Where is the Wreckage of UAL 93?
By Glen Stanish, ATP
Deliver me, O Lord, from evil men; preserve me from violent men,
Who plan evil things in their hearts; they continually gather together for war.
- Holy Bible, Psalms 140: 1-2, NKJV
I most certainly and honestly believe, that sometime in the near future, it will become common knowledge that the events of 9/11 were an 'inside job', designed, engineered and committed by a very large and 'in control' rogue element within our United States federal government, used as a false cause, a pretext a lie, to invade two natural resource rich foreign countries, to further pursue and expand an empire, to change the borders of the Middle East countries, and as part of the war on terror, or more appropriately, the war on freedom, was used to frighten the American people so they would allow the infringement of their civil liberties and constitutional rights, to allow for closer monitoring and further oppression.
In June of last year (2005), the CSPAN II network twice aired a Book TV program featuring Professor, Theologian and Author David Ray Griffin, who said: "For many Americans, the idea that we are living in a country whose own leaders planned and carried out the attacks of 9/11, is simply to horrible to entertain. Unfortunately, however, there is considerable evidence for this view."
In my professional occupation, I, like many others, have been in a position to question major parts of the official story of 9/11. I have been an airline pilot for most of my professional life, having flown for major airlines such as TWA, American Airlines, a USAir regional, and most recently ATA Airlines. I have 22 years of aviation experience with 15 years of scheduled US airline experience. On 9/11, I was employed by American Airlines, one of the two airlines whose aircraft were allegedly used as missiles by Islamic extremist hijacker pilots who attacked us because "they hate our freedoms."
On one occasion, several months after 9/11, I was reading an article in American Free Press by investigative journalist Christopher Bollyn. The article stated that according to many eyewitnesses at the Shanksville, Pennsylvania crash site, there wasn't any evidence that a well engineered and constructed Boeing 757 had actually crashed at this location. Many witnesses reported never seeing any wreckage from this near 250,000 pound maximum gross take-off weight airliner.
As I was reading this article, it made me wonder how this could be. You see, as airline pilots and flight crewmembers, we are required by the Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, as part of our training with the airlines, to cover what is termed CRM, or Cockpit/Crew Resource Management. This is required as part of the Initial Training as new hires as well as the required annual Recurrent Training for airline pilots.
This CRM training is the study of airline accidents and incidents, their contributing causal factors, and what we as crewmembers could have done differently to have prevented a particular accident or incident. During the classroom instruction, in addition to reviewing Cockpit Voice Recordings as well as Air Traffic Control tapes, we are always shown videos, or photos or slides, or other video news coverage of these accident sites and the one constant is that after an airline accident, large pieces of aircraft wreckage remain. Let me give a few examples.
TWA 800 was a Boeing 747 that departed NY's JFK airport bound for Paris in the summer of 1996. During its departure, climbing through 14,000 feet or so, accelerating to cruise climb speed, it allegedly suffered a freak catastrophic center wing tank fuel explosion. The aircraft came apart in midair and came crashing down into the Atlantic Ocean. Do you think it was hard to find any large pieces of wreckage from this aircraft? Not at all. In fact, the entire aircraft was recovered and almost completely rebuilt in a Calverton, NY hangar. Hardly any metal was missing at all. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/tw800/photo.shtml .
Then there is American Airlines flight 965, a Boeing 757, the same type of aircraft as UAL 93. This Boeing 757 slammed into the mountains of South America after its pilots became disoriented and tried to recover from a Ground Proximity Warning System (GPWS) alert. To see the wreckage left by this B-757, that encountered a supposedly similar accident as UAL 93, please see: www.airdisaster.com/photos/aa965/photo.shtml .
Let's look at the wreckage of Pan Am 103, a B-747 that blew up over Lockerbie, Scotland. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/pa103/photo.shtml and www.airdisaster.com/photos/pa103/3.shtml .
There was a United States Air Force B-737 that slammed into the terrain and killed President Clinton's staff member Ron Brown. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/usaf21/photo.shtml .
There was an Aeroflot Airbus that lost control at cruise altitude when the Captain was demonstrating flight techniques to family members and also slammed into the ground at a high rate of speed and descent, much like UAL 93. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/f-ogqs/photo.shtml .
There was a Delta L1011 that encountered unrecoverable wind shear and microburst activity on its arrival into DFW. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/dl191/2.shtml
American flight 1420 crashed in Little Rock. www.airdisaster.com/photos/aa1420/7.shtml
In Sioux City, Iowa, a United DC-10 crashed after losing hydraulic systems. Its wreckage is displayed here: www.airdisaster.com/photos/ua232/3.shtml .
A USAir DC-9 crashed in Charlotte, NC. Please see: www.airdisaster.com/photos/us1016/photo.shtml .
In NY, Avianca 52 crashed after fuel starvation. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/avianca52/photo.shtml .
In Cincinnati, TWA 128 crashed. Look here: www.airdisaster.com/photos/tw128/photo.shtml .
In NY, a United flight collided in mid air with a TWA flight. The wreckage can be viewed here: www.airdisaster.com/photos/ua826/photo.shtml .
In Missouri, a Continental flight crashed after a bomb went off in the tail section. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/co11/photo.shtml .
More recently, American 587 crashed in NY after encountering wake turbulence from a preceding 747. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/aa587/4.shtml and www.airdisaster.com/photos/aa587/10.shtml .
And near Athens, Greece, a Helios B-737 crashed into high terrain after its pilots passed out due to cabin pressure failure. This accident was similar to alleged UAL 93 in that they both struck the ground at a high rate of speed. See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/5b-dby/3.shtml .
These photos represent all different types of airline accidents: high speed controlled flight into terrain, high speed and high descent rate uncontrolled flight into terrain, low speed stabilized controlled flight into terrain, in flight break-up due to explosive event such as detonated bomb, fuel tank explosion, shoot down missile (?), and in flight break-up due to airborne collision.
As we can see from these photos, it can be positively concluded that these well constructed Boeing and other airliners do not vaporize, melt, oxidize, liquefy, or disintegrate to the molecular level. These types of accidents always leave a large debris field.
Colonel George Nelson, a retired United States Air Force Officer wrote an article concerning this subject matter entitled: "911 and the Precautionary Principle: Aircraft Parts as a Clue to their Identity." He wrote in part:
"The precautionary principle is based on the fact that it is impossible to prove a false claim. Failure to prove a claim does not automatically make it false, but caution is called for, especially in the case of a world-changing event like the alleged terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The Bush administration has provided no public evidence to support its claim that the terror attacks were the work of Muslim extremists or even that the aircraft that struck their respective targets on September 11 were as advertised. As I will show below, it would be a simple matter to confirm that they were. Until such proof is forthcoming, the opposite claim must be kept in mind as a precaution against rushing to judgment: the hijackings were a part of a black operation carried out with the cooperation of elements in our government.
In July 1965 I had just been commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force after taking a solemn oath that I would protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I would bear true faith and allegiance to the same. I took that oath very seriously. It was my constant companion throughout a thirty-year career in the field of aircraft maintenance.
As an additional duty, aircraft maintenance officers are occasionally tasked as members of aircraft accident investigation boards and my personal experience was no exception. In 1989 I graduated from the Aircraft Mishap Investigation Course at the Institute of Safety and Systems Management at the University of Southern California. In addition to my direct participation as an aircraft accident investigator, I reviewed countless aircraft accident investigation reports for thoroughness and comprehensive conclusions for the Inspector General, Head Quarters Pacific Air Forces during the height of the Vietnam conflict.
In all my years of direct and indirect participation, I never witnessed nor even heard of an aircraft loss, where the wreckage was accessible, that prevented investigators from finding enough hard evidence to positively identify the make, model and specific registration number of the aircraft – and in most cases the precise cause of the accident. This is because every military and civilian passenger-carrying aircraft have many parts that are identified for the safety of flight. That is, if any of the parts were to fail at any time during a flight, the failure would likely result in catastrophic loss of aircraft and passengers. Consequently, these parts are individually controlled by a distinctive serial number and tracked by a records section of the maintenance operation and by another section called plans and scheduling.
Following a certain number of flying hours, or, in the case of landing gears, a certain number of takeoff-and-landing cycles, these critical parts are required to be changed, overhauled or inspected by specialist mechanics. When these parts are installed, their serial numbers are married to the aircraft registration numbers in the aircraft records and the plans and scheduling section will notify maintenance specialists when the parts must be replaced. If the parts are not replaced within the specified time or cycle limits, the airplane will normally be grounded until the maintenance action is completed. Most of these time-change parts, whether hydraulic flight surface actuators, pumps, landing gears, engines or engine components, are virtually indestructible. It would be impossible for an ordinary fire resulting from an airplane crash to destroy or obliterate all of those critical time-change parts or their serial numbers. I repeat, impossible. [The photos we just reviewed thoroughly and positively confirm this assessment.]
Considering the catastrophic incidents of September 11, 2001, certain troubling but irrefutable conclusions must be drawn from the known facts. I get no personal pleasure or satisfaction from reporting my own assessment of these facts."
UAL 93. Aerial photos of the alleged crash site were made available to the general public. They show a significant hole in the ground, but private investigators were not allowed to come anywhere near the crash site. If an aircraft crash caused the hole in the ground, there would have been literally hundreds of serially-controlled time-change parts within the hole that would have proved beyond any shadow of doubt the precise tail number or identity of the aircraft. However, the government has not produced any hard evidence that would prove beyond a doubt that the specifically alleged aircraft crashed at the site. On the contrary, it has been reported that the aircraft, registry number N591UA, is still in operation."
American Free Press visited Somerset County Pennsylvania to look into some of the questions concerning United Flight 93, which allegedly turned over and crashed in a refilled strip mine between Lambertsville and Shanksville as heroic efforts to thwart the hijackers attempts were in progress.
One of the main questions concerning Flight 93 is what happened to the physical wreckage of this well constructed Boeing 757? Where is the ever-present large debris field? Remember the Pan Am 103 B-747 photos, the huge piece of cockpit that remained as well as all the other photos of similar accident sites we previously reviewed?
"There was no plane," said Mayor Ernie Stull of Shanksville. "My sister and a good friend of mine were the first ones there. They were standing on a street corner in Shanksville talking. Their car was nearby, so they were the first here, and the fire department came. Everyone was puzzled because the call had been that a plane had crashed. But there was no plane."
"There was no plane?" AFP asked.
"No, nothing. Only this hole." See: www.airdisaster.com/photos/ua93/2.shtml .
Another eyewitness, Nena Lensbour, who had prepared lunch for the workers at the scrap yard overlooking the crash site, was also one of the first people to view the smoking crater. She told AFP that the hole was five to six feet deep and smaller than the 24-foot trailer in her front yard. She described hearing an explosion, like an atomic bomb, not a crash.
She said she called 911 and stayed on the line as she ran across the reclaimed land of the former strip mine to within 15 feet of the smoking crater. She said that she did not see any evidence of a plane then or at anytime during the excavation at the site.
Many other eyewitness testimonies widely conflict with the official account of UAL 93.
There are other problems with the official story of Flight 93. A well-documented AP story quoting United Airlines CEO James Goodwin and the Mayor of Cleveland, Michael R. White, was posted on the website of Cincinnati's WCPO-TV, an ABC affiliate. The report stated:
"A Boeing 767 out of Boston made an emergency landing Tuesday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport due to concerns that it may have a bomb aboard said Mayor Michael R. White.
White said the plane had been moved to a secure area of the airport and was evacuated.
United identified the plane as flight 93.
How can Flight 93 crash in Shanksville around 10:00 am, then divert to Cleveland almost two hours later? How can the Mayor receive such erroneous information? Wouldn't the FAA ATC Tower Chief in Cleveland, along with the Cleveland Center controllers as well as the approach control facility in Cleveland as well as the ground controllers who all worked this flight know the true identity of this flight? How about the emergency personnel that are required to interview the Captain of this flight as well as other crewmembers in order to make their required reports? Wouldn't they have gotten the correct flight number as well as the tail number from these airline professionals? They most certainly would have.
John Carlin of The Independent wrote about United Flight 93: "There are most certainly a number of important unanswered questions. The shortage of available facts did not prevent the creation of an instant legend, a legend that the U.S. government and the U.S. media were pleased to propagate, and that the American public have been eager, for the most part to accept as fact."
USAF Colonel George Nelson concludes about Flight 93: "With all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not (emphasis added) the Boeing 757 as alleged."
Glen Stanish is an Airline Transport Rated (ATP) commercial airline pilot with more than 22 years of aviation experience, 15 years of which for the major airlines including TWA, American Airlines, ATA Airlines and a USAir regional. He is also the author of 'Uncle Sam's Christian Patriots, a Personal, Political and Religious Discussion of September the 11th, War and Peace, and Freedom and Oppression,' due to be officially released by Tate Publishing (www.tatepublishing.com ) April 18th 2006. Much of the material for this article has come from this book.
Photo: The size of the crater was small, about 24 feet across and 6 feet
deep, and there was no sign of any wreckage. A local inbedded "journalist," who
is active military, told Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press that the
ground had liquified and swallowed the plane but that a wing and engine had
bounced off and fallen in the woods about a mile away from this crater. Do you
find this credible evidence of an airliner crash?