United Airlines Flight 93
United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four Al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The hijackers planned to crash the plane into a federal government building in the national capital of Washington, D.C. The mission failed when the passengers fought back, forcing the terrorists to crash the plane in Shanksville in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, preventing them from reaching Al-Qaeda's intended target, but killing everyone aboard the flight. The airliner involved, a Boeing 757-200 with 44 passengers and crew, was flying United Airlines' daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California, making it the only plane hijacked that day not to be a Los Angeles–bound flight.
Forty-six minutes into the flight, the hijackers killed one passenger, stormed the cockpit, and struggled with the pilots as controllers on the ground listened in. Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the East Coast, in the direction of D.C.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, considered principal instigators of the attacks, have claimed that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol Building.
The flight's initial forty-two-minute delay meant that its passengers were able to learn of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which had taken place shortly before. Since they knew that their flight was likely being hijacked as part of a suicide mission, they decided to fight back against the hijackers. In the ensuing struggle, the plane nosedived into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, about southeast of Pittsburgh and northwest of the capital. One person witnessed the impact from the ground, and news agencies began reporting the event within an hour.
United Airlines Flight 93 was the fourth and final passenger jet to be commandeered by terrorists on September 11, and the only one that did not reach a target intended by Al-Qaeda. The hijacking was supposed to be coordinated with that of American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon less than 26 minutes before the crash of Flight 93. A temporary memorial was built near the crash site soon after the attacks. Construction of a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011, and a concrete and glass visitor center was opened exactly four years later.
Hijackers
The hijacking of Flight 93 was led by Ziad Jarrah, a member of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. He was born in Lebanon to a wealthy and secular Muslim family. He intended to become a pilot and moved to Germany in 1996, enrolling at the University of Greifswald to study German. A year later, he moved to Hamburg and began studying aeronautical engineering at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In Hamburg, Jarrah became a devout Muslim and associated with the radical Hamburg cell.In November 1999, Jarrah left Hamburg for Afghanistan, where he spent three months. While there, he met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in January 2000. Jarrah returned to Hamburg at the end of January and in February obtained a new passport containing no stamped records of his travels by reporting his passport as stolen.
In May, Jarrah received a visa from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, arriving in Florida in June 2000. There, he began taking flying lessons and training in hand-to-hand combat. Jarrah maintained contact with his girlfriend in Germany and with his family in Lebanon in the months preceding the attacks. This close contact upset Mohamed Atta, the tactical leader of the plot, and Al-Qaeda planners may have considered another operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, to replace him if he had backed out.
Four "muscle" hijackers were trained to storm the cockpit and overpower the crew, and three accompanied Jarrah on Flight93. The first, Ahmed al-Nami, arrived in Miami, Florida, on May 28, 2001, on a six-month tourist visa with United Airlines Flight 175 hijackers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri. The second, Ahmed al-Haznawi, arrived in Miami on June8 with Flight11 hijacker Wail al-Shehri. The third, Saeed al-Ghamdi, arrived in Orlando, Florida, on June 27 with Flight175 hijacker Fayez Banihammad. Ziad Jarrah's and Saeed al-Ghamdi's passports were recovered from the Flight 93 crash site. Jarrah's family said he had been an "innocent passenger" on board the flight.
Al-Qaeda had intended for the attacks to be carried out by four teams of five men each, but only 19 terrorists were able to participate when the day came. The missing 20th was allegedly Mohammed al-Qahtani, who flew into Orlando from Dubai on August 3, 2001, intending to board Flight 93 as its fifth hijacker on September 11. He was questioned by officials, who were dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he planned to become an illegal immigrant as he was using a one-way ticket. He was sent back to Dubai, and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia.
Flight
The aircraft involved in the hijacking was a Boeing 757-222, registration The airplane had a capacity of 182 passengers; the September 11 flight carried 37 passengers, including the four terrorists, and seven crew members, a load factor of 20 percent, considerably below the 52 percent average Tuesday load factor for Flight93. The seven crew members were Captain Jason Dahl, First Officer LeRoy Homer Jr., flight attendants Lorraine Bay, Sandra Bradshaw, Wanda Green, CeeCee Lyles, and purser Deborah Welsh.Boarding
At 5:01 a.m. on the morning of September 11, Jarrah placed a cell phone call from Newark to Marwan al-Shehhi, the hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, in Boston, which authorities believe was to confirm that the plan for the attacks was proceeding. While al-Shehhi is known to have also communicated with American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta on the morning of the attacks for the same reason he spoke to Jarrah, a similar correspondence did not take place between Jarrah and Hani Hanjour, the hijacker pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, with which the hijacking of Flight 93 was to be executed in tandem. The four hijackers checked in for the flight between 07:03 and 07:39 Eastern Time. At 07:03, al-Ghamdi checked in without any luggage while al-Nami checked in two bags. At 07:24, al-Haznawi checked in one bag and at 07:39, Jarrah checked in without any luggage. al-Haznawi was the only hijacker selected for extra scrutiny by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System. His checked bag underwent extra screening for explosives, with no extra scrutiny required by CAPPS at the passenger-security checkpoint. None of the security checkpoint personnel reported anything unusual about the hijackers.Al-Haznawi and al-Ghamdi boarded the aircraft at 07:39 and sat in first class seats 6B and 3D respectively. Al-Nami boarded one minute later and sat in first class seat 3C. Before boarding the plane, Jarrah made five telephone calls to Lebanon, one to France, and one to his girlfriend in Germany; he had sent a farewell letter the day before to say he loved her. He boarded at 07:48 and sat in seat 1B. Many of those aboard Flight 93 would have had a view of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City, located several miles away across the Hudson River. The aircraft was scheduled to depart at 08:00 and pushed back from gate A17 at 08:01. It remained delayed on the ground until 08:42 because of heavy airport congestion.
Hijack warnings issued
The three other hijacked flights all departed within fifteen minutes of their scheduled times. By the time Flight93 became airborne, Flight 11 was within four minutes of crashing into the North Tower and Flight 175 was being hijacked. The terrorists aboard Flight 77 had not yet made their move, but were nine minutes away from storming the cockpit. By 09:02, less than a minute before Flight 175 hit the South Tower, Flight 93 reached its cruising altitude of.With the attacks unfolding, air traffic officials began issuing warnings through the Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System. Ed Ballinger, the United flight dispatcher, began sending text cockpit warnings to United Airlines flights at 09:19, sixteen minutes after Flight 175's impact. Ballinger was responsible for multiple flights, and he sent the message to Flight93 at 09:23. Ballinger received a routine ACARS message from Flight93 at 09:21. At 09:22, after learning of the events at the World Trade Center, LeRoy Homer's wife, Melody Homer, had an ACARS message sent to her husband in the cockpit asking if he was all right. At 09:24, Flight93 received Ballinger's ACARS warning, "Beware any cockpit intrusiontwo a/c hit World Trade Center". At 09:26, pilot Jason Dahl, apparently puzzled by the message, responded, "Ed, confirm latest mssg plz -- Jason". At 09:27:25, the flight crew responded to routine radio traffic from air traffic control. This was the last communication made by the flight crew before the plane was hijacked.