Hijacker Crashed Flight 93 on 9/11

AP via Yahoo! ^ | 8/7/03 | TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

[ambrose]

I preferred the myth.

[onyx]

This does not diminish the heroism of the passengers.

[TomServo]

I'll still give 'em credit. They ultimately put a crimp in the hijkackers plans.

[dead]

This theory, based on the government's analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the plane's controls.

Am I overly sensitive, or is there a triumphant tone to this article? Like the writer is happy that the "heroism" story is tainted in his eyes?

I don't know why, exactly, I get that impression, but I do.

[Dog]

I will continue to believe the passengers were hero's...

[WarrenC]

U.S. investigators now believe that a hijacker in the cockpit aboard United Airlines Flight 93 instructed terrorist-pilot Ziad Jarrah to crash the jetliner into a Pennsylvania field because of a passenger uprising in the cabin.

This theory, based on the government's analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the plane's controls

Sentence 2 contradicts sentence 1.

[Dog]

Intelligence officials believe the likely target for Flight 93 was the White House, based on information from Abu Zubaydah,>/b> a senior al-Qaida terrorist leader in U.S. custody who is believed to have played a key role in organizing the Sept. 11 attacks.

So it was the White House they were after..

[DoughtyOne]

I have considered these passengers to have done their best to get this aircraft under control, but then there's only so much we will ever know.

What we do know for sure is that immigrants from a terrorist (although not classified as such) state perpetrated these acts. It's so comforting to know that we still
allow immigration from terrorist states and illegal Aliens to enter at will.

Isn't that a fine memorial to the passengers who died?

[Tribune7]

This version is just as heroic.

[Tribune7]

I will continue to believe the passengers were hero's...

They were.

[Our man in washington]

"Separately, the data recorder showed the plane's wings rocking violently as the jet flew too low and too fast for safe flight."

If you're trying to crash a flight, why spend any time flying in an unsafe matter. Just put the nose to the ground and accelerate. Perhaps the pilot didn't know how to fly very well, and the uprising distracted him enough to lose control of the plane completely.

[spodefly]

The plane did not make it to its target because the passengers fought back. That is the bottom line. I believe any muslimes that have similar ideas about hijacking planes know that from the second they stand up to take the plane, they will be swarmed by people that know it is kill or be killed.

[EllaMinnow]

Sentence 2 contradicts sentence 1.

It really does, and makes the whole article nonsensical.

[FReepaholic]

>>...because of a passenger uprising in the cabin...<<

Isn't the "cockpit" on an airliner called the "cabin"?

If so, then an "uprising" in the cabin by passengers was the cause of the crash. Meaning the passengers CAUSED THE CRASH.

Heros still, in spite of Reuters.

[facedown]

...one of the hijackers "advised Jarrah to crash the plane and end the passengers' attempt to retake the airplane."

This is totally implausible.

The hijacker's mission was to fly the plane into some building. They couldn't have cared less what the passangers were doing as long as they, the hijackers, had control of the plane. They would have continued on their mission.

The passengers forced that plane down, one way or another.

[Arkinsaw]

I preferred the myth.

The myth? Are you saying a passenger uprising was a myth? Are you saying that the terrorists intended to crash that plane into an empty field and the passengers did nothing to stop them?

What happened is:
a) the terrorists intended to crash that plane into the White House
b) the passengers attacked the cockpit
c) aware that the passengers were going to retake the plane the hijacker at the controls crashed the plane in an empty field instead.

The only new thing in this story is that the hijacker crashed the plane deliberately rather than a) loss of control, b) passengers retook plane and could not recover it.

P*sses me off that the author of this article is acting as if this fairly useless bit of information somehow invalidates the actions of the passengers which it in no way does.

They saved the damn White House from, pretty much, utter destruction. Myth my a**.