United flight 93
We saw the movie "United 93" about the flight that crashed into a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11/01. Much of the film is based on fact, what actually happened at the various flight centers around the US and phone conversations that were made by passengers from the flight. Unfortunately, there were no survivors to give a detailed description, but it was a very plausible and dramatic account and we know basically what happened there.
Four Muslim men hijacked the plane after it had been airborne for about an hour en route from Boston to San Fransisco and headed it towards Washington DC. They murdered the two pilots and had a bomb that they had smuggled aboard. Given that two planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, one would think that the US military would have been ready to intercept this clearly dangerous attempt to crash a plane into another building in Washington, probably the White House or the Capitol.
This is one of the frightening things about the situation then, the US military had at the time only 6 fighter planes available to protect the whole of the East Coast, two of them were unarmed and two were sent in the wrong direction out to sea. That left two actually! When UA93 crashed it was about 15 mins from its target in Washington, and there was no US plane anywhere nearby to intercept it! It was only the brave and heroic fight by the passengers that prevented a further tragedy of national proportions!
Since UA93 was the last of the four planes to be hijacked, partly due to delay in take-off, the two planes had already crashed into the WTC and the passengers already knew about the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, and realized that they were on another suicide mission. So their reaction was one of desperation. Although it didn't save their own lives it did save the lives of others on the ground and averted a major catastrophe.
In the altercation as shown in the film one thing struck me, namely that the other three hijackers did all they could to delay the passengers from reaching the pilot. While a group of passengers were fighting with them it left the plane in the hands of the hijacker. At least some of the passengers should have bypassed the three other hijackers and should have ruthlessly killed/stabbed the hijacking pilot (they had a passenger who had been a pilot). But, as shown this was not done, he was not immediately killed, but was fought with over control of the steering column and he proceeded to deliberately crash the plane into the ground. Its easy being critical not having to face the terrible chaos of the situation, but under the circumstances these men did an incredibly brave and heroic act. They redeemed the US in its hour of tragedy.
At that moment there were ca. 4,200 planes in the air over the Eastern US and the number of hijackings was unclear, at one point they thought that 8 had been hijacked. Now the US has the Home Front command, and lets' hope they have the availability of more fighter planes on any day should another such act be perpetrated. Also, the rules of engagement were not clearly spelled out, not only was getting permission to shoot down a commercial airliner delayed because the President was unavailable for some time, but when that permission was given (just after 10 am) the military leaders chose not to pass the permission on to the pilots. Thus, if UA 93 had not been brought down and had reached Washington and there had been a US fighter plane available to intercept it, it would not have done so! This shows how unready for the threat the US was at the time, the degree of naievete and ignorance was perhaps similar to that shown by the US at Pearl Harbor in 1940 vis-a-vis the Japanese.
Maybe that is always how it will be, democracies are not geared up to fight all the time, they have more peaceful agendas. But, now because of the Iraq war the US is in danger of forgetting the reason why all this started in the first place. We must not lose faith with the heroes of Flight 93.
Four Muslim men hijacked the plane after it had been airborne for about an hour en route from Boston to San Fransisco and headed it towards Washington DC. They murdered the two pilots and had a bomb that they had smuggled aboard. Given that two planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon, one would think that the US military would have been ready to intercept this clearly dangerous attempt to crash a plane into another building in Washington, probably the White House or the Capitol.
This is one of the frightening things about the situation then, the US military had at the time only 6 fighter planes available to protect the whole of the East Coast, two of them were unarmed and two were sent in the wrong direction out to sea. That left two actually! When UA93 crashed it was about 15 mins from its target in Washington, and there was no US plane anywhere nearby to intercept it! It was only the brave and heroic fight by the passengers that prevented a further tragedy of national proportions!
Since UA93 was the last of the four planes to be hijacked, partly due to delay in take-off, the two planes had already crashed into the WTC and the passengers already knew about the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, and realized that they were on another suicide mission. So their reaction was one of desperation. Although it didn't save their own lives it did save the lives of others on the ground and averted a major catastrophe.
In the altercation as shown in the film one thing struck me, namely that the other three hijackers did all they could to delay the passengers from reaching the pilot. While a group of passengers were fighting with them it left the plane in the hands of the hijacker. At least some of the passengers should have bypassed the three other hijackers and should have ruthlessly killed/stabbed the hijacking pilot (they had a passenger who had been a pilot). But, as shown this was not done, he was not immediately killed, but was fought with over control of the steering column and he proceeded to deliberately crash the plane into the ground. Its easy being critical not having to face the terrible chaos of the situation, but under the circumstances these men did an incredibly brave and heroic act. They redeemed the US in its hour of tragedy.
At that moment there were ca. 4,200 planes in the air over the Eastern US and the number of hijackings was unclear, at one point they thought that 8 had been hijacked. Now the US has the Home Front command, and lets' hope they have the availability of more fighter planes on any day should another such act be perpetrated. Also, the rules of engagement were not clearly spelled out, not only was getting permission to shoot down a commercial airliner delayed because the President was unavailable for some time, but when that permission was given (just after 10 am) the military leaders chose not to pass the permission on to the pilots. Thus, if UA 93 had not been brought down and had reached Washington and there had been a US fighter plane available to intercept it, it would not have done so! This shows how unready for the threat the US was at the time, the degree of naievete and ignorance was perhaps similar to that shown by the US at Pearl Harbor in 1940 vis-a-vis the Japanese.
Maybe that is always how it will be, democracies are not geared up to fight all the time, they have more peaceful agendas. But, now because of the Iraq war the US is in danger of forgetting the reason why all this started in the first place. We must not lose faith with the heroes of Flight 93.
posted by Jack Cohen at 9:32 PM
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