| 8:42 A.M. United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark International Airport: Boeing 757 flying from Newark to San Francisco. 38 passengers (out of 182 seats), five flight attendants, two pilots. [Back] | |
9:16 A.M. The FAA informs NORAD that Flight 93 may have been hijacked. Officially, no fighters are scrambled in specific response, now or later (there is the possibility some fighters sent after Flight 77 later headed towards Flight 93). [CNN, 9/17/01, NORAD, 9/18/01]
| Over the next 45 minutes there are a large number of cell phone calls made by passengers from Flight 93. It is clear that the passengers realized the gravity of their situation and decide to try to wrest control of the aircraft back from the hijackers. By 9:53 A.M. the hijackers in the cockpit of Flight 93 grow concerned that the passengers might retaliate. One urges that the plane's fire ax be held up to the door's peephole to scare the passengers. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 209-210] |  |
9:54 A.M. Passenger Tom Burnett calls his wife Deena for the fourth and last time. "It's up to us. I think we can do it." "Don't worry, we're going to do something." He specifically mentions they plan to regain control of the airplane over a rural area. [9:54, "again Deena noted the time," The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 118]
After 9:55 A.M. Inside the White House bunker, a military aide asks Cheney, "There is a plane 80 miles out. There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?" Cheney immediately answers "Yes." As the fighter gets nearer to Flight 93, he is asked the same thing twice more, and responds yes both times.
9:57 A.M. and after One of the hijackers in the cockpit asks if anything is going on, apparently meaning outside the cockpit. "Fighting," the other one says. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 210] An analysis of the flight recorder suggests that the passenger struggle actually started in the front of the plane about a minute before a struggle in the back of the plane. [Observer, 12/2/01] Officials later theorize that the Flight 93 passengers did actually reach the cockpit using a food cart as a battering ram and a shield. They claim that digital enhancement of the cockpit voice recorder reveals the sound of plates and glassware crashing around 9:57. [Newsweek, 11/25/01] "In the cockpit! In the cockpit!" is heard. Hijackers are reportedly heard telling each other to hold the door. In English, someone outside shouts, "Let's get them." The hijackers are also praying "Allah o akbar" (God is great). One of the hijackers suggests shutting off the oxygen supply to the cabin (which apparently wouldn't have had an effect since the plane was already below 10,000 feet). A hijacker says, "Should we finish?" Another one says, "Not yet." The sounds of the passengers get clearer, and in unaccented English "Give it to me!" is heard. "I'm injured," someone says in English. Then something like "roll it up" and "lift it up" is heard. Passengers' relatives believe this sequence proves that the passengers did take control of the plane. [MSNBC, 7/30/02, Telegraph, 8/6/02, Observer, 12/2/01, The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 270-271]
9:58 A.M. Passenger Todd Beamer ends his long phone call saying that they plan "to jump" the hijacker in the back who has the bomb. In the background, the phone operator already could hear an "awful commotion" of people shouting, and women screaming, "Oh my God", and "God help us." He lets go of the phone but leaves it connected. His famous last words are said to nearby passengers: "Are you ready guys? Let's roll" (alternate version: "You ready? Okay. Let's roll"). [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 204, Newsweek, 9/22/01, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/01] Passenger CeeCee Lyles says to her husband, "Aah, it feels like the plane's going down." Her husband Lorne says, "What's that?" She replies, "I think they're going to do it. They're forcing their way into the cockpit (an alternate version says, "They're getting ready to force their way into the cockpit"). A little later she screams, then says, "They're doing it! They're doing it! They're doing it!" Her husband hears more screaming in the background, then he hears a "whooshing sound, a sound like wind," then more screaming, and then the call breaks off. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 180, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/01]
Between 10:00-10:06 A.M. During this time, there apparently are no calls from Flight 93. Several cell phones left on record only silence. For instance, Todd Beamer didn't hang up, but nothing more was heard after he put down the phone, suggesting things were quiet in the back of the plane. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 218] The only exception is Richard Makely, who was listening to the Jeremy Glick open phone line after Glick went to attack the hijackers. A reporter summarizes Makely explaining that, "The silence lasted two minutes, then there was screaming. More silence, followed by more screams. Finally, there was a mechanical sound, followed by nothing." [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/17/01] The second silence lasted between 60 and 90 seconds. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 219] Near the end of the cockpit voice recording, loud wind sounds can be heard. [CNN, 4/19/02, The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 270-271] "Sources claim the last thing heard on the cockpit voice recorder is the sound of wind - suggesting the plane had been holed." [Mirror, 9/13/02] If the passengers had taken over the plane, there was at least one passenger, Don Greene, who was a professional pilot, who'd learned to fly at age 14, as well as Andrew Garcia, a former air traffic controller. [Newsweek, 9/22/01, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/01, Telegraph, 8/6/02] [Back]
10:06 A.M. Flight 93 crashes just north of the Somerset County Airport, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, 124 miles or 15 minutes from Washington DC. Little information has been made public. It is now believed its target was the White House. The plane was generally obliterated upon landing, except for one half ton piece of engine found over a mile away. [Independent, 8/13/02] One story calls what happened to this engine "intriguing," because "the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757's two large engines." [Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/01] Smaller debris fields were also found two, three and eight miles away from the main crash site. [CBS, 5/23/02] [10:06:05, US Army authorized seismic study] For an in depth look at the crash of Flight 93, visit the excellent How Did United Flight 93 Crash? web site.
(2:00 P.M.) F-15 fighter pilot Maj. Daniel Nash returns to base around this time, after chasing Flight 175 and patrolling the skies over New York City. He says that when he got out of the plane, "he was told that a military F-16 had shot down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania, a report that turned out to be incorrect." [about 1:30, Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02, about 2:30, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/02] Was it incorrect? [Back]