From today's Scotsman
Passengers so close to saving Flight 93
Gethin Chamberlain
THOSE who watched the events of September 11 unfold on television knew that everyone on board Flight 93 from Newark was going to die. Those on board suspected that their flight was not destined to land safely at San Francisco airport. Until now it was doubtful that anyone realised the full horror of what happened in the moments before the United Airlines Boeing 757 plunged into a field in Pennsylvania.
Now, however, tapes from the doomed jet’s voice recorder throw a chilling new light on the passengers’ struggle to retake the hijacked plane and the terrorists’ determination to die. The black box tapes reveal how the passengers bombarded the hijackers with plates and metal trays as they tried to retake the cockpit.
They record the panicked shouts of the hijackers and the crying and praying of the passengers as the jet went down. And they document the final act as the terrorist pilot Ziad Jarrah screamed, and pointed the nose downwards.
Flight 93 was the fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11. By the time the terrorists seized control, the first two had already smashed into the World Trade Centre. Passengers on board knew this because they had mobile phones and they were able to call their families and friends in the moments before they died.
It was those phone calls that convinced the 33 passengers on board that they were destined to die unless they attempted to fight back. The tapes reveal just how close they came to retaking the plane before the terrorists realised the game was up, aborted their planned attack on a still unknown target and crashed near Shanksville killing all 44 people on board.
Flight 93, carrying 200,000lb of fuel, had taken off from Newark at 8:01 that Tuesday morning and turned west to begin the six-hour flight to San Francisco.
At the controls was Capt Jason Dahl, and Leroy Homer, 36, the First Officer. They had an hour and a half to live, less even than their passengers. The first indication they had that something was wrong was just over an hour into the flight when they received a radioed text message from air traffic control in Chicago warning crews to be aware of possible hijacking.
Behind them, in the main body of the plane, the hijackers were preparing to move. Ziad Jarrah, Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi, Saeed al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Nami, all in their 20s and the youngest of Osama bin Laden’s hijackers, put on their red bandannas and made their way to the front of the plane.
In the cockpit, Captain Dahl was asking air traffic control to clarify a message he had overheard: "Did you say that they weren't accepting any traffic into the New York area?" "They're not," the controller replied. "They're having a problem at the World Trade Centre."
Seconds later came the screams. Captain Dahl’s last recorded words were: "Get out of here!" Moments later he and Leroy Homer were dead, their throats slit by the hijackers.
In their moment of triumph, however, their attackers were about to make their first mistake. Jarrah, their pilot, flicked a switch he thought would enable him to talk to the passengers. Instead, his heavily-accented voice was picked up by those at air traffic control.
"Hi, this is the captain," he said. "We’d like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board. We are going to turn back to the airport. And they have our demands, so please be quiet."
By the time he realised his mistake it was too late. Now those on the ground knew what was happening, and with US fighters already airborne, there was little or no chance that Flight 93 would be allowed to crash into another landmark.
On board, the hijackers spoke to each other in Arabic about what had happened before fiddling with the microphone to prevent a repeat of the mistake.
While Jarrah took the controls and turned towards Washington, the 33 passengers and surviving crew were herded to the back of the plane.
There, several passengers began to make frantic phone calls to their families, phone operators and air traffic controllers. The news they received was grim. The twin towers were burning and the Pentagon had been hit. The passengers decided there was no point in waiting for their fate.
They included a trained pilot, an American footballer, rugby players and a body builder. They reasoned, they could retake the plane and land it safely. As they prepared to tackle the hijackers, passenger Todd Beamer told a phone operator he could see the pilots’ bodies outside the cockpit. "Are you guys ready?" he asked the others. "Let's roll."
As the men moved forward fellow passenger Elizabeth Wainio broke off her call to her stepmother saying: "I’ve got to go, they’re breaking into the cockpit. I love you. Goodbye."
At 9:57am, the cockpit voice recorder picked up sounds of a struggle with one passenger shouting: "Let’s get them."
As the passengers charged, Jarrah and one of the other hijackers could be heard trying to let the other two men back in from just outside the cockpit where they had been standing. Back inside the cockpit there was confusion as the terrorists began squabbling. One urged that the passengers be kept out. Another suggested cutting off oxygen to the cabin.
"Take it easy," another said, trying to calm the situation, but the fourth suggested they use the fire axe kept in the cockpit to scare the passengers into submission. The sound of dishes and trays being thrown could be heard in the background as the terrorists yelled at each other and appeared to fight over the controls, with one saying: "Give it to me."
With the passengers apparently beginning to gain the upper hand, Jarrah tried to regain control of the situation by putting the plane into a dive to knock the passengers off their feet. The tactic failed and the hijackers appeared to have accepted that their plan was doomed to failure. Voices talked about "finishing off" the plane.
The last voice on the recorder is that of Jarrah. "Allahu akbar" he screamed. (God is great). It was 10:06am.
On the 11th September, there were many heroes. Greatest of them all were those passengers.