General Facts About United Flight 93

This web site was created to explain in detail what really happened to United Flight 93 on 9-11-01. Some people prone to conspiracies say that the government shot down the plane, while others claim no such flight even existed.
In order to find out the truth, I will examine the evidence like a detective trying to solve a murder case. I will first examine the reports of eyewitnesses, then examine photos of the crash site, and other evidence. We will also look at some of the questions that people have about the flight and the crash that has led to several conspiracy theories.

Eyewitnesses

Here are parts of several articles giving details and eyewitness accounts:

A few miles north of Lambertsville, yard man Terry Butler, 40, was toiling away at Stoystown Auto Wreckers.
He thought it was odd that a plane was in the area. He'd heard that all air traffic nationwide had been halted after the World Trade Center disaster about an hour earlier.
"It dropped out of the clouds," too low for a commercial flight, Butler said. The plane rose slightly, trying to gain altitude, then "it just went flip to the right and then straight down."
He radioed back to his office, telling coworkers Homer Barron, 49, and Jeff Phillips, 30, what he had seen.
"I told them a plane crashed. At first they didn't believe it, because you know, we do joke around." Then Barron saw smoke and called 911.
… Barron and Phillips drove to the crash scene and found a smoky hole in the ground. A few firefighters had already begun pouring water onto the debris.
"It didn't look like a plane crash because there was nothing that looked like a plane," Barron said.
"There was one part of a seat burning up there," Phillips said. "That was something you could recognize."
"I never seen anything like it," Barron said. "Just like a big pile of charcoal."
Lee Purbaugh, 32, working just his second day at Rollock Inc., a scrap yard next to the reclaimed strip-mine land, looked up from operating a burning torch to see the jetliner just 40 feet above him. "I couldn't believe this," Purbaugh said.
"I heard it for 10 or 15 seconds and it sounded like it was going full bore," said Tim Lensbouer, 35, Purbaugh's coworker.
The ground shook and the air thundered as the jetliner slammed into the ground about 300 yards away, Purbaugh said.
A mushroom of flame rose 200 feet and disappeared. Then there was a curtain of black smoke and finally a trail of fire as pieces of the fuselage shot hundreds of yards into the woods.
"My instinct was to run toward it, to try to help" said Nina Lensbouer, Tim's Lensbouer's wife and a former volunteer firefighter. "But I got there and there was nothing, nothing there but charcoal. Instantly, it was charcoal."
…
Charles Sturtz, 53, who lives just over the hillside from the crash site, said a fireball 200 feet high shot up over the hill. He got to the crash scene even before the firefighters.
"The biggest pieces you could find were probably four feet [long]. Most of the pieces you could put into a shopping bag, and there were clothes hanging from the trees."
Ten miles away, at a warehouse near Berlin, employee Don Miller and co-workers felt their building shake. (7)
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"It came in low over the trees and started wobbling," said Tim Thornsberg, a resident of Somerset County, who was working near an old strip mine when he saw the plane.
"Then it just rolled over and was flying upside down for a few seconds ... and then it kind of stalled and did a nose dive over the trees. It was just unreal to see something like that."
…
Charles Sturtz, who lives about a half-mile from the crash site, said he saw the plane in the air for a few seconds, and saw no smoke, heard no explosions before the crash and saw no other planes in the sky.
The plane was heading southeast he said, and had its engines running. "It was really roaring, you know. Like it was trying to go someplace, I guess, " the 53-year-old carpenter said. (6)
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One eyewitness to the Pennsylvania crash, Linda Shepley, told television station KDKA in Pittsburgh that she heard a loud bang and saw the plane bank to the side before crashing. … (3)
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Kelly Leverknight was watching news of the attacks on New York and Washington when she heard the plane.
It sounded like it was flying low above her home in rural Pennsylvania, moving from west to east. It was an odd enough sound that she stepped outside to have a look.
"I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down," said Leverknight, 36. "It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there.
"Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke." Leverknight and dozens of her neighbors raced to the Shanksville-Stonycreek School where they found their children safe.
…
Witnesses said they thought the wings of the Boeing 757 were wagging from side to side as it plunged toward the earth. …
"When it decided to drop, it dropped all of a sudden, like a stone," said Tom Fritz, 63. Fritz was sitting on his porch on Lambertsville Road, about a quarter mile from the crash site, when he heard a sound that "wasn't quite right" and looked up in the sky.
"It was sort of whistling," he said. "It was going so fast that you couldn't even make out what color it was."
…
Terry Butler works at Stoystown Auto Wreckers, which is in the flight path of the doomed plane. Butler was pulling a radiator from a 1992 Dodge Caravan when he heard the plane's engines.
He was listening to the news and was surprised because he had heard that all flights nationwide were grounded, and he didn't think there were supposed to be any planes in the air at the time. He looked up and behind him saw the plane come out of the clouds, low to the ground.
"It was moving like you wouldn't believe. Next thing I knew it makes a heck of a sharp, right-hand turn." He said the plane banked to the right and appeared to be trying to climb to clear one of the ridges, but it continued to turn to the right and then veered behind a ridge, "like somebody grabbed the wheel."
He said the plane disappeared behind a tree line on a ridge. "I knew it was going to crash," Butler said. About a second after it disappeared, he heard the boom and saw the smoke rise above the trees. "It was eerie." (8)
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"It shook the whole station," said Bruce Grine, owner of an auto service center in Shanksville, about 3 miles from the crash site. "Everybody ran outside, and by that time the fire whistle was blowing." (3)
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Eric Peterson of Lambertsville looked up when he heard the plane. "It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets," Peterson said. "You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side."
"There was a great explosion and you could see the flames. It was a massive, massive explosion. Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud."
Peterson called 9-1-1 and ran to the crash site but found only burning jet parts, pieces of clothing, and seat cushions.
….
Rose Goodwin, a freshman at Shanksville Stony Creek High School, was watching the television news in class when Flight 93 went down.
"We felt it. We thought something must have landed on the roof," she said. "It was like, Oh my gosh, what was that?' We looked out the window and saw a black cloud. Everyone started screaming."
Viola Saylor of Lambertsville was outside talking to her sister.
"We didn't hear that plane coming until it was right on top of us," she said. "Then there was a roar."
She said the plane appeared to be gliding into the ground.
"All at once it just stopped. There was no engine noise, nothing. Someone hollered, Oh my God!' and then there was a real loud thud." (11)
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Michael R. Merringer was out on a mountain bike ride with his wife, Amy, about two miles away from the crash site.
"I heard the engine gun two different times and then I heard a loud bang and the windows of the houses all around rattled," Merringer said. "I looked up and I saw the smoke coming up."
The couple rushed home and drove near the scene. "Everything was on fire and there was trees knocked down and there was a big hole in the ground," he said. … (10)
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For Lee Purbaugh, 31, of Listie, the thought of seeing a plane crash right before his eyes still seemed unbelievable to him when interviewed a half-hour later.
“I never in my life thought I would see a plane crash right before my very eyes,” said Purbaugh, who was at the wreckage within minutes after the crash.
Purbaugh’s second day on the job at Rollock Inc., a scrap metal company which owns the Diamond T mine, a former PBS Coals dig directly above the crash site, came with a shocking surprise. The crash happened within 200 yards of Purbaugh’s view.
“I happened to hear this noise and looked up,” said Purbaugh, who indicated the plane was about 40 to 50 feet above him. “I didn’t know if I should duck or what because this plane was so low but then in a split second it hit.”
Purbaugh describes the crash as “just like a big mushroom cloud.” He says when it hit, it “shook the ground, rolled over in some way and then collapsed.” … (12)
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A witness said he heard two loud bangs before watching the plane take a downward turn of nearly 90 degrees. … Many witnesses said that their homes were shaking violently as the plane flew low overhead. A witness told WTAE-TV's Paul Van Osdol that she saw the plane overhead. It made a high-pitched, screeching sound. The plane then made a sharp, 90-degree downward turn and crashed. (9)
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The plane seemed to be fully, or largely, intact. "I didn't see no smoke, nothing," said Nevin Lambert, an elderly farmer who witnessed the crash from his side yard less than a half-mile away.
Lambert also said he also later found a couple of pieces of debris, one a piece of metal, less than 12 inches across, with some insulation attached. … (15)
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Then a call came in from one of Madigan’s troopers: He had just heard an explosion so violent it shook his home. Soon phones at the barracks were ringing off the hook. Madigan and other troopers rushed to the scene, …
Rick King, 42, of Shanksville, was behind the wheel of the first fire truck to arrive at the crash scene, …
The former assistant chief of the Shanksville volunteer fire department had heard Flight 93 scream overhead, seen a massive fireball light up the sky and felt an explosion rock the entire town of Shanksville. …
But besides a burning landing-gear tire, smoldering branches in the nearby woods and a few brush fires, there was little to indicate a jetliner had just crashed, he says. “Where is this plane? And where are the people?” he remembers thinking as he stepped off the truck. (16)
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Minutes later, the plane crashed in rural Somerset County, about 20 miles away.
"It was like an atomic bomb hit," said John Walsh, 72, who heard the crash and drove to the site while still in his bathrobe. "When I got there, the plane was obliterated. You couldn't see the cockpit or the wings or nothing." (20)
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Witnesses said they thought the wings of the Boeing 757 were wagging from side to side as it plunged toward the earth. (19)
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Larry Williams, a former state police trooper who is now a private investigator, was golfing on the 17th green at Oakbrook Golf Course about eight miles away when he heard the engines "roar real loud and shut off." …
Blair, of Stoystown, a driver with Jim Barron Trucking of Somerset, was traveling in a coal truck along with Doug Miller of Somerset, when they saw the plane spiraling to the ground and then explode on the outskirts of Lambertsville.
"I saw the plane flying upside down overhead and crash into the nearby trees. My buddy, Doug, and I grabbed our fire extinguishers and ran to the scene," said Blair.
"I saw the mushroom cloud and we called 911 right away," added Blair. "I knew with that crash that it wasn't likely there were survivors, but we had to go anyways. The plane was coming in on a slant and really hit the treeline at an angle."
“[Lucy] Menear, who lives across from the Lambertsville Road at the intersection where a graveled road leads to the crash site near the strip mine, said, "I felt the ground shake with the impact. I didn't know the plane had crashed. It was just a big jolt."
Laura Temyer of Hooversville …."I didn't see the plane but I heard the plane's engine. Then I heard a loud thump that echoed off the hills and then I heard the plane's engine. I heard two more loud thumps and didn't hear the plane's engine anymore after that."....
Kim Custer, 15, a tenth grader at Shanksville Stonycreek High School, said she was on the second floor of the school, located only a few miles from the crash site, when the plane went down.
"I looked up and saw the ceiling tiles jump up and down, then I felt the whole building shake," she said. "Then we heard a big boom, …. (14)
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Ok, we have a pretty good picture of the last few minutes of United Flight 93, as viewed from the ground. It descended quickly, was traveling very fast and low, banked hard to the right, flipped over completely, and nosedived straight into the ground. On impact there was a huge fireball that rose up about 200 feet followed by a mushroom cloud. Afterwards, there were only small pieces of the plane and its contents to be found anywhere.
About the loud bang noises, some people said the engines were very loud, others that the engines did not sound right, some that they made a loud bang, and some said it made no sound. Either some people were farther away than others, or the plane’s engines were cutting off and on, which was probably what caused the loud bangs. If you recall, there were witnesses who said the plane's engines were making the loud bang noise just before they cut off; or perhaps off and on with a bang. Look at the bold type in the last quote above.

united 93 Crash

The plane crashed into a reclaimed coal strip mine in Stonycreek Township at 10:03:11.^[61] The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the flight impacted at 563 miles per hour (906 km/h) at a 40 degree nose-down, inverted attitude.^[19] The impact left a crater eight to ten feet deep (c. 3 m), and 30 to 50 feet wide (c. 12 m).^[62] All 44 people died.^[63] Many media reports and eyewitness accounts cited the time of the crash at 10:06 or 10:10,^[64][65] as did an analysis of seismographic data in the area^[66] but which the 9/11 Commission report states was not definitive.^[67] Other media venues and the 9/11 Commission reported the time of impact as 10:03,^[68][69] based on when the flight recorders stopped, analysis of radar data, infrared satellite data, and air traffic control transmissions.^[23]
Kelly Leverknight was watching news of the attacks when she heard the plane. "I heard the plane going over and I went out the front door and I saw the plane going down. It was headed toward the school, which panicked me, because all three of my kids were there. Then you heard the explosion and felt the blast and saw the fire and smoke."^[70] Another witness, Eric Peterson, looked up when he heard the plane, "It was low enough, I thought you could probably count the rivets. You could see more of the roof of the plane than you could the belly. It was on its side. There was a great explosion and you could see the flames. It was a massive, massive explosion. Flames and then smoke and then a massive, massive mushroom cloud."^[71] Val McClatchey had been watching footage of the attacks when she heard the plane. She saw it briefly, then heard the impact. The crash knocked out the electricity and phones. McClatchey grabbed her camera and took the only known picture of the smoke cloud from the explosion ^[72][73]. Ten years after 9/11, a video of the rising smoke cloud filmed by Dave Berkebile (deceased by 2011) from his yard located eight miles away from the crash site was published on YouTube ^[74][75].
The first responders arrived at the crash site after 10:06.^[52] Cleveland Center controllers, unaware the flight had crashed, notified the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) at 10:07 that Flight 93 had a bomb on board and passed the last known position. This call was the first time the military was notified about the flight.^[21] Ballinger sent one final ACARS message to Flight 93 at 10:10, "Don't divert to DC. Not an option." He repeated the message one minute later. The Herndon Command Center alerted FAA headquarters that Flight 93 had crashed at 10:13.^[21] NEADS called the Washington Air Route Traffic Control Center for an update on Flight 93 and received notification that the flight had crashed.^[76]
At 10:37, CNN correspondent Aaron Brown, covering the collapse of the World Trade Center, announced, "We are getting reports and we are getting lots of reports and we want to be careful to tell you when we have confirmed them and not, but we have a report that a 747 is down in Pennsylvania, and that remains unconfirmed at this point."^[77] He followed that up at 10:49 by reporting that, "We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning, north of the Somerset County Airport, which is in western Pennsylvania, not too terribly far from Pittsburgh, about 80 miles or so, a Boeing 767 jet. Don't know whose airline it was, whose airplane it was, and we don't have any details beyond that which I have just given you." In the confusion, he also erroneously reported a second hijacked plane heading for the Pentagon after the crash of the first

united 93 (2011) 2

A most cathartic experience came over me when I viewed the much publicized "United 93". At once speculative and realistic, the 111-minute film will surely bring back the pall of fatalistic inevitability one feels about 9/11, but its more defining characteristic is revealing the untapped heroism and humanism of people caught in the most malevolent of circumstances. Masterfully written and directed by Paul Greengrass, this relentlessly intense movie covers that fateful morning when United Airlines Flight 93 departed Newark for San Francisco with 33 passengers and seven crew members on board.

As it turns out, Greengrass's heavy background in documentaries turns out to be a blessing in this treatment, as he tracks the subsequent events in real time and uses either under-the-radar actors or actual aviation personnel to play the real-life characters. Instead of focusing on the higher profile passengers to provide an emotional locus, which a more commercial filmmaker would have done, he encompasses all the passengers within the emotional purview of the film, including the four hijackers who killed the pilots and took control of the plane. The key dramatic difference is that we get to know not the people but the situation at hand. Consequently, we get a more realistic sense of the scale of the events that may have occurred on that flight. That's not to say it is any less devastating. In fact, the last half-hour is harrowing in the most personal sense as the inevitable becomes reality.

The power of the film comes from its surprisingly apolitical perspective and the inclusion of the ground personnel trying to comprehend the scope of all the redirected planes that day, in particular, Ben Sliney who effectively plays himself that day, the just-promoted supervisor of the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, Va. None of the actors stand out because the film cumulatively achieves a verisimilitude that simply knocks me out. The film also does not pretend to be the definitive version of what happened on the last few moments of the flight. In an emotional sense, it is rather moot as we are talking about degrees of detail at that point. This is truly essential viewing.

united 93 (2011)

On September, 11th 2001, two American Airlines and two United Airlines domestic U.S. flights are hijacked by terrorists. After the collision of two planes against the World Trade Center and one against the Pentagon, the passengers and crew of United Flight 93 decide to struggle against the four terrorist to take back the control of the airplane. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 

Raiders draft Terrelle Pryor

The Raiders and the league announced that Oakland used the 18th selection of the round for Pryor. Oakland forfeits its third-round selection in the 2012 draft.
Pryor's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said his client was excited about going in the third round after waiting until last Thursday to find out he'd even be eligible for the supplemental draft and not working out for teams until Saturday.
"We're tickled and thrilled that Terrelle went in the third round and to the Raiders," Rosenhaus said. "The third round is quite an accomplishment for a young man who had his pro day 48 hours ago and didn't know he would be in the draft until Thursday morning and wasn't able to meet with any decision makers."
Pryor immediately headed to the Bay Area after being drafted and Rosenhaus said he hoped to finalize a contract as soon as possible to get Pryor on the practice field. Rosenhaus has already negotiated a third-round deal with the Raiders this summer with rookie cornerback DeMarcus Van Dyke.
"We're optimistic this will be a smooth negotiation," he said. "We enjoy working with the Raiders and he's very excited."
Based on the rookie scale used to sign picks from April's draft, Pryor would be expected to get a four-year deal at $2.36 million, including a $591,000 signing bonus.
A Raiders source told ESPN.com's John Clayton earlier Monday that the team is looking at Pryor more as receiver than a quarterback at the NFL level. However, another team source told ESPN's Adam Schefter that the Raiders are still interested in Pryor at quarterback.
Pryor will be able to practice immediately after signing and play in the remaining two exhibition games. But he will not be eligible to practice with or play for Oakland during the regular season until the team's sixth game.
When he was allowed to enter Monday's draft, he was handed a five-game suspension by commissioner Roger Goodell -- the same number of games he would have sat out had he returned to Ohio State. Pryor has said he will not appeal the suspension.
Pryor gave up his final season with the Buckeyes after an investigation into the team's memorabilia-for-cash scandal that cost coach Jim Tressel his job.
His selection by the Raiders hardly is surprising. Oakland often makes bold moves in the draft because owner Al Davis covets size and speed. Pryor ran a 4.36 in the 40 during his workout for 17 NFL teams Saturday. At 6-foot-5 and 232 pounds, he is similar in height to JaMarcus Russell, the LSU quarterback chosen No. 1 overall by the Raiders in the 2007 draft.
But Pryor is much more mobile. As a junior, Pryor had his best season statistically, throwing for 2,772 yards and 27 touchdowns with 11 interceptions. He also ran for 754 yards and four scores while helping the Buckeyes win the Sugar Bowl.
"We all know how Al Davis likes big players who can run and Terrelle brings a dimension of size and speed that's unique to the quarterback position," Rosenhaus said. "The Raiders are a good fit for him because they have had an unsettled quarterback situation for a number of years and have worked in a number of different players. Any young quarterback would like the opportunity to go there and compete and be the guy."
Oakland's starting quarterback is Jason Campbell, now in his second season with the Raiders after being acquired from Washington, where he spent five seasons. Campbell is in the last year of his contract, as are backups Kyle Boller and Trent Edwards.
The Raiders considered drafting a quarterback to groom for the future in April but did not find the right fit. Now they have Pryor to fill that role.
Oakland is now without picks in the second, third and fourth rounds next year. The Raiders traded the 2012 second-round pick along with a 2011 seventh-round selection for third- and fourth-round picks this past draft to take offensive lineman Joe Barksdale and running back Taiwan Jones. They sent their fourth-round pick a year ago to the Redskins for Campbell.
Oakland could recoup some picks as compensation for losing Nnamdi Asomugha, Zach Miller and Robert Gallery as free agents.
No other players were chosen in Monday's draft.
Also eligible for the draft were former Georgia running back Caleb King, former Northern Illinois safety Tracy Wilson, former Western Carolina cornerback Torez Jones, former Lindenwood University defensive end Keenan Mace, and former North Carolina defensive end Mike McAdoo. They are now free to sign with any NFL team.
Information from ESPN.com senior NFL writer John Clayton, ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter and The Associated Press was used in this report.