Flight 93 was abducted

Claim

Flight 93 never crashed. Instead, the plane landed in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport⁰.

Background

The claim is based on a brief article from September 11, 2001 published around noon, local time¹. The mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, Michael R. White, was quoted saying that a Boeing 767 from Boston had made an emergency landing in Cleveland Hopkins International Airport because it was believed there was a bomb on board. The claim allegedly supports the claim that the terror attack on September 11, 2001 was not planned and carried out by terrorists from al Qaeda but was a so-called inside job.

Facts

The article turned out to be a mistake made in the confusing stream of news during the day. Despite the fact that the story has been retracted², the story is still repeated as true by conspiracy theorists. Flight 93 left Newark Airport, New Jersey, at 8:42 local time and headed towards San Francisco International Airport. At about 9:28, terrorists hijacked the plane and steered it towards Washington D.C. presumably with the intention of hitting either Capitol Hill or the White House. After the passengers had made phone calls to family and authorities to inform them about the hijacking, the passengers realized that other planes had also been hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center 1 and 2. It became clear that the hijacking of Flight 93 was no ordinary hijacking but a suicide mission. Some of the passengers decided to try to overpower the terrorists and regain control with the plane. Unfortunately before they could succeed, the terrorists chose to crash the plane. All passengers, crew, and terrorists died^{3, 4, 5} .

Logic

If you make this claim, you are also guilty of selecting news stories in a very subjective and manipulating manner where you consciously ignore important facts which, in this case, make the story untrue. Journalists are obliged to report what is happening at the moment based on what they and witnesses observe but also to go back and correct erroneous information. In the days, weeks, and months after the terror attack, causes and factual events were thorougly documented and the erroneous news stories sorted out. That is why we have a much better documented account today than what we heard in the chaotic time during the terror attack.

Wrong news

It happens all the time that wrong information becomes news.

Dewey defeats Truman

One of the most famous examples of a wrong news story happened when Thomas E. Dewey was declared the winner of the 1948 presidential election even though it later turned out that his opponent, Harry S Truman, had won⁶. Harry S Truman med den famøse avisforsideTitanic Another example is the famous shipwreck Titanic which led to this front page of a New York newspaper⁷: Of the 2,223 passengers 1,513 lost their lives.⁸

Anders Behring Breivik

On July 23, 2011, the day after the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik had detonated a bomb in the government district of Oslo and later killed a lot of people on the nearby island of Utøya, the Norwegian police stated that there were at least 80 killed on the island⁹. The number was adjusted to 68 on July 25, 2011^{10, 11}.

More problems

The claim that Flight 93 was abducted is in conflict with the claim that Flight 93 was shot down. The plane cannot have been abducted and shot down at the same time. The claim of abduction also presupposes a string of murky points: Where are the passengers? In hiding? Executed? Where is the plane? Destroyed? Hidden somewhere? It would require a massive expansion of the number of people required to carry out the terror attack: Someone would have to deal with the abduction of the plane, the disposal of the plane, its passengers and crew (or the bodies), as well as fiddle with radar data and communication with the air traffic control. Add to that, all those who would be needed to conspire about the debris and human remains found at Shanksville, Pennsylvania which, according to the claim, must have been falsified. None of these many people have revealed anything since 2001 to this day.

Conclusion

The claim is therefore:

• Manipulating
• Without witnesses
• In conflict with other claims

Sources

0. UAL Flight 93 Landed Safely At Cleveland Hopkins AirportFlight 93 Did Not Crash In Pennsylvania!, YouTube

   ”Det første billede af flystyrtet viser et stort krater, hvor en Boeing 737 blev smadret i små dele. Flyet styrtede til jorden kort efter start i en kraftig stort. Flyet var på vej til Nigerias hovedstad, og skulle angiveligt have haft nogle af Nigerias ledende medarbejdere ombord.” Så hvis flyet ikke styrtede ned i Shanksville, hvor så? Er du klar til dette her? Cleveland. Loose Change 2nd Edition, 911avisen.dk

1. Plane Lands In Cleveland; Bomb Feared Aboard
2. Dementi, Liz Foreman
3. 9/11 Commission Report, side 10-14
4. Kommunikation med Flight 93, Air Traffic Control
5. Flight path, Flight 93, National Transportation Safety Board
6. Dewey Defeats Truman, Wikipedia
7. Evening Sun, New York, 15. april 1917
8. Titanic, Survivors, victims and statistics, Wikipedia
9. Norsk politi: Mindst 80 er dræbt i skudmassakre på ø, Politiken, 23. juli 2011
10. Reduceret dødstal: 68 mistede livet på Utøya, Politiken, 25. juli 2011
11. Ikke overraskende at dødstallet er mindre, JyllandsPosten, 25. juli 2011

Q & A