Reply #40: No, you're wrong. [View All]

[stickdog]

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_911=ua93

9:16 AM EDT

The FAA informs NORAD that Flight 93 may have been hijacked. No fighters are scrambled in specific response, now or later (there is the possibility some fighters sent after Flight 77 later head toward Flight 93). Although this is what CNN is told by NORAD, its not clear why NORAD claims the flight is hijacked at this time (and NORAD's own timeline inexplicably fails to say when the FAA told them about the hijack, the only flight for which they fail to provide this data). However, there may be one explanation: Fox News later reports, “Investigators believe that on at least one flight, one of the hijackers was already inside the cockpit before takeoff.” Cockpit voice recordings indicate that the pilots believed their guest was a colleague “and was thereby extended the typical airline courtesy of allowing any pilot from any airline to join a flight by sitting in the jumpseat, the folded over extra seat located inside the cockpit.” Note that all witnesses on the plane later report seeing only three hijackers, not four. So perhaps one hijacker tenuously held control of the cockpit as the original pilots still flew it, while waiting for reinforcements? Could this have happened before 9:00, when Flight 93 got a warning to beware of cockpit intrusions (see (After 9:00 a.m.))? F-16 fighters from the far-off Langley Air Force Base could reach Washington in seven minutes if they travel at 1100 mph, the speed NORAD commander Larry Arnold says fighters traveled to reach New York City earlier in the day. Note that the crash of Flight 77 is still 22 minutes away, so fighters scrambled to protect Washington from Flight 93 would protect it from Flight 77 as well, but none are sent at this time.