UA 93: How did the alleged hijackers manage to enter the cockpit?

[John Doe II]

Based on Spooked911's thead about the seven crew members vs four alleged hijackers we come to a very simple question:

How did the alleged hijackers on UA 93 manage to enter the cockpit?
The same question goes for all four planes.

It is normally described that they opened the door and killed the pilot before he even had the time to turn around. The alleged hijacker simply used the advantage of the surprise attack.


But the problem is that it simply can't have been that easy!
The cockpit door was locked.
Let's listen to Jere Longman who wrote "Among the Heroes":
"Dahl and Welsh had established the secret-knock sequence that she would use to enter the cockpit. The code was changed on every flight. United flight attendants did not carry cockpit keys, which were to be used for emergencies. One key was always located in the forward part of each aircraft, sometimes in the galley, but nota lways in the same place"
(p. 8)

"In the event of a hijacking, flight attendants were to phone the cockpit and mention the word "trip".
(p.9)

Spooked911 comments:
"This tells us:
1) that the crew locked the cockpit doors, so the hijackers could not have just walked in, they would have to smash the door open.
2) the pilots can hear knocks on the cokpit door. If they can hear knocks, they can hear someone trying to ram open the cockpit door.
3) the crew members were prepared for a hijacking!

There is simply no way the UA93 pilots could have been taken by surprise."

Jere Longman precised:
"Although (b] the cockpit door remained locked during flight, it provided only flimsy protection on September 11. The door was designed to withstand no more than one hundred and fifty pounds of pressure , so that it could be forced open in emergencies, allowing the pilots to escape outward or passengers to escape inward to climb out of a cockpit window. A heavy shoulder would dislodge the door."
(p. 8)

Problem would be if you push this door very hard and it opens you are in no good attacking position as you will fall down on the floor or have to regain your balance at least. No chance that you can kill the pilot before he even had the chance to turn around.

And as far as I can recall no phone call of the passengers speak of hijackers pushing violently the door open. But I'll have to countercheck this.

Even stranger:
Why didn't the at least six passengers being much more athletic than the hijackers not manage to open the very same cockpit door although they had even the help of a foot car and the fight lasted six minutes?

[k-robjoe]

1. especially

>"Why didn't the at least six passengers being much more athletic than the hijackers not manage to open the very same cockpit door..."

Especially if the door had allready been knocked in once! :)

[paulthompson]

2. Here's my theory - jumpseating

9:16 A.M. *: NORAD’s Original Claim Flight 93 Is Hijacked at This Time Is Apparently Wrong; One Hijacker May Have Snuck Into Cockpit Early

According to a NORAD timeline from a week after 9/11, NORAD claims that Flight 93 may have been hijacked at this time. The timeline inexplicably fails to say when the FAA told them about the hijack, the only flight for which they fail to provide this data. (CNN, 9/17/01; NORAD, 9/18/01) However, there may be one explanation: There are media reports that “investigators had determined from the cockpit voice recorder from United Airlines Flight 93 . . . that one of the four hijackers had been invited into the cockpit area before the flight took off from Newark, New Jersey.” Cockpit voice recordings indicate that the pilots believed their guest was a colleague “and was thereby extended the typical airline courtesy of allowing any pilot from any airline to join a flight by sitting in the jumpseat, the folded over extra seat located inside the cockpit.” (FOX NEWS, 9/24/01; HERALD SUN, 9/25/01) However, this account has not been confirmed. The 9/11 Commission asserts the hijacking begins around 9:28 A.M. (9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, 6/17/04) Note that during the 9/11 Commission hearings in May 2003, NORAD officials stated that the FAA informed NEADS at 9:16 A.M. that United Flight 93 was hijacked. According to a commission report in 2004, “this statement was incorrect.” No further explanation is offered for NORAD’s incorrect timeline. (9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, 6/17/04)

If this 9:16 time is correct, the plane was under some degree of hostile control somehow at least 10 minutes before the cockpit was stormed (which happened around 9:28). I recently came across some corroborating evidence, a quote from a NORAD technician indicating they knew there was trouble with Flight 93 earlier than another event in the early 9:20 a.m.'s range.

I suspect jumpseating was the case for Flights 11 and 77 too, but probably not Flight 175, just based on my sense of things (for instance, Flight 175 was the only flight where the pilot was able to send off an alarm signal).

The 9/11 Commission concluded no jumpseating for any of the planes on the grounds that the proper paperwork hadn't been filled out, but I'm highly skeptical. There are billions and billions of dollars at stake here. If jumpseating could be proven, the airlines would lose huge in lawsuits. Recall what happened with knives. The official story was that the hijackers used boxcutters. Then in late 2002 it came out that boxcutters in fact were illegal to carry on board on 9/11, thus leaving the airlines liable. Suddenly, the story changed and all the boxcutter evidence went out the window and the new story was knives with blades under four inches, once again preserving the airlines from lawsuits. How thoughtful of the hijackers.

[paulthompson]

3. I should also point out...

...the hijackers were said to have stolen pilot uniforms. The official story even has Atta's luggage containing a pilot's uniform, which makes no sense since it was checked in under the plane, but that's not the only pilots uniform story.

Then you have anecodotal evidence of the hijackers going on many trial runs over the course of the summer, testing out a variety of ways to get into the cockpit non-violently. Apparently, more than not, they were successful getting in that way (getting one guy in, not the whole bunch).

All that points to jumpseating or something similar, where one guy, probably in a pilot's uniform, led the way. Then, at a some later point in time, the rest got up and violently took over the whole plane.

Of course the 9/11 Commission ignored the stories of stolen uniforms and trial runs and much more.

[John Doe II]

5. Jumpseating

Jumpseating is indeed the only logical explanation but I believe it raises a lot of questions that need to be answered.
But first of all let say it plainly and clearly: The Commission would have lied if indeed one alleged hijacker was jumpseating as they state:


We have found no evidence indicating that one of the hijackers, or anyone else, sat there (jumpseat) on this flight. All the hijackers had assigned seats in first class, and they seem to have used them.
(CR, 12)

Moreover they gave the seat numbers for all four alleged hijackers. Certainly you can’t jumpseat and have a boarding card at the same time.

If I’m informed correctly in order to have a jumpseat one needed to be a certified pilot, to hand in a written application and there needed to be no more seats available in passenger’s cabin.
First of all there was plenty of seats in all four flights. So already the basis for jumpseating is not given. Moreover it seems risky to me from the point of view of the alleged hijackers. Why run the extra risk to hand in a written application (check of their name, check of their pilot certificate). They would also need a pilot uniform. But eg for Flight 77 if the video of the security camera is not another lie then none has a pilot uniform. And certainly a uniform doesn’t fit into a handbag.
In general if the alleged hijackers went for jumpseating as part of their plan it seems pretty risky. What would they have done if in one case the crew would politely have told them to take seat in first class as there were so many seats free?
So several reasons that casts doubt on the possibility of jumpseating.

But let’s have a look aboard UA 93:
At 9:45 Beamer calls Lisa Jefferson and according to Longman he gives her the following information:
"There were ten passengers in first class, twenty-seven in coach" (Among the Heroes, p. 279).
So Beamer sees the exact number of all passengers including the alleged hijackers! No alleged hijacker is missing.

Flight attendants Sandra Bradshaw and CeeCee Lyles phone their husbands. None of them remarks that besides the arabs they saw there was another arab pilot on the jumpseat. Nor do they point out the odds that the alleged hijackers simply opened the cockpit door and walked in although the door was supposed to be locked.

A small side question, Paul. You cast doubts on the hijack time pointing out that it might have been the original 9:16. I agree absolutely with you but I’m wondering how do you see in light of this the fact that at 9:24 Dahl received the warning of cockpit intrusion and he asked for confirmation at 9:26. How is this explainable if since 10 minutes the plane has already been overtaken?

Last question:
In any case: How is it possible that a minimum of six athletic passengers with the help of a foot car didn’t manage within six minutes to open the cockpit door that was constructed to withstand pressure of 150 pounds?

[paulthompson]

8. jumpseating

The 9/11 Commission seems to only conceive of the possibility of jumpseating planned in advance. What I'm thinking about is not jumpseating in that technical sense - it's a pilot coming into the cockpit to "hang out" or whatever. This is what we've seen with the hijacker's attempts to find excuses to get into the cockpit over the summer. With a uniform, it would be very easy to make up such an excuse and stay in the cockpit for a while, sitting on the jumpseat if none other was available. I've talked to a friend who is a flight attendant and said security was lax prior to 9/11, and that kind of thing was very easy to do back then.

>And certainly a uniform doesn’t fit into a handbag.

It most certainly does! I could pack several in one carry-on bag. It would be a piece of cake to get past airport security and then go to a bathroom and change into a pilot's uniform.

>First of all there was plenty of seats in all four flights.

One common reason is not lack of a seat, but to fly for free - jumpseaters don't need to pay.

>So Beamer sees the exact number of all passengers including the alleged hijackers! No alleged hijacker is missing.

Actually, if you look at every single phone call reference on all the flights to the number of hijackers, the number is always one short. For instance, the flight attendants on Flight 11 say there's 4 hijackers, not 5, several accounts on Flight 93 say 3, not 4, and so on. That would be much more direct evidence than an estimate of the total number of passengers (esp. since for all we know, the official total number could be wrong for a variety of reasons). I can't think of any account where the passenger got the number of hijackers that matched the official number.

This shortage of one hijacker in all the accounts is extremely strong support for the one-hijacker-already-in-the-cockpit theory.

>I’m wondering how do you see in light of this the fact that at 9:24 Dahl received the warning of cockpit intrusion and he asked for confirmation at 9:26.

This also is strong support for this theory. If a hijacker has already taken control of the cockpit with a knife or gun or whatever, when that message comes in, he tells the pilot to respond to that message normally. The pilot is not able to take precautions at that point, thus explaining why this warning seemingly had no effect on foiling the element of surprise and so forth.

In fact, if you allow me a little Hollywood drama, I could see this as the point in which the hijacker would be forced to expose himself. He's just pretending to be innocent but when that message comes in, he gets up and announces he's taking over the plane. He would pretty much have to, if he hadn't already.

> None of them remarks that besides the arabs they saw there was another arab pilot on the jumpseat.

First of all, we don't know if they knew, or even if they were first class attendants or not. Had one come into the cockpit after the hijacker was in and exposed as such, he might have waved the weapon and forced the attendant not to leave. Second, the phone call accounts are probably scrubbed of such damning information if anyone managed to mention in on a call. Look at how the Ed Felt call has been sanitized over time. Look at how Deena Burnett's account that her husband told her the hijackers had a gun has been denied and forgotten. The Beamer call is especially prone to manipulation because Todd didn't actually speak to one of his relatives and wasn't recorded.

> How is it possible that a minimum of six athletic passengers with the help of a foot car didn’t manage within six minutes to open the cockpit door that was constructed to withstand pressure of 150 pounds?

That's a totally separate issue. I don't think anyone here would make the claim that they couldn't do that.

[demodewd]

10. 9:00 UA warning

>I’m wondering how do you see in light of this the fact that at 9:24 Dahl received the warning of cockpit intrusion and he asked for confirmation at 9:26.

>>This also is strong support for this theory. If a hijacker has already taken control of the cockpit with a knife or gun or whatever, when that message comes in, he tells the pilot to respond to that message normally. The pilot is not able to take precautions at that point, thus explaining why this warning seemingly had no effect on foiling the element of surprise and so forth.

In fact, if you allow me a little Hollywood drama, I could see this as the point in which the hijacker would be forced to expose himself. He's just pretending to be innocent but when that message comes in, he gets up and announces he's taking over the plane. He would pretty much have to, if he hadn't already.

But apparently the pilot and co-pilot were informed about cockpit intrusion at 9:00.
According to http://www.911timeline.net/
9:00 a.m.: United Airlines systems operations transmitted a system wide message, warning its pilots of a potential "cockpit intrusion". United Airlines Flight 93, flying over Pennsylvania replies "Confirmed".

[spooked911]

12. The jumpseating idea can explain some things, however

it doesn't make any sense that just one of the pilots, knowing there was one hijacker (armed with a knife?) in the cockpit, couldn't press 7500 into the transponder, signaling "hijack" to ground control. So either ground control knew there was a hijack early on and is covering it up, or the hijack was fake. Those are the two options.

I also find it almost impossible to believe that the pilots were clearly aware of hijackings, had arranged special procedures for a hijacking, but would still let a strange middle-eastern pilot into their cockpit without checking him out. So either the pilots received an official okay for the jumpseat pilot and it is being covered up (possibly whoever approved the jumpseat seating was in on the whole 9/11 plot) or there was no jumpseat hijacker and the official hijacking story is totally wrong.

[k-robjoe]

13. Question ( to all )

I´m wondering about the account about the pilot shouting "Hey, get out of here!"

Is that something that was actually heard? ( It is not to be seen/heard in the transcript/mp3 that´s found on the memoryhole. http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/flight93-air-traffic.htm )

[spooked911]

14. Wow! That is extremely interesting and throws a twist into everything

What I can say for sure is that all the accounts of this hijacking are very inconsistent with each other.

One thought is they said they heard screaming from the airplane before this tape. And the person talking on the tape from flight 93 later on sounds like it might be a hijacker. So this tape may have been made some time after the "get of of here" yells and thus after the hijacking.

HOWEVER, in the first part of the tape, it sounds like normal ground control communication:

"Cleveland: United ninety-three, check in when flight level three-five-zero – .

United 93: United ninety-three check in three-five-zero.

Cleveland: United ninety-three, three-five-zero, Roger. United ninety-three, you have traffic to your one o’clock, twelve miles eastbound three-seven-zero.

United 93: Negative contact, we’re looking United ninety-three.

Cleveland: Somebody call Cleveland? United ninety-three verify three-five-zero, United ninety-three verify your flight level, er, three-five-zero. United ninety-three verify your flight level is three-five-zero. United ninety-three Cleveland, United ninety-three Cleveland. United ninety-three do you read Cleveland Center please?"

So here it sounds like they lost flight 93.

Other planes talk about hearing screaming on the radio.

Then without any screaming on the tape, they get new radio contact with flight 93, where it sounds like a hijacker:

"United 93: this is the captain. We have a bomb on board - I am going back to the airport, they have met our demands .

Cleveland: United ninety-three calling. United ninety-three, understand you have a bomb on board, go ahead. Executive nine fifty-six, did you understand that transmission?

Executive 956: Affirmative. He said there was a bomb on board."

So presumably the "get out of here" stuff was on the cockpit voice recorder not on the ATC tape.

But this is odd at the end:
"Cleveland: United ninety-three Cleveland, do you still hear the Center? United ninety-three, do you still hear Cleveland? United ninety-three, United niner-three, do you hear Cleveland? United ninety-three, United ninety-three Cleveland. United ninety-three, United ninety-three, do you hear Cleveland Center?

Cleveland (2): Do you see any, ah, activity on your right side, smoke or anything like that?

American 1060: Negative. We’re searching . Yeah, we do have a smoke puff now at about, er, oh probably two o’clock. There appears to be just a spire up like a puff of black smoke."

Was that the plane crashing? Or the plane getting hit by a missile?

But about the hijacking, it sounds as if the hijacking involved a struggle in the cockpit and then the hijacker took over the controls fairly quickly. So this negates the idea (given in Longman) that the pilots surrendered peacefully.

[spooked911]

19. Note-- I couldn't listen to the tape on this computer, I only read the

transcript.

An important point is whether the guy on flight 93 who says there was a bomb ounds liek the original pilot or a accented hijacker. I need to listen to this on another computer.

[John Doe II]

16. Very good finding!

IMHO it sounds as if the alleged hijackers entered the cockpit at that moment and no other hijacker was inside.

CNN reported obtaining a partial transcript of chatter from the plane recorded by air traffic controllers as the jetliner approached Cleveland. The network said tower workers heard someone in the cockpit shout, ``Get out of here,'' through an open microphone.

A second transmission from the plane is heard amid sounds of scuffling with someone again yelling, ``Get out of here.''
(Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 9/13/01)

If already at that moment a hijacker was inside and eg had his knife at the throat of one pilot then certainly there wouldn't have been the sounds of a fight.
And if there wasn't anybody in the cockpit why wasn't the cockpit warned during the fight that was ongoing outside the cockpit door? When Mark Rothenburg was killed? Why didn't the pilots hear what happened inside the plane and why didn't they tell the tower?

[spooked911]

18. Exactly-- I was going to post something similar. Several options,

none make total sense:

1) There was a hijacker who posed as a pilot and got into the cockpit by a ruse. He let in the other hijackers who then attacked the pilots. But why wouldn't the cockpit be warned by the flight attendants that hijackers were on their way? This was the UA93 crew plan, after all-- to warn the cockpit of hijackers! Bottom line, cockpit should have been warned of hijackers, and they should have at least changed the transponder code to warn air traffic control of a hijacking.

2) There was a hijacker who posed as a pilot and got into the cockpit by a ruse. Before the other hijackers arrived, he told the pilots it was a hijacking and not to say anything over the radio. Pilots should still have been able to change the transponder code to warn air traffic control of a hijacking.

3) There was no hijacker in the cockpit jumpseat, the hijackers forced their way into the cockpit and attacked the pilots. But again, why wouldn't the cockpit be warned by the flight attendants that hijackers were on their way? This was the UA93 crew plan, after all-- to warn the cockpit of hijackers! Bottom line, cockpit should have been warned of hijackers, and they should have changed the transponder code to warn air traffic control of a hijacking. In this situation they could have even radioed ground control to warn of a hijacking.

4) The pilots did alert ground control of a hijacking and this has been meticulously covered up and also scrubbed from this tape recording. This seems the least likely possibility to me.

In favor of the jumpseat idea is that many passengers only described three hijackers, suggesting one was in the cockpit early. I don't think we can tell from the radio recording sounds if there was a hijacker in the jump seat posing as a pilot. But again, I strongly reject the idea that the crew would extend the jumpseat favor to a strange middle eastern pilot without getting him checked out-- particularly when this crew was already aware of hijackings and had a plan for dealing with one.

Another idea that is plausible is that one of the hijackers who was dressed in a pilots uniform very early during the flight went to the cockpit to simply "chat" with the pilots. Thus, he wouldn't have needed permission to use the jumpseat and he could have gotten into the cockpit fairly easily. One thing against this is none of the passengers in their phone calls described a passenger in a pilot's uniform who went to the cockpit. Another thing against this is that if he waited too long into the flight, the pilots would know of the other hijackings. And we are still left with the problems I outlined in parts 1 to 3 above-- why didn't the pilots alert ground control of a hijacking?.

[paulthompson]

21. point

>I strongly reject the idea that the crew would extend the jumpseat favor to a strange middle eastern pilot without getting him checked out-- particularly when this crew was already aware of hijackings and had a plan for dealing with one.

I'd like to point out that the pilot in question here presumably is Ziad Jarrah. If this is the well-known Jarrah and not some doppleganger (a big if), he was an extremely Westernized and likeable character, probably the most of any of the hijackers. His English was also very excellent. I also don't think he looks obviously Arab or Middle Eastern. He looks no more that than I do (I have partial northern European and partial Hungarian background. When people try to guess my ethnic ancestry, they've guessed just about every country in Europe, and all the way to Iran.) He could have said he was from Romania or something, or practiced to speak without an accent, or something else. We don't know.

There's no evidence the real pilots knew about anything else going relating to the crisis on until shortly before the violent cockpit takeover. It's true that they were warned about a cockpit intrusion in vague terms around 9:00 a.m., which is a strike against anyone being invited in. But maybe he was already in and/or maybe they took that to mean a violent attack on the cockpit, and not the nice Jarrah pilot guy who was so friendly.

I'll agree no explanation is completely perfect and explains everything.

One important thing to consider is to recall how different things were before 9/11. It's hard to believe now, but most people had never heard of al-Qaeda or bin Laden, had no idea there was a big terrorist threat, and security was extremely lax.

[spooked911]

22. Fair enough-- you're quite right about Jarrah. For some reason I wasn't

picturing him in the situation, I was picturing more a random mean-looking terrist

[spooked911]

23. Yes, I listenend to the tape recording. I think they edited that section

out-- the tape sounds clipped at the point when there would have been screaming.

In Longman's "Among the Heroes", he has part of the same recording transcribed with the yeliing inserted in the middle.


And the guy saying they have a bomb clearly has an accent.

[John Doe II]

15. Jumpseating II

Thanks, Paul, for clarifying your idea of jumpseating to me. Your points are well taken nonetheless I still have my doubts that this really could have happened.
In order that it happened as you described and in that case as it was prepared by the alleged hijackers several things had to happen:
Right after the “fasten your seat belt” signs went off the alleged hijacker must have taken his bag, gone in the bathroom, changed himself and immediately gone to the cockpit. While this might be possible within 18 min after tack-off (the first warning was sent at 9:00) it implies that not a single passenger noticed this strange behaviour. While this is explainable for passengers who were seated in the back off the plane I really have to wonder how passengers in first class couldn’t have realized. Why didn’t Mark Bingham witness (seat 4D), nor Thomas Burnett (seat 4B), nor Joseph DeLuca (seat 2B), nor Edward Felt (2D), nor Linda Gronlund (2A)? A passenger in normal clothes goes with a big handbag in the bathroom and comes out dressed as a pilot. In a plane with only a few passengers this should stand out. And normally already here the plan of the alleged hijackers would be ended. But what’s more: Why didn’t the purser Deborah Welsh (assigned to first class) not realize anything? Why did no passenger and no crew member mention this strange occurrence in their phone calls?
And what is even more: What would our fake pilot do now as he stands in front of the cockpit door? The door doesn’t care how he’s dressed. The door is still locked and he still doesn’t know the knock-sequence. Shall he ask a flight attendant to be allowed into the cockpit? Although it is most likely that people realize that he was just dressed as a civilian? And why should he be allowed into the cockpit if he had a nice seat in the empty first class section?
All this is IMHO extremely unlikely to happen. That this would have been the plan on UA 93 and most likely on other planes as well strikes me as very very strange.

And there is another very noteworthy detail:
Tom Burnett phoned at 9:27 saying that the alleged hijackers just knifed a passenger. Remark that at this moment the hijackers are still NOT in the cockpit. When he phones at 9:34 he tells his wife that the alleged hijackers are in the cockpit now.
This means that most certainly sometime will have passed since the alleged hijackers got up and for some reasons killed a passenger and then went into the cockpit. Why did no flight attendant notify the cockpit? Why didn’t the pilots hear what was going on outside?


And, Paul, you write about the passengers not being able to enter the cockpit:
That's a totally separate issue. I don't think anyone here would make the claim that they couldn't do that.

If they could then how do you explain that officially they didn't?

[John Doe II]

17. Addendum

The strangest things maybe of all that this plan would completely depend on the good will of the pilots. You can do as many test runs as you want isn't it simply too risky to hope for the good will of the pilots (maybe even in the case of all flights)? And what are the odds that not only a extremelt risky plan in general works out but that also all pilots welcome the alleged hijackers in the cockpit?

[paulthompson]

20. idea

No, you misunderstand the changing of clothes idea. At US airports, after you get through security, you enter an inner zone of the airport with restaurants, shops, and much more. That's when they could have changed, by going to a bathroom then.

Further, there's the whole issue of inside accomplices which we haven't even explored. Look at all the accounts of knives being placed under seats on various flights that day. An insider might have faked jumpseat records or done all kinds of things.

>and what is even more: What would our fake pilot do now as he stands in front of the cockpit door? The door doesn’t care how he’s dressed. The door is still locked and he still doesn’t know the knock-sequence.

You are obviously unfamiliar with the media accounts suggesting that they successfully did such a thing many times over that summer. Presumably they talked to a flight attendant to get permission first. Maybe it was the one that is later stabbed.

Again (as with Flight 93 crash witnesses), in your complaints I have a problem with your high expectations of witness accounts. As Rumsfeld famously said, "evidence of absence is not absence of evidence" - just because a witness didn't say something (or, it didn't get past the censors), doesn't mean they didn't know it.

>The strangest things maybe of all that this plan would completely depend on the good will of the pilots. You can do as many test runs as you want isn't it simply too risky to hope for the good will of the pilots (maybe even in the case of all flights)? And what are the odds that not only a extremelt risky plan in general works out but that also all pilots welcome the alleged hijackers in the cockpit?

Not necessarily. Think of it as icing on the cake. If they can get in quietly, that's better, and will cause less suspicion to flight controllers and so forth. If they can't, they still know they'll be able to get in and take over by brute force.

>And, Paul, you write about the passengers not being able to enter the cockpit:
That's a totally separate issue. I don't think anyone here would make the claim that they couldn't do that.
If they could then how do you explain that officially they didn't?

I thought the official account (9/11 Commission) is that there was a struggle, but the passengers didn't get control of the steering wheel.

[John Doe II]

24. Jumpseating III

Thanks for clarifying your idea of jumpseating to me.
I think now that jumpseating might be the explanation though for me clearly implying a censorship in view of phone calls eg by flight attendants etc.

The fact that people looking like pilots boarded the plane with boarding cards should certainly have been a result of interviewing people that helped during the boarding process. That would support that the Commission knew
that jumpseating happened indeed.

For UA 93 we know that before entering the cockpit the alleged hijackers killed one passenger. This would give any flight attendant enough time to alert the cockpit (this is btw exactly what Betty Ong did on AA 11). Doing this she should have realized that something was going on in the cockpit. In any case the flight attendant whose permission was necessar for the alleged hijacker to use the jumpseat in the cockpit would have known. Therefore two reasons to assume the high probability that the flight attendants at least would know that somebody was jumpseating but this important information wasn't shared (officially, maybe it was censored).
eg the Ong call? She certainly tries to provide as many details as possible. She states that the cockpit won't answer. Wouldn't she remark that maybe there is a connection with the arab pilot who asked for a jumpseat?

And I'd like to know, Paul, what do you think of the screaming "Get out of here!". If this shouting which was widely reported after 911 truly happened it looks to me that this would contradict that at that moment an allegd hijacker is already in control of the cockpit with force.


Interesting what the Commission has to say:
We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight . Ong speculated that they had "jammed their way" in . Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.
I'm wondering how one could lure the captain out of the cockpit?

But this brings me again to the Ong call.
She states that they can't get into the cockpit
"the door won't open".
What's up with this door? How come this flimsy protection is suddenly a door that won't open?

And last but not least the question why the passengers didn't manage to enter the cockpit.
It's my understanding of the Comission report that the passengers didn't even manage to open the cockpit door. This would be very strange given the fact that 150 pounds of pressure were sufficient and moreover the passengers had the advantage of surprise. Apparently there was no alleged hijackers protecting the cockpit door from the passengers side:

The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the passenger assault muffled by the intervening cockpit door. Some family members who listened to the recording report that they can hear the voice of a loved one among the din. We cannot identify whose voices can be heard. But the assault was sustained.

In response, Jarrah immediately began to roll the airplane to the left and right, attempting to knock the passengers off balance. At 9:58:57, Jarrah told another hijacker in the cockpit to block the door. Jarrah continued to roll the airplane sharply left and right, but the assault continued. At 9:59:52, Jarrah changed tactics and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault. The recorder captured the sounds of loud thumps, crashes, shouts, and breaking glasses and plates. At 10:00:03, Jarrah stabilized the airplane.

Five seconds later, Jarrah asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off? "A hijacker responded, "No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off. " The sounds of fighting continued outside the cockpit. Again, Jarrah pitched the nose of the aircraft up and down. At 10:00:26, a passenger in the background said, "In the cockpit. If we don't we'll die! " Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled, "Roll it! " Jarrah stopped the violent maneuvers at about 10:01:00 and said, "Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest! " He then asked another hijacker in the cockpit, " Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down? " to which the other replied, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down. "

The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:23, a hijacker said, "Pull it down! Pull it down! "The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down; the control wheel was turned hard to the right. The airplane rolled onto its back, and one of the hijackers began shouting "Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. "With the sounds of the passenger counterattack continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour, about 20 minutes' flying time from Washington, D. C.

For me nothing indiactes in the text that the passenges managed only to ope the door.
How is this explainable?
Why didn't they manage to open the door immediately?
Why only two minutes after the assault began Jarrah told to block the door?
And how can one block this door?

Compare this descrition anyway with the certainlty that family members had in April 2002 after hearing the CVR that the passengers had managed to be in control of the plane.
While family members never heard the decision of the hijackers to finsih the flight (although the arab text was translated and shown on screens) the family members heard the advice to lift up the plane as the last audible words on the tape.


IMHO the cockpit door is a very simple proof that the new version of the CR can't be true and that passengers were indeed at the control of the plane?
And, Paul, you write:
Again (as with Flight 93 crash witnesses), in your complaints I have a problem with your high expectations of witness accounts. As Rumsfeld famously said, "evidence of absence is not absence of evidence" - just because a witness didn't say something (or, it didn't get past the censors), doesn't mean they didn't know it.
While I'm certauinly ready to accept that phone calls from the planes might have been censored and therefore the evidence is absent I respectfully disaree in view of Flight 93. My conclusions are based on the fact that ALL witnesses that give details of the plane they saw AGREE. Their accounts are coherent. NOT a single witness contradicts. If people less than a mile northwest of the crash site all agree that the plane was OVERHEAD I really don't see how we can speculate that the plane was flying TOWARDS them although not a single witness supports the thesis.
Of course I'm aware that witnesses can fail etc. But if all agree and not a single contradicts I really don't see why my expectations are too high.

[John Doe II]

26. Another indication that jumpseating didn't happen on UA 93

We know from several phone calls that two hijackers with knifes entered the cockpit.
Jere Longman writes:
"about midway through the tape, one of the hijackers said to another, "Let the guys in now," apparently referring to other terrorists entering the cockpit". (Among the Heroes, p. 291)

He clearly uses the plural form. So two have entered the cockpit, two are with the passengers. Therefore no hijackers (as officially they have been four) could have been in the cockpit before (Or you simply assume that the CVR is completely faked. Which doesn't make the case much better).

Btw let's stress the fact that the passengers were left to themselves from around 9:45.

[Woody Box]

25. Jumpseating on Flight 11

In the case of Flight 11, there is an interesting coincidence supporting something like jumpseating:

The plane which would later become famous as Flight 11, N334AA, was in Boston the day before, too. It arrived at 3:43 p.m. and departed at 5:12 p.m. It flew to San Franscisco and back to Boston in the night. (-> BTS database, 9/10/2001)

The Boston Globe reports that on 9/10, the hijacker's white Mitsubishi visited Boston Airport briefly from 4:25 p.m. to 5:05 p.m:

http://www.redwhiteandblue.org/news/bnws/PGP2.HTM

3:43 - 5:12
4:25 - 5:05

Coincidence?

What about this speculation? The hijackers embarked on N334AA in Boston on 9/10. They left the plane in SFO, but just changed their clothes, put on their pilot uniforms, and flew back to Boston on jumpseats. Possibly they told the "real" pilot that they were going to take part in a wargame.


The white Mitsubishi is, by the way, linked to hijacker Waleed Al-Shehri. CNN reports that he left a poem in the car:

Just before boarding one of the planes that was flown into the World Trade Center, September 11 hijacker Waleed Alshehri left behind a poem.

Discovered by investigators in his rental car at Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, ((i.e., the Mitsubishi)) the poem speaks of traveling into the "face of death with our heads held high."

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/06/ar911.hijackers.final.days/

[paulthompson]

9. Here's the very important quote I referred to

When I said this:

I recently came across some corroborating evidence, a quote from a NORAD technician indicating they knew there was trouble with Flight 93 earlier than another event in the early 9:20 a.m.'s range.

This is from NORAD leader Larry Arnold on page 59 of the book Air War Over America, published in early 2004:

"I thought it might be prudent to pull out of the exercise, which is what we did. (NOTE: the "exercise" is a reference to Vigilant Guardian, and the timing of the pull out is shortly after 9:03) We called NORAD and they were well aware of what had happened obviously. ... As we pulled out of the exercise we were getting calls about United Flight 93 and we were worried about that. Then we had another call from Boston Center about a possible hijacking, but that turned out to be the airplane that had already hit the south tower but we didn't know that at the time."

This last bit is a reference to the mistaken reemergence of Flight 11 as a threat, which the 9/11 Commission places at 9:21. So NORAD was getting calls about Flight 93 between roughly 9:05 and 9:21 - which completely matches the 9:16 time they originally claimed.

All the passengers with their phone calls saw the hijackers take over the cockpit around 9:28, so how could this be, unless one hijacker was in the cockpit early? Then, presumably, the pilot somehow was able to secretly send out a signal about this, perhaps something similar to the secret signalling the pilot of Flight 11 did.

There may even have been a struggle at this time. The USA Today map of all the hijacked flights shows a very strange wiggle at around 9:15 where the plane went 90 degrees off course for a little while, then made another 90 degree turn and came back on course. It's the only map that shows this, so it may or may not be true. If true, it would explain why NORAD should have been informed about Flight 93 at this time, even if the pilot didn't communicate anything. Maybe someone can post a link to that map?

Note also that the Arnold quote above COMPLETELY contradicts the 9/11 Commission's account that NORAD NEVER knew there was a problem with Flight 93! In fact, the book Air War Over America has several other quotes of NORAD people talking about how they responded to Flight 93, showing what a huge lie the Commission account is.

[philb]

28. what are some other NORAD people and statements they made that

contradict the 9/11 Commission Report?

[demodewd]

4. warning?

Weren't the Flight 93 crew warned of the other hijackings prior to the time frame when they were allegedly hijacked?

[John Doe II]

6. Yes

at 9:24. "Beware of cockpit intrusion".

[demodewd]

7. 9:00 a. m.

9:00 a.m.: United Airlines systems operations transmitted a system wide message, warning its pilots of a potential "cockpit intrusion". United Airlines Flight 93, flying over Pennsylvania replies "Confirmed".

taken from http://www.911timeline.net/

[spooked911]

11. I think we can assume they did get access although

to play devil's advocate, three hijackers leaning on the door form inside the cockpit might have been enough to block the door from being pushed open by the cart-- they probably had better leverage, maybe could wedge themselves against the door and something else.

But in general, I think the passengers could have gotten in with some effort.

What is interesting is that according to Longman, at least one hijacker was guarding the passengers with a bomb. Jeremy Glick says the hijackers had red headbands, looked Iranian, claimed to have a bomb, and had a box with "something red" around it". Todd Beamer says two hijackers went into the cockpit and one hijacker remained to guard the passengers and he was wearing "what appeared to be a bomb strapped around his waist with a red belt"

So what happened to this guy when the passengers started their revolt? I don't remember any account of the passengers killing this guy or even attacking him.

What happened to this hijacker? And if he had a bomb, weren't the passengers worried he would detonate as they attacked? This hijacker with a bomb is completely ignored in the accounts of the revolt.

If this hijacker went into the cockpit before the revolt, couldn't the passengers have tried to get in then?

Also, according to Longman, the pilots were seen lying on the floor in first class, apparently dead. When were they killed, when were their bodies taken out? Shouldn't seeing the pilots dead have inspired the passengers to do something right then?

None of it makes any sense.

[philb]

27. Virtually impossible hijackers could have gotten in without pilots

warning of hijack.

How could they have gotten into 4 locked cockpits and overcome the pilots with only boxcutters and without the pilots taking evasive action or hitting the hijack warning button?

Couldn't the pilots easily make it impossible for the hijackers to stand up?

And none did?

Were they part of a game or overcome by gas? what else could be consistent with the evidence?

[demodewd]

29. they would have known

Couldn't the pilots easily make it impossible for the hijackers to stand up?

The pilots of Flight 93 would have known of the other hijackings by at least 9:00. Certainly they would have taken every precaution to defend the controls and cockpit including tilting the plane if necessary to keep the "hijackers" off balance. I think they would have been prepared to fight for their lives knowing what they would have known.