9/11 — FLIGHT UNITED 93

On September 11, 2001 four American planes were hijacked by terrorists. One of these planes was Flight United 93. It took off from Newark, New Jersey at 8:42 A.M. and its destination was San Francisco, California. At 9:28 A.M., 40 minutes after the plane took off, four hijackers began to try to take control of the plane.  There were 7 crew members and 33 passengers on the plane making it less than half full. The crew members and passengers found out about the attacks at New York and Washington D.C. leading them to realize that the plane was a part of a sequence of attacks on the country. At 9:57 the crew members and passengers began to fight back and because of the retaliation,  the hijackers immediately crashed the plane in a field in Sumerset County in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Because of the heroic crew members and flight passengers the plane did not hit a populated area, such as the White House, which is what is believed to be the target. ¹

Video about the United 93 Flight timeline:

http://www.history.com/topics/9-11-attacks/videos/the-todd-beamer-story-lets-roll ²

Plane similar to the United 93 Plane.

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Crash Site

The plane hit a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania creating an impact on hundreds of acres of earth. For many hours trees were on fire, pieces of the plane surrounded the crash site, and debris was found up to eighty miles away from the crash site. ⁴

Below are pictures of the crash site on September 2001, showing the damage that the flight caused and what was left of the plane from the crash. ⁵

  

“Aerial view of the impact site and debris field taken in the early stage of the investigation. The white specks are debris.”

 

 

 

“Flight 93 impact crater with debris, taken early in the investigation.”

 

 

 

“Debris and investigators in the Hemlock grove which is located just beyond the impact site.”

 

 

“Thousands of small pieces of the aircraft were found. This is the largest piece of the plane recovered: a section of the fuselage measuring about 6 feet by 7 feet.”

 

 

 

“Section of the outer skin of the airplane fuselage.”

 

 

 

“The cockpit voice recorder, one of the “black boxes,” recovered 25 feet down in the crater at the crash site. It revealed the voices and sounds in the cockpit during the final 30 minutes of flight.”