There are, therefore, frustratingly few resources to draw upon. But by utilizing those that are available, and adding a little informed speculation, we can perhaps find reasonable answers to some of the most perplexing questions surrounding the forgotten flight of September 11.

One question concerning the attacks of that day that has never been definitively answered, either by the official story or by various alternative theories, is how exactly were the cockpits of these planes breached? How could a small band of hijackers have successfully gained control of four passenger jets so quickly and decisively that not one of the pilots or copilots was able to send out a formal hijacking alert?

The “no hijackers” theories – a subset of alternative theories that includes both the “remote control” and the “no planes” hypotheses – arose at least in part as a response to this vexing question. But if those theories are in error (or, more likely, deliberate disinformation), and if there were real planes and real human actors that day, then how was such an unprecedented operation pulled off? The answer, perhaps, can be found in some of the forgotten details of the Flight 93 story.

One such long-forgotten detail is that spokesmen for United Airlines initially reported that there were 45 persons on board Flight 93 that fateful day – 38 passengers (including the four hijackers) and seven crew members. Several days after the attacks, however, at the very same time that the Todd Beamer story was hitting the press, the airline abruptly revised the passenger count to 37. To explain the discrepancy, “United issued a statement Sunday [September 16, 2001] saying one of the 37 passengers had purchased two tickets, so the number of people had been incorrectly reported as 45.” (“’Let’s Roll,’ Flight 93 Victim Heard to Say Before Crash,” ThePittsburghChannel.com, September 16, 2001) Airline spokesmen failed to explain why it took five full days to realize that there was allegedly a duplicate name on the curiously short passenger list.

The airline also declined to identify the passenger or give a reason for his or her alleged purchase of an additional seat, thus making the claim difficult to investigate, if anyone had been so inclined. At the time, no one really questioned the explanation for the revised passenger count, but in retrospect, United’s claim seems rather suspect. After all, even if someone had needed or wanted a little extra personal space, there was no reason for them to have paid extra for that luxury, given that the aircraft could seat around 200 passengers and only 38 tickets were sold. If they so desired, every passenger on that plane could have spread out across their very own row of seats, for the price of a single ticket.

What conclusion then should we draw from this curious tidbit of lost history? One possibility is that there was in fact a 38^th passenger, one whose existence was denied so that his identity would remain forever concealed – and for a very good reason: that 38^th passenger, you see, could very well have been the real post-hijacking pilot of United Airlines Flight 93.

Another aspect of the Flight 93 story that has been long forgotten is that one theory/rumor that was circulating very early on, but that never really took root, was that one member of each hijacking team was already in the cockpit, sitting in a jump seat, before the planes ever left the ground. Real airline pilots, or those who can be passed off as real airline pilots, are routinely afforded that privilege, so such a scenario is entirely plausible. Once the official story began to take shape, however, such talk quickly subsided. Perhaps it is time to bring it back.

Consider, if you will, that all of the callers from Flight 93 were consistent in claiming that they only saw three hijackers. At no time throughout their ordeal did any of the passengers see the fourth hijacker that the government steadfastly maintains was aboard that plane. But how could that be? The most reasonable explanation that comes to mind is that the fourth man was already in the cockpit before the plane took off and thus was never seen by passengers.

Consider also that none of the callers – several of whom spoke at length about what had transpired on the doomed flight – spoke of a violent takeover of the cockpit. None of them, in fact, gave any indication that they had any idea how control of the plane had been gained, even though, as has already been discussed, several of the callers were seated in either first-class or business-class seats, from where they should have been able to hear and probably even see any attempted takeover of the cockpit. Why then did none of them witness the cockpit takeover? Again, the most logical answer is that, contrary to how the scene plays out in Hollywood’s multiple versions of the event, there was no storming of the cockpit; control of the plane was gained quietly and efficiently by someone working within the cockpit.

Another forgotten fact about Flight 93 is that passenger Tom Burnett told his wife, Deena, that one of the hijackers “has a gun.” () Deena Burnett has said that Tom, a gun enthusiast who had grown up around weapons, was well acquainted with guns and was quite sure that what he had seen was real. But how could a gun have made it through airport security (which, despite frequent claims to the contrary, was not all that lax prior to September 11, 2001)? The answer is that it almost certainly did not pass through security; it was either carried on by the 3^rd pilot/38^th passenger, bypassing normal passenger security, or it was planted somewhere on the plane, possibly in the cockpit, its location known to the mysterious 38^th passenger.

It is not hard to imagine how a man with a gun, who was already within the cockpit and who was not considered a threat by the flight crew, could easily have taken both the pilot and the copilot by surprise, preventing either from sending out a hijacking alert. This mystery man could then have been joined, either at a set time or by some type of prearranged signal, by a couple of his associates conveniently seated nearby in first-class seats. Together, they could have quickly killed/disabled/restrained the two pilots, after which the unseen 38^th passenger could have taken the wheel, so to speak – remaining unseen by any of the passengers – while one of the other men took the gun to use for crowd control, where it could then have been seen by first-class passenger Tom Burnett.

Speaking of crowd control, it should be noted that the hijackers had uncannily good luck in that regard, given that all four of the hijacked planes were flying that day, for reasons that have never been explained nor seriously questioned, with a suspiciously light load of passengers. In hindsight, it seems rather obvious that the likelihood of this mission succeeding would have been significantly reduced had the hijackers had to contend with, say, 175 passengers on each plane rather than just a few dozen. Equally obvious is that the ‘terrorists’ that the government has blamed for the attacks would have had no control over how these flights were booked, and yet they still managed to secure not just one, but four ridiculously under-booked flights to carry out their dastardly mission.

On just about any day other than September 11, 2001, the ‘terrorists’ would not likely have gotten so lucky. We know this because the size of the cabin crews assigned to these flights indicates that the passenger loads on September 11 were quite atypical. United Airlines Flight 93, for example, had five flight attendants on duty serving just 37 passengers. American Airlines Flight 11 had no less than nine flight attendants on board, apparently serving each other since most of the passenger seats were empty. Similarly, United Airlines Flight 175 had seven flight attendants on board, or about one for every seven ticketed passengers. Anyone who has flown in recent years with American or United, or with any other domestic airline, knows that that level of service is hardly the norm.

As was previously noted during the discussion of the Cleveland Airport non-mystery, United Airlines Flight 93 is mirrored by both an American and a Delta flight; all three airlines fly Boeing 767 aircraft on the very same route at the very same time. This, again, strongly suggests that the passenger figures from September 11 were wildly atypical – unless one chooses to believe that the major airlines routinely fly enormous aircraft all the way across the country with a full flight crew aboard for the benefit of a handful of passengers. The obvious conclusion to draw from all this is that the September 11 flights, operating on busy morning commuter routes, normally carried a far greater passenger load.

As previously mentioned in this series, it has frequently been claimed – by, for example, more than a few feisty respondents to this latest series of posts – that there were no planes used on September 11, 2001 and that the passenger and crew lists were complete fabrications. One question that these theorists have never addressed, however, is why the lists were ‘made up’ in such a thoroughly half-assed manner. Why so suspiciously few passenger names on what should have been crowded commuter flights? Why, for example, were there only 33 ‘fictitious’ passengers on Flight 93? If 33 names could be spun from whole cloth, then why not, say, 162 names? Are we to believe that someone among the cabal of conspirators at some point said: “You know what? Fuck this! I’m spent. Unless one of you guys has something to contribute, I’m just going to go with these 33 fake names and call it a night”?

And while we’re on this topic, here’s another question that comes to mind: why, if the powers-that-be were going to go light on the ‘fake’ passengers, did they load the planes up with incongruously large ‘fake’ flight crews? Was it because the conspirators used up so many of their fake names on the flight attendants that they didn’t have enough left over for the passengers? We can assume, I’m guessing, that these ‘fake’ lists were not thrown together on the spur of the moment, but rather were planned long in advance, as were all the rest of the operational details of this mission. So again I must ask: if the lists are faked, why are they faked so poorly? And why, come to think of it, did United Airlines need to revise the passenger count for Flight 93? If the ‘fake’ passenger list was one name short, couldn’t they have just added another fake name to it?

Speaking of poorly-faked lists, certain factions of the skeptics’ movement have argued that the passenger lists are so badly composed that they don’t even contain the names of any of the alleged hijackers – thus proving that there were no hijackers on board the planes that day! Sadly, in some quarters this seems to pass for serious analysis. It is true, of course, that the passenger lists that normally appear in the media do not contain the names of the alleged hijackers. Shockingly, the published passenger lists also do not contain the names of the flight attendants and cabin crew, even though, technically speaking, those folks were all passengers on the 9-11 flights as well (“passenger” is defined by Webster’s as: “a person traveling in a train, boat, car, etc.”).

Surprisingly enough, the “passenger lists” seem to contain only the names of those persons who were what most people would consider to be “passengers,” as that term is commonly understood. If for no other reason than to feign respect for the families of the victims, it is hardly shocking to find that the names of the hijackers are not intermingled with the names of the passengers (just as the names of alleged school shooters, who invariably end up among the dead – but don’t even get me started on that – are not intermixed with the names of the other shooting victims). Thus we find that there are actually three lists of names for each 9-11 flight: a passenger list, a list of crew members, and a list of hijackers. Seriously, people, it’s not really that hard to figure out if you put even a little bit of effort into it.

Some would have you believe, nevertheless, that the ‘missing’ names on the passenger lists are a telling clue. Because the conspirators, you see, although clever enough to engineer the massive spectacle that we all witnessed on September 11, and clever enough to keep the wool pulled over the nation’s eyes for nearly six years now, were not clever enough to remember a little operational detail like including the fake hijacker names on their fake passenger lists. And none of their stooges in the tightly-controlled media were alert enough to notice the oversight before publishing the incriminating lists, and, amazingly enough, no one to this day has bothered to correct this smoking-gun error!

I hate to veer off course here, but I have to mention that there is something else that puzzles me about the planning for this operation. According to some particularly aggressive 9-11 ‘truth’ seekers, there were no planes used that day, not even the ones that appeared to crash into the World Trade Center towers. Those planes that you thought you saw crash into those buildings? Just some clever trick photography. Not clever enough, of course, to fool some of the hardcore 9-11 skeptics, but clever enough to fool most of us. “But,” you protest, “I was watching the news that day and I saw the second tower hit by an airplane on live television!” What you didn’t realize, of course, is that the conspirators have the technology to, believe it or not, convincingly add crashing airplanes to live television footage! And, incredibly enough, those crafty bastards were also able to – during live broadcasts, mind you – perfectly synchronize the inserted CGI airplanes with the very real explosions that blew holes in the sides of the towers!

That, I think we can all agree, would have been a mighty impressive blend of live action, digital animation and pyrotechnics, all captured in real time during an unrehearsed yet flawless one-time-only performance! But here’s the part that troubles me: how come we never saw the video footage of the fake plane hitting the Pentagon? I mean, it’s obviously pretty easy to throw such a video together, especially given that the conspirators already had the footage of an explosion occurring at the alleged point of impact – footage, in fact, from several different cameras filming from various angles. All they needed to do was have their FX wunderkinds insert the fake plane, which should have only taken a few seconds, judging by their alleged live performance on September 11. Come to think of it, while they had their Dreamworks Real-Time Plane Superimposer® kit out, they could have thrown together a fake video of Flight 93 plowing into the ground as well. If they had the technology, after all, why did they not use it for all four of the ‘fake’ planes? And if not at the time of the attacks, then why not anytime since then? Why would the powers-that-be let questions about Flight 77 and Flight 93 fester among 9-11 skeptics, even while busily running around planting disinformation to muddy the issues, if they had the technology all along to easily produce a couple of convincing videotapes to prove their case?

According to the ‘cartoon airplane’ crowd, some or all of the 9-11 flights never flew at all that day. On every other day, they flew as scheduled, but on September 11, 2001, the regularly scheduled flights had supposedly been given the day off without explanation. This scenario, of course, begs a rather obvious question that the ‘fake plane’ cheerleaders have thus far avoided addressing: the professional lives of a good number of people revolve, to some extent, around the flight schedules at their local airport – travel agents, frequent business travelers, ticketing agents, baggage handlers, aircraft mechanics, flight crews, air traffic controllers, etc. Many of these people, I’m guessing, would have noticed that regularly scheduled flights were AWOL that day. They would perhaps have found it a bit odd, but not unduly troubling. But when they then heard, later that same day, that the curiously missing flights were being blamed for the carnage in New York, it’s a pretty safe bet that they would have found that to be extremely troubling.

The question then is a simple one: where are all these people? Why have none of them come forward? And yes, I know that the mainstream media would have no interest in providing a forum to such people, if they did in fact exist. But the Internet, as we all know, is a wild and wooly place where sometimes even something resembling the truth manages to emerge. After all, virtually everyone has access to a blog of some sort these days – a MySpace page if nothing else. And there is no shortage of 9-11 skeptics to contact if someone were to want ‘their’ 9-11 story to be told. So once again the question is: why have we not (to my knowledge, at least) heard from a single person who was in a position to know coming forward to report that the 9-11 flights never actually took off that day?

As previously stated, the ‘cartoon airplane’ cult claims that the viewing audience at home was fooled by some rather rudimentary special-effects work. But what of all the live eyewitnesses? After all, after the first strike caught everyone’s attention, all eyes in Manhattan were on the smoldering Twin Towers, and given their immense size, they were visible to thousands of stunned tourists, commuters, pedestrians, occupants of surrounding buildings, etc. To explain how all those folks were fooled, the ‘fake plane’ theorists at one time claimed that giant holographic images were employed. But that idea, alas, proved too absurd even for the ‘cartoon plane’ blowhards to promote, so a different strategy was embraced: now, in response to questions about the witnesses in New York, the ‘ghost planers’ shrug and answer, “What witnesses? There were no widespread witness reports of planes hitting the towers that day.”

The proper response to this, of course, is “Duh! It was broadcast f**king live, or nearly so, on pretty much every television station on the dial! Millions of people around the world watched it happen – over and over and over again. Why then would reporters have sought out witnesses to discern what had happened? Why was there a need, then or now, for witnesses to come forward to report that they had seen what everyone else in the world had seen? If, however, all those thousands of witnesses had seen something much different than what the rest of us thought we saw, then there would certainly be a reason for them to come forward.

Dave McGowan  Flight 93 Crash - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6