Hollywood and 9/11: The Movies and TV Dramas Resembling the Terrorist Attacks That Were Being Produced in September 2001

"It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents
everything America is about. And to bring those two
buildings down would bring America to its knees."

- Line from Nosebleed, a movie originally set to start being
filmed at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001

A significant number of movies and television dramas were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which had storylines with some remarkable similarities to the events of September 11, 2001. These storylines featured incidents such as terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft, and terrorists causing a jumbo jet to crash in New York.

The movies and TV shows would have featured some famous actors, and were being made for major companies, such as CBS and 20th Century Fox. Furthermore, employees of the military and other U.S. government agencies are known to have assisted in developing the storylines of some of these productions. Unsurprisingly, after September 11, the movies and TV shows were either canceled or significantly rewritten so as to remove any resemblance to the 9/11 attacks.

The existence of these movies and TV dramas, at the very least, disproves claims that the 9/11 attacks could not have been foreseen. It is worth considering, however, whether these productions served a more sinister purpose in relation to 9/11, albeit unknown to most of the people working on them.

This article examines seven movies and television dramas that were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which all had notable similarities to aspects of what happened on September 11. These proposed movies and TV shows received some attention after September 11 because of their resemblance to the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Newsweek even commented that the amount of movies and TV shows about terrorism being made at that time "makes you wonder if this [i.e. terrorism] wasn't an obsessive theme in the culture even before September 11." [1] However, no one suggested that there might have been a more sinister reason for there being so many productions about terrorism. Instead, their existence was treated like a simple coincidence.

ACTION MOVIE FEATURED TERRORIST PLOT TO BLOW UP THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
A number of movies and TV shows that were being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks are notable because they featured acts of terrorism in New York or, specifically, at the World Trade Center.

A movie that is particularly striking is Nosebleed, which would have been about a terrorist plot to bomb the Twin Towers. [2] It was going to feature the well-known martial artist and actor Jackie Chan as a window washer at the World Trade Center who uncovers the plot and tries to thwart the terrorists. [3]

The script for Nosebleed was initially written in 1999 by Stu Zicherman and Raven Metzner, and developed after that. Zicherman and Metzner had also come up with the film's storyline. [4]

A line reportedly in the script indicates that the fictitious terrorists intended to cause the Twin Towers to collapse--like what actually happened on September 11. A terrorist would say of the WTC: "It represents capitalism. It represents freedom. It represents everything America is about. And to bring those two buildings down would bring America to its knees." [5]

Nosebleed would have been a major film. It would have cost $50 million to $60 million to make, according to Variety magazine. [6] In May 2000, it was reported that Renny Harlin, who previously directed action movies such as Die Hard 2 and The Long Kiss Goodnight, was in talks to direct it, although whether he was subsequently taken on as director is unclear. [7]

FILMING WAS SET TO TAKE PLACE AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 11
Not only did the plot of Nosebleed have similarities to the 9/11 attacks, but a scene for the movie was scheduled to be filmed at the top of one of the Twin Towers at 7:00 a.m. on September 11. [8] The filming would have taken place at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the North Tower, according to Jackie Chan, but it was canceled. So instead of being at the WTC, Chan was in Toronto working on another movie, The Tuxedo, on September 11. [9]

Had the filming gone ahead as originally scheduled, Chan and the other people involved would likely have died, since everyone who was in Windows on the World when American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. on September 11 was trapped and subsequently died. [10] Chan told one newspaper, "I would probably have died if the shooting went ahead as planned." [11] He said that on September 11, after he learned about the attacks on the WTC, he was "like a walking dead man" for the rest of the day. [12]

It is unclear why the filming at the WTC was canceled. According to some reports, it was because the script for the scene there was late. [13] According to the Orlando Sentinel, it was because Chan "didn't want to make Nosebleed without a finished script." "The action was good, but, somehow, the script not ready," he commented. [14] But Chan gave a different explanation to the Boston Phoenix, saying: "The studio didn't really like the script of Nosebleed because it was not perfect yet. So my manager said: 'Don't worry. If you do not like this film, we can do Tuxedo. You will meet with [Steven] Spielberg to see if you like it or not.' Then I met with Spielberg and I say I will do Tuxedo, because I trust Spielberg." [15]

Unsurprisingly, work on Nosebleed was put on hold after 9/11 and the movie has never been made. [16]

COMEDY MOVIE WOULD HAVE INCLUDED 'A BIG WORLD TRADE CENTER SCENE WITH TERRORISTS'
Another movie was, like Nosebleed, notable because--as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel described--its plot featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists." [17] Till Death Do Us Part would have been a comedy starring the well-known actors Billy Crystal and Michael Douglas. Its storyline, according to Newsday, was "about two fathers, soon to be related by their children's marriage," who have to take on "a terrorist bent on creating havoc in New York City." The movie would have included "a significant scene that was to take place at the Windows on the World restaurant" at the top of the North Tower. [18] It featured "a big World Trade Center scene with terrorists," according to Crystal, who added, "Funny, but the whole story was about that." [19]

Till Death Do Us Part was being made by Warner Brothers and Franchise Pictures, and was written in 2000 by Nat Mauldin, whose previous work included writing Dr. Dolittle, the 1998 comedy starring Eddie Murphy. [20] Filming was set to begin on November 17, 2001. [21] The movie was put on hold after September 11, but it was subsequently rewritten and was released in May 2003, renamed The In-Laws and with Crystal no longer starring in it. [22]

NBC PLANNED A DRAMA SERIES ABOUT AL-QAEDA ATTACKS IN NEW YORK
A big-budget television drama was being developed at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which, like these movies, centered on terrorism in New York. NBC was working on a five-hour miniseries, called Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in the city. The show would have been a crossover between the network's three Law & Order series (the original show, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and Law & Order: Criminal Intent) and was going to be broadcast in May 2002. [23]

Terror would have followed an Osama bin Laden devotee who goes from an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan to New York. There, he detonates explosives in the subway under Times Square, killing over 1,000 New Yorkers. [24] Investigators then discover a terrorist release of anthrax, and the storyline would subsequently include the threat of a release of smallpox. [25]

Dick Wolf, the creator of Law & Order, put forward the idea for the show. When he was asked, early in 2001, if he had any suggestions for a miniseries, Wolf answered, "Terrorism in New York City." This, according to Los Angeles magazine, was a story he had "long wanted to do." When Wolf told Neal Baer, one of Law & Order's executive producers, about the miniseries, Baer said the show should specifically be about bioterrorism.

By June 2001, Wolf had written a 40-page outline for Terror. [26] By August, Wolf and his colleagues were "deeply involved in the story," according to Baer. [27] Filming was set to begin on September 24, less than two weeks after 9/11. [28]

On September 11, before the attacks took place in New York, Baer and some of his colleagues were at a facility only a couple of miles from the World Trade Center doing "preproduction planning" for the show. [29] Terror was canceled a week later, in light of the 9/11 attacks. [30]

WRITER AND MILITARY OFFICIALS CONSIDERED 9/11-STYLE SCENARIO FOR SERIES ABOUT TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE U.S.
Other movies and television shows being produced at the time of the 9/11 attacks stand out because their storylines featured terrorist events that resembled specific aspects of 9/11: an aircraft hijacking, a plane crash, and an attack in the U.S. that leads to a wider conflict, like the actual "war on terror."

One of these was a TV miniseries called World War III, which would have been about "how an act of terrorism on United States soil expanded into global conflict," according to the Dallas Observer. Bryce Zabel, a longtime television writer and producer, who was elected as chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in August 2001, was working on this show. He was scheduled to meet with executives at the cable channel USA Network on September 13, 2001, to present the details of his miniseries to them.

Zabel consulted the U.S. military while working on the storyline for World War III and apparently considered scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. He has recalled: "My partner and I had worked carefully with the Air Force and some Pentagon war planners to figure out the possible scenarios by which such a conflict [i.e. a world war] could come into being. The irony is that we had sort of rejected something as radical as what just happened [on September 11] as being a little too much."

Zabel has not said what kind of terrorist attack he eventually decided to incorporate into his storyline. But he noted a similarity between what his show envisioned and what happened on September 11, saying the 9/11 attacks meant that "the cautionary tale we hoped to tell in fiction ended up becoming a cautionary tale told on the evening news." [31]

Zabel's miniseries was canceled in response to the 9/11 attacks. But, possibly referring to the similarity between its storyline and the "global war on terrorism" that began after 9/11, Zabel said, two weeks after September 11, that World War III would have "reflected exactly what's going on in the world right now." [32]

PLANNED MOVIE FEATURED CYBER-TERRORISTS CAUSING A JUMBO JET TO CRASH IN NEW YORK
One movie that was in the pipeline on September 11, called WW3.com, would have involved cyber-terrorists causing a Boeing 767--the type of plane that hit the Twin Towers--to crash just a few miles from the World Trade Center.

Hollywood studio 20th Century Fox had been working on WW3.com since 1998. The movie, according to Variety, would have featured "a high-concept, special effects-laden storyline involving cyber-terrorists who have declared war on the United States." [33] It was written by David Marconi, who previously wrote Enemy of the State, a 1998 thriller starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman.

Marconi said his screenplay for WW3.com was "incredibly prescient about the events of September 11." He described the storyline as "a blueprint for disaster." Notably, the movie's climax would have featured a Boeing 767 crashing into a Simon and Garfunkel concert in New York's Central Park.

Marconi was assisted by experts from the National Security Agency (NSA) while he was working on the screenplay. He has recalled that these experts were "more than helpful in laying out situations not dissimilar from what happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon" on September 11. On the day of 9/11, one of them even phoned Marconi and said to him: "Turn on the TV. It's happening." Marconi has not said whether the scenario of a 767 crashing into Central Park was suggested to him by someone at the NSA. [34]

In August 2000, it was reported that WW3.com would be produced by Luc Besson, the well-known French film writer, director, and producer. [35] The film was shelved after 9/11, but the script was rewritten and made into the fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, which was released in 2007. [36]

'TOP-SECRET' MOVIE FEATURED A PLANE HIJACKING
20th Century Fox also worked on Deadline, a movie that would have involved an aircraft hijacking. Few details are known about this film. It was, according to the Los Angeles Times, "in top-secret development" before September 11. All that has been reported of its storyline is that it featured terrorists hijacking a commercial aircraft.

Deadline was reportedly being produced by James Cameron, the renowned director of movies such as Titanic and The Terminator. It was written by brothers Peter and David Griffiths, who also wrote Collateral Damage, a movie about terrorism starring Arnold Schwarzenegger that was released in 2002. [37]

Deadline was put on hold after 9/11. [38] It was revived in 2008, with the new name Nagasaki Deadline. At that time, Variety reported that the storyline "centered on an emotionally damaged FBI agent who must decipher historic events in a desperate race to avert a terrorist plot." It is unclear if this was the original storyline of the movie or if the plot was changed after September 11. [39] Five years later, the movie has still not been made.

TV MOVIE WOULD HAVE FOLLOWED THE INVESTIGATION OF A PLANE CRASH POSSIBLY CAUSED BY BIN LADEN
One production is notable because, although it did not feature a terrorist attack, its storyline centered on the investigation of a plane crash, just as the 9/11 attacks led to the investigations of plane crashes. Furthermore, Osama bin Laden would have been mentioned in it.

Fall From the Sky was to have been a TV movie for CBS. Although being made for television rather than cinema, it had a large budget, of $7.2 million. [40] It was written by Nicholas Meyer--who previously wrote several of the Star Trek movies--and Brian Rehak, and would have starred Forest Whitaker, the award-winning actor of such movies as Bird and The Last King of Scotland.

Fall From the Sky would have told the story of the crash of a new type of passenger aircraft in which hundreds of people die, and the investigation that follows. Whitaker was to have played the National Transportation Safety Board official who leads the investigation. [41]

The storyline, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, looked at "the meticulous process of gathering scientific evidence after the tragedy." [42] It also "dealt a lot with the [Federal Aviation Administration] and issues of concealment," Whitaker said. [43] The TV movie, according to Meyer, would show "the political pressures brought to bear on the investigation." [44]

Furthermore, the storyline included investigators examining the theory that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the crash. [45] According to Meyer, it would transpire that terrorists were not to blame.

Filming was scheduled to begin in Winnipeg, Canada, around the start of October 2001 and the TV movie was in preproduction in September that year. [46] However, CBS canceled Fall From the Sky shortly after 9/11. [47]

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOVERNMENT AGENCIES AND THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
The fact that these movies and television shows were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks, at the very least, disproves official claims that no one could have predicted what happened on September 11. What we know of the storylines of these productions shows that some scriptwriters, and people working for government agencies who assisted them, did indeed envision scenarios resembling the 9/11 attacks. The storylines are also evidence that some individuals may have had foreknowledge of the attacks--a possibility that should certainly be investigated.

It is also plausible that these movies and TV shows served a more disturbing purpose. Might, for example, rogue individuals working for U.S. government agencies have used a particular film or television show as a cover, to help them prepare the 9/11 attacks?

When considering this possibility, it is worth noting that there has been a long history of collaboration between government agencies and the entertainment industry. Former CIA officer Robert Baer described this relationship, saying, "All these people that run [film] studios, they go to Washington, they hang around with senators, they hang around with CIA directors, and everybody's on board." [48]

Furthermore, government agencies have, for many years, employed entertainment liaison officers to influence the image of them portrayed in the media. The FBI set up an office in the 1930s to improve its image in movies, radio programs, and television shows. The Department of Defense established a similar office in 1947.

The CIA was the last major government agency to establish a formal relationship with the movie industry. It set up a basic entertainment program in the early 1990s and employed its first entertainment liaison officer in 1996. Other agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service, similarly have motion picture and television offices or employ official assistants to the media. [49]

The CIA and the military have cooperated on numerous Hollywood productions. The Pentagon provided its "full cooperation" for movies such as Top Gun (1986), True Lies (1994), Air Force One (1997), Transformers (2007), and Iron Man (2008). [50] And the CIA helped shape such movies as Enemy of the State (1998), Bad Company (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and The Recruit (2003). [51]

THE CIA'S 'VERY ACTIVE' NETWORK IN HOLLYWOOD
Although it only employed its first liaison to the entertainment industry in 1996, the CIA has been working with Hollywood since the 1950s. [52] Jerry Naylor, a country singer and veteran of the entertainment business, revealed that he was first recruited by the agency in 1968, and subsequently "used his international fame as cover to work as a secret agent for the CIA" on more than 100 occasions. Naylor believes other celebrities must have similarly been employed by the agency. "I think using celebrities from Los Angeles and Hollywood for covert operations is probably something that the CIA liked to do," he said. "I doubt I was the only one." [53]

Furthermore, retired CIA intelligence officer Antonio Mendez (who was played by Ben Affleck in the movie Argo) wrote that when he was head of the agency's disguise section, between 1974 and 1979, he "engaged the services of many consultants in the entertainment industry." These included makeup artist John Chambers, who won an honorary Academy Award for his work on the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. [54]

John Rizzo, a senior CIA lawyer, stated in 2007 that the CIA has "a very active" network of people in Hollywood, helping "in whatever way they can to give back." [55]

WHAT PURPOSE MIGHT 9/11-STYLE TV SHOWS AND MOVIES HAVE SERVED?
It is also worth noting that movies had, long before 2001, been used as a cover for covert operations, so if this tactic was utilized by those who planned 9/11, it would not have been the first time a movie served such a purpose. For example, from 1978 to 1982, Jerry Naylor worked on the research and production of a movie called The Bounty Hunter, which, Naylor has claimed, was a cover for monitoring terrorists in the Lebanon. [56]

A better known example of the tactic was the subject of the Oscar-winning movie Argo. On that occasion, the CIA helped rescue six American embassy workers who were trapped in Iran during the 1979 to 1981 hostage crisis by disguising them as a Canadian film crew that was supposedly scouting the country for shooting locations.

The team running the operation set up a fake production company called Studio Six Productions, with offices in a suite on the old Columbia Studio lot in Hollywood. The company soon announced its first supposed production--a science-fiction movie called Argo--and arranged for full-page adverts in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter to publicize it. Using the cover of the Hollywood production company and the movie, the CIA was then able to get the six embassy workers out of Iran.

Studio Six Productions appeared so convincing that by the time it closed, several weeks after the rescue, it had received 26 scripts, one of which was from Steven Spielberg. The Hollywood community only learned about the deception behind the company and its planned movie 17 years later, when the CIA decided to go public with the story. [57]

WERE 9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS USED AS A COVER?
Seeing how movies had previously been successfully used as a cover for covert operations, we can imagine how films and television shows with plots resembling the events of September 11 might have served as a cover for some of the preparations for the 9/11 attacks. For example, a person working on one of these productions could have used their position to obtain information that would otherwise have been unavailable to them and might have been beneficial for planning 9/11.

Jackie Chan has revealed how his involvement in the movie Nosebleed, about a terrorist plot to blow up the Twin Towers, enabled him to learn about the World Trade Center buildings. "We had visited the location before September 11," he said. "The producer. My manager. We had dinner upstairs. We were getting all kinds of information. I was going to play a window washer, so they were telling me things like how many windows the building had.'' [58] In his preparation for the movie, according to the Orlando Sentinel, Chan learned the "secrets" of the Twin Towers, such as "how air pressure was regulated with doors that might be useful as gags in one of his trademark fights," and "which sides of the buildings one could work on to avoid the wind." [59]

Considering the opportunities the movie thus provided, might Nosebleed have been used by someone who, while working on the film, was secretly involved in planning 9/11 and using their work on the movie as a cover, in order to find out information about the Twin Towers? This person might, for example, have been able to learn about security at the World Trade Center and the layout of the towers, which would have been useful information for anyone who wanted to plant explosives, so as to cause the buildings to collapse on September 11.

Since the movie Till Death Do Us Part, like Nosebleed, would have featured "New York, the World Trade Center, and terrorists," it seems plausible that a person involved in its production could similarly have used their position to obtain information about the WTC.

A production like the TV movie Fall From the Sky could have provided different opportunities for a person who was secretly helping to plan the 9/11 attacks. Since Fall From the Sky would have been about a National Transportation Safety Board official and the investigation of a plane crash, a person working on it might have been able to obtain information that would be useful for covering up the truth of what happened on September 11 in the aftermath of the attacks.

They might have learned what kinds of investigations would follow the plane crashes on September 11 and how the National Transportation Safety Board would respond. Such information could have helped the group planning 9/11 determine how to obstruct the investigations that would follow the attacks.

PRODUCTION TEAM LEARNED 'A LOT OF THINGS MOST PEOPLE DIDN'T KNOW'
The experiences of those who worked on NBC's miniseries Terror, about a series of al-Qaeda attacks in New York, illustrate the many opportunities a television show or movie about terrorism could create for someone who wanted to gather information on the subject.

Those working on Terror did a lot of research, particularly on bioterrorism, for the miniseries. They talked to "top law enforcement people on the state, federal, and local levels" about the subject, according to Dick Wolf. [60] Neil Baer talked to experts at the Rand Corporation think tank and hired a consultant from Stanford University in California. [61]

Those involved with the miniseries also consulted experts at the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Georgia. At one point, Baer said, the FBI talked to them, because their "accumulation of so much information raised a red flag." Baer said that as a result of their research, "We knew a lot of things most people didn't know, because we spoke with so many experts all over the country." [62]

It is worth noting, however, that it would surely only require a small number of complicit individuals for a movie or television series to be used to help with planning the 9/11 attacks. In her book The CIA in Hollywood, Tricia Jenkins noted that when the CIA wants to influence a particular production, its involvement with that production is "shadowy and difficult to trace, especially since its interactions often take place only between two well-placed individuals, either in person or over the phone." [63]

If a movie or TV show was serving as a cover for those planning the 9/11 attacks, most people involved with it would therefore, presumably, have been unaware that they were being used by individuals with murderous intentions, and would have just thought they were working on a normal production.

9/11-STYLE MOVIES AND TV SHOWS NEED FURTHER INVESTIGATION
The fact that numerous movies and television dramas with storylines resembling the events of September 11 were in production at the time of the 9/11 attacks is surely something that requires closer examination, especially in light of the history of cooperation between government agencies and the entertainment industry. And yet, after receiving some attention in the aftermath of the attacks, these productions have been largely forgotten.

There are numerous questions that could be considered as part of a new investigation of 9/11. For example, which individuals came up with the scenarios resembling aspects of the 9/11 attacks for the storylines of these movies and TV shows? Some of the writers have said that scenarios similar to what happened on September 11 were suggested to them by employees of the NSA and the military. So who were those employees and what exactly did they suggest?

Investigators could presumably discover more details of the plots of the TV shows and movies, and obtain copies of the scripts. And it would surely be worth researching whether other productions with storylines resembling the 9/11 attacks were being worked on in September 2001.

Inquiries may well reveal a different story behind the terrorist attacks of September 11 than the official account we were led to believe.

NOTES
[1] David Gates, "Living a New Normal." Newsweek, October 7, 2001.
[2] Some news reports after September 11 claimed that the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building was the terrorists' target in Nosebleed. However, these claims were likely incorrect, as all reports before September 11 stated that the World Trade Center was the target.
[3] Benedict Carver and Chris Petrikin, "NL Wins Chan by a 'Nose.'" Variety, February 7, 1999; Michael Fleming, "Financier Gets Friendly to Forge Shingle." Variety, October 3, 2000; Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check." Entertainment Weekly, September 24, 2001.
[4] Benedict Carver and Chris Petrikin, "NL Wins Chan by a 'Nose'"; Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check."
[5] Jeff Jensen and Benjamin Svetkey, "Script Check"; J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been." Village Voice, December 4, 2001.
[6] Charles Lyons, "MGM Has Chan Plan." Variety, May 24, 2001.
[7] "May 26: In Brief and Casting News." The Guardian, May 26, 2000.
[8] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy." ABC News, September 19, 2001; "Jackie's Great Escape." Empire, September 19, 2001.
[9] Dustin Klass, "Chan Changes Suits for 'Tuxedo.'" Columbia Chronicle, September 23, 2002; Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing." Orlando Sentinel, September 27, 2002.
[10] "The Last Elevator." Morning Edition, NPR, September 11, 2003.
[11] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy."
[12] Dustin Klass, "Chan Changes Suits for 'Tuxedo.'"
[13] "Late Script Kept Chan From Tragedy"; "Jackie's Great Escape"; "Late Script Saved Chan From New York Attack." The Guardian, September 20, 2001.
[14] Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing."
[15] Peter Keough, "Jackie Chan: State of the Art." Boston Phoenix, September 26, 2002.
[16] J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been"; Elise Craig, "Unlucky Breaks: When Hollywood Gets Blindsided by Bad Timing." Wired, July 18, 2012.
[17] Duane Dudek, "Douglas: Escapism of Movies Still Has Value." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 27, 2001.
[18] Anita M. Busch and Beth Laski, "Hollywood Forced to do a Retake on Fall Films." Newsday, September 13, 2001.
[19] Karen Butler, "Billy Crystal's Little Monsters." UPI, November 1, 2001.
[20] Michael Fleming, "'In-Laws' Redo Brews; 'Nam Calls Mel." Variety, November 15, 2000; Zorianna Kit, "Fleming Eyes 'Death' Chair." Hollywood Reporter, January 11, 2002.
[21] Karen Butler, "Billy Crystal's Little Monsters."
[22] Lisa Schwarzbaum, "Movie Review: The In-Laws." Entertainment Weekly, May 30, 2003; "Overview: The In-Laws (2003)." New York Times, n.d.
[23] Bruce Fretts, "The 3rd Degree." Entertainment Weekly, September 7, 2001; Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC." Variety, September 10, 2001.
[24] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf." Los Angeles, April 2002; Gary Levin, "Plot Ideas Ripped From the Headlines." USA Today, December 5, 2002.
[25] Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC."
[26] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf."
[27] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism." Hollywood, Health & Society, April 2, 2002.
[28] Gary Levin, "Plot Ideas Ripped From the Headlines."
[29] Todd Leopold, "Real Life Overwhelms Fiction for 'SVU' Producer." CNN, September 9, 2002.
[30] Michael Fleming, "Terrorism Projects Shelved; a Green Bana?" Variety, September 17, 2001.
[31] Robert Wilonsky, "Amused to Death." Dallas Observer, September 20, 2001; John Leland and Peter Marks, "New Look for Entertainment in a Terror-Conscious World." New York Times, September 24, 2001.
[32] David Everitt, "Pondering a New, Darker Mood for TV." Media Life, September 25, 2001.
[33] Chris Petrikin, "Fox Eyes 'WW3.com' as Tentpole for 1999." Variety, January 26, 1998.
[34] "Did Screenplay Foreshadow September 11?" Fox News, June 3, 2002.
[35] Dana Harris, "Fox, Besson Prepare for Battle." Variety, August 24, 2000.
[36] Andre Salles, "Batavians' Son Carving Career as Hollywood Script Writer." Aurora Beacon-News, June 8, 2007; Manohla Dargis, "Pick Your Poison: Fists or Fireballs." New York Times, June 27, 2007.
[37] Patrick Goldstein, "A Turn of Events, a Change in Plot." Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2001; "Terror Target Tinseltown Boosts Security, Patriotism." Washington Times, December 10, 2001; Kent Williams, "Scary Movies: Terrorism, Hollywood-Style." Baltimore City Paper, January 2, 2002.
[38] J. Hoberman, "All as it Had Been."
[39] Dave McNary, "Martin Campbell to Direct 'Deadline.'" Variety, November 11, 2008.
[40] "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'" Winnipeg Free Press, March 22, 2002.
[41] "Entertainment Briefs." Chicago Sun-Times, August 20, 2001; Army Archerd, "Cooke Joins 'Freedom's Journey.'" Variety, September 19, 2001.
[42] "Entertainment Briefs."
[43] "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'"
[44] Army Archerd, "Gotham Events Should Shine." Variety, September 24, 2001.
[45] Duncan Campbell, "Film Chiefs Search for Softer Subjects." The Observer, September 30, 2001.
[46] Army Archerd, "Cooke Joins 'Freedom's Journey'"; "Film Cancellation a 'Good Call.'"
[47] Army Archerd, "Gotham Events Should Shine."
[48] Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "An Offer They Couldn't Refuse." The Guardian, November 14, 2008.
[49] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood: How the Agency Shapes Film and Television. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2012, p. 1.
[50] Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, "Lights, Camera ... Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood." Global Research, January 21, 2009.
[51] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 1.
[52] "The History of the CIA in Hollywood Movies." The World, PRI, January 11, 2013.
[53] Simon Tomlinson, "Revealed: U.S. Country Star Jerry Naylor Who Replaced Buddy Holly in the Crickets Was a Secret CIA Agent Who Spied for America on 100 Missions." Daily Mail, April 24, 2013.
[54] Antonio J. Mendez, "A Classic Case of Deception." Studies in Intelligence, Winter 1999–2000, p. 4; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 9.
[55] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 94.
[56] Simon Tomlinson, "Revealed: U.S. Country Star Jerry Naylor Who Replaced Buddy Holly in the Crickets Was a Secret CIA Agent Who Spied for America on 100 Missions."
[57] Antonio J. Mendez, "A Classic Case of Deception," pp. 1-16; Joshuah Bearman, "How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran." Wired, April 24, 2007; Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, pp. 9-10, 96.
[58] Robert Denerstein, "Training Gives Chan Natural Kick." Rocky Mountain News, September 28, 2002.
[59] Roger Moore, "Jackie Chan: Seeing is Believing."
[60] Michael Fleming, "'Terror' Tactics at NBC."
[61] Diane K. Shah, "Brotherhood of the Wolf."
[62] "Critical Issues in Writing About Bioterrorism."
[63] Tricia Jenkins, The CIA in Hollywood, p. 69.

Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on 9/11: The Mysterious Plane Crash Site Without a Plane

"This crash was different. There was no wreckage, no
bodies, and no noise."
- Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller [1]

"I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal.
There was nothing."
- Photographer Scott Spangler [2]

"I was amazed because it did not, in any way, shape, or form,
look like a plane crash."
- Patrick Madigan, commander of the Somerset
barracks of the Pennsylvania State Police [3]

Many people who witnessed the site where United Airlines Flight 93 is supposed to have gone down on September 11, 2001, have said how little it resembled what they expected the scene of a plane crash to look like.

According to official accounts, Flight 93, the fourth plane to be hijacked on September 11, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after its courageous passengers and crew members attempted to retake control of their plane. However, numerous individuals who spent time at the supposed crash site have described seeing almost nothing resembling wreckage from a plane there. Some witnesses have recalled seeing little or no human remains at the site. And although Flight 93 was reportedly "heavily laden with jet fuel" when it crashed, investigators found no contamination from jet fuel in the soil and ground water around the site.

There is a lot of suspicious evidence relating to the crash of Flight 93, which casts serious doubt on the official account of what happened. This evidence suggests that what witnesses saw might actually have been the result of an attempt to fake the scene of a plane crash in an appalling act of deception, rather than the site of a genuine crash. The relatively small amount of debris that some witnesses noticed could have been planted. If this is what happened, it would mean the fate of Flight 93 is still unknown.

FLIGHT 93 ALLEGEDLY CRASHED AFTER ITS PASSENGERS REBELLED AGAINST THE HIJACKERS
The official story of Flight 93 is that the plane, a Boeing 757-200, took off from Newark International Airport, New Jersey, at 8:42 a.m. on September 11, bound for San Francisco, California. It had seven crew members and 37 passengers--including four hijackers--on board. The first 46 minutes of its journey proceeded routinely. But at 9:28 a.m., the hijackers seized control of the plane, with the intention of crashing it into either the White House or the Capitol building in Washington, DC.

However, crew members and passengers soon began making phone calls to friends, colleagues, and family members on the ground, to report what was happening, and in those calls learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Realizing that their plane's hijacking was part of a larger attack on America, they made the decision to fight back against the hijackers. They began their assault on the cockpit at 9:57 a.m. In response, the hijackers chose to crash the plane into the ground rather than risk the passengers and crew members retaking control of it.

Flight 93 crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania, near the tiny town of Shanksville, at 10:03 a.m., at a speed of around 580 miles per hour. In its final moments, the plane rolled over, and it crashed flying upside-down and at an angle of 40 degrees, with its right wing and nose hitting the ground first. All on board were killed. [4]

There are, however, serious problems with this account. Perhaps the most striking of these is the fact that, remarkably, a significant amount of evidence indicates that no plane crashed at the location where Flight 93 supposedly went down.

WITNESSES SAW 'NOTHING BUT TINY PIECES OF DEBRIS' AT THE CRASH SCENE
Flight 93 weighed 127 tons when it crashed, according to New York Times reporter and author Jere Longman. [5] And yet numerous individuals, including some of the first people to arrive on the scene, have described the lack of anything resembling plane wreckage at the alleged crash site.

Assistant Fire Chief Rick King, who drove the first fire truck to reach the site, recalled thinking when he arrived: "Where is this plane? And where are the people?" King saw "thousands of tiny pieces scattered around--bits of metal, insulation, wiring--but no fuselage, no wings, only a smoking crater and charred earth." [6] He sent his men into the woods to search for the fuselage, but they kept coming back and telling him, "Rick, there's nothing." [7]

Homer Barron, who also arrived shortly after the crash, has recalled, "It didn't look like a plane crash, because there was nothing that looked like a plane." He added: "I [have] never seen anything like it. Just like a big pile of charcoal." [8]

Jon Meyer, the first reporter on the scene, said he was "able to get right up to the edge of the crater" where Flight 93 supposedly hit the ground. However, he described: "All I saw was a crater filled with small, charred plane parts. Nothing that would even tell you that it was the plane. ... There were no suitcases, no recognizable plane parts, no body parts." [9] Local coroner Wallace Miller, who was also one of the first people to arrive, said the crater looked "like someone took a scrap truck, dug a 10-foot ditch, and dumped all this trash into it." [10]

Frank Monaco of the Pennsylvania State Police said the site looked "like a trash heap." There was "nothing but tiny pieces of debris," he said. "It's just littered with small pieces." [11] According to Monaco, "It didn't look like a plane crash." [12] Scott Spangler, one of the first photographers on the scene, said, "I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal." But, he recalled, "There was nothing, just this pit." "I didn't think I was in the right place," he commented. [13]

And FBI agent Wells Morrison, the crash site commander on September 11, said his first thought upon reaching the scene was, "Where is the plane?" He recalled, "Most of what I saw was this honeycomb looking stuff, which I believe is insulation or something like that." He added, "I was not seeing anything that was distinguishable either as human remains or aircraft debris." [14]

SCENE WAS UNLIKE A CRASH SITE
A number of witnesses stated specifically that they thought the scene appeared unlike the site of a plane crash. Lyle Szupinka, an area commander of the Pennsylvania State Police, said that when he arrived, "There was pieces of debris, small pieces of debris laying everywhere, and there were a lot of papers blowing around, and the ground was on fire." The debris, he said, was "very, very small." But, he added, "There was actually nothing to tell you that that was an aircraft." Szupinka commented, "Had you not known that that was an aircraft crash, you would've looked at that and you would've said something happened here, but I don't know what." [15]

Local resident John Maslak was one of the first people to arrive at the site, and saw the crater where Flight 93 supposedly went into the ground. A state trooper told him a plane had crashed there. But, Maslak has commented: "There was no way. The hole wasn't big enough and there was nothing there." [16]

Patrick Madigan, a commander with the Pennsylvania State Police, described: "When I looked at the pit, I didn't realize that was where the plane had crashed. I thought, at first, that it was a burn pit for the coal company." A fireman said this was where the plane went into the ground. "I was amazed," Madigan recalled, "because it did not, in any way, shape, or form, look like a plane crash. I thought I would see recognizable plane parts. But at the pit, there was nothing that looked like a plane." [17] Craig Bowman, a colleague of Madigan's, recalled: "Until that point, I had never been to a large plane crash. I was thinking that I should be seeing parts of the plane, seats, etc." However, he said, "There was nothing that was recognizable to me as a plane." [18]

William Baker, of the Somerset County Emergency Management Agency, recalled: "When they said it was a 757, I looked out across the debris field. I said, 'There is no way there is a 757 scattered here.'" Baker said, "The biggest piece of debris I saw would have probably fit in my pocket." [19] And Paul Bomboy, a paramedic who responded to the initial call for help, commented: "It was a very strange thing that there weren't normal things going on that you would have expected. When a plane crashes, there is a plane and there are patients." [20]

Michael Soohy, a veteran FBI agent, had been to the sites of plane crashes before and expected to see "chaos, bodies, [and] a hulking wreck of a jet." But, he commented, "I don't think anyone expected to see what they didn't see." [21]

FLIGHT 93 WAS APPARENTLY 'SWALLOWED' INTO THE GROUND
Some witnesses have said it appeared as if Flight 93 had been "swallowed" into the ground. Bob Weaver, the ranking Pennsylvania state trooper at the alleged crash site, recalled: "I was totally amazed that this big plane was just swallowed up in the ground. ... It took a while for it to sink in that there was an airplane in there." [22] Michael Soohy suggested that the moment the plane hit the ground must have been "almost like a dart hitting a pile of flour. ... The plane went in and the stuff back-filled right over it." [23] And Fire Chief Terry Shaffer said he thought that "the earth literally opened, swallowed the aircraft, and closed up." [24]

Bob Craig, the head of the Pittsburgh FBI's evidence response team, later described what supposedly happened, saying, "Turn the picture of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center on its side and, for all intents and purposes, the face of the building is the strip mine in Shanksville." [25]

It has been suggested that the softness of the soil into which Flight 93 supposedly crashed was a factor. The site where the plane allegedly went down was a reclaimed coal strip mine. This means that a few years earlier, the ground had been excavated down to a coal vein, the coal had been removed, and then the earth had been replaced. The ground was therefore relatively soft and consequently, as firefighters involved in the recovery effort described, "the Boeing 757 tunneled right in." [26]

But even though Flight 93 supposedly disappeared into the earth, the crater allegedly made when it hit the ground seems to have been too small for this to have been the case. Frank Monaco told reporters that the "V-shaped gouge" created by the plane was "eight to 10 feet deep and 15 to 20 feet long." [27] Roger Bailey, of the Somerset Volunteer Fire Department, recalled that the crater "wasn't deep. Ten to 12 feet deep." Bailey said he "thought it was a hole that they had dug to burn garbage." [28]

John Maslak estimated that the crater was "maybe 25 feet wide and 40 feet long," and "ten to 15 feet deep." [29] After the ground had been excavated in order to recover the wreckage of the plane, the crater was still only 35 feet deep, according to the FBI. [30]

Flight 93 had a wingspan of 125 feet, a tail height of 44 feet, and was 155 feet long. [31] Is it really possible that such a large plane, when it hit the ground, would make a crater only about 40 feet across and 25 feet wide, and disappear entirely into soil just 35 feet deep? As reporter Jon Meyer commented, "You just can't believe a whole plane went into this crater." [32]

How then can we explain the almost complete absence of anything resembling a plane at the alleged crash site? Surely, witnesses would have seen a lot more wreckage if a Boeing 757 did indeed go down there. A possibility that needs to be considered, therefore, is that Flight 93 did not crash in this field near Shanksville. The relatively small amount of wreckage that was seen there could have been planted as part of a sophisticated attempt at faking the scene of a plane crash. The intention of the perpetrators was to deceive the public into believing that Flight 93 did indeed crash at this site.

INVESTIGATORS FOUND NO JET FUEL IN THE GROUND
There is a lot more evidence supporting this possibility. For example, reports indicate that, incredibly, no jet fuel was found in the soil and ground water around where Flight 93 supposedly crashed.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) began taking samples of soil and well water from around the site about a week after 9/11, to see if they had been contaminated by Flight 93's fuel or other toxic materials. [33] Flight 93 was estimated to have been carrying about 7,000 gallons of fuel, weighing about 37,500 pounds, when it crashed. [34] But David Bomba, a DEP hydrogeologist, told local residents that the first samples of soil and water to be tested had been found to be clean. [35] And a couple of weeks later, at the beginning of October 2001, the DEP reported that "no contamination" had been discovered. [36] DEP spokeswoman Betsy Mallison said that, "whether it burned away or evaporated, much of [the plane's fuel] seems to have dissipated." [37]

United Airlines contracted a company, Environmental Resources Management, Inc., to document soil and water quality at the alleged crash site. That company issued a final report in September 2002, which described the results of environmental sampling. The report concluded that "surface soils, subsurface soils, and ground water beneath the site did not exceed any state health standards and did not require any remediation." Furthermore, according to the report, "None of the surface water results indicated any contamination that could be attributed to the Flight 93 crash." [38]

Curiously, despite the absence of jet fuel in the soil, "hot spots" sometimes erupted in the crater where Flight 93 supposedly crashed. Investigators reported that these flared up as early as the morning of September 12. [39] An excavator was subsequently used to remove soil from the crater, to help investigators recover wreckage and body fragments that were buried there. [40] According to volunteer firefighter Barry Kister, "The Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department was called in occasionally, because somebody would dig into a hot spot and that would cause a little fire." [41] Whether any attempt was made to determine the cause of these "hot spots" is unclear.

WITNESSES SAW 'NO HUMAN REMAINS' AT THE CRASH SITE
An important feature of the alleged crash site, which casts further doubt on the claim that Flight 93 went down there, is that, as well as the absence of plane wreckage, witnesses noticed a lack of human remains there.

There were 44 people on Flight 93 on September 11, who were calculated to have weighed about 7,000 pounds in total. [42] And yet Jeff Phillips, one of the first people to arrive at the supposed crash site, recalled, "The only thing we saw that was even remotely human was half a shoe that was probably 10 feet from the impact area." [43] Dave Fox, a former firefighter, also arrived shortly after the crash. All he saw that resembled human remains were three chunks of torn human tissue. "You knew there were people there, but you couldn't see them," Fox has commented. [44] Kelly Leverknight, a local resident who drove to the crash scene with a neighbor, recalled, "We didn't think there were people on the plane because we didn't see anybody." [45]

Lyle Szupinka, of the Pennsylvania State Police, told an interviewer, "If you've ever been to a bad airplane crash, they're nasty with the human remains and what have you." Therefore, he said: "When I was going to that site, I was preparing myself that basically this wasn't going to be a pretty scene. This was going to [be] nasty." But, Szupinka recalled: "When I got there, I was surprised to find that I saw no human remains. None whatsoever." [46]

Wallace Miller, the Somerset County coroner, was reportedly "familiar with scenes of sudden and violent death." "I've seen a lot of highway fatalities where there's fragmentation," he said. But after walking around the site for an hour, the only recognizable body part he had seen was a piece of spinal cord with five vertebrae attached. [47] "It appeared as though there were no passengers or crew on this plane," Miller has commented. [48] A year after 9/11, he said: "This is the most eerie thing. I have not, to this day, seen a single drop of blood. Not a drop." [49]

LARGE AMOUNT OF PAPER DEBRIS SURVIVED THE CRASH
However, although witnesses noticed a surprising lack of plane wreckage and human remains at the supposed crash site, large quantities of paper debris were seen and recovered from there.

Kelly Leverknight recalled seeing "a bunch of paper." [50] Faye Hahn, an emergency medical technician, said she saw "papers everywhere." Upon inspection, she found these were "pieces of mail." [51] Roger Bailey recalled that "mail was scattered everywhere." And Rick King similarly recalled, "There was mail scattered everywhere." [52]

Lee Purbaugh, one of the first people to arrive on the scene, initially thought the aircraft that crashed "was just a cargo plane carrying some mail, because when he ran up to the actual scene, he didn't notice any carnage, just some mail around," according to the Daily American. [53] According to Jere Longman, the items Purbaugh saw included "envelopes with California addresses, magazines, [and] paper on the ground and in the trees." Some of the envelopes were burned but others were undamaged. [54]

The Independent reported that Flight 93 was carrying "7,500 pounds of mail to California" when it crashed. [55] According to Roger Bailey, in the days after September 11, pieces of mail found at the crash scene would be gathered into a recycling bin and, periodically, the post office would send a mail truck to take away a load. [56]

But if the official account of what happened to Flight 93 was correct, surely fragile and flammable paper items would have been far more likely to be destroyed in the crash than human remains and metal plane wreckage. And yet paper seems to have been the material most able to survive intact. Could this have been because the paper debris was--like the debris resembling plane wreckage--somehow planted at the scene, as part of the attempt at creating the appearance of a plane having crashed there?

PAPER DEBRIS INCLUDED ITEMS BELONGING TO THE ALLEGED HIJACKERS
Some paper items discovered at the crash scene played a role in supporting the official account of the 9/11 attacks and who was responsible for them. For example, according to FBI agents who were involved in the recovery effort, items made of paper and other fragile materials that belonged to the alleged hijackers were found. These included driver's licenses, identification cards, passports, a credit card, receipts, tickets, a red bandana, pages from the Koran, and "a checklist reminding the terrorists to blend in when boarding planes and instructing them to 'shave their beards.'" Referring to items found at the supposed crash site of Flight 93, FBI agent A. Todd McCall said the hijackers "thought their identification would be destroyed during the attacks," but, he added, "They were wrong." [57]

But if the real perpetrators of the attacks included people who worked for the U.S. military and other government agencies, planting such items as these would have had obvious benefits. The presence of these items at the crash scene would have diverted suspicion away from the actual perpetrators and focused it instead onto Muslim terrorists.

Other paper items that remarkably survived intact included a couple of Bibles. Several witnesses noticed one of these at the crash scene. [58] Terry Shaffer and Sam Wills recalled seeing "very little debris ... scattered around the smoldering impact crater left by the plane." However, they said that "about 15 yards from the pit ... lay an obviously well-used Bible that, oddly, was unscorched." [59] Wallace Miller saw the other Bible that was found at the crash scene in a warehouse where victims' belongings were kept. [60]

Might these Bibles have been planted as propaganda for the "war on terror" that the 9/11 attacks would initiate? Perhaps they were meant to symbolize the "good" Christian passengers and crew members on Flight 93 who had courageously and selflessly taken on "evil" Muslim terrorists.

FLIGHT 93'S BLACK BOXES WERE FOUND AT DIFFERENT LOCATIONS IN THE GROUND
Another detail that suggests debris was planted at the alleged crash site is the locations where Flight 93's "black boxes" were found. The two black boxes on a plane are the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. All commercial aircraft carry these devices, which record a plane's condition and performance while it is in flight. They are mounted in the tail of an aircraft. [61]

Flight 93's black boxes were found in the crater at the alleged crash site. The flight data recorder was recovered late in the afternoon of September 13 and the cockpit voice recorder was recovered during the evening of September 14. [62] Significantly, although the black boxes are located next to each other on a plane, those from Flight 93 were found at different depths in the ground. The flight data recorder was found 15 feet into the crater and the cockpit voice recorder 25 feet into it. [63]

FBI agent Wells Morrison commented: "It was strange. The black boxes are right next to each other on the aircraft, but one was found 13 feet deeper into the crater than the other." In other words, had Flight 93 really crashed at this location, the black boxes should have been found in the same place. The fact that they weren't suggests they were planted at the site, but had carelessly been placed at different depths in the soil. Morrison also commented that FBI agents had been "surprised, quite honestly, that we didn't find [the black boxes] sooner." [64]

DEBRIS WAS FOUND MILES AWAY FROM THE ALLEGED CRASH SITE
Another problem with the official account of what happened to Flight 93 is the fact that debris, apparently from the crash, was found far away from the site where the plane is supposed to have gone down.

Part of a plane's engine, weighing about 1,000 pounds, was recovered "a considerable distance" from the alleged crash site, according to Lyle Szupinka. [65] John Marshall, a state police fire marshal and criminal investigator who found this piece of wreckage, said it was "600 yards from the crash site." [66]

Other wreckage was found near a pond by firefighter Mike Sube and a couple of his colleagues. This included "a portion of the landing gear and the fuselage," according to Sube. Sube said that "one of the tires was still intact with the bracket, and probably about three to five windows of the fuselage were actually in one piece lying there." [67]

Some debris was found around Indian Lake, about three miles from the main crash scene. [68] Carol Delasko, who worked at Indian Lake Marina, said that moments after the crash apparently occurred, she saw a cloud of debris, several hundred feet across, above the lake. [69] "It just looked like confetti raining down all over the air above the lake," she described. [70]

Tom Spinelli, who also worked at the marina, said the debris was "mainly mail, bits of in-flight magazine, and scraps of seat cloth." [71] Brad Boyer, who was fishing on the lake on the morning of September 11, recalled that he heard "a huge bang" and then the sky "rained garbage." The debris he saw included "paper" and "tinfoil--little pieces of it." [72] Some of the debris landed on Terry Lowery's nearby farm. Lowery said it comprised "paper, insulation, and mail." [73]

On the morning of September 12, debris began washing up on the shore of the lake. This included "something that looked like a rib bone amid pieces of seats, small chunks of melted plastic, and checks," according to marina employee John Fleegle. [74]

Furthermore, some lightweight debris was found in the borough of New Baltimore, about eight miles from the supposed crash site and separated from it by a mountain ridge. [75] One New Baltimore resident, Melanie Hankinson, had been told by a neighbor, "There was a loud bang and smoke, and then these papers started blowing through your yard." [76] Hankinson subsequently found "several financial documents, an airline magazine, a pilot handbook, and other small pieces of debris." [77] She recalled, "There was some black webbing"--apparently from insulation that had lined the belly of the plane. "A lot of people found that," she added. [78]

DEBRIS WAS RISING INTO THE AIR
The existence of these debris fields away from the main crash scene has led some people to suggest that Flight 93 either came down after a bomb on board exploded, or was shot down by a U.S. military fighter jet. [79] However, the amount of material discovered at these sites seems to have been fairly small, presumably a lot less than would have been found had an airliner weighing over 100 tons started breaking up in mid-air. For example, FBI agents eventually only carted away "a large garbage bag full of debris" that they recovered from Indian Lake, according to John Fleegle. [80] And the debris found in New Baltimore seems to have been a fairly small amount of paper and other lightweight material.

What is more, Carol Delasko said the cloud of confetti-like debris she saw over Indian Lake had been "rising about 200 feet into the air" around the time the crash apparently occurred. [81] Had this debris come from an aircraft breaking up in mid-air, it surely would not have been "rising." And Brad Boyer said the material he saw coming down onto the lake included "leaves. A lot of leaves." [82] Surely leaves would not have fallen out of an aircraft disintegrating in the sky.

As well as being inconsistent with the official account of what happened to Flight 93, therefore, the evidence relating to the additional debris fields appears inconsistent with the alternative theories that the plane was brought down by a bomb or by a missile fired from a fighter jet. Might the debris at these locations instead have been planted somehow, like the debris at the main crash scene, to add to the impression that Flight 93 went down in this part of rural Pennsylvania?

COTTAGE IN THE WOODS WAS TURNED INTO 'A TOTAL RUIN'
Another notable piece of evidence is the damage that was suffered by a cottage near the alleged crash site. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that "every window and door" of the cottage "had been blown off and obliterated, [the cottage's] ceilings and floor tiles had been blasted loose, and much of the interior was wrecked." [83] Furniture had been tossed around, the refrigerator was twisted backwards and shoved away from the wall, and items had been thrown from the cupboards onto the floor. [84]

Barry Hoover, the man who lived in the cottage, found a large amount of debris, apparently from Flight 93, surrounding his home, including "papers strewn everywhere ... small pieces of wire all over ... just a lot of small bits of fragmented debris." [85] Now & Then magazine reported that the impact of debris from the plane made the cottage "structurally unsound, shifting it an inch and a half off the foundation." [86]

The garage next to the cottage was also badly damaged, with its door turned "inside out and upside down." Local solicitor Daniel Rullo recalled, "The way it was described to me was that [the garage door] must have been blown up, the springs snapped, and it came back upside down." [87]

COTTAGE WAS SUPPOSEDLY DAMAGED BY THE 'SHOCK WAVE' FROM THE CRASH
The damage to Barry Hoover's cottage was reportedly caused by "the shock waves set off" when Flight 93 hit the ground. [88] The Washington Post described, "The shock wave from Flight 93 ... spewed debris through the woods with such force that it blew out all the windows and doors, and shook the foundation on Barry's place." [89]

And yet it seems odd that this cottage suffered such significant damage, especially considering that there was so little damage at the site where Flight 93 supposedly went down. For example, Patrick Madigan recalled that at the alleged crash site, "All there was was a hole in the ground and a smoking debris pile." [90] William Baker commented that the crash scene "really didn't look like anything major." [91] Barry Hoover said that his cottage, meanwhile, "looked like what you see after a tornado or hurricane goes through--a total ruin." [92]

Hoover's cottage was reportedly located "a few hundred yards away" from where Flight 93 supposedly crashed. [93] It was also "nestled in a thick stand of trees." [94] Why then was it so badly damaged? Might the damage have been created by the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, as part of their attempt at fabricating evidence to support the official account of what happened to Flight 93?

LARGE QUANTITIES OF PLANE WRECKAGE AND HUMAN REMAINS WERE LATER FOUND
Even though numerous witnesses have said they saw little or no plane wreckage at the alleged crash site of Flight 93, after searching the area for just 12 days, the FBI announced that it had completed its work at the site and claimed it had recovered 95 percent of the plane from there. [95] And despite the lack of human remains that witnesses noticed, searchers were subsequently able to find about 1,500 pieces of human tissue around the site, according to the Washington Post, which together weighed about 600 pounds. [96] Although this was only around eight percent of the total weight of those on the plane, it was still a considerable amount in light of the accounts of witnesses who made comments such as, "I was surprised to find that I saw no human remains."

A possibility that should be investigated, considering this discrepancy between the accounts of witnesses and the claims that significant amounts of plane wreckage and human remains were found, is that debris was planted at the alleged crash site in the days after 9/11, during the recovery effort.

It appears there may have been a period when work at the site stopped, during which this could have happened. On Monday, September 17, relatives of the passengers and crew members on Flight 93 visited the crash scene. [97] Tom Bender, a therapist who helped support those involved with the recovery effort, recalled that "machines"--presumably digging equipment--that were being used at the site had to be stopped that day. Some workers later complained: "Why did they make us stop when all the families came? I would have wanted to see people digging and working, trying to find my uncle's body."

When the recovery effort resumed, workers had much more success in finding wreckage, including evidence connecting the alleged terrorists to what happened on Flight 93. Bender recalled that following the victims' relatives' visit to the site, he "started hearing reports that [recovery workers] were finding a lot more evidence than they ever expected. 'Bad guy stuff' was the terminology that I heard used." Bender added, "This apparently was a rich place for evidence." [98] Could this have been because debris was planted around the time work stopped for the relatives' visit?

Two days after the relatives' visit, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, "As investigators have delved deeper below the impact point, the material unearthed has become increasingly larger and more recognizable than the extremely fragmented debris found nearer the surface." FBI spokesman William Crowley stated, "As they go deeper, they're finding material that's more significant; I'll leave it at that." [99] Much of the plane wreckage was reportedly found "buried 20 to 25 feet below the large crater." [100]

CONFLICTING EVIDENCE OF WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CRASH SITE
Evidence relating to the crash of Flight 93 is filled with contradictions, like the claim that much of the aircraft was recovered from the crash scene, even though witnesses had seen almost nothing resembling plane wreckage there. Rick King even noted contradictions between separate pieces of evidence he observed himself. King, who lived in Shanksville, had been standing on his front porch when the crash apparently took place. He later recalled hearing "like a whining, screaming noise of the engines," and then seconds later, he said, "the ground shook underneath my feet. I mean my porch, the house, everything just rumbled." [101]

When he arrived at the crash scene, however, he could see "nothing really identifiable as far as a plane." [102] Seeing, instead, pieces of mail "scattered everywhere," King began thinking that "maybe this wasn't a commercial airliner" that had crashed. "Maybe it was a mail plane or a Learjet or a commuter plane." But, he commented: "I couldn't put that together with the explosion I had heard and felt. It had to be something with a lot of fuel to make that sound and that rumble two miles away in town." [103]

Surely if the official story of Flight 93 was true, there would be more consistency between different pieces of evidence of the crash, since they all would have originated from the same event. The contradictions between separate pieces of evidence are therefore another indication that, rather than Flight 93 having crashed in the field near Shanksville, evidence was created and debris was planted to deceive people into thinking that was what happened.

The fact that there was so much suspicious and contradictory evidence, and that the many anomalies regarding the crash have never been adequately explained, means that the fate of Flight 93 is still unknown. There are a lot of questions that urgently need to be addressed.

For example, if debris that was intended to appear as if it came from a plane crash was planted at the alleged crash site, when and how was it put there? Who planted it? Importantly, if Flight 93 did not crash in this field in Pennsylvania, what happened to it? What was the fate of its unfortunate passengers and crew? And who was behind this outrageous act?

These questions need to be examined as part of a rigorous new investigation of the 9/11 attacks, in which investigators diligently follow the evidence wherever it leads. Until that happens, the fate of Flight 93 should be regarded as an unsolved crime.

NOTES
[1] David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph. Johnstown, PA: Noah's Ark Publishing Company, 2002, p. 86.
[2] Newseum With Cathy Trost and Alicia C. Shepard, Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11. Lanham., MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, p. 149.
[3] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash: Flight 93 Aftermath--An Oral and Pictorial Chronicle. Somerset, PA: SAJ Publishing, 2002, p. 60.
[4] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 10-14; "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Flight 93 National Memorial." National Park Service, July 2011.
[5] Jere Longman, "Flight 93: Refusing to Give in Without a Fight." New York Times, September 11, 2002.
[6] Michael Cowden, "Memories of Flight 93 Crash Still Fresh at 5-Year Anniversary." Associated Press, September 3, 2006.
[7] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 216.
[8] "The Crash in Somerset: 'It Dropped Out of the Clouds.'" Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 12, 2001.
[9] Newseum With Cathy Trost and Alicia C. Shepard, Running Toward Danger, p. 148.
[10] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground." Washington Post, May 12, 2002.
[11] "The Crash in Somerset: 'It Dropped Out of the Clouds.'"
[12] Michael Cowden, "Memories of Flight 93 Crash Still Fresh at 5-Year Anniversary."
[13] Newseum With Cathy Trost and Alicia C. Shepard, Running Toward Danger, p. 149.
[14] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 110.
[15] Richard Gazarik and Robin Acton, "Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 14, 2001; "Oral History Interview of Major Lyle H. Szupinka." Pennsylvania State Police Historical, Educational & Memorial Center, May 31, 2007.
[16] Patty Yauger, "Tribute Flags Serve as Reminder of Attack Victims, Terror War's Costs." Uniontown Herald-Standard‎, June 16, 2005; "Never Forget: New 9/11 Scholarships Help Students." WINK News Now, November 10, 2011.
[17] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 59-60.
[18] Ibid. p. 64.
[19] Ibid. p. 43.
[20] David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph, p. 25.
[21] Michael Cowden, "Memories of Flight 93 Crash Still Fresh at 5-Year Anniversary."
[22] Sally Kalson, "Voices of 9/11: Witness, First Responder, Coroner, Relative." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 30, 2012.
[23] Michael Cowden, "Memories of Flight 93 Crash Still Fresh at 5-Year Anniversary."
[24] Susan Nicol Kyle, "Pennsylvania Firefighters Share Bond With Flight 93 Families." Firehouse, September 11, 2008.
[25] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 260.
[26] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 121; Wes Allison, "Small Town Shoulders a Nation's Grief." St. Petersburg Times, September 10, 2003.
[27] "Jet Crashes Near Somerset; Passenger Reported Hijacking in Phone Call." Associated Press, September 11, 2001.
[28] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 130.
[29] Patty Yauger, "Tribute Flags Serve as Reminder of Attack Victims, Terror War's Costs"; "Never Forget: New 9/11 Scholarships Help Students."
[30] "Response and Recovery: Shanksville, Pennsylvania." Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.
[31] "757-200 Technical Characteristics." Boeing, n.d.
[32] Newseum With Cathy Trost and Alicia C. Shepard, Running Toward Danger, p. 148.
[33] Steve Levin and Tom Barnes, "Flight 93 Relatives Gathering for Service." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 17, 2001; Mike O'Brien, "More Than 70 Agencies Involved in Flight 93 Crash Investigation." Daily American, September 20, 2001.
[34] John O'Callaghan and Daniel Bower, "Study of Autopilot, Navigation Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 Digital Flight Data Recorder Information." National Transportation Safety Board, February 13, 2002; "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Flight 93 National Memorial."
[35] Mike O'Brien, "More Than 70 Agencies Involved in Flight 93 Crash Investigation."
[36] Tom Gibb, "Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 2001.
[37] "Environmental Restoration Begins at Somerset Site." Pittsburgh Channel, October 2, 2001.
[38] Robert E. McCleery, Summary of Evidence for Establishing Dates on Which Cleanup of the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania Sites of the Terrorist-Related Aircraft Crashes of September 11, 2001 Concluded. World Trade Center Health Program, February 8, 2012, pp. v-vi, 21-23.
[39] Mike Wagner and Ken McCall, "Calls Suggest Passengers Thwarted Hijackers." Dayton Daily News, September 13, 2001.
[40] Mary Jo Dangel, "Sacred Ground in Pennsylvania." St. Anthony Messenger, September 2006; "Response and Recovery: Shanksville, Pennsylvania."
[41] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 56.
[42] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground."
[43] David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph, pp. 29-30.
[44] Robb Frederick, "The Day That Changed America." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 11, 2002.
[45] Bobbie Black, "Witnesses Recall Plane Crash." Daily American, September 12, 2001.
[46] "Oral History Interview of Major Lyle H. Szupinka."
[47] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 217; Gerard Wright, "On Hallowed Ground." The Age, September 9, 2002.
[48] David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph, pp. 86-87.
[49] Robb Frederick, "The Day That Changed America."
[50] Bobbie Black, "Witnesses Recall Plane Crash."
[51] David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph, pp. 31-32.
[52] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 32, 38.
[53] Sandra Lepley, "International Terror Touches Somerset County." Daily American, September 12, 2001.
[54] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, pp. 213-214.
[55] John Carlin, "Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93." The Independent, August 13, 2002.
[56] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 129.
[57] Jeremy Boren, "Investigators Had to Improvise at Somerset County Crash Site." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 4, 2011; Paul Peirce, "Investigators Tell of Emotions Associated With United 93 Crash." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 10, 2012.
[58] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 43, 110; Susan Nicol Kyle, "Pennsylvania Firefighters Share Bond With Flight 93 Families"; Jerry Bowyer, "Flight 93, the Crater, and the Open Book." American Vision, September 12, 2009; Dennis McCafferty, "Legionnaire Found Miracle in Flight 93 Debris." American Legion, September 9, 2010.
[59] Mike Masterson, "Flight 93: A Hallowed Field." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 13, 2006.
[60] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground."
[61] "Setback Over Pittsburgh Black Box." BBC News, September 15, 2001.
[62] Tom Gibb, James O'Toole, and Cindi Lash, "Investigators Locate 'Black Box' From Flight 93; Widen Search Area in Somerset Crash." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 13, 2001; Matthew P. Smith, "Flight 93 Voice Recorder Found in Somerset County Crash Site." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 15, 2001.
[63] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 217; "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): Flight 93 National Memorial."
[64] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 115.
[65] Richard Gazarik and Robin Acton, "Black Box Recovered at Shanksville Site"; Dick White, "Town Embraces Role it Never Sought." New Bedford Standard-Times, September 11, 2002.
[66] Joe Pinchot, "Flight 93 Probe Involved Trooper With Local Ties." Sharon Herald, October 8, 2001.
[67] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 36-37.
[68] "'Black Box' From Pennsylvania Crash Found." CNN, September 13, 2001.
[69] James O'Toole, Tom Gibb, and Cindi Lash, "Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 14, 2001.
[70] Debra Erdley, "Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 14, 2001.
[71] Richard Wallace, "What Did Happen to Flight 93?" Daily Mirror, September 12, 2002.
[72] Dennis Roddy, "Flight 93 Work is a Major Stressor for Somerset Coroner." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 3, 2001.
[73] James O'Toole, Tom Gibb, and Cindi Lash, "Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight."
[74] Debra Erdley, "Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away."
[75] "'Black Box' From Pennsylvania Crash Found"; Debra Erdley, "Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away."
[76] Dennis Roddy, "A Year After Explosive Discord, Town Still Seeks Harmony." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 11, 2002.
[77] Mike Wagner and Ken McCall, "Plane Damaged Before Crash." Dayton Daily News, September 14, 2001.
[78] Dennis Roddy, "A Year After Explosive Discord, Town Still Seeks Harmony."
[79] See William Bunch, "We Know it Crashed, But Not Why." Philadelphia Daily News, November 15, 2001; John Carlin, "Unanswered Questions: The Mystery of Flight 93"; Richard Wallace, "What Did Happen to Flight 93?"
[80] Debra Erdley, "Crash Debris Found 8 Miles Away."
[81] James O'Toole, Tom Gibb, and Cindi Lash, "Flight Data Recorder May Hold Clues to Suicide Flight."
[82] Dennis Roddy, "Flight 93 Work is a Major Stressor for Somerset Coroner."
[83] Cindi Lash, "Flight 93 Crash Shook His House Like a Tornado." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 14, 2001.
[84] Janet Frank Atkinson, "Pride and Sorrow: Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and the Aftermath of September 11." Now & Then, Spring 2002.
[85] "Life After Death: Can an Explosion Echo Forever?" Los Angeles Times, October 21, 2001.
[86] Janet Frank Atkinson, "Pride and Sorrow."
[87] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 122.
[88] Cindi Lash, "Flight 93 Crash Shook His House Like a Tornado."
[89] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground."
[90] Michael Cowden, "Memories of Flight 93 Crash Still Fresh at 5-Year Anniversary."
[91] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 43.
[92] Cindi Lash, "Flight 93 Crash Shook His House Like a Tornado."
[93] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground."
[94] Cindi Lash, "Flight 93 Crash Shook His House Like a Tornado."
[95] Tom Gibb, "FBI Ends Site Work, Says no Bomb Used." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 25, 2001.
[96] Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground."
[97] James O'Toole, Michael A. Fuoco, and Tom Gibb, "First Lady Meets Flight 93 Families at Somerset Site." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 18, 2001; Vicki Haddock, "Heroes of Flight 93 Honored." San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2001.
[98] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 146.
[99] Tom Gibb and James O'Toole, "Support of Strangers in Somerset County a Boost to Survivors of Flight 93 Victims." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 19, 2001.
[100] Dick White, "Town Embraces Role it Never Sought."
[101] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 29.
[102] "First Fireman on Scene of Flight 93 Crash Reflects on 9/11." WFMY News 2, September 6, 2011.
[103] Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 32-33.

'Don't Mention This to Anyone': Why Did American Airlines Suppress News of the First Hijacking on 9/11?

American Airlines employees who were dealing with phone calls made by two flight attendants on Flight 11--the first plane to be hijacked on September 11, 2001--were told by their superiors to keep quiet about what they had learned about the unfolding crisis. At a time when the airline should have been alerting as many people as possible to the serious incident that the flight attendants were describing, senior personnel were instead issuing instructions such as "Don't spread this around" and "I don't want this spread all over this office right now."

Furthermore, airline employees who were aware of the flight attendants' calls were remarkably slow to pass on what they knew to individuals and agencies that should have been alerted as a matter of urgency, such as the FBI, the FAA, and even American Airlines senior managers.

With two of its aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks, American Airlines had an important role to play on September 11. But no explanations have been given for the actions of key personnel who appear to have deliberately hindered its response to the hijacking of Flight 11. It is therefore important that we now examine closely the behavior of American Airlines staff that day.

TWO FLIGHT ATTENDANTS PHONED AMERICAN AIRLINES OFFICES
A number of American Airlines employees were among the first people to be alerted to the crisis taking place in the skies over America on September 11. They learned what was happening on American Airlines Flight 11 from two flight attendants--Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney--who made phone calls from the hijacked plane.

Betty Ong called the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, at 8:18 a.m., about four minutes after Flight 11 is thought to have been hijacked. Over the next 25 minutes, she described what was happening on her plane to a number of reservations office employees. [1]

One of the employees, Nydia Gonzalez, soon realized the seriousness of the situation and, at 8:21 a.m., called the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center on a separate phone line, to alert it to the emergency. [2] The SOC, in Fort Worth, Texas, "coordinates the day-to-day, minute-by-minute operation" of American Airlines. [3] Gonzalez talked to Craig Marquis, the manager on duty there, and kept him updated with the information Ong was providing until contact with the flight attendant was lost, shortly before 8:46 a.m., when Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. [4]

Amy Sweeney made three phone calls to the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston, and in them described the catastrophic events on her plane. The first two calls, made at 8:25 a.m. and 8:29 a.m., got disconnected after less than two minutes. But Sweeney's third call, at 8:32 a.m., stayed connected until around 8:44 a.m. or 8:45 a.m. [5]

AIRLINE EMPLOYEES WERE TOLD TO KEEP QUIET ABOUT THE HIJACKING
Ong and Sweeney made it clear, in their calls, that a serious crisis was taking place, lives were in danger, and anything could happen next. And yet recordings of phone calls have shown that, rather than making as much noise as possible to alert people to the emergency, senior American Airlines personnel seemed intent on suppressing the information provided by the two flight attendants.

A parent of one victim of the 9/11 attacks, who was a veteran flight attendant for United Airlines, was highly critical of the attitude of these individuals after she heard the recorded calls. "It was disgusting," she said. "The very first response was cover-up, when they should have been broadcasting this information all over the place." [6]

Transcripts of calls recorded at the American Airlines SOC reveal numerous occasions when senior personnel instructed their colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking of Flight 11. These are described below:

i) Dispatcher Was Told Not to 'Spread Around' News of the Hijacking
At 8:25 a.m., SOC manager Craig Marquis called Peggy Houck, a flight dispatcher at the SOC, and asked her to try and contact the pilot of Flight 11. Marquis gave Houck several details of what was happening on the plane. He said the "number three flight attendant"--Betty Ong--had contacted the airline's reservations office in Cary and reported that there was "a passenger on board that's stabbing this flight attendant." He added that Ong had been "trying to get hold of the cockpit crew and she can't get through, and the cockpit cabin door is closed." After Houck said she would try to contact the pilot, Marquis told her: "Don't spread this around. This is between you and me right now, okay?" Houck answered, "Okay." [7]

ii) Airline Employee Told, 'We Don't Want This Getting Out'
Then, shortly after 8:25 a.m., when Amy Sweeney had made her first call to the American Airlines flight services office at Logan Airport, an American Airlines employee at the airport called the SOC to ask about the hijacked plane. The employee, whose name is unreported, talked to Ray Howland, a sector manager at the SOC. He told Howland that he was on the phone with someone at the flight services office, who said they'd "got a call from a flight attendant" on a plane that "might have been hijacked." Howland clarified for the caller that the plane involved in the incident was Flight 11, but then instructed him to keep the news of the possible hijacking to himself. Howland said, "We don't want this getting out." He added: "We're aware of the situation. We're dealing with it right now. So let us deal with it." He then told the caller, again, "We don't want anything getting out right now." The airline employee replied: "Nothing said. Okay." [8]

iii) Operations Center Manager Didn't Want News 'Spread All Over'
At around 8:30 a.m., at the SOC, Craig Marquis told Mike Mulcahy, the manager of SOC policies and procedures, what was happening. Marquis said the "number three flight attendant" on Flight 11 had called and said that "two male passengers on board stabbed the number one and the number five flight attendant." He said the two passengers had "broken into the cockpit" and the plane was being "flown erratically right now." Apparently still talking to Mulcahy, Marquis said he wanted "all the information on Flight 11" to be brought to him. He then said: "I don't want this spread all over this office right now. Any information that you get, send to me, okay?" [9]

iv) Supervisor Wanted Colleagues to Keep Quiet About the Hijacking
Around the time this conversation occurred at the SOC, employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office who were on the phone with Betty Ong were likewise instructed to keep the news of the hijacking to themselves. Nydia Gonzalez, the reservations office supervisor, told Ong that the airline had "security" working on the emergency. Presumably addressing her colleagues who were also participating in the call, Gonzalez then said: "We don't want to spread anything around. Okay?" Her colleagues apparently agreed to keep quiet about the hijacking, as she responded to them, "Excellent." [10]

Later, at around 8:44 a.m., Craig Marquis made clear to Gonzalez that he wanted her and her colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking. Referring to the information they had received from Ong, he said, "I don't want this spread all over." Gonzalez confirmed that she had "already made that indication to our people here." Marquis told her, "Try to make sure that it's followed through on." Gonzalez replied, "Okay." [11]

One of Gonzalez's colleagues who participated in the call with Ong confirmed, when she was interviewed by the FBI the following day, that she had kept quiet about the call. Vanessa Minter said that after the call ended, she had written a statement describing it. She subsequently headed to the American Airlines operations area, where she heard other people talking about the hijacking, and then later went to the lunch patio area, before heading home at around 3:30 p.m. Minter said that after it ended, she had "tried not to speak to anyone about the telephone call with Ong, since she had been told not to talk about the conversation." [12]

v) Manager at Airport Told Colleagues, 'Don't Mention This to Anyone'
Employees at the American Airlines flight services office at Logan Airport were similarly told to keep quiet about the hijacking. At 8:40 a.m., Nancy Wyatt, a manager at the office, called Ray Howland at the SOC to pass on the information her office was receiving from Amy Sweeney. Around six minutes into the call, Wyatt turned to one of her colleagues and instructed them: "Evelyn, don't mention this to anyone. Me, you, Beth. Just the five of us, okay?"

A couple of minutes later, Howland made clear that he wanted Wyatt and her colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking: When Wyatt asked, "What do you want us to do as far as just keeping our mouths shut and not ... ?" he answered, "That's basically it." [13]

vi) Information Was Withheld From the Crew of Flight 11
Curiously, earlier in the call, Howland told Wyatt that he wanted some information to be withheld from Sweeney and the other crew members on Flight 11. Wyatt had said that the plane's flight attendants were "concerned" because they "don't know what's going on in the cockpit." In response, Howland said the SOC was "trying to get in contact with the cockpit," but he added, "We don't really want to tell her [i.e. Sweeney] that." Wyatt agreed not to tell Sweeney, saying: "Okay, don't. Okay, okay. Got it."

And a couple of minutes later, Wyatt asked Howland if he knew where Flight 11 was heading. Howland said the plane appeared to be going to JFK International Airport in New York, but he then added, "I mean, we don't really want to give a whole lot of information to that flight." Wyatt answered: "Okay, we're not. We're not giving them that information to that flight." [14]

OPERATIONS CENTER WAS SLOW TO PASS ON NEWS OF THE HIJACKING
Another troubling aspect of the response of American Airlines to the hijacking of Flight 11 is its slowness to pass on details of the emergency to individuals and agencies that should have been notified without delay.

i) Operations Center Did Not Mention Ong Call to the FAA
One government agency that American Airlines should have contacted promptly, and provided with the information it had received from Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates civil aviation and is responsible for operating a system of air traffic control. American Airlines informed the 9/11 Commission that "in emergencies, the SOC was generally responsible for notifying the FAA/air traffic control, Department of Defense, and Coast Guard." [15]

The SOC first contacted the FAA to discuss Flight 11 at 8:29 a.m., eight minutes after Nydia Gonzalez alerted it to the problems on the aircraft. At that time, after being asked to do so by Craig Marquis, SOC air traffic control specialist Bill Halleck called the FAA's Boston Center and said he wanted to find out "what you know about our Flight 11." Halleck was told that the Boston Center had lost communication with the flight; it had lost the plane's transponder signal; and the plane had deviated from its flight path. He was also told that an air traffic controller heard a radio communication from the plane in which a threatening voice in the background said, "Return to an airport … or I'll kill you, or something to that effect."

It is unclear whether Halleck had explicitly been instructed to keep quiet about the call from Ong. All the same, in his call with the Boston Center, he made no mention of the ongoing conversation with the flight attendant or the information she had provided about the crisis on Flight 11. [16]

ii) Operations Center Made no Calls to the Military
SOC personnel also failed to contact the Department of Defense about the hijacking. It was pointed out to Craig Marquis, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, that even though the loss of Flight 11's transponder signal prevented air traffic controllers from seeing the plane's altitude, the military could have determined the altitude by observing Flight 11's "primary target" on its radar scopes. Had the airline wanted to know the plane's altitude, therefore, someone at the SOC could presumably have just contacted the military and requested the information. However, Marquis told the 9/11 Commission, "No one from the American Airlines SOC called any military entity that day." [17]

iii) Airline Was Slow to Notify the FBI, in Line With the 'Well-Researched Hijack-Response Plan'
American Airlines was also slow to alert the FBI to the crisis. The man who notified the FBI was Larry Wansley, the airline's managing director of corporate security. On September 11, Wansley was working at American Airlines' headquarters, which is in Fort Worth, about a mile away from the SOC. Despite his key position at the airline, he only learned there was a problem with an American Airlines plane just before Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. Wansley was going into the office of Robert Baker, the vice chairman of American Airlines, to participate in the airline's daily 8:45 a.m. conference call, when Baker's secretary told him, "We have a hijacking."

Wansley phoned the SOC for further details, but, he told the 9/11 Commission, "they didn't have much information." He then called Danny Defenbaugh, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Dallas field office, to tell him that Flight 11 had been hijacked. Prior to Wansley's call, Defenbaugh had known nothing of the incident.

Wansley's call to Defenbaugh was "the first step in the well-researched, secret hijack-response plan all commercial airlines have in place," according to the Dallas Observer. But it was made perhaps 25 minutes or more after Betty Ong had reached American Airlines personnel on the ground and told them, "I think we're getting hijacked."

While he was on the phone with Defenbaugh, Wansley heard screams coming from an adjacent room, as several airline employees saw the coverage of the crash at the WTC on television. He then saw the coverage himself. But, he told the 9/11 Commission, "he did not connect the hijacking with the incident at [the] WTC because the commentator [on television] said that it was a small airplane" that had crashed. Wansley saw the second plane hitting the WTC live on television at 9:03 a.m. At that point, he told the 9/11 Commission, "he immediately felt that the first [plane to hit the WTC] was probably American 11." However, he remained on the phone with Defenbaugh (he has said that the call lasted "nearly one hour") and only headed to the SOC shortly before 10:00 a.m. [18]

iv) Senior Airline Managers Were Alerted to the Hijacking Around the Time Flight 11 Hit the WTC
American Airlines was even slow to notify many of its managers about the crisis. Some managers learned what was happening during their regular morning conference call.

Every morning, American Airlines held an operational conference call, in which senior personnel usually discussed what had happened with the airline in the past 24 hours and what was expected to happen in the coming day. [19] But shortly after the conference call began on September 11, Joseph Bertapelle, a manager at the SOC, announced, "Gentlemen, I have some information here I need to relay." [20] He then passed on much of the information about the hijacking of Flight 11 that Bill Halleck and Craig Marquis had received. [21]

The conference call was held at 8:45 a.m. (Eastern time) every day, which means the high-level personnel who participated in it learned of the problems with Flight 11 around 25 minutes after the SOC was first alerted to the emergency.

Other senior personnel appear to have received their first official notification of the crisis in a pager message that was sent out several minutes after Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. At 8:42 a.m., shortly after Bill Halleck told him that FAA controllers were treating Flight 11 as a hijacking, Craig Marquis instructed a colleague to send out a notification, by pager, to 50 or 60 key American Airlines officials, to let them know what was happening. [22] The message stated, "Confirmed hijacking Flight 11," according to the Wall Street Journal. [23] According to information recorded by senior American Airlines personnel, the pager message went out at 8:49 a.m.--seven minutes after Marquis requested it and three minutes after Flight 11 hit the WTC. [24]

Even Donald Carty, the chairman and CEO of American Airlines, was only told that one of his planes had been hijacked around the time that Flight 11 crashed. Carty was at home answering e-mails, instead of at his office, when Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney made their calls from Flight 11. [25] He later recalled that he learned of the emergency when he received "a call from our operations people"--presumably someone at the SOC--"to tell me that one of our airplanes had been hijacked, that there was a flight attendant on the phone, and the airplane had been hijacked." Carty told the caller he would be out "immediately," but before he reached the door, he has said, "it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should check whether the press had the story, and I turned on the TV, and almost at the moment I turned on the TV, I saw them talking about something that struck the World Trade Center." [26]

AIRLINE WAS SLOW TO ACTIVATE ITS CRISIS COMMAND CENTER
Another example of the slowness of American Airlines personnel in responding to the hijacking of Flight 11 is the late time at which they activated the System Operations Command Center (SOCC) to manage the emergency.

The SOCC is a dedicated crisis response facility, located on the floor above, and overlooking, the SOC. It would be activated in emergencies, such as major accidents and hijackings, so as to enable the airline to isolate an event and gather together the people needed to manage it. The facility would then have "the primary responsibility for support of accident recovery from start to finish." American Airlines employees regarded the SOCC as their "war room." [27]

After it was activated on September 11, the SOCC "was primarily responsible for dealing with the emergency," according to Craig Parfitt, who served as one of the SOCC's directors that day. [28] The 9/11 Commission was told that the airline's "key decisions on the immediate response to the 9/11 hijackings were made in the SOCC." [29]

However, evidence indicates that the SOCC was only activated around the time that Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center--well after the SOC was alerted to the crisis. For example, at about 8:47 a.m.--one minute after the crash--Ray Howland told a caller to the SOC, "We've got the command center activated." [30] Parfitt told the 9/11 Commission that the SOCC was being set up after the airline's 8:45 a.m. conference call. He said he arrived there, along with other senior managers, at around 8:55 a.m. And Craig Marquis recalled that he noticed activity in the SOCC at about 8:50 a.m. [31]

OPERATIONS CENTER PERSONNEL WERE SLOW TO REALIZE FLIGHT 11 WAS HIJACKED
When Betty Ong called the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office, one of the first things she said was, "I think we're getting hijacked." [32] And yet SOC employees have claimed that for some time after they were first told of the problems with Flight 11, they did not realize the plane had been hijacked.

Although Nydia Gonzalez promptly called Craig Marquis at the SOC, at 8:21 a.m., to relay the information Ong was providing, Marquis told the 9/11 Commission that he "did not assume the plane was hijacked with the information he had from Gonzalez at that time." He recalled that he was told that "Ong had reported that she could not reach the pilots by the internal communications system on the plane," but he said he had "assumed this meant the pilots were busy executing an emergency landing, and that explained why the cockpit crew weren't answering the dispatcher trying to raise them repeatedly on ACARS [a text messaging system] and the radio." He said that "at the outset, he was wondering where the flight was going to be taken to land." [33]

Marquis claimed, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, that he only "knew conclusively a hijack was underway when it was confirmed the hijackers were in the cockpit." [34] This would presumably mean he came to the realization at around 8:25 a.m., when Gonzalez told him that Ong had said "two men"--i.e. hijackers--were "in the cockpit with the pilots," or possibly three minutes later, when Gonzalez repeated this information to him. [35]

However, a phone call transcript indicates that Marquis only realized--or, at least, only acknowledged--that Flight 11 had been hijacked at around 8:40 a.m. At that time, he told his colleague Bill Halleck, "Tell [air traffic control] to handle this as an emergency." Halleck replied, "They have in there, it's been hijacked." Marquis then said: "It is. Okay." When he next talked to Gonzalez, Marquis said: "We contacted air traffic control. They are gonna handle this as a confirmed hijacking." [36]

Remarkably, during the entire time she was on the phone with Marquis--a period of almost 25 minutes--Gonzalez never said explicitly that Ong's plane had been hijacked. [37] No explanation has been given as to why this was the case.

Bill Halleck apparently also did not immediately realize Flight 11 had been hijacked when he learned there were problems with the plane. According to the account he gave to the 9/11 Commission in 2004, Halleck only suspected the flight had been hijacked around 12 minutes after Gonzalez alerted the SOC to the emergency. At 8:33 a.m., he passed on to Marquis the information he had been given when he called the FAA's Boston Center, at 8:29 a.m., to find out what was happening with Flight 11. "At this point," Halleck told the 9/11 Commission, he was "thinking that it was a hijacking." [38]

THE KEY ROLE OF THE OPERATIONS CENTER MANAGER
When examining American Airlines' response to the 9/11 attacks, the actions of Craig Marquis deserve particular scrutiny, because of the crucial role Marquis had to play in that response.

As the manager on duty at the SOC on September 11, the 9/11 Commission was informed, Marquis would have been "responsible for assigning the security level for the incident." There were three possible security levels he could assign: level I, for a major accident or incident; level II, for minor damage; and level III, for a minor incident. If the SOC manager determined an incident to be a level I event, they were required "to provide basically the same initial response whether it is a terrorist threat or a technical failure." [39]

When Nydia Gonzalez called Marquis, the first thing she said about Flight 11 was that one of the flight attendants was "advising our reps that the pilot--everyone's been stabbed." She added, "They can't get into the cockpit is what I'm hearing." [40] Marquis should presumably, therefore, have immediately declared the incident to be a "level I" event and acted accordingly. Whether he did is unknown.

As the SOC manager, Marquis was also "responsible for verifying all critical notifications." [41] Marquis and several other American Airlines managers told the 9/11 Commission that "in the event that the American Airlines SOC was aware that it was the first to know about an incident," the protocol was for the manager on duty (i.e. Marquis) to immediately call the manager at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, and pass on to them the details of the incident. But Marquis and his colleagues said the airline "had a hard time on 9/11 in getting in touch with Herndon," and so "precious minutes were lost in building the communications bridge." [42]

Additionally, the 9/11 Commission was informed, Marquis, as the SOC manager, would have been responsible for activating the SOCC. [43] This would indicate that he was responsible for the long delay--apparently around 25 minutes--between the SOC being alerted to the problems on Flight 11 and the SOCC being activated. It is, in fact, unclear if Marquis gave the instruction to activate the SOCC or if someone else made the decision to do so.

'BELLS AND WHISTLES SHOULD HAVE BEEN GOING OFF' AT AMERICAN AIRLINES
The evidence described above raises many questions about the behavior of several key American Airlines employees who dealt with the phone calls made by Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, or were otherwise involved in the airline's response to the hijacking of Flight 11. Some of their actions seem inexplicable, considering the serious and unprecedented nature of the crisis they were faced with on September 11.

Why did it take airline personnel so long to activate the System Operations Command Center? Why did it take them so long to notify the FBI, and even many of their own senior managers, about the emergency? Why wasn't the FAA's Boston Center told about the call from Ong when it was first contacted about Flight 11? And why didn't the System Operations Control center contact the military?

The attitude of some American Airlines personnel, who tried to suppress the news of the hijacking by instructing their colleagues to keep quiet about it, is particularly notable. As was pointed out by the father of one of the flight attendants on Flight 11 (other than Ong and Sweeney) after he heard the recordings of American Airlines phone calls from September 11, it is "alarming" that the airline "would want to hold something as horrific as a hijacking among a few people, when bells and whistles should have been going off in all categories of responsibility." [44]

But why did senior airline personnel want the news of the hijacking suppressed? And did their actions impair the overall response to the terrorist attacks? Certainly, they seem to have had some effect. Vanessa Minter, who kept quiet about the call with Betty Ong, as she was instructed to, has recalled that she "didn't really actually find out what had happened" at the World Trade Center "until later on that day, till almost 4 o'clock." She added, "I knew something bad had happened, but actually what had happened, I really didn't have any idea." [45] In other words, one of the key people involved in the response to the first hijacking apparently knew less about the attacks in New York than most members of the public did.

Investigations have failed to adequately examine the poor response of American Airlines to the 9/11 attacks and inquire why the airline wanted its employees to keep quiet about the first hijacking. But it is crucial that we dig deeper and find out what was really going on, and why, at American Airlines on September 11.

NOTES
[1] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 5, 453; "Summary From Flight 93 Depicting: The Identity of Pilots and Flight Attendants, Seat Assignments of Passengers, and Telephone Calls From the Flight." U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, July 31, 2006.
[2] Staff Report: The Four Flights. 9/11 Commission, August 26, 2004, p. 9.
[3] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)." 9/11 Commission, November 19, 2003.
[4] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 2)." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; Staff Report: The Four Flights, pp. 9-14.
[5] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 6-7; "Summary From Flight 93 Depicting: The Identity of Pilots and Flight Attendants, Seat Assignments of Passengers, and Telephone Calls From the Flight."
[6] Gail Sheehy, "9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks." New York Observer, June 21, 2004.
[7] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Craig Marquis to Peggy Houck." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Bill Halleck and Peggy Houck." 9/11 Commission, January 8, 2004; "Flight 11 Timeline: Partial (Airline Awareness)." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[8] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: [Redacted] (BOS) to Ray Howland." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; Flight Info Tables. 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[9] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)."
[10] Ibid.
[11] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 2)."
[12] Vanessa Dias Minter, interview by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Cary, NC, September 12, 2001.
[13] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nancy Wyatt (BOS Flight Service) to Ray Howland." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; "Flight 11 Timeline: Partial (Airline Awareness)."
[14] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nancy Wyatt (BOS Flight Service) to Ray Howland."
[15] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)."
[16] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Bill Halleck to Male Voice 1 and Male Voice 2 (Part 1)." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Bill Halleck to Male Voice 2 (Part 2)." American Airlines, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With American Airlines Systems Operation Center (SOC) Personnel." 9/11 Commission, April 26, 2004; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 11.
[17] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With American Airlines Systems Operation Center (SOC) Personnel."
[18] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Mr. Larry Wansley, Director of Security, American Airlines." 9/11 Commission, January 8, 2004; Carlton Stowers, "Rough Skies." Dallas Observer, November 21, 2002.
[19] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Mr. Timothy Ahern, Vice President of Safety, Security, and Environmental for American Airlines." 9/11 Commission, January 7, 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Mr. Larry Wansley, Director of Security, American Airlines."
[20] Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded." Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2001.
[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy." 9/11 Commission, November 19, 2003.
[22] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 2)"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy."
[23] Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded."
[24] SOCC Chronology September 11, 2001-September 24, 2001. American Airlines, January 15, 2002.
[25] Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded."
[26] "Interview With Norman Mineta and Donald Carty." Larry King Live, CNN, November 19, 2001.
[27] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Mr. Timothy Ahern, Vice President of Safety, Security, and Environmental for American Airlines"; "Statement of Gerard P. Arpey to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004.
[28] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With American Airlines Systems Operation Center (SOC) Personnel."
[29] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)."
[30] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nancy Wyatt (BOS Flight Service) to Ray Howland."
[31] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy."
[32] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)"; Vanessa Dias Minter, interview by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
[33] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy."
[34] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With American Airlines Systems Operation Center (SOC) Personnel."
[35] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)."
[36] Ibid.; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy."
[37] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)"; "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 2)."
[38] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Bill Halleck and Peggy Houck"; Staff Report: The Four Flights, pp. 11-12.
[39] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)."
[40] "Transcripts of 9/11 Telephone Calls: Nydia Gonzalez to Craig Marquis (Part 1)."
[41] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)."
[42] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Craig Marquis, Craig Parfitt, Joe Bertapelle, Mike Mulcahy."
[43] "Memorandum for the Record: American Airlines (AA) System Operations Command Center (SOCC)."
[44] Gail Sheehy, "9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks."
[45] "Full Interview With Airline Operator Who Took 9/11 Call." WRAL, September 10, 2011.