoming movie.
Marksix, how would you know if the motivation were something besides greed? How would you be able to tell if it was, for example, compassion for the families? Or righteous indignation? Or the desire to tell a good story? Or to show the lengths to which hatred can take people? Or to warn of the dangers of religious fanaticism?

How would a person know?

Knowing is different from assuming.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Yes yes guys, but tell me this...

Is it Lord Vader, or Sarah Ferguson who is "The Most Gracious One"?

I can't figure it out.

[Marksix]

Marksix, how would you know if the motivation were something besides greed? How would you be able to tell if it was, for example, compassion for the families? Or righteous indignation? Or the desire to tell a good story? Or to show the lengths to which hatred can take people? Or to warn of the dangers of religious fanaticism?

How would a person know?




Because its Hollywood....


Perhaps its a cultural thing; movies to my (English) mind are the lower form of culture. I saw some interviews issued by the makers showing the (surprisingly smiley) families of some of the victims giving support for this movie. I just don't think it is seemly to be making a movie out of such a tradgedy, there are far more fitting ways of paying tribute to the dead than this.

It will be the same with the Oliver Stone movie; these egotists think that only when they make a movie about such an event does it validate that event.

Making a dramatised movie out of these events dimishes the event, the dead and the brave people who gave selflesly of themselves for no other reward than it was their job or their duty.

If it takes a movie to point out the results of sectarian violence, if the real life events of and since September 2001 haven't illustrated that to the people who will go see these movies surely nothing ever will.

[ablarc]

Because its Hollywood....
In other words it fits your prejudices and stereotypes.

To pre-judge: the conclusion precedes the observation, and no amount of observation (the smiley families) will shake the conclusion. The conclusion is immortal; it can survive all contrary data. Everybody knows anything to do with Hollywood is corrupt. Nothing more to be said.

With such a thought process, how do you distinguish idealism from cynicism? I know you started out at the former but your terminus is the latter.



Anyway, let's head down to Leicester Square.

.

[Marksix]

With such a thought process, how do you distinguish idealism from cynicism? I know you started out at the former but your terminus is the latter.





"Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist underneath"

[ablarc]

"Scratch a cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist underneath"
LOL, fair enough. Who said that?

[Marksix]

LOL, fair enough. Who said that?


...someone smarter than I!


(although I do need to keep a check on cynical mind :( )

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Sarah Ferguson or Lord Vader..?

Anyone know?

[lofter1]

A Flight to Remember

Bloody Tuesday: Paul Greengrass's visceral cine-memorial stakes its claim to authenticity

http://images.villagevoice.com/issues/0616/tribeca2.jpg
photo: Jonathan Olley/image.net

by Dennis Lim
Village Voice
April 18th, 2006 11:44 AM

http://www.villagevoice.com/film/0616,lim,72901,20.html

In the city where it will premiere next Tuesday, United 93 is being greeted—or repelled?—almost as if it were itself some kind of terror attack. Is the movie pornography? Exploitation? Too much too soon?

Having seen it once (apparently with what the studio calls "unfinished" effects), I can attest that the film nobody wants to see is worth seeing. At the very least, United 93—as the most literal representation yet of that unimaginable morning—will hopefully ignite a meaningful debate about the ethics and politics of 9-11 commemoration.

Paul Greengrass's approximately real-time dramatization of what took place aboard Flight 93—which left Newark for San Francisco the morning of September 11, 2001, and crashed in western Pennsylvania 81 minutes after takeoff—is best understood as a memorial. (It was famously made with the support of the passengers' families, the press kit includes bios not of the actors but of the people they portray, and Universal is donating 10 percent of the first weekend gross to the Flight 93 memorial fund.) Like most memorials, it is respectful, premised on competing obligations to the dead and the living, and eager to stress that the deaths were not in vain. It not only tells us we should never forget but also illustrates how we should remember.

As written and directed by Greengrass, the ex–BBC documentarian who already has one skillful re-creation of a historical atrocity under his belt (Bloody Sunday, about 1972's Derry massacre), United 93 is at once scrupulous and ghoulish, visceral and sober. Except for a few crucial deviations from the 9/11 Commission Report and the black-box tapes played at the Moussaoui trial, most of the narrative's conjectures are circumspect.

There is not a conspiracy theory in sight.

United 93 may be unrelenting, but for almost its entire duration, it depends on a grim foreknowledge that is the opposite of suspense. Greengrass, as he demonstrated in Bloody Sunday, has a talent for hectic naturalism and panoramic context—the cross talk and propulsive intercutting add up to a lucid big picture. Title notwithstanding, United 93 does not confine itself to the doomed airliner. Fully half of the film transpires in various control centers (in Boston, New York, Cleveland, etc.), as well as at the FAA's command center in Herndon, Virginia, and the Northeast Air Defense Sector base in Rome, New York. Some of the tensest moments involve bewildered air traffic officers staring at green screens, struggling to decipher ominous radio transmissions and vanishing radar blips. (Ben Sliney, who was on his first day as the FAA's operations manager, plays himself.)

United 93's general discretion and lack of inflection is an acknowledgment of the day's outsize drama. Even the uprising's presidentially coopted battle cry is de-emphasized, folded into a sotto voce murmur: Let's roll come on let's go already. (As has now been widely reported, the phrase captured on the cockpit voice recorder is "Roll it.") But the low-key tone is also meant to signal a moral seriousness. A&E's recent TV movie Flight 93, weepily eavesdropping on one Final Call after another, indulged in morbid voyeurism. Greengrass, who may yet emerge as the Maya Lin of cine-memorialists, knows that restraint is both tasteful and authoritative.

And United 93's claim to authority is precisely its biggest problem. Greengrass has been grandiose in his public statements: The film aims to arrive at "a believable truth" and may even reveal "the DNA of our times." Its quasi-vérité suggests an implicit fidelity, when what's in operation is at best imaginative empathy and at worst arrogance, an obviously untenable assertion that this is how it happened.

The temptation to fix on a definitive narrative of Flight 93 is obvious. The most dramatic 9-11 subplot to have wholly escaped the reach of news cameras, this unseen event exerted an immediate stranglehold on the national imagination. As was quickly apparent, not least to the president's speechwriters, Flight 93 was an eminently marketable legend. The initial myth—which persisted until investigators discounted it nearly two years later—held that the passengers had improvised a kamikaze response to their hijackers' suicide mission; the "citizen soldiers," as Tom Ridge eulogized them, crashed the plane in a bid to defend the Capitol or the White House.

Greengrass's account splits the difference between this rah-rah version and the more tempered findings of the 9-11 Commission. His point is broadly similar to that of literary critic and plane crash expert Elaine Scarry, who in the 2002 Boston Review article "Citizenship in Emergency" juxtaposed the successful revolt aboard Flight 93 — which, whether or not the passengers breached the cockpit, almost certainly contributed to its crash — with the Pentagon's failure to defend itself and the nation.

United 93, in providing a coherent and vividly edited macro timeline of the day's hijackings and crashes, is a uniquely damning description of the chain-of-command failures and communication breakdowns that characterized the official response to the terrorist attacks. The film suggests that if the FAA, the military, and the airlines had been talking to each other that morning, Flight 93 need never have left the Newark tarmac. When it took off at 8:42, at least one hijacking was already well under way (American Flight 11 hit the north tower at 8:46). Twenty minutes earlier, the Boston control center had received the first suspicious transmission from the first hijacked aircraft: "We have some planes." (United 93 dispels the most popular conspiracy theory by pointing to incompetence—the plane wasn't shot down because the government was too stunned and unprepared to have done any such thing.)

But the mandate is to make a film about heroism, and Greengrass fulfills this brief with some complexity. The emergence of the revolt — implausibly stilted in the A&E movie and even in Scarry's analysis, where the passengers are likened to "a small legislative assembly" — is in United 93 spontaneous and panicked. Greengrass and his cast of unknowns never flinch from the sheer terror of the situation. It may be the film's most compassionate gesture — its single most humanizing touch — to indicate that the heroes of Flight 93 were motivated not by patriotism, as it may be comforting for some to think, but by unthinkable fear and a primal survival instinct.

Perhaps mindful of his target audience, Greengrass makes sure to dangle some red-state red meat. In the blurry rebellion that is United 93's raison d'être — a spoiler follows — the passengers appear to kill two of the terrorists.

It's the most problematic of the movie's unverifiable events, and one might say its biggest concession to popular taste. In dramatic terms, it's the only instant of catharsis. This act of self-defense may have happened, and the filmmakers are entitled to wish it did. But United 93 slips into propaganda with a concluding title card that declares, "America's war on terror had begun."

Whatever Greengrass's intentions, his film's closing moments essentially memorialize 9-11 Bush style, as an occasion for revenge. Painful as this movie is, it's even more excruciating to imagine how it might play in some of the country's multiplexes.

United 93
Written and directed by Paul Greengrass
Universal
April 25, Tribeca Film Festival
Opens April 28

Update: United's State

As noted above, this review of United 93 was based on an unfinished print. Since then, Universal has excised the concluding title card, which read, "America's war on terror had begun." The final caption now reads: "Dedicated to the memory of all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001."

Copyright © (http://www.villagevoice.com/aboutus/) 2006 Village Voice Media, Inc.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

I heard a documentary about this I think on WBUR this week.

A muslim gentleman telephoned in and expressed great concern that after the release of this film there could be sporadic retributory attacks on some of our muslim citizens/immigrants/residents.

I sure hope not.

[lofter1]

Actor in 9/11 film denied entry to US

http://us.movies1.yimg.com/movies.yahoo.com/images/hv/photo/movie_pix/universal_pictures/united_93/lewis_alsamari/united93.jpg

REUTERS (http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=entertainmentNews&storyid=2006-04-21T115134Z_01_L21587625_RTRUKOC_0_US-BRITAIN-IRAQ-ACTOR.xml&rpc=22)
Apr 21, 2006

LONDON (Reuters) - An Iraqi actor who plays a hijacker in a new film about the September 11 attacks on the United States has been denied entry into the country for the movie's premiere, he told a newspaper on Friday.

Lewis Alsamari, who has lived in Britain since 1995, stars in "United 93", which premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York next week.

Directed by Briton Paul Greengrass, the film about the hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania has sparked debate about whether Americans are ready to see an on-screen portrayal of the events.

Alsamari, 30, said he may have been denied entry by the U.S. embassy in London because he served in the Iraqi army in the early 1990s.

"I think this was because I am still an Iraqi citizen and fought in the army -- but that was only because I was forced to," he told London's Evening Standard newspaper.

"It would be so disappointing not to be able to go because I still have not seen the film. I have only seen footage and it would have been amazing to be in New York for the premiere."

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in London said she was aware of the case, but did not have any immediate comment on the status of Alsamari's application to travel to New York.

Alsamari added: "I hope I am not going to have to wait until the film comes out in Britain to watch United 93. It seems strange that I cannot go over for the premiere."

He said he escaped from the Iraqi army in 1993 and stayed in neighboring Jordan until 1995, when he moved to Britain seeking asylum. According to the Standard, he was granted asylum in Britain in 1998.

In February, actors starring in Michael Winterbottom's politically charged "The Road to Guantanamo" were held by British police under anti-terrorism legislation on their return from Berlin where the film premiered.

One of them said a police officer abused him verbally at Luton airport.

© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.

[lofter1]

Many questions linger

By WILL BUNCH
April 27, 2006

LINK (http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14439058.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp)

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.

Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11, 2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight controllers in filming "United 93."

"They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us," Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. "It gave the film a veracity, an authenticity."

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.

Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.

Today, few but the most radical skeptics about 9/11 would question the events at the core of "United 93," the struggle with heroic passengers that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia courtroom earlier this month.

But other questions 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."

Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for what he considers a flawed military response.

Here are some other questions:

Q. Why weren't military fighters under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the doomed flight?

A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario with two simultaneously hijacked planes.

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.

In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at approximately 9:30 a.m. - roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93 crashed - but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.

Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did Bush know about it?

A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was about 10 a.m. when Cheney - running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking at a Florida elementary school - was told that a hijacked plane was 80 miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.

Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff, testified that he suggested that Cheney reconfirm that order with Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such a call had been made.

But according to a June 24, 2004, article in Newsweek, "some on the [9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some staffers 'flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.' "

Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.

Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93 crashed?

A. After several accounts, the government and a supporting 2005 article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet had been a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into Johnstown Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane was seen by about a dozen witnesses, including Susan McElwain, who told Britain's Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and two upright fins at the side... . It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets." Several residents said the plane resembled the military's A-10 Warthog.

Q. Why haven't we heard cockpit recordings nor seen the flight-data recording from the other three flights?

A. 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."

© 2006 Philadelphia Daily News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

[ablarc]

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... "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."
Only in the present administration would the FBI be sitting on this information. The contents of those black boxes belong to the American people.

[BrooklynRider]

Just wondering if any other folks have any desire to see this flick? I saw trailers and found it rather sickening. I'm not sure if it because it is just too soon or because I feel it is a piece of propaganda. Until we here the black boxes ourselves and have it verfied as real, there is little to believe in the story - other than the fact that this plane crashed, killing all on board.

[ablarc]

^ Black box of Flt 93 had contents revealed at Moussaoui trial. Heart-rending. Folks begging not to be killed. Repeated chorus and last words: "Allah is great." Transcript available; bet you can find it on 'net.

[BrooklynRider]

An alleged transcript being released by this administration holds little value. There is a long, consistent, and proven patterns of lies and deceipt from the Bush administration and his cronies on Capitol Hill. The tape needs to be heard by the victims families and the voices positively identified.

[BrooklynRider]

Sobbing relatives endure premiere of 9/11 film
The Times
James Bone
April 26, 2006

The sobbing at the back of the auditorium was not the sentimental sniffling you normally hear at the cinema. It was the full-throated grief customarily heard in a hospital or funeral home.

But last night anguished families wailed as they watched the last moments of their loved ones unfold on screen at the world premiere of Hollywood’s first film about the September 11 hijackings, United 93, by the British writer-director Paul Greengrass.

About 90 relatives of the 40 victims mustered the courage to walk the red carpet to watch Mr Greengrass’s disturbingly realistic depiction of the passenger revolt that brought the aircraft down in a field in Pennsylvania and saved the US Congress from attack.

"It’s horrific to see my brother Edward on the screen, knowing what is going to happen," said Gordon Felt. "It’s shattering, but it needs to be. This is a violent story."

Some cinemas in New York have pulled the graphic trailer for United 93 in the run-up to Friday’s scheduled release because of protests from traumatised New Yorkers that it was "too soon".

But Robert De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival - founded to revive the lower Manhattan neighbourhood after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center - insisted on holding the premiere of Greengrass’s film.

"Some people will not want to see the film. People find the subject too hard. I respect that," Mr Greengrass acknowledged. But, he added, "Remembering is painful. It’s diffcult. But it can be inspiring and it can bring wisdom."

Despite the ornate surroundings of the Zeigfeld Theatre in midtown Manhattan, the screening was almost certainly the most sombre film premiere in New York’s history.

The audience gave the victims’ families a standing ovation before the film started, but were overwhelmed towards the end by the relatives’ open weeping and left the auditorium in stunned silence.

The audience included former Senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the official 9/11 inquiry; New York’s police commissioner Ray Kelly; actor Steve Buscemi, a former fireman who joined the rescue effort at Ground Zero; and the real-life air-traffic controllers who played themselves in the movie.

But the British-based Iraqi actor, Lewis Alsamari, who plays one of the hijackers, was unable to attend because he could not obtain a US visa.

The film, made with the co-operation of the victims’ families, sticks scrupulously to the plot laid out in the 9/11 report commissioned by Congress as it portrays the hijacking in real-time.

The result is a kaleidoscope of shards of information about the attack - including real footage of the blazing World Trade Centre towers - without any attempt at embellishing the story or developing the individual characters.

It starts with the hijackers reciting the Koran in their hotel room and ends, abruptly, as the passengers try to seize the flight controls, with a shocking view through the cockpit window of the jet plunging into the Pennsylvania field.

"It’s a powerful story. It’s hard to watch. But it’s an important motion picture," said Alice Hoagland, whose rugby-playing son Mark Bingham took part in the revolt. "As a mum who lost a son fighting terrorism on Flight 93 and as a flight attendant, I know we have a lot to do."

"Although it ended up in tragedy, there is a glimmer of hope because you see the building of Congress still standing," she said.

The evening had a patriotic bent, with ushers handing out "Stars and Stripes" lapel pins. Universal Pictures, the distributor, announced it would donate 10 per cent of the first weekend’s box office to a memorial for the Flight 93 victims. Poster's comments: I TOLD YOU I THOUGHT IT WAS PROPAGANDA.

"The stars are truly those people in the plane," said Ben Sliney, the Federal Aviation Authority’s operations manager who plays himself in the film. "That is something I would have done. I think I would have gone down fighting like that. It’s the American way."

Ken Nacke, whose brother was one of the passengers, said he found himself "rooting for them, for a different outcome".

Omar Berdouni, a Moroccan actor who plays one of the hijackers, rejected suggestions that Arab cinema-goers might see the film as a tribute to the terrorists. "To an Arabic audience, the people do not represent Arabs or Moslems. These people are from a sect. They do not represent me or my society," he said.

Mr Greengrass said it was "humbling" to bring the film in New York. "There is a great debate going on on where we are going in the post 9/11 world,", he said. "This is part of the process of film-makers saying ‘We would like to join that conversation’."

The film-maker, whose previous features include "Bloody Sunday", said he was chastened by his experience of working in Northern Ireland.

"I think Northern Ireland is one of the few examples of where political violence has been negotiated away thanks to the political engagement of all the parties in a peace agreement. My time making films there has shown me it takes a long time," he said. "It took us a generation."

-- Edited by Daath at 16:35, 2006-04-26

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2153161,00.html

[BrooklynRider]

I know everyone love's my conspiracy posts. Here's another one to attack.

Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93

We all know the inspiring story of Flight 93, of the heroic passengers who forced the hijacked plane to the ground, sacrificing themselves to save the lives of others. The only trouble is: it may simply not be true.

John Carlin reports from Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Independent.co.uk, 13 August 2002

The fate of United Airlines Flight 93, the last of the four hijacked planes to go down in the United States on 11 September, holds no mystery for Lee Purbaugh. He saw what happened with his own eyes. He was the only person present in the field where, at 10.06am, the aircraft hit the ground.

"There was an incredibly loud rumbling sound and there it was, right there, right above my head — maybe 50ft up," says Purbaugh, who works at a scrapyard overlooking the crash site. "It was only a split second but it looked like it was moving in slow motion, like it took forever. I saw it rock from side to side then, suddenly, it dipped and dived, nose first, with a huge explosion, into the ground. I knew immediately that no one could possibly have survived."

Apart from, here and there, a finger, a toe or a tooth, all that remained of the 44 souls aboard, churned into the soil or hanging from the branches of nearby trees, were small pieces of tissue and bone. The plane was also pulverised, reduced to tiny fragments of metal. Wally Miller, the local coroner in what used to be a forgotten corner of rural Pennsylvania, was the man charged by law with collecting the human remains and establishing the causes of death. "I issued the death certificates," says Miller, who is also the local undertaker. "I put down 'murdered' for the 40 passengers and crew; 'suicide' for the four terrorists."

But Miller, who worked closely with the FBI during the 13 days that they investigated the crash site, admits that, in the end, he cannot prove what happened; he can only infer it. Neither he nor anybody else knows what exactly caused Flight 93 to go down and, as Miller puts it, "bring the world's troubles crashing down on our doorstep". Or, if there are people who do know, they are not telling.

The shortage of available facts did not prevent the creation of an instant legend — a legend that the US government and the US media were pleased to propagate, and that the American public have been eager, for the most part, to accept as fact. The legend goes like this: the passengers on the hijacked United flight, alerted on their mobile phones to the news of the other three hijacked planes, decide that if they are not going to save themselves at least they will do the patriotic thing and spare the lives of those who are the terrorists' intended targets; so they charge down the aisle, storm the cockpit, where a terrorist is at the controls, and, in the ensuing struggle, force the plane down.

President George Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, the head of the FBI Robert Mueller, and numerous other senior government officials who have saluted the "heroes" of Flight 93, have consistently, and repeatedly, advanced this version of events. So have the big national newspapers and all the big national television stations. The New York Times, normally a model of legalistic precision, published this extraordinarily woolly sentence on 22 September upon learning, from unnamed "official" sources, that the plane's cockpit voice-recorder had registered "a desperate and wild struggle" aboard. "And while it [the recorder] did not provide a clear or complete picture," The New York Times read, "it seemed certain that there was a chaotic confrontation that apparently led to the crash of the jet."

Vanity Fair magazine, going on little more information than was available to The New York Times, went ahead and published a highly detailed story on Flight 93, which, the magazine said, "may be remembered as one of the greatest tales of heroism ever told". Vanity Fair did recognise, though, that any suggestions as to what actually happened to force the plane down had to be, by necessity, "pure conjecture".

Two months later, Newsweek got hold of what it was told was a partial transcript of the voice-recorder and, upon that basis, narrated the story of "the Heroes of Flight 93" in even more vivid, drum-rolling, Hollywoodesque detail than Vanity Fair had done. The passengers were "citizen soldiers... who rose up, like their forefathers, to defy tyranny", intoned Newsweek. "In daring and dying, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 found victory for us all."

The transcript that Newsweek obtained did indicate that fighting had taken place aboard, curses had been uttered, prayers raised up both to the Muslim and the Christian god. But for all the drama of the story, Newsweek did not draw attention to the fact that, in truth, they were guessing as to how or why the plane had crashed; that they did not know whether the passengers had even made it into the cockpit; that they had no clue what happened during Flight 93's decisive, desperate last eight minutes.

Which is not to assert that the "hero" story is untrue, or even implausible. Maybe the legend does indeed correspond perfectly to the facts. And certainly, based on the records of telephone calls made from the plane, there is no disputing that a number of the passengers did indeed intend to carry out actions of great courage. But what those actions actually turned out to be is not known — or known only to a small group of people with a clear picture of what happened in the skies over Shanksville on the morning of 11 September, people in the US military who tracked the plane's last moments as well as people familiar with, but unwilling to reveal, the full contents of the material gleaned from the cockpit voice-recorder, which was retrieved in perfect working order after the crash.

The absence of official information has led to lively and often well-informed debate in the unofficial medium of the internet (see www.flight93crash.com). But there are also a number of individuals in the aviation industry convinced that there do exist other plausible interpretations of what actually happened. Because there are, most certainly, a number of important unanswered questions — questions based on evidence, as well as on a manifest absence of candour on the part of the authorities — which the national US media, typically so sceptical and inquisitive, have shown a curious reluctance to ask.

The alternative theories, both of which have been denied by the US military and the FBI, are a) that Flight 93 was brought down by a US government plane; and b) that a bomb went off aboard (passengers had said in phone calls that one of the hijackers had what appeared to be a bomb strapped to him). If doubts remain despite the denials, if conspiracy theories flourish, it is in large part because of the authorities' failure to address head-on questions centring on the following four conundrums.

1. The wide displacement of the plane's debris, one explanation for which might be an explosion of some sort aboard prior to the crash. Letters — Flight 93 was carrying 7,500 pounds of mail to California — and other papers from the plane were found eight miles (13km) away from the scene of the crash. A sector of one engine weighing one ton was found 2,000 yards away. This was the single heaviest piece recovered from the crash, and the biggest, apart from a piece of fuselage the size of a dining-room table. The rest of the plane, consistent with an impact calculated to have occurred at 500mph, disintegrated into pieces no bigger than two inches long. Other remains of the plane were found two miles away near a town called Indian Lake. All of these facts, widely disseminated, were confirmed by the coroner Wally Miller.

2. The location of US Air Force jets, which might or might not have been close enough to fire a missile at the hijacked plane. Live news media reports on the morning of 11 September conflict with a number of official statements issued later. What the government acknowledges is that the first fighters with the mission to intercept took off at 8.52am; that another set of fighters took off from Andrews Air Force base near Washington at 9.35am — precisely the time that Flight 93 turned almost 180 degrees off course towards Washington and the hijacker pilot was heard by air-traffic controllers to say that there was "a bomb aboard". Flight 93, whose menacing trajectory was made known by the broadcast media almost immediately, did not go down for another 31 minutes. Apart from the logical conclusion that at least one Air Force F-16 — 125 miles away in Washington at 9.40am, meaning 10 minutes away from Flight 93 (or less if it flew at supersonic speed) — should have reached the fourth of the "flying bombs" well before 10.06am, there is this evidence from a federal flight controller published a few days later in a newspaper in New Hampshire: that an F-16 had been "in hot pursuit" of the hijacked United jet and "must have seen the whole thing". Also, there was one brief report on CBS television before the crash that two F-16 fighters were tailing Flight 93. Vice-President Dick Cheney acknowledged five days later that President Bush had authorised the Air Force pilots to shoot down hijacked commercial aircraft.

3. One telephone call from the doomed plane whose contents do not entirely tally with the hero legend and which is accordingly omitted in the Independence Day-type dramas favoured by the US media. The Associated Press news service reported on 11 September that eight minutes before the crash, a frantic male passenger called the 911 emergency number. He told the operator, named Glen Cramer, that he had locked himself inside one of the plane's toilets. Cramer told the AP, in a report that was widely broadcast on 11 September, that the passenger had spoken for one minute. "We're being hijacked, we're being hijacked!" the man screamed down his mobile phone. "We confirmed that with him several times," Cramer said, "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."

According to the information that has been made known, this was the last of the various phone calls made from the aeroplane. No more calls were received from the plane in the eight minutes that remained after the man in the toilet said that he had heard an explosion.

4. Eyewitness accounts of a "mystery plane" that flew low over the Flight 93 crash site shortly after impact. Lee Purbaugh is one of at least half a dozen named individuals who have reported seeing a second plane flying low and in erratic patterns, not much above treetop level, over the crash site within minutes of the United flight crashing. They describe the plane as a small, white jet with rear engines and no discernible markings. Purbaugh, who served three years in the US Navy, said he did not believe it was a military plane. If it indeed was not, one suggestion made in the internet discussion groups is that US Customs uses planes with these characteristics to interdict aerial drug shipments. Either way, the presence of the mystery jet remains a puzzle.

How has the US government and its various agencies responded to doubts raised by the above questions? In the following ways:

1. The paper debris eight miles away, the FBI says, was wafted away by a 10mph wind; the jet-engine part flew 2,000 yards on account of the savage force of the plane's impact with the ground. The FBI conclusion: "Nothing was found that was inconsistent with the plane going into the ground intact." Aviation experts I have contacted are very doubtful about this. One expert expresses astonishment at the notion that the letters and other papers would have remained airborne for almost one hour before falling to earth.

2. The Air Force jets were on their way but failed to make it on time, according to General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Fighters did finally approach Flight 93, he acknowledges, "moments" before it crashed, but did not shoot it down. Which begs the question why they were unable to arrive sooner to intercept an aircraft that clearly had terrorists aboard and that was flying straight for Washington more than one hour after another United Airlines plane had crashed into the second World Trade Centre tower. The report in the New Hampshire newspaper, and the one on CBS, have not been explained, and the air-traffic controllers in Cleveland who tracked the last minutes of Flight 93 on radar have been forbidden by the authorities to speak publicly about what they saw on their screens.

3. Neither the FBI nor anyone else in authority has explained the reported 911 phone call from the plane toilet, even though it appears to be the last of the phone calls made from the plane and even though it conveys the far from insignificant claim that there was an explosion on board. The FBI has confiscated the tape of the conversation and the operator Glen Cramer has received orders not to speak to the media any more.

4. The explanation furnished by the FBI for the mystery plane, whose existence it initially denied, serves less to reassure than to reinforce suspicions that a cover-up of sorts is under way, that the government is manipulating the truth in a manner it considers to be palatable to the broader US public. The FBI has said, on the record, that the plane was a civilian business jet, a Falcon, that had been flying within 20 miles of Flight 93 and was asked by the authorities to descend from 37,000ft to 5,000ft to survey and transmit the co-ordinates of the crash site "for responding emergency crews". The reason, as numerous people have observed, why this seems so implausible is that, first, by 10.06am on 11 September, all non-military aircraft in US airspace had received loud and clear orders more than half an hour earlier to land at the nearest airport; second, such was the density of 911 phone calls from people on the ground, in the Shanksville area, as to the location of the crash site that aerial co-ordinates would have been completely unnecessary; and, third, with F-16s supposedly in the vicinity, it seems extraordinarily unlikely that, at a time of tremendous national uncertainty when no one knew for sure whether there might be any more hijacked aircraft still in the sky, the military would ask a civilian aircraft that just happened to be in the area for help.

Most suspicious of all, perhaps, has been the failure of the FBI or anybody else to identify the pilot or the passengers of the purported Falcon, and their own failure to come forward and identify themselves.

There was one other plane, a single-engine Piper, in the air as Flight 93 headed to its doom. The pilot, Bill Wright, said that he was three miles away and so close he could see the United markings on the plane. Suddenly he received orders to get away from the hijacked plane and to land immediately. "That's one of the first things that went through my mind when they told us to get as far away from it as fast as we could," Wright later told a Pittsburgh TV station, "that either they were expecting it to blow up or they were going to shoot it down — but that's pure speculation."

Everything is speculation — that is the problem with the story of Flight 93. And unless the US government reveals more of what it knows, provides a detailed account of the last 10 minutes in the life of Flight 93 and the 44 people who were aboard, there will not only be scope but sound reasons for the conspiracy theorists to continue to speculate as to what really happened in those last few minutes before the plane plunged into the earth; to cast doubts on the soft-focus legend that the traumatised American public has seized upon so gratefully.

Some conspiracy theorists will say that the plane was shot down by a missile, perhaps a heat-seeking missile that honed in on one of the plane's engines — a theory possibly substantiated by the 2,000yd flight of the 1,000lb engine part, but arguably refuted by consistent eye-witness accounts, including Lee Purbaugh's, that when last sighted the plane was not emitting smoke.

Others might say, as they have done about a TWA flight that fell to the sea in 1996 after taking off from New York, that the plane was a victim of electromagnetic interference. In the case of the TWA flight, the argument, put forward in a series of exhaustive articles written in the New York Review of Books by the Harvard academic Elaine Scarry, is that it happened accidentally. However, as Scarry's articles relate, documentation abounds showing that the Air Force and the Pentagon have conducted extensive research on "electronic warfare applications" with the possible capacity intentionally to disrupt the mechanisms of an aeroplane in such a way as to provoke, for example, an uncontrollable dive. Scarry also reports that US Customs aircraft are already equipped with such weaponry; as are some C-130 Air Force transport planes. The FBI has stated that, apart from the enigmatic Falcon business jet, there was a C-130 military cargo plane within 25 miles of the passenger jet when it crashed. According to the Scarry findings, in 1995 the Air Force installed "electronic suites" in at least 28 of its C-130s — capable, among other things, of emitting lethal jamming signals.

In decades to come, film-makers, future Oliver Stones, may come up with theories of their own, and the story of Flight 93 may come to acquire the morbid mystique of the Kennedy assassination.

None of which is to question the bravery of passengers such as Todd Beamer, who left behind a pregnant widow and two children aged two and three; or Tom Burnett, who had three small daughters and told his wife Deena over the phone, in the face of her anguished protests, that he and his fellow-passengers were "going to do something" because if not the terrorists were "going to run this plane into the ground". Evidently, as the Newsweek article relates, there was fighting of some kind, but as to whether the terrorists held off the passengers or the passengers seized control of the plane, and perhaps even made an attempt to fly it themselves (one passenger aboard was a qualified pilot of small planes), nobody knows — or is willing to admit that they know.

If evidence does exist further substantiating the hero narrative, it would be a surprise if the authorities had not released it. Bravery, though, there undoubtedly was. This we do know. As Lee Purbaugh says, and it would be churlish to disagree, "they were heroes on that plane". Such a consensus has been built around this view that the crash site at Shanksville — an anonymous-looking field save for the American flags that flutter all around, the crosses, the pictures of the dead passengers, the messages of goodwill and of good cheer ("Don't mess with the US!") — that it has become a place of pilgrimage, much as has happened with ground zero in New York but on a smaller scale, attracting some 150 visitors from all over the US every day. "In truth," said Wally Miller, who as coroner remains legally in charge of the site, "that field is a cemetery. It should be treated with due respect."

What does Miller think happened? Did he attach any credence to the stories doing the rounds, to those — including a number in Shanksville — who dissent from the official version of events? Miller, who has seen as much evidence as anybody at the scene of the crash, does not dismiss the dissidents out of hand. He keeps an open mind. "The order had been given to bring the airplane down," he said. "I do not rule anything out."


©2002 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[BrooklynRider]

Unanswered Questions About Flight 93
Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate

Monday, October 22, 2001[b]

[b]WOULD OUR GOVERNMENT LIE TO US? Suppose, just suppose, that United Flight 93, the hero flight, Newark to San Francisco, was not crashed in rural Pennsylvania by hijackers but rather was shot down by American jet fighters. "Friendly fire."

Would our government admit that kind of tragedy or would it cover up?

It is fair to assume that the events of Sept. 11 concerning Flight 93 happened just the way we've been told. The plane took off, and, after about 45 minutes, was hijacked. The hijackers allowed the passengers to make telephone calls. They did, and at least one of them ended his call by saying he and other passengers were going to fight the hijackers. Shortly after that, the plane crashed.

The fair assumption is that the heroic passengers took on the hijackers and, in their assault, control of the plane was lost.

But what if the passengers gained control of the plane only to have it shot down by an American fighter jet? Is that possible?

I'm suspicious. Here's why:

By the time Flight 93 crashed, all civilian aircraft had been ordered to land. Presumably, by the time Flight 93 went down, most other civilian aircraft were on the ground.

Military jet fighters had been scrambled more than an hour earlier. They were in the air. They had been ordered to protect the White House "at all costs," according to The New York Times. Flight 93, we're told, was headed in the direction of the White House.

Flight 93's "black box," the flight recorder, has been recovered, but so far the government hasn't seen fit to allow the press or the public to hear what was on it.

The government also refuses to give out the names of the fighter pilots known to be flying in the vicinity of Flight 93. Because we don't know who they are, they can't be interviewed.

And, strangely, [b]the man who assumed command in Washington on that day, Vice President Dick Cheney, has kept a remarkably low profile since then. True, he makes a cameo appearance from time to time, but for the most part he's been hidden from public scrutiny.

Why? They say it's for "security reasons." But the guy we should be most concerned about, our president, is all over the place these days. Why does Dick Cheney have to remain in hiding when President George W. Bush spends more time before television cameras than Wolf Blitzer?

Cheney's absence doesn't pass the smell test. It smells fishy. Is he hiding because he doesn't want to answer questions about Flight 93?

I'm not suggesting here that Flight 93 was shot down by "friendly fire." If it was, well, that's the kind of thing that happens when people start killing each other. I can understand mistakes, and I can accept many of them.

I believe most Americans have a certain tolerance for mistakes. However, none of us likes being lied to.

In my opinion, the government should be far more forthcoming about the events of Sept. 11. If the military pilots did nothing wrong, if they shot at nobody, why hide them? For protection? Protection from what? A proud nation that respects them for doing a dangerous job well?

Their names should be made public and they should be made available to the press.

We should have an opportunity to hear for ourselves what was recorded on the flight recorder. Don't just tell us it was mushy or vague or difficult to understand. Let us decide that for ourselves. We're Americans. We have a right to know what's going on with our government.

And, finally, Dick Cheney should come out of hiding. When and if he does, I hope some reporter has the gumption to ask him what orders he issued on Sept. 11 and what were the results of those orders.

It would be a terrible, terrible irony if the brave passengers of Flight 93 gained control of the plane only to be shot down by our own forces. But if that's what happened, we have a right to know it.

OSAMA BIN LADEN IS A GOOD EXAMPLE of a liar. He's not just a spoiled rotten rich kid who found a "purpose" in life. He's also a master manipulator.

I don't know much about religion, but I doubt that any religion worth a dime offers instant salvation to anyone who ends his foolish life committing unspeakable acts of barbarism.

Yet that's what Osama bin Laden and his ilk have been able to convince a small army of otherwise intelligent young men: "Do something really stupid and cruel and Allah will reward you."

Now that is manipulation. With those kinds of persuasive powers, bin Laden could make yet another fortune selling used Yugos in southern California (which may be exactly what he's doing right now).

Now, I get enough e-mails from our own brand of religious fanatics to know that common sense doesn't appeal to the breed, yet I have a message for you guys out there who can't wait to blow yourself up for the greater glory: Look who's feeding you that line.

Yep, you got it! Osama himself. Slippery as an eel, that man is, and have you noticed that suicide is for you and not for him?

Think for a moment. If there was any glory in blowing yourself to shreds and taking a few indulgent Westerners with you, wouldn't Osama be first in line to show you how it's done?

SPEAKING OF LIARS AND MANIPULATORS, our own Colin Powell, the man who could be president, presented a $43 million check to the Taliban last May to show our gratitude for their efforts in our "drug war."

Never mind that $43 million would buy each man, woman and child in Afghanistan a Big Mac, more or less, depending on the rate of exchange, but the money was supposed to be a payoff to the Afghan farmers who had quit growing opium poppies.

No poppies. No opium. No drugs out of Afghanistan. Ah, the Taliban might be a tad strict about a few things, but at least they see the evil in drugs and are willing to help us stamp them out.

Yeah, sure. That's what we were told. But now that we're testing our latest weapons in Afghanistan, with particular attention to members of the Taliban, it turns out that those puppies are supporting themselves by (you guessed it) supplying Europe with opium.

Six months ago they had eradicated opium, sending it the way of the dodo, small pox and polio. Now that they're our anointed enemies, they're suddenly the world biggest dope dealers, rivaled only by our friends in Colombia.

Which is it? Were we lied to, perhaps duped, last spring, or are we being lied to now?

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and iconoclast. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at harleysorensen@yahoo.com.

[BrooklynRider]

I know this stuff is going to get some folks feathers all rustled, but we know from our friends inLower Manhattan that our government had no qualms about lying about air quality. It seems a liar is a liar is a liar.

The questions that "United 93" can't answer

Once again, Attytood gives you tomorrow's news today. This is our story that will run on the front page of the Daily News, looking at a few of the unanswered questions that may get lost in the hoopla about the opening of the movie "United 93":

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.

Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11, 2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight controllers in filming “United 93.”

“They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us,” Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. “It gave the film a veracity, an authenticity.”

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

Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.

Today, few but the most radical sceptics about 9/11 would question the events at the core of “United 93,” the struggle with heroic passengers that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia courtroom earlier this month.

But other questions 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 either President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney order a shootdown 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.” Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for what he considers a flawed military response.

Here’s some of the unanswered questions:

Q. Why weren’t military fighters under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the doomed Flight 93?

A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario with two simultaneously hijacked planes.

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 that, “We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and started to turn south toward DC.” That was some 27 minutes, or more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at approximately 9:30 a.m. — roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93 crashed — but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.

Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did President Bush know about it?


A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was around 10 a.m. when Cheney — running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking at a Florida elementary school — was told that a hijacked plane was 80 miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.

Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff, testified he suggested that Cheney re-confirm that order with Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such at call was made.

But according to a June 24, 2005, article in Newsweek, “some on the [9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some staffers ‘flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.’"

Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.

Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93 crashed?

A. One of those dozen witnesses was Susan McElwain, who told Britain’s Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side....It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets.” Several residents said the plane resembled the military’s A-10 Warthog.

After several different accounts, the government and a supporting 2005 article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet was a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into the Johnstown Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Q. Did Flight 93 really crash at 10:03 a.m.?

A. The transcript from the cockpit voice recorder ends at 10:03:09, which is when the government says it crashed.

But in 2002, the world’s best known forensic seismologist, Terry Wallace, told the Daily News that the evidence was conclusive that the plane crashed nearly three minutes later, at 10:06:05. Wallace now works for the government’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, and efforts to reach him yesterday were not successful.

Q. What about the so-called “911 call”?

A. On Sept. 11, it was widely reported that one of the Flight 93 passengers, believed now to be Edward Felt, reached a 911 operator in Westmoreland County, Pa., and that, “He heard some sort of explosion and saw white smoke coming from the plane and we lost contact with him.”

Since then, that account has been disputed and the 911 operator has been barred from speaking to reporters.

Q. Why haven’t we heard cockpit recordings or seen the flight data recording from the other three flights?

A. 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 freelance writer Dave Lindorff reported 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."

http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/attytood/archives/003187.html

Posted on April 26, 2006 10:57 PM

[ablarc]

Amazing that the biggest events are the hardest to find out the truth about. So much power concentrated on concealment. We'll never know the truth about Kennedy's assassination either.

Looks to me like the plane was shot down, but that doesn't preclude the passengers' revolt as well. But what do I know? ...or any of the rest of us outside a small cadre?

.

[BrooklynRider]

And who had his finger on the button while Bush was cowering like a pussy?

DICK CHENEY - International War Criminal and murder of innocent Americans.

[kliq6]

having just seen this over the weekend, i recomend all americans see this and if after watching this yo ustill feel Bush and his clowns are correct, your lost!!!!!

[BrooklynRider]

Is there an underlying anti-Bush tone to the film? a political statement?

[lofter1]

Simply an exposure of the government's total lack of preparedness to deal with the situation ...

[pianoman11686]

I saw the film on Friday with some friends of mine. I found it to be incredibly realistic and overall, well-made as a film. I admire Greengrass for his ability to do a film that is documentary in its content (forget all the conspiracy theories for the moment) but still has the feeling of a real movie. I strongly encourage everyone here to see it. There were a couple parts that made my eyes water a little bit, and I won't give anything away here for those who haven't seen it, but the intense final scene brought me to straight out tears. I left the theater in silence, shaking. Rarely has a film ever touched me the way United 93 did.

[BrooklynRider]

I still can't watch video of the towers collapsing. Just from the body of posts you folks have put up in WNY, I trust your opinion. It is just to close to home for me. Not ready to tap into that rage and grief just yet.

[pianoman11686]

Believe me, I was close to the event when it happened. I went to high school in Manhattan at the time, I just live in North Carolina now for college. If the towers collapsing is particularly painful for you, you can rest assured there's no imagery of that. There are some clips of the second tower getting hit, which, on a big screen, shook me up. Like I said, though, the most emotional part for me was the ending, which had absolutely nothing to do with the twin towers. I still highly recommend it. The experience was intensely emotional, for sure, but cathartic as well.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

A powerful message delivered skilfully by Greengrass. Thank the producers for allowing him the room to do the film that way.

The message for me was that the passengers were brave indeed.

It made me think about the sanctity of human life, how close we all are to death.

So, before I undertook travel again after these events, last year, I began attending Krav Maga classes. It's not a martial art, its just plain effective street fighting for closed space self-defence. Invented by a Hungarian who lived in Bratislava (who was a champion boxer and had had some oriental martial arts training), he invented it to teach his friends how to escape the growing Nazi thug menace on the streets (they were jewish) before WWII. They could incapacitate the thugs with basic training, and then escape from them.

After the first 1 hours lesson, I practically knew how to severely incapacitate an assailant, without warning, at close quarters. It was truly astounding. Krav Maga uses basic motor neurone response mechanisms - it uses the most simple neurological movements resulting in quick moves with power, based on boxing. The basic stance before attacking is open hands in the air at head height - the "please dont shoot me" stance. From that stance you can severely blunt an attackers will, confidence and body when they dont expect it.

I think that given the shocking reality of what occurred on that flight, 1 hour of training by a few people here and there can make a real difference.

Why is Krav so effective? Allow me to share with you how and why Krav is so effective in the following examples. Remember, most criminals and terrorists are cowards, that is, in the face of a determined attacker they will capitulate - especially because they don't expect any resistance. If you look innocent then launch a vicious attack, they will be suprised, shocked and then truly fearful.

Here are the examples (and this is less than 1% of Krav):

Do you have a wife or female co-passenger in the seat next to you? Get her makeup mirror, break it and make an instrument for the throat or eyes of the terrorist. A rolled up flight magazine or newspaper is an instrument of defense against blades and used to disarm them. Use that ball point pen to the throat of a terrorist so that 1 inch is sticking out. With Krav techniques, you can severely incapacitate or even kill within seconds, that is not an exaggeration - I mean I was truly astounded by it. When the terrorist is near you put your arms up say "please sir dont kill me" and then elbow his face, followed by a series of kicks and knees to his face. This takes some training, obviously but it is decisive.

I have seen it in action and it is truly brutal and effective. I was astounded.

I am just a normal guy; I like ancient japan and smoking jackets, I think that if I was on a plane I would be scared, I dont know how I would feel, but at least with some basic Krav anyone could learn how to assist in an early decisive action by air marshals.

I recommend this to anyone who travels by air. If this happens again, you and I can at least try to do something like the brave passengers of Flight 93. They really were brave.

[pscoln1]

Personally I have no desire to see the film, I still think its way too soon. I know its been almost 5 years but it was too horrific an event for anyone to be making money off such a tragedy, especially this early. I think its disgusting that this movie came out soo quickly.

[lofter1]

it was too horrific an event for anyone to be making money off such a tragedy, especially this early.
So what are your thoughts on good ole american corporations making billions off the war (Halliburton, Bechtel, etc., etc., etc.) ???

[pscoln1]

Im not for it I think its sick.

[ablarc]

Personally I have no desire to see the film, I still think its way too soon. I know its been almost 5 years but it was too horrific an event for anyone to be making money off such a tragedy, especially this early. I think its disgusting that this movie came out soo quickly.
A Refusal to Mourn


Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.


--Dylan Thomas



The point: wallowing in grief is a celebration of death.
Moving on is a celebration of life.

You can move on by being clear-eyed about what happened --which you can't change anyway-- and getting on with your life. Denial, sanctimonious memorialization and fetishization play into the goals of the dark side.

Vilifying the filmmakers is easy piety. They are not Halliburton.

.

[kliq6]

the movie basically showcases how multiple agencies and people were totally confused and not prepared on what to do if this country itself ever had to deal with a attack. The movie showcases various places and the events and circumstances of each place including FAA headquarters, Newark ControlTower and Boston Command.

As for the tower collapsing, i may have blacked it out with all the other intense parts of the movie but they only show the second tower getting hit and the collapse of the tower is not shown as United 93 ends with the plane crashing, which was before the tower fell

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

the movie basically showcases how multiple agencies and people were totally confused and not prepared on what to do if this country intself ever had to deal with a attck. Th emovie showcases various places and the events and circumstances of each place including FAA headquaters, Newark CotrolTower and Boston command.

As fo rthe tower collapsing, i may have blacnked it out with all the other intense parts o fthe movie but they only show the second tower getting hit and the collapse of the tower is not shown as United 93 ends with the plane crashing, which was before the tower fell

Tha t's n iceD ear.

[kliq6]

what can i say im in real estate commercial leasing, not a english major

[Ninjahedge]

what can i say im in real estate commercial leasing, not a english major

He is commenting on your typos, not your English.

And you actually read what he wrote??!? ;)

[Bob]

Saw it. Amazing film...not a "Hollywood" project by any means. Events were captured with incredible and accurate detail. All the language was exactly correct. Controllers' phraseology was, as far as I could tell, taken exactly from the tapes/transcripts. I was astounded...this was (thank goodness) no stupid repeat of that trashbin "air traffic control movie," Pushing Tin.

Who makes this movie really work? I'll tell you who: Ben Sliney. To say that he played himself is understating it by a mile. He indeed did play himself: what you see in the movie is Ben Sliney all the way. On screen he says the kind of things he says in real life. He was in the FAA's Command Center that day, and I can see him taking charge on 9/11 exactly as depicted in the film. How do I know all this? I work for the FAA, and have worked with him. It's the real deal, folks. What you probably don't know is Ben got in some hot water that day for making the call to ground all the planes. First, the higher ups called him on it -- a la "who gave you that authority? -- and then decided to back him up when it was found to be the singular well-made and timely decision. Thank our lucky stars it was Sliney on the job instead of some lesser manager.

By far and away, UAL93 is the film of the year. Gripping, edge of your seat stuff. Forget all that government conspiracy nonsense: I was there on 9/11 and you should know that this film got it exactly right.

[Jared543]

I just wanna say that I saw this movie, twice actually and I thought it was amazing.Very well done, I thought the documentary style cameras really made it more intense which honestly wasnt good becuase even though I know whats going to happen im scared shitless, actually crying while walking out of the theater. Amazing story though,everyone should see.

[ablarc]

Cathartic.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

If you read my earlier post - this is what we need

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p-TAd-Bn9w&search=krav%20maga (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCR8-ZXnY2A&search=krav%20maga)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p-TAd-Bn9w&search=krav%20maga

But guys, leave it to the professionals/authorities - Im sure thats obvious.

And I remind the extremists who want to try to attack the great State of New York or indeed any one of us of what Hannibal Smith said - "I love it when a plan comes together" - guys, together we can triumph.

[Gregory Tenenbaum]

Amazing what a furore that film was causing only a couple of months ago.

Now it's as if it was never filmed or shown. Haven't heard anyone talking about it.