Evidence: The Crash of Flight 93

United Airlines Flight 93 was the fourth jetliner hijacked on 9/11/2001, a Boeing 757-200 on a scheduled flight from Newark International Airport to San Francisco International Airport. The jetliner crashed near Somerset, PA. after passengers reportedly attempted to regain control of the cockpit.

Contents

Flight

After reversing direction near Cleveland, OH The jetliner flew toward the capitol for about 30 minutes before plunging into the ground.

Eyewitness Reports

Bystanders on the ground witnessed several aspects of the crash of Flight 93.

NTSB Reports

NTSB documents describing contents of the black boxes of Flight 93 were released to the public on August 11, 2006.

Crash Time

According to the 9/11 Commission, Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 AM.

United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03:11, ... The 10:03:11 impact time is supported by previous National Transportation Safety Board analysis and by evidence from the Commission staff's analysis of radar, the flight data recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmissions.

-- 9/11 Commission Report

The Commission's claim contradicts multiple lines of evidence pegging the crash time at 10:06 AM.

A paper by seismologists Won-Young Kim and, Gerald R. Baum emphatically places the crash time at 10:06:05 EDT, with a margin of error of five seconds.

Although, seismic signals across the network are not as strong and clear as the WTC case (see Kim et al., 2001), three component records at station SSPA (Δ = 107.6 km) shown in Figure 6 are quite clear. The three-component records at SSPA are dominated by strong Lg arrivals, whereas the Pg waves are difficult to discern and have amplitudes comparable to the noise level. This is typical for seismic waves generated by airplane impacts and crashes. The seismic signals marked as Sg in Figure 5 propagated from the Shanksville crash site to the stations with approximately 3.5 km/s. Hence, we infer that the Flight 93 crashed around 14:06:05±5 (UTC) (10:06:05 EDT). The uncertainty is only due to seismic velocity at the uppermost crust near the surface in which the Lg waves propagated.

-- Seismic Observations during September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attack

Multiple reports in mainstream newspapers place the crash time at 10:06;

Forty-five seconds after telling Fritz to evacuate the Johnstown tower, Cleveland Air Traffic Control phoned again. "They said to disregard. The aircraft had turned to the south and they lost radar contact with him." It was 10:06 a.m.

-- post-gazette.com 10/28/01

The Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday it turned over to the FBI a radar record of United Airlines Flight 93's route. The data traced the Boeing 757-200 from its takeoff from Newark, N.J., to its violent end at 10:06 a.m., just outside Shanksville, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.

-- post-gazette.com 9/13/01

What is surprising is this: Go to Shanksville and the surrounding farm fields where people actually saw or heard the jetliner go down at roughly 10:06 that morning and there are a number of people -- including witnesses -- who also think that Flight 93 was shot down, or at least aren't ruling it out.

-- Philadelphia Daily News 11/15/01

10:06 -- United Airlines Flight 93 crashes in Shanksville, Pa.

-- USA Today

Crash Site

According to eyewitnesses, Flight 93 plunged into the ground at high speed along a nearly vertical trajectory. The plane was apparently shredded on impact, and mostly buried, leaving an impact crater more than 80 feet long and 14 feet deep. The crater is near the edge of a reclaimed strip mine with coordinates estimated by 9-11 Research of 40º03'02" N longitude, 78º45'22" W latitude.

Photographs

Relatively few photographs of the crash site of Flight 93 are available, since the site was sealed off by the FBI in the wake of the crash. A number of detailed photographs were released with the publication of prosecution exhibits n the 2006 trial U.S. v. Moussaoui, including several showing the debris-strewn impact crater and aircraft parts in the adjacent woods.

Debris Fields

Multiple debris fields were reported from the destruction of Flight 93, one as far as 8 miles from the primary crash site.