9-11 plane shot down in Pennsylvania

[Pah]

DAY OF INFAMY 2001
Rumsfeld says 9-11 plane
'shot down' in Pennsylvania
During surprise Christmas Eve trip, defense secretary contradicts official story

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42112

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: December 27, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com


WASHINGTON – Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been questions about Flight 93, the ill-fated plane that crashed in the rural fields of Pennsylvania.

The official story has been that passengers on the United Airlines flight rushed the hijackers in an effort to prevent them from crashing the plane into a strategic target – possibly the U.S. Capitol.

During his surprise Christmas Eve trip to Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the flight being shot down – long a suspicion because of the danger the flight posed to Washington landmarks and population centers.


Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000?


Donald Rumsfeld

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."

Several eyewitnesses to the crash claim they saw a "military-type" plane flying around United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked passenger jet crashed – prompting the once-unthinkable question of whether the U.S. military shot down the plane.

Although the onboard struggle between hijackers and passengers – immortalized by the courageous "Let's roll" call to action by Todd Beamer – became one of the enduring memories of that disastrous day, the actual cause of Flight 93's crash, of the four hijacked jumbo jets, remains the most unclear.

Several residents in and around Shanksville, Pa., describing the crash as they saw it, claim to have seen a second plane – an unmarked military-style jet.

Well-founded uncertainly as to just what happened to Flight 93 is nothing new. Just three days after the worst terrorist attack in American history, on Sept. 14, 2001, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record newspaper reported that five eyewitnesses reported seeing a second plane at the Flight 93 crash site.

That same day, reported the Record, FBI Special Agent William Crowley said investigators could not rule out that a second plane was nearby during the crash. He later said he had misspoken, dismissing rumors that a U.S. military jet had intercepted the plane before it could strike a target in Washington, D.C.

Although government officials insist there was never any pursuit of Flight 93, they were informed the flight was suspected of having been hijacked at 9:16 am, fully 50 minutes before the plane came down.

On the Sept. 16, 2001, edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice President Dick Cheney, while not addressing Flight 93 specifically, spoke clearly to the administration's clear policy regarding shooting down hijacked jets.

Vice President Cheney: "Well, the – I suppose the toughest decision was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming commercial aircraft."

NBC's Tim Russert: "And you decided?"

Cheney: "We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time ...

"It doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't give them instructions to act, if, in fact, they feel it's appropriate."

Russert: "So if the United States government became aware that a hijacked commercial airline[r] was destined for the White House or the Capitol, we would take the plane down?"

Cheney: "Yes. The president made the decision ... that if the plane would not divert ... as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to take them out. Now, people say, you know, that's a horrendous decision to make. Well, it is. You've got an airplane full of American citizens, civilians, captured by ... terrorists, headed and are you going to, in fact, shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those Americans on board?

"... It's a presidential-level decision, and the president made, I think, exactly the right call in this case, to say, I wished we'd had combat air patrol up over New York

Warning - Worldnet is not known for accurate stories

 

[painted wolf]

Its nicer to have the people of flight 93 die as heros then as victims. However 'nice' and 'true' are not the same. It may have been a slip of the tongue, and it may not have. We really won't know untill this administration is gone, if we learn at all.

wa:do

 

[Jaymes]

Wonder how much else we can learn about what really happened on 9/11...

 

[Sunstone]

I've heard it said by some history professors that an accurate history is seldom written within 50 years of an event.

 

[jamaesi]

Warning - Worldnet is not known for accurate stories

But CNN is.


Go here and scroll down to the bottom and look around for it. Or if you're using Internet Explorer load the page, press Ctrl+F, and type in Pennsylvania and search.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

So the suspicion is that it might have been shot down by terrorist forces? Or by US forces? *trying to understand correctly*

 

[Sunstone]

So the suspicion is that it might have been shot down by terrorist forces? Or by US forces? *trying to understand correctly*

By U.S. forces.

 

[fromthe heart]

When they played the voice recorder for that flight it was heard that the passengers were trying to get into the cockpit....it never had any noise like it was shot down...it played from when the passengers realized what was happening because they had cell calls from family...I guess they could have doctored the tape but it doesn't seem likely they would have because loved ones were on the phone the whole time with passengers until it went into the ground. I saw the pictures of the site where it came down about 30 min.from here, it just didn't look as if it were shot down...they would have shot it down if it would have managed to get anywhere near Washington D.C. though...I think they DID have fighter jets near that plane after the Trade Centers were hit. This is just what we know here in Pa...I don't claim it to be fact I'm sure anything could be covered up but that was the info we all got from the media here...if there would have been a chance it was shot down the media would have been all over it.

Just my personal view on Flight 93

 

[Sunstone]

I seem to recall hearing on NPR that fighter jets had been scrambled to intercept it but were still about five minutes away when the airliner crashed. Maybe those jets overflew the area immediately after the crash and are what people saw.

 

[Feathers in Hair]

I'll be very interested to see what we learn. (And, as other people have said, how long it might take us to learn it.) I do remember the "Let's roll" line being so repeated after that horror, although I honestly can't remember if the fellow was speaking to his wife or someone else. It would be almost even worse if the administration had decided to twist reality for their own purposes.

 

[retrorich]

QUOTE:

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."

END QUOTE

Rumsfeld appears to be reciting a list of terrorists. If the PA plane had been shot down by a U.S. plane, I don't think he would have included that incident. If it had been shot down by an enemy plane, he might have. Perhaps he meant to say, "the people who hijacked the plane that crashed in PA."