NEWSLETTER #89
November 21, 2006
September 11, 2001 Revisited
November 21, 2006
September 11, 2001 Revisited
ACT IV: PART IV
There are, by my count, four different
conspiracy
theories that seek to explain what happened to United Airlines Flight
93 on the
morning of September 11, 2001.
In no particular order, these four theories are as follows:
- Flight 93 plowed into the ground near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after control of the plane was lost during a struggle between hijackers and passengers.
- Flight 93 landed safely at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, though the fate of the passengers remains something of a mystery.
- Nothing happened to Flight 93 because there never was any Flight 93 that day.
- Flight 93 was shot down near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, most likely after passengers gained control of the aircraft, or while they were attempting to do so.
The first theory on the list, sometimes
referred
to as “the official story,” is the best known and most widely accepted
of the
Flight 93 conspiracy theories, even though it is, by any objective
standard, a
textbook example of the type of undocumented, crackpot theories that
give all
conspiracy theories a bad name.
The crash theory is so asinine that it
barely
merits discussion here, but let’s quickly run through some rather
elementary
observations about airplane crashes: airplanes that crash into the
ground do
not leave debris spread over an eight-mile-long strip of mountainous
terrain;
airplanes that crash into the ground do not produce a crash site with
no visible
signs of aircraft wreckage; airplanes that crash into the ground do not
shower
a lake two miles away with a concentrated cloud of pulverized debris;
airplanes
that crash into the ground do not shed parts as they are passing over
people’s
farms; airplanes that crash into the ground do not usually make
explosive
noises before they hit the ground; airplanes that crash into the ground
are not
usually being shadowed by unmarked white jets; airplanes that crash
into the
ground do not vaporize all human occupants; airplanes that crash into
the
ground do not leave the soil and groundwater miraculously free of jet
fuel
residue; and airplanes that crash into the ground cannot simultaneously
burrow
into the ground and explode into shrapnel-sized pieces.
The authors of this particular theory
have not
even bothered to do what many other conspiracy theorists are frequently
accused
of doing – bend some of the evidence to fit the theory. Instead, they
have
opted to use the time-honored technique of simply ignoring any
evidence
that doesn’t fit, which in this case means that they have pretty much
ignored all
the available evidence. One might think that such a theory would be
difficult
to sell to the masses, but the crafty theorists have employed a
brilliant but
rather controversial strategy that calls for focusing on media control
rather
than presentation of evidence, and the strategy has paid off
handsomely, with
the theory flourishing despite the obvious absence of corroborating
evidence.
Since this theory has obvious
shortcomings for
all but the most undiscerning of readers, we must look elsewhere for an
answer
to the question of what really happened to Flight 93. The second theory
on the
list was first proposed by someone working under the pseudonym “Woody
Box”
(although it should be noted that Mr. Box’s unusual use of the English
language
seems to bear a striking resemblance to the literary stylings of Nico
Haupt).
Mr. Box’s rant, entitled “The
Cleveland Airport Mystery,” has been in
circulation for several years and can be found posted at various sites
on the
‘net. As best I can determine, Woody’s theory remained a relatively
obscure
contribution to the skeptics’ movement until it was popularized in the
widely
viewed 9-11 film, “Loose Change.”
The Cleveland
Airport theory does, I must
admit,
present skeptics with a compelling mystery. Unfortunately, the mystery
is not
whether UA Flight 93 actually landed safely in Cleveland;
no, the real mystery here is why so many people seem to have embraced
this
hopelessly contrived theory.
The Cleveland Airport theory revolves
around the
fact that on the morning of September 11, 2001, a passenger jet made an
unscheduled landing at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport amid
semi-panicked reports that it may have had a bomb and/or hijackers on
board.
The plane was identified as Delta Flight 1989, a Boeing 767 flying out
of Boston Logan
Airport
bound for Los Angeles with
some 69
passengers and nine crew members on board. Though fears about the plane
proved
to be unfounded, there was a perfectly valid reason for the initial
suspicions
(which Woody neglects to mention): Flight 1989 was Delta Airlines’
version of
American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175; all three
airliners
took off from Boston Logan Airport at approximately the same time, all
following the same Boston-to-Los Angeles route, and all three were
Boeing 767
aircraft carrying a heavy load of fuel for the cross-country flight.
And since
both the American and the United flights had been commandeered and
crashed that
morning, suspicions naturally ran high about Delta 1989.
Woody would have us believe that there
were
actually two passenger planes in possible distress that landed at Cleveland
Airport that morning, based
on his
contention that “for every aspect of the incident there are two
different
versions. Not one or three or four versions, but two.” As it turns out,
this is
a patently untrue claim. There were, in fact, at least three versions
of the
passenger count to be found among Woody’s sources (with none of the
three
coming close to matching the number of passengers on Flight 93), and
among
those same sources, there was one and only one description of the plane
(as
will be discussed later).
To be sure, there were two (or more)
different
versions of the landing time, the passenger count, and the manner in
which the
plane and its passengers were handled after it was on the ground. But
it is
certainly not the case that each version is “supported by two
independent
sources,” as Mr. Box boldly contends. That much should be quite obvious
to
anyone who has taken the time to actually read through Woody’s source
material.
The initial information about the bomb
scare at Cleveland Airport
was released by Cleveland
Mayor Michael White at a press conference convened at around 11:00 AM on the morning of September
11. At that time,
details of the incident were still quite sketchy and some of the
information
provided by White proved to be incorrect. It was, nevertheless, duly
reported
as fact by various local media outlets. As more accurate information
became
available, some of the initial details provided by White were corrected
in
later reports.
It was White, for example, who provided
the
initial passenger count of 200, a detail that made it into a handful of
local
media reports. So while it is true that all five of the media reports
that
Woody cites did indeed include that erroneous detail, all five
explicitly
attributed that information to Mayor White’s press conference – which
means,
quite obviously, that there weren’t five independent sources for this
information; there was exactly one source, and that source later
corrected
himself. As we continue down Woody’s list, it becomes painfully obvious
that
the same is true for each of the “parameters” for which there are
supposedly “two
different data.” Three sources are cited for the apparently erroneous
landing
time of 10:45 AM, for
example, but
all three of those sources attribute that tidbit of information to
White’s
press conference. In the same vein, Woody cites no fewer than four
sources for
a reported evacuation time of 11:15 AM,
but all four of those sources were, once again, merely repeating the
words of
Michael White. And so it goes.
In reality, what we have here is not
two
different versions of the story, each of which has various elements
that are
supported by multiple independent witnesses, as Woody explicitly
claims.
Instead, what we have is one early version of the story, disseminated
through
various media outlets but traceable in every case to a single
individual who later
acknowledged that some of the early information was in error, and a
later
version that contained more accurate information. As far as I can see,
there
doesn’t appear to be any great mystery here at all.
What Woody and the makers of the “Loose
Change”
film don’t bother to mention is that several aspects of the story
remained the
same throughout all the reports. Specifically, all of the articles
cited by Mr.
Box, without exception, described the very same plane. In building his
ephemeral case, Woody cites seven local news reports and one Associated
Press
dispatch, as follows:
- NewsNet5 (Darlene Dunn “Plane in Cleveland Being Checked for Bomb,” September 11, 2001)
- 9News (Liz Foreman “Plane Lands in Cleveland: Bomb Feared Aboard,” September 11, 2001)
- Associated Press (Paul Singer “Plane Makes Emergency Landing,” September 11, 2001)
- Athens Post (Paul Singer “No Explosives Found On Cleveland Plane,” September 11, 2001)
- Cleveland Plain Dealer (Patrick O’Donnell “Plane Diverted to Cleveland Triggers Alarm,” September 12, 2001)
- WCPN Spotlight (a Cleveland NPR affiliate) (“Cleveland Reacts to the Terror,” September 12, 2001)
- Akron Beacon-Journal (Mary Ethridge et al “Chaos Spreads to Ohio: Boeing Jet Makes Emergency Landing,” September 11, 2001)
- Akron Beacon-Journal (Kymberli Hagelberg et al “Chaos, Fear Land at Airports in Region,” September 12, 2001)
A quick review of these reports reveals
that
seven of the eight identified the type of aircraft; all reported that
it was a
Boeing 767, consistent with Delta Flight 1989. United Flight 93, of
course, was
a Boeing 757. Similarly, six of the eight identified the city of
origin; all
listed it as Boston, again
consistent with Delta Flight 1989. United Flight 93, needless to say,
flew out
of Newark, New Jersey.
Finally, six of the eight reports identified the airline; five
identified the
plane as a Delta flight (two specifically identified it as Delta Flight
1989),
while one lone outlet (9News) identified it as United Flight 93 –
though in
that very same report the plane was described as a “Boeing 767 out of
Boston.”
None of Woody’s sources mentioned a
second plane
and, apart from the single incongruous identification of the aircraft
as UA
Flight 93, there was unanimous agreement that the one and only plane
involved
in the incident was Delta Airlines Flight 1989. I realize that this may
come as
a shock to some readers, but not every correction signals a cover-up.
Sometimes, particularly at a time of unprecedented confusion in the air
and at America’s
airports, people simply make mistakes, as Mayor White obviously did in
his
initial release of information.
Both Woody Box and the makers of the
film “Loose
Change” point accusing fingers at the fact that the Cleveland
Airport was closed and
evacuated
around the time of the unscheduled landing of the supposed mystery
plane,
implying some nefarious purpose such as covertly disposing of the
passengers of
Flight 93. But wasn’t closing and evacuating the airport an entirely
predictable and justifiable course of action given the fears that
Flight 1989
may have had a bomb aboard? Woody and friends are surely not unaware of
the
fact that during the timeframe that these events at the Cleveland
Airport were playing out,
chaos
reigned supreme at all the nation’s airports. For the first time in
aviation
history, all of the airspace over the United
States was declared a ‘no-fly’ zone.
At the
time, there were reportedly around 4,500 planes in the air, virtually
all of
which had to be rerouted to the nearest airport that could accommodate
them. As
one of Mr. Box’s own sources notes, Cleveland
Airport was indeed shut down
that
day amid the chaos, “along with all others in the United
States.” (Darlene Dunn “Plane in Cleveland
Being Checked For Bomb,” NewsNet5.com, September 11, 2001) In fact, if I remember
correctly, America’s
airports remained closed for several days thereafter, with all air
traffic
grounded.
What Woody Box and the “Loose Change”
crew have
done is to take the situation at Cleveland Airport on the morning of
September
11 and portray it as something uniquely sinister, when the reality is
that it
was essentially no different than the situation that existed at all of
the
country’s major airports on that most unusual of mornings. All the
nation’s
larger airports were shut down and all were scrambling to accommodate
unscheduled landings in an atmosphere of intense fear spawned by the
prospect
that more planes could be carrying explosives or hijackers.
In the final analysis, the so-called
“Cleveland
Airport Mystery” is much ado about nothing. There does not appear to be
any
evidence at all that supports the theory that more than one plane in
possible
distress landed in Cleveland,
nor
that the one plane that did land there amid reports of a possible bomb
threat
was Flight 93. What we have here is little more than a case of
journalistic
sleight of hand. What we have is a supposed 9-11 skeptic shouting:
“Hey, look
at this! I have four independent sources who all say that there were
200
passengers on board that plane,” when the reality is that he has four
sources
who all say that Mayor White said there were 200 passengers on
that
plane – a subtle difference that Woody seems to have failed to grasp.
With that out of the way, we can move
on now to
the third theory on the list, which posits that there was no United
Flight 93
on September 11. What really happened in Pennsylvania, according to
this
theory, is that a fake plane full of fake passengers faked crashing
into the
ground, although for some reason that has never been satisfactorily
explained,
evidence was left behind indicating that the fake plane may have
actually faked
an explosion in the air, as if it was faking having been hit by a fake
missile,
before it faked a crash into the ground.
This theory, I must confess, has never
made much
sense to me. If Flight 93 did not exist, then why would it have been
included
in the official 9-11 script at all? What would the point have been of
faking
the crash of a fake plane into an empty field far removed from the
primary
crime scene? If Flight 93 did exist and was part of a 9-11 plot gone
awry, as
has been hypothesized on this website, then it naturally follows that
it would
have had to be disposed of in some manner. But if it never existed at
all, then
there would have been no point in faking a crash to explain its
disappearance.
The only reason for including Flight 93 in the storyline, I suppose,
would be
to create the subplot of ‘the flight that fought back.’
Like the theories concerning the phone
calls,
this theory assumes that Flight 93 was never meant to strike a
strategic target
and that the sole purpose of including it in the 9-11 script was to
create the
‘ordinary citizens as American heroes’ storyline. It is difficult to
believe,
however – for this skeptic at least – that faking the crash of an
airplane in
rural Pennsylvania as an
anticlimactic postscript to the attacks in New
York
and Washington was a
deliberate
act. The fact that the ‘crash’ was not faked well enough to really fool
anyone
would seem to argue against it having been a scripted event planned
well in
advance. So too does the fact that it appears to have taken Washington
several
days (as will be discussed later) to figure out how to spin the events
in
Pennsylvania, which would seem to indicate that the script was being
improvised
on the fly to account for unforeseen events.
To be fair, there is some support for
the ‘Flight
93 never existed’ theory in the fact that there clearly was no aircraft
wreckage or human remains at the alleged crash site. But that fact
alone does
not allow us to conclude that Flight 93 did not exist; it tells us only
that
Flight 93 did not crash into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But
certainly there was something that blew up in the Shanksville
area,
leaving behind an eight-mile trail of debris. Scores of local residents
reported gathering that debris from around their homes and farms and
dutifully
turning it over to the FBI, as instructed. Some of it, such as burning
seat
cushions, was reportedly identifiable as aircraft debris.
The
total amount of debris collected was
nowhere near enough to account for the disappearance of a 100+ ton
commercial
aircraft, and only a fraction of the human remains were reportedly
recovered,
but there appears to be little doubt that some type of passenger
aircraft blew
up in the skies over Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Some reports made
mention of
the recovery of “a piece of fuselage the size of a dining-room table,”
(John
Carlin “The Mystery of Flight 93,” Independent, August 13, 2002) which
would
appear to be what is on display in the government exhibit to the left.
Aside
from a portion of an engine and the two ‘black boxes,’ that fuselage
section
and the one to the right are the only recognizable pieces of aircraft
debris in
the government photographs introduced at the Moussaoui trial.
Could these few bits and pieces have
been
planted? That certainly is a possibility, though the real question here
may be:
how far from the alleged impact point were these pieces recovered? Did
they
come to rest near the lake, two or more miles from the ‘crash’ crater?
Or were
they even further away than that? Were they found four miles away?
Eight miles?
From the photographs, alas, it is impossible to make that determination.
If we choose to believe that there was
no
airplane involved in the incident in Shanksville, then we must
disregard
numerous early reports from both witnesses on the ground and air
traffic
controllers of a passenger aircraft approaching the area at a fairly
low
altitude. We must also embrace either the notion that some unnamed
party
covertly scattered explosive debris over a fifteen-square-mile patch of
Pennsylvania, or that all the area residents who reported recovering
such
debris are liars and/or government plants. And, of course, we must
warmly
embrace the notion that all of the participants involved in the phone
calls
either do not actually exist or are also liars and/or plants.
Having now looked at various versions
of what didn’t
happen to United Airlines Flight 93 on the morning of September 11,
2001, we
will turn our attention in the fifth and (possibly) final installment
of this
series to what most likely did happen to Flight 93.
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