The Shootdown Of Flight 93

The Shootdown of Flight 93

http://www.pressaction.com/news/webl...ght9312242005/

12/24/2005

You’d think there’d be no ambiguity about such a momentous day in our nation’s history as Sept. 11, 2001. With 9/11 serving as justification for almost everything our federal government does today, you’d think our leaders and our vaunted free press surely would want all of the facts about that day’s events made public to make sure we appreciate why our government has taken such extreme measures during the past four years.

But, as David Lindorff reported in CounterPunch a few days ago, uncertainty still shrouds certain segments of the day that gave birth to the Global War on Terrorism. The mystery lingers because the U.S. government refuses to make public everything it knows about particular events from that day, even if disclosure would not harm “national security.” Take, for instance, the demise of United Airlines Flight 93.

The 9/11 commission, known officially as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, concluded in 2004 that the hijackers of Flight 93 intentionally crashed the airplane after realizing passengers were advancing toward the cockpit and were about to overpower them. The commission essentially rubber-stamped the version of the events surrounding Flight 93 that emerged soon after the plane plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pa., killing all 45 people on board.

But information from eyewitnesses and aviation officials with knowledge of Flight 93 provides a completely different story about what happened to the hijacked Boeing 757 airliner. According to this evidence, a U.S. fighter jet shot down Flight 93 over Somerset County, Pa., a few minutes past 10 o’clock on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

Immediately after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush gave the military orders to intercept and shoot down any commercial airliners that refused instructions to turn away from Washington. At 9:35 a.m., officials assumed hijacked Flight 93 was heading for Washington after it changed course in a 180-degree turn.

With that knowledge, military fighter jets were sent to take down Flight 93 before it struck another government facility in Washington. When it crashed, Flight 93 was only 170 miles, or 20 minutes in flying time, from Washington.

By shooting down Flight 93 in a rural part of Pennsylvania—killing all 45 people on board—the government probably saved the lives of a much larger number of people in the Washington area who were almost certainly the targets of the hijacked airliner. The World Trade Center and the Pentagon had already been struck by hijacked aircraft. The government, therefore, believed the hijacked Flight 93 would strike a government facility in or near Washington if not shot down.

Governments, of course, never like to admit that they intentionally kill their own people. The Bush administration had to deal with this quandary when deciding whether to acknowledge what really happened to Flight 93.

But a compelling narrative had emerged surrounding Flight 93, a storyline that likely further convinced officials to remain quiet about the government’s decision to shoot down the airliner. Because passengers of Flight 93 had gained information, by phone, from family members, friends and colleagues about what had happened to the World Trade Center, they decided to resist the hijacking. The passenger revolt against the hijackers was in full throttle when Flight 93 began to spiral out of control into the Pennsylvania countryside.

Flight 93’s passengers emerged as heroes for taking down the airliner before it could do further damage in Washington. The “Let’s roll” message uttered by one of the flight’s passengers to a telephone operator, using an in-flight telephone, quickly became legend and was used by the Bush administration to rally the nation as it embarked on a campaign of revenge for the Sept. 11 attacks. By admitting that one of its military aircraft, not the passengers, succeeded in bringing down Flight 93, the U.S. government would lose one of 9/11’s defining moments.

Flight 93’s passengers and crew, however, would not lose their hero status if the government were to come clean on what really happened. The evidence is solid that a passenger revolt was in progress when the airliner crashed.

Trustworthy sources contend a U.S. military jet shot down Flight 93 over Somerset County. As the five-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, it’s time for the Bush administration, with its credibility in shambles over so many other issues, to release all information about what really happened to Flight 93.