Last updated:  04/23/2008

Did Flight 93 Crash in Shanksville?

intro • official claim • timeline • unusual crater • suspicious debris • mysterious white aircraft

witnesses • hijackers & passengers • theories • news articles • image gallery • links

hunt the boeing II • flight 93 photo fraud • 'hoodwinked at shanksville' • shanksville blogposts

Official Claim

 "If this had to happen," Stull said, "what better place could there have been to put that plane down?"

What are the reported weight, speed, amount of fuel, and angle of crash of Flight 93 and when were the plane's black boxes reportedly found at the scene?

Is it just a coincidence that there was only one witness to see the actual reported crash and this witness was ex-military and only on their 2nd day on the job?

► WHAT DID HAPPEN TO FLIGHT 93?

"Lee Purbaugh, 32, was the only person to see the last seconds of Flight 93 as it came down on former strip-mining land at precisely 10.06am..." - Mirror.co.uk (09/12/02)

► The crash in Somerset: 'It dropped out of the clouds'

"Lee Purbaugh, 32, working just his second day at Rollock Inc., a scrap yard next to the reclaimed strip-mine land, looked up from operating a burning torch to see the jetliner just 40 feet above him.
"I heard it for 10 or 15 seconds and it sounded like it was going full bore," said Tim Lensbouer, 35, Purbaugh's coworker.
The ground shook and the air thundered as the jetliner slammed into the ground about 300 yards away, Purbaugh said." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (09/12/01)

► Unanswered questions: The mystery of Flight 93

"The fate of United Airlines Flight 93, the last of the four hijacked planes to go down in the United States on 11 September, holds no mystery for Lee Purbaugh. He saw what happened with his own eyes. He was the only person present in the field where, at 10.06am, the aircraft hit the ground.

"There was an incredibly loud rumbling sound and there it was, right there, right above my head – maybe 50ft up," says Purbaugh, who works at a scrapyard overlooking the crash site. "It was only a split second but it looked like it was moving in slow motion, like it took forever. I saw it rock from side to side then, suddenly, it dipped and dived, nose first, with a huge explosion, into the ground. I knew immediately that no one could possibly have survived."

Purbaugh, who served three years in the US Navy..." - Independent.co.uk (10/24/02)

What did the county coroner say about finding bodies or blood at the crash scene?

"Miller was among the very first to arrive after 10:06 on the magnificently sunny morning of September 11. Once he was able to absorb the scene, Miller says, "I stopped being coroner after about 20 minutes, because there were no bodies there. It became like a giant funeral service."

Thousands of people -- the locals estimate up to 1,000 a week -- have arrived at an old coal-mining access trail called Skyline Road, where finally they can see what remains of Flight 93: nothing. "There's not really much to it, is there?" Wally Miller often says to families and other visitors who are bewildered by what they don't see.

Immediately after the crash, the seeming absence of human remains led the mind of coroner Wally Miller to a surreal fantasy: that Flight 93 had somehow stopped in mid-flight and discharged all of its passengers before crashing. "There was just nothing visible," he says. "It was the strangest feeling." It would be nearly an hour before Miller came upon his first trace of a body part." - Washington Post (05/12/02)

"No bodies were recovered here, at least not as we normally think of bodies. In the cataclysmic violence of the crash, the people on Flight 93 literally disintegrated. Searchers found fragments of bones, small pieces of flesh, a hand. But no bodies." - Miami Herald (09/07/02)

"Wallace Miller, the lanky, Civil War-studying county coroner, did see it. He sat at the family funeral home, his father, Wilbur, with him. They watched the second plane sweep in low, from nowhere. They winced when it hit.
He takes off his glasses, cleans them with his T-shirt. "This is the most eerie thing," he says. "I have not, to this day, seen a single drop of blood. Not a drop." - Pittsburgh Live (09/11/02)

What are the odds that 100% of the 44 passengers were ID'd from only 8% of total remains that were found outside the crater, even though we are told 80% of the plane plunged underground and the passengers were located in the front and back of the plane upon impact?

► Hallowed Ground
"As coroner, responsible for returning human remains, Miller has been forced to share with the families information that is unimaginable. As he clinically recounts to them, holding back very few details, the 33 passengers, seven crew and four hijackers together weighed roughly 7,000 pounds. They were essentially cremated together upon impact. Hundreds of searchers who climbed the hemlocks and combed the woods for weeks were able to find about 1,500 mostly scorched samples of human tissue totaling less than 600 pounds, or about 8 percent of the total." - washingtonpost.com (05/12/02)

Was it just a coincidence that the crash happened right next to a service road for easy access to the site?

Who are the landowners of the crash site area?

► Flight 93 crash site touted as memorial to victims

"The landowners, a pair of coal companies, said yesterday that they are inclined to donate the ground to become a permanent memorial to the passengers and crew of the Boeing 757.
"If we have a say about it, there's no problem with it," John Weir, land manager with PBS Coals Inc., said yesterday.
"I'd be willing to cooperate in whatever way I could," said Michael Svonavec, secretary-treasurer of the local coal company Svonavec Inc. "It's a site of national interest -- certainly, the way I see it, where we as Americans fought back against terrorism."
Precisely which parts of the site PBS Coals and Svonavec own has yet to be determined. It is hidden from nearby roads, and officials from the companies have not been allowed to examine the well-guarded site." -Post-Gazette.com (09/20/01)

► Scene of utter destruction

"The crash site is a former strip mine owned by PBS Coal Co. and is known locally as the Diamond T. Mine." - pittsburghlive.com (09/12/01)

► American Heroes Changed the Course of United Flight 93
"Purbaugh’s second day on the job at Rollock Inc., a scrap metal company which owns the Diamond T mine, a former PBS Coals dig directly about the crash site, came with a shocking surprise." - Daily American (09/12/01) [transcribed]

► DEP Working with Coal Company to Address Mine Drainage Issues at Proposed Flight 93 Memorial Site

"DEP Secretary Kathleen McGinty met with officials of the PBS Coal Co. at the site of the proposed memorial for Flight 93 in Stoneycreek Township, Somerset County. The National Park Service is looking to purchase additional property for the permanent Flight 93 Memorial. This property is part of the large Diamond T Mine Complex that once included two surface and three deep mines. While PBS Coal Co. has completed the reclamation of the Diamond T surface area, there is still work to be done on addressing mine drainage on the site." - dep.state.pa.us (10/29/04)

► More land donated for Flight 93 memorial

"A coal company will donate 29 acres, including part of the site where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, and will become the third group to give away land that could be used for a national memorial.
PBS Coals Inc., based in Friedens, Somerset County, announced Tuesday that it was giving the land to The Conservation Fund, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit group working with Somerset County landowners and officials to preserve land for a memorial for the 40 passengers and crew who died on the flight.
With the coal company's donation, officials have garnered 175 of the 1,500 acres that a federal panel has said it would like for a permanent memorial around the crash site.
Last week, Pittsburgh-based Consol Energy announced that it had donated 140 acres of company-owned land. Last year, Tim Lambert, a Harrisburg-area resident, donated six acres to the nonprofit Families of Flight 93 Inc.
The National Park Service will lead a federal commission in designing a memorial to be placed at the crash site. President Bush has ordered that the design be completed and delivered to the Interior Department and Congress by 2005." - Post-Gazette.com (12/11/03)

► About WITF FM 89.5 News:

Tim Lambert
Morning Edition host/reporter

"Since September 11, 2001, Tim has spent much of his time in Shanksville, Somerset County, where he owns some of the United Flight 93 crash site, working to assure the property will be home to a fitting memorial." -WITF

Is it just a coincidence that the C-130 military cargo plane seen flying near the Pennsylvania crash site was the same one that allegedly saw Flight 77 before it supposedly crashed into the Pentagon?

"A C-130 military cargo plane was also within 25 miles of the passenger jet when it crashed, FBI spokesman Bill Crowley said yesterday, but was not diverted." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (9/16/01)

"Lt. Col. Steve O'Brien started his day at the controls of a Minnesota National Guard C-130 cargo plane. He and his crew were heading back to the Twin Cities after moving military supplies around the Caribbean. About 9:30 a.m., O'Brien throttled the lumbering plane down a runway at Andrews Air Force Base, just southeast of the District of Columbia.
"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall," he said. "I noticed this airplane up and to the left of us, at 10 o'clock. He was descending to our altitude, four miles away or so. That's awful close, so I was surprised he wasn't calling out to us.
"It was like coming up to an intersection. When air traffic control asked me if we had him in sight, I told him that was an understatement - by then, he had pretty much filled our windscreen. Then he made a pretty aggressive turn so he was moving right in front of us, a mile and a half, two miles away. I said we had him in sight, then the controller asked me what kind of plane it was.
"That caught us up, because normally they have all that information. The controller didn't seem to know anything."
O'Brien reported that the plane was either a 757 or 767 and its silver fuselage meant it was probably an American Airlines jet. "They told us to turn and follow that aircraft - in 20-plus years of flying, I've never been asked to do something like that. With all of the East Coast haze, I had a hard time picking him out.
"The next thing I saw was the fireball. It was huge. I told Washington the airplane has impacted the ground. Shook everyone up pretty good. I told them the approximate location was close to the Potomac. I figured he'd had some in-flight emergency and was trying to get back on the ground to Washington National. Suddenly, I could see the outline of the Pentagon. It was horrible. I told Washington this thing has impacted the west side of the Pentagon."
O'Brien asked the controller whether he should set up a low orbit around the building but was told to get out of the area as quickly as possible. "I took the plane once through the plume of smoke and thought if this was a terrorist attack, it probably wasn't a good idea to be flying through that plume."
He flew west, not exactly sure where he was supposed to land. Somewhere over western Pennsylvania, O'Brien looked down at a blackened, smoldering field. "I hoped it was just a tire fire or something, but when I checked with Cleveland center, he told me he'd just lost a guy off the scope pretty close to where we saw it. By then, we were able to patch in AM radio, so we heard about all the planes. It was like a domino effect - a really bad day for airplanes."
He finally landed at the Youngstown, Ohio, airport. "For awhile there, almost every night, I found myself stone awake at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. Took awhile to get over it." - Minnesota Star-Tribune (09/11/02) [Reprint at:  Cooperative Research]

"Northern Virginia resident John O’Keefe was one of the many commuters who witnessed the attack on the Pentagon.
“The eeriest thing about it, was that it was like you were watching a movie. There was no huge explosion, no huge rumbling on ground, it just went ‘pfff.’ It wasn’t what I would have expected for a plane that was not much more than a football field away from me.
“The first thing I did was pull over onto the shoulder, and when I got out of the car I saw another plane flying over my head, and it scared ...me, because I knew there had been two planes that hit the World Trade Center. And I started jogging up the ramp to get as far away as possible.
“Then the plane -- it looked like a C-130 cargo plane -- started turning away from the Pentagon, it did a complete turnaround." -  New York Law Journal (09/12/01)

- See also: Flight 77 witnesses

Was it just a coincidence that a simulated terrorist attack was being conducted in neighboring Westmoreland county just 2 1/2 months before that attacks and that the neighboring Cambria County Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) had a meeting hosted by a member of the PA Air National Guard on Sept. 10 discussing the County's hazmat team and equipment purchases regarding terrorism/hazmat response?

► COUNTY OF WESTMORELAND, PENNSYLVANIA; COMPREHENSIVE ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORT, For the Year Ended December 31, 2001

"On June 16, 2001 the Department of Public Safety and the County Local Emergency Planning Committee conducted the largest full-scale emergency exercise ever conducted in the County. The exercise, called Mall Strike 2001, occurred at Greengate Mall and involved over 600 emergency first responders and emergency managers who responded to a weapons of mass destruction event involving the simulated release of a toxic chemical agent and the simulated release of radiation and radiological contamination. The exercise was a major training success.
The department dedicated its new Public Safety and 9-1-1 Center, located at 911 Public Safety Road in Hempfield Township, on September 11, 2001. This long awaited day was marred, however, by the terrorist attacks on the United States that also occurred on that date. In response to those attacks, the first official action at the new Center involved several days of 24 hour operations in the new County Emergency Operations Center.
The 9-1-1 Center was the only Center that had direct cell-phone communications with a passenger on United Flight 93. United Flight 93 was the aircraft that crashed in Somerset County." - Westmoreland County

► In the wake of Sept. 11, just how safe are we?

"...officials with Westmoreland and Fayette counties and local municipalities say security hasn't been increased. Rather, security plans were in place before Sept. 11 and communications channels exist between Fayette, Westmoreland and its neighboring counties in preparation for a terrorist attack.

Daniel Stevens, public information officer for Westmoreland County's Department of Public Safety, said the department has held trainings for fire departments and municipal officials when these are requested. The department, just 2 1/2 months before the terrorist attacks, held a training drill simulating a terrorist attack. "When the terrorists struck the World Trade Center, Flight 93 was above Westmoreland County and actually wound up in Shanksville," stated Stevens.
Stevens said that Westmoreland County is one of 13 southwestern Pennsylvania counties and the City of Pittsburgh that make up a regional task force on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Also included is Fayette County, according to Roy Shipley, director of Fayette County's Emergency Management agency." - PittsburghLive.com/Daily Courier (09/11/02)

► U.S. Department of Homeland Security FEMA Preparedness Smart Practices Spotlight

A Regional Approach to Terrorism and All-Hazards Preparedness Pennsylvania Region 13 Working Group
"Summary: In 1998, 12 Pennsylvania counties and the City of Pittsburgh together became the first group in the state to try a regional approach to terrorism preparedness.

While attending a Pennsylvania emergency management conference in 1998, a number of county emergency managers began to discuss threats of terrorism and the resources needed to respond effectively should a weapons of mass destruction incident occur in their region. In searching for a way to pool their resources, they created the Pennsylvania Region 13 Working Group.
Since formalizing the mutual aid and inter-government agreements, the Region 13 Working Group has established an incident command system for response operations, created a Metropolitan Medical Response System (MMRS), and developed plans and procedures for surveillance and notifications, and mass immunization and fatality management. They have organized major training exercises such as "Mall Strike 2001," a simulated nerve agent and radiological incident; a simulated gas attack exercise in the Pittsburgh subway system; and a full-scale exercise testing the ability of 27 hospitals in three of the 13 counties to decontaminate victims of a chemical attack.
When United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in rural Somerset County on Sept.11, 2001, the chair of the working group was immediately in touch with other members of the group and emergency teams were deployed swiftly to the site. The group's four years of working together and preparing for terrorist events allowed them to develop and train teams that could work efficiently together during an event of this magnitude." - FEMA (03/12/03)

► EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT INCIDENTS, September Report

"LOCAL EMERGENCY PLANNING COMMITTEE (LEPC)
The 3rd quarter meeting of the Cambria County Local Emergency Planning Committee was conducted on September 10th in the air traffic control tower at the John Murtha Johnstown Cambria County Airport in Richland Township. Sergeant James Koshute of the 258 Air Traffic Control Squadron from the Pennsylvania Air National Guard served as the host. In addition to Sergeant Koshute, other LEPC members in attendance were Michael Hoover, Ron Springer, Ralph Saylor, Bernie McCreadie, June Kania, Mike Huss, Vikki King, Georgia Lehman and Leah Spangler.
Information was presented on the following issues and topics: the County hazmat team's successful team- technician certification from Bucks County Community College; completed HMEP training and preparedness grants for year 2001; applications for HMEP training and preparedness grants for year 2002; the 2000-2001 Hazardous Commodity Flow Study compiled by the Cambria County Department of Emergency Services; and equipment purchases regarding terrorism/hazmat response." - cambria.pa.us (09/01)

"The 258th Air Traffic Control Squadron is a geographically separated unit of the 171st ARW, and is located at the John P. Murtha Cambria County Airport in Johnstown Pennsylvania. Although the 258th only has 80 members, its mission is integral to the successful and safe operations of USAF, DOD, and allied aircraft at CONUS and OCONUS airfields." - papitt.ang.af.mil

(Note: John Murtha Cambria County Airport is approx. 19 miles N of the crash site according to Google Earth.  See also:  9/10- 9/11: The Johnstown "Terror Team" Cover-up - Team8Plus)

► The 20 most corrupt members of Congress (and five to watch):  Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) - beyonddelay.org

Any coincidence that a Raytheon and Northrop defense contractor is in the same county where Flight 93 crashed, or that Shanksville is a military flight corridor?

► Pitt program takes first-response technologies from lab to market

"For a dozen years, Kuchera Defense Systems in Somerset County has built a robust business producing high-tech equipment for military defense customers such as Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and McDonnell Douglas." - Pittsburg Post Gazette (10/14/05)

Kuchera Defense Systems, 345 Hillside Drive, Windber, PA 15963

(Approx. 13 miles from crash site (Google Earth).  Driving distance from Windber, PA to Shanksville, PA = 22.1 miles.)

Our Customers:

NAVY SURFACE WARFARE CENTER
NORTHROP GRUMMAN CORPORATION
RAYTHEON
McDONNELL DOUGLAS

► Raytheon Awarding $10 Million in Contracts to Kuchera
"JOHNSTOWN, June 1, 2001 — Raytheon Company is awarding Kuchera Defense Systems of Windber five contracts totaling $10 million to manufacture electronic circuit cards, cables/harness assemblies, and other components for various radar, missile and sensor programs, according to an announcement made here today by U.S. Rep. John Murtha and officials of both companies." - house.gov/murtha (06/01/01)

► Witnesses Recall Plane Crash
"A plane going over Shanksville wasn't anything unusual because it is a military flight corridor, said Kelly Leverknight, who lives in Shanksville, just a couple miles from the crash scene." - Daily American (2001) [Reprinted:  us-pentagon.tripod.com]

corridor - Restricted airspace for the passage of aircraft.

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