United Crash

[Captain Smiley]

Very, very sad happenings today.

I wonder if the United 757 crash near Pennsylvania was actually brought down by the military as it was reportedly heading for Washington after being hijacked.

[Skylark 4 BLW]

That was my suspicion too, but apparently this has been denied during a recent Department of Defence press conference.

I gather though that the aircraft came down close to Camp David and latest news off BBC this morning suggests that there may have been a struggle in the cockpit with possibly the crew overpowering the hijackers to crash the aircraft short of its intended target. If correct, these guys(?) are heros.

[Huck]

It crashed 85 miles NW of Camp David. A passenger was in contact with a 911 operator in a bathroom when it crashed.

Maybe somebody got to the pressurization panel and dumped the cabin.....

[Wedge]

Eyewitness reports would add weight to the stuggle theory, apparently the a/c was very low then climbed suddenly and banked left and dived into the ground. I wondered earlier if the pilots had fought to stop the aircraft reaching its target (possibly Camp David) - if it is true they are indeed heroes. Rest in peace.

[ 12 September 2001: Message edited by: Wedge ]

[inverted flatspin]

Just saw a report here in California that suggests that some significant flight training must have gone into the attacks it appears that the transponders were turned off by these bastards. Judging by the effectiveness of the attacks it is likely that they did some time in a sim, there can not be huge number of facilities worldwide providing sim time in heavy jets, let us hope that this is where the authorities can pick up the trail back to those behind this MURDEROUS act and let them feel the Wrath of America.

[FREDA]

These guys must have trained to fly the airplanes themselves. It is simply out of the question that the US crews were in control of those aircraft. With a gun to your head and the certain knowledge of your death and everyone on your aircraft, you hit the water.

The fourth plane is really wierd. I thought at first that there was every indication that it was shot down but if that were the case you'd expect it to have broken up in the air, which doesn't seem to have happened. Did the crew pull the fire handles?

As much as you have to feel for everyone personally involved or related to the victims, the whole world is a nastier place now. If terrorists want to declare war on the US and it's allies, and unrestricted war at that, then give them war.

The governments of those countries known to support and harbour terrorists should be destroyed systematically and with surgical precision. Then an ultimatum should be levied on whoever steps up to fill the vacuum: Give up your terrorists or face carpet bombing.

[BayAreaLondoner]

This is related to the plane that went down on the Pentagon, however, it describes an account of some of what occured within the aircraft.

The part that caught my attention was:

"...his wife said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters."

Full text of article here:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson/index.html