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Contents
Foreword..1
Chapter I : The descriptions of World Trade Center
1.1 February 13, 1975 fire.2
1.2 Bombing of February 26,1993 ...3
1.8 The attacks of the 11
th
september 2OO1.....3
1.4 Fatalities.....4
1.5. Survivors ....4
Chapter II : Conspiracy theories
2.1. History............................................................................5
2.2 Types of criticism...........................................................b
2.8 Main theories..................................................................b
2.8.1 Ioreknowledge...................................................b
2.8.2 Air Defense Stand Down Theory.......................b
2.8.8.Israeli agents ......................................................7
2.4 World Trade Center Collapse......................................7
2.5 The Pentagon...............................................................8
2.b Ilight 98.......................................................................8
2.7 Hijackers......................................................................9
2.8 Phone calls...................................................................9
2.9 Planned by Israel.......................................................1O
2.1O Coverup allegations...................................................1O
2.11 Cockpit recorders........................................................1O
2.12 Bin Iaden tapes.........................................................1O
2.18 Other theories..............................................................11
2.18.1 Ioreign governments.....................................11
2.18.2 No plane theories...........................................11
2.14 Motives.......................................................................11
2.14.1 Pax Americana...............................................11
2.14.2 Invasions........................................................11
Conclusions ......................................................................12
Bibliography ....13
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Foreword
This papers purpose is to provide an outline of the most tragic events in U.S.
history.
On September 11, 2OO1, 19 alQaedatrained terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial
airliners. The hijackers crashed two of the jets(American Airlines flight 11 and United
Airlines flight 175) into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and crashed the
third jet(American Airlines flight 77) into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. Passengers
and crew battled the hijackers for control of the fourth jet(United Airlines flight 98) , and it
crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, short of reaching the hijackers' intended
target in Washington, D.C.
The attacks caused the subsequent collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers, damaged
the Pentagon, and killed approximately 8,OOO people. Included in the death toll were hundreds
of firefighters and rescue personnel who responded to the crashes at the World Trade Center
site and who were in the process of rescuing those inside when the buildings collapsed.
In the first chapter I described The World Trade Center (WTC) as being a complex of
seven buildings in Iower Manhattan in New York City that were destroyed in the September
11, 2OO1 terrorist attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with six new skyscrapers and a
memorial to the casualties of the attacks. At the time of its completion, they were the tallest
building in the world, surpassing the Impire State Building, which is also in Manhattan.
I also presented the official report released by the US government regarding the 9/11 2OO1
attacks.
In the second chapter I wrote about several conspiracy theories that are far more plausible
than the official report released by the government.
The most prevalent conspiracy theories can be broadly divided into two main forms:
IIHOP ("Iet it happen on purpose") suggests that key individuals within the government
had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or actively
weakened America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted.
MIHOP ("Make/Made it happen on purpose") that key individuals within the government
planned the attacks and collaborated with, or framed, alQaeda in carrying them out. There is
a range of opinions about how this might have been achieved.
4
Chapter I : The descriptions of World Trade Center
The World Trade Center in New York City, United States, (sometimes informally
referred to as the WTC or the Twin Towers) was a complex of seven buildings in Iower
Manhattan, mostly designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki and engineer Ieslie Robertson
and developed by the Port Authority of New York and New |ersey. The complex, located in
the heart of New York City's downtown financial district, contained 18.4 million square feet
(1.24 million m) of office space, almost four percent of Manhattan's entire office inventory at
that time.
Best known for its iconic 11Ostory twin towers (1O1 usable floors, eight engineering
only "service" floors on top of a lobby which was three stories high) the World Trade Center
was beset by a fire on Iebruary 18, 1975 and a bombing on Iebruary 2b, 1998.
All seven original buildings in the complex were destroyed by terrorists linked to Al
Qaeda on September 11, 2OO1. Three of the buildings collapsed: One World Trade Center (1
WTC, the North Tower), Two World Trade Center (2 WTC, the South Tower), and 7 World
Trade Center (7 WTC). The Marriott World Trade Center (8 WTC) was crushed by the
collapses of 1 WTC and 2 WTC. 4 World Trade Center (4 WTC), 5 World Trade Center (5
WTC), and b World Trade Center (b WTC) were damaged beyond repair and later
demolished. Three buildings not part of the complex were also destroyed: St. Nicholas Greek
Orthodox Church was destroyed by the collapse of 2 WTC. The Deutsche Bank Building and
Borough of Manhattan Community College's Iiterman Hall were damaged beyond repair by
the collapse of 7 WTC, these are currently being deconstructed.
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Ultimately the complex came to consist of seven buildings, but its most notable
features were the main twin towers. Iach of the WTC towers had 11O stories. 1 WTC (the
North Tower, which featured a massive 8bOfoot (11O m) high TV and radio antenna added in
1978) stood 1,8b8 feet (417 m) high, and 2 WTC (the South Tower, which contained the
observation deck) was 1,8b2 feet (415 m) highThe length and breadth of the towers were 2O8
feet (b8.4 m) x 2O8 feet (b8.4 m).When completed in 1972, 1 WTC became the tallest
building on Iarth, unseating the Impire State Building after a 4O year reign. 2 WTC became
the second tallest building in the world when completed in 1978.
b. The other buildings
Iive smaller buildings stood around the 1b acre (b5,OOO m) block. One was the 22
floor Vista Hotel (8 WTC) at the southwest corner of the site, that was crushed between the
two towers. Three lowrise buildings (4 WTC, 5 WTC, and b WTC) in the same hollow tube
design as the towers also stood around the plaza. b World Trade Center, at the north west
corner, housed the United States Customs Service and the U.S. Commodities Ixchange. 5
World Trade Center was located at the northeast corner, above the PATH station, and 4 World
Trade Center was at the southeast corner. In 1987, a 47floor office building called 7 WTC
was built north of the block. Beneath the World Trade Center complex was an underground
shopping mall. One of the world's largest gold depositories was stored underneath the World
Trade Center, owned by a group of commercial banks. Seven weeks after the September 11th
attacks, $28O million in precious metals were removed from basement vaults of 4 WTC,
which included 8,8OO 1OOTroyounce registered gold bars and 8O,OOO 1,OOOounce silver
bars.
1.2. 1003 World Trade Center bombing
In the 1003 World Trade Center bombing (Iebruary 2b, 1998) a car bomb was
detonated below Tower One of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,5OOlb (b8O
kg) urea nitratehydrogen gas enhanced device
|1|
was intended to knock the North Tower
(Tower One) into Tower Two, bringing both towers down and killing thousands of people. It
failed to do so, but did kill six people and injured 1,O42.
The attack was planned by a group of conspirators including Ramzi Yousef, Mahmud
Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ahmad Ajaj.
They received financing from alQaeda memberKhaled Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef's uncle.
In March 1994, four men were convicted of carrying out the bombing: Abouhalima, Ajaj,
Ayyad and Salameh. The charges included conspiracy, explosive destruction of property and
interstate transportation of explosives. And in November 1997, two more were convicted:
Yousef, the mastermind behind the bombings, and Iyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying
the bomb.
The bomb exploded in the underground garage at 12:18 P.M., generating a pressure
estimated over one GPa and opening a 8Ometerwide hole through four sublevels of concrete.
The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,OOO ft/s (4.5 km/s). a quote from the claim
b
of responsibility letter written by one of the terrorists, "We are, the Iiberation Army fifth
battalion, again. Unfortunately, our calculations were not very accurate this time. However,
we promise you that next time it will be very precise and World Trade Center will continue to
be one |of| our targets unless our demands have been met.
1.8. The attacks of 11
th
september 2001
The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 0/11) were a series of
coordinated suicide attacks by alQaeda upon the United States.
On that morning, nineteen terrorists affiliated with alQaeda hijacked four commercial
passenger jet airliners. Iach team of hijackers included a member who had undergone some
pilot training. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners (American Airlines
Ilight 11 and United Airlines Ilight 175) into the World Trade Center in New York City, one
plane into each tower (1 WTC and 2 WTC), resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon
afterward and extensive damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner
(American Airlines Ilight 77) into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near
Washington, D.C. Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft (United
Airlines Ilight 98) attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers, that plane
crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Aside from the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died as an immediate result of the attacks,
and the death of at least one person from lung disease was ruled by a medical examiner to be a
result of exposure to WTC dust.Another 24 people are missing and presumed dead, bringing
the total number of victims to 2,998, the overwhelming majority of whom were civilians. The
dead included nationals from over 8O different countries.
Iour commercial airliners were hijacked en route to California from Iogan
International, Dulles International, and Newark airports. Iach of the airliners had a jet fuel
capacity of nearly 24,OOO U.S. gallons (91,OOO liters). Two of the airliners were flown into the
World Trade Center, one each into the North and South towers, one was flown into the
Pentagon, and the fourth, whose ultimate target was probably either the White House or the
U.S. Capitol building, crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
American Airlines Ilight 11, a Boeing 7b72OO widebody aircraft, crashed into the
northern side of the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) at 8:4b:8O a.m.
local time (Iastern Daylight Time, 12:4b:8O UTC), hitting at the 9498th floors
United Airlines Ilight 175, a Boeing 7b72OO, crashed into the 7885th floors of the
South Tower at 9:O2:59 a.m. local time (18:O2:59 UTC), an event covered live by
television broadcasters and amateur filmers from around the world who had their
cameras trained on the buildings after the earlier crash.
American Airlines Ilight 77, a Boeing 7572OO, crashed into the Pentagon at 9:87:4b
a.m. local time (18:87:4b UTC).
United Airlines Ilight 98, a Boeing 7572OO, crashed in a field in southwest
Pennsylvania just outside of Shanksville, about 15O miles (24O km) northwest of
Washington, D.C., at 1O:O8:11 a.m. local time (14:O8:11 UTC). The crash in
Pennsylvania resulted from the passengers of the airliner attempting to regain control
from the hijackers.
Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure
on the day of the attack. The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after
burning for 5b minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Ilight 175. The north
tower (1 WTC) collapsed at 1O:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 1O2 minutes. A third
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building, 7 World Trade Center (7 WTC) collapsed at 5:2O p.m. as a result of debris damage
from 1 WTC and subsequent fire.
1.4. Fatalities
There were 2,974 fatalities, not including the 19 hijackers: 24b on the four planes (no
one on board of the hijacked aircrafts survived), 2,bO8 in New York City in the towers and on
the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon.Iieutenant General Timothy Maude was the highest
ranking military official killed at the Pentagon. |ohn P. O'Neill was a former assistant director
of the IBI who assisted in the capture of Ramzi Yousef and was the head of security at the
World Trade Center when he was killed trying to rescue people from the South Tower. An
additional 24 people remain listed as missing.
1,8bb people died who were at or above the floors of impact in the North Tower (1
WTC). According to the Commission Report, hundreds were killed instantly by the impact
while the rest were trapped and died after the tower collapsed. As many as bOO people were
killed instantly or were trapped at or above the floors of impact in the South Tower (2 WTC).
Only about 18 managed to escape in time from above the impact zone and out of the South
Tower before it collapsed. At least 2OO people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers
(as depicted in the photograph "The Ialling Man"), landing on the streets and rooftops of
adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below..
A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene lost their lives as they
attempted to implement rescue and fire suppression efforts. The New York City Iire
Department lost 841 firefighters and 2 IDNY Paramedics. The New York City Police
Department lost 28 officers. The Port Authority Police Department lost 87 officers. Private
IMS units lost 8 additional IMTs and paramedics.
1.5. Survivors
According to the 9/11 Commission, approximately 1b,OOO people were below the
impact zones in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks. About 92% of
those below the impact areas survived, evacuating before the towers collapsed.
Chapter II : 0/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories allege that the September 11 attacks in 2OO1 were either permitted to
proceed even though known about in advance, or were a false flag operation orchestrated by
an organization with elements inside the United States government. In a 2OO8 poll of 17
countries, 15% of those surveyed believed the US government was responsible for the attacks,
7% believed Israel was and another 7% believed some other perpetrator, other than al Qaeda,
was responsible. The most prominent theory is that the collapse of the World Trade Center
and 7 World Trade Center were the result of a controlled demolition rather than structural
weakening due to fire. Another prominent belief is that the Pentagon was hit by a missile
launched by elements from inside the U.S. government or that a commercial airliner was
allowed to do so via an effective standdown of the American military. Motives cited by
conspiracy theorists include justifying the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and geostrategic
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interests in the Mideast, including pipeline plans launched in the early 199Os by Unocal and
other oil companies.
2.1. History
On September 11, 2OO1, 19 alQaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger jet
airliners. The hijackers intentionally crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many others working in
the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within two hours, destroying at least two nearby
buildings and damaging others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon and a
fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the passengers and flight
crew revolted.
The 9/11 Commission Report disclosed prior warnings of varying detail of planned attacks
against the United States by alQaeda. The report said that the government ignored these
warnings due to a lack of communication between various law enforcement and intelligence
personnel. Ior the lack of interagency communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia
and laws passed in the 197Os to prevent abuses that caused scandals during that era. The
report faulted the Clinton and the Bush administrations with failure of imagination.
Within the context of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the terms 'mainstream account,' 'official
account' and 'official conspiracy theory' all refer to:
The reports from government investigations the 9/11 Commission Report (which
incorporated intelligence information from the earlier IBI investigation (PINTTBOM) and
the |oint Inquiry of 2OO2), and the studies into building performance carried out by the
Iederal Imergency Management Agency (IIMA) and the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST).
Articles supporting these facts and theories appearing in magazines such as Popular
Mechanics, Scientific American, and Time.
Similar articles in news media throughout the world, including The Times of India, the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC, Ie Monde, Deutsche Welle, the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and The Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.
President Barack Obama's |une 2OO9 speech to the Muslim world where he said "I am aware
that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: alQaeda killed nearly
8,OOO people on that day."
Since the attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have been put forward in web sites, books,
and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11 conspiracy theories identify as part
of the 9/11 Truth Movement. One allegation that was widely circulated by email and on the
Web, is that not a single |ew had been killed in the attack and that therefore the attacks must
have been the work of the Mossad, not Islamic terrorists.
While these theories were popular in Iurope, they were treated by the U.S. media with either
bafflement or amusement, and they were dismissed by the U.S. government as the product of
antiAmericanism. In an address to the United Nations on November 1O, 2OO1, United States
President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories |...|
that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."
The 9/11 conspiracy theories started out mostly in the political left wing but has broadened
into what New York Magazine describes as "terra incognita where left and right meet, fusing
sixties countercultural distrust with the donttreadonme variety".
By 2OO4, conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks began to gain ground in the
United States. One explanation is that the rise in popularity stemmed more from growing
criticism of the Iraq War and the newly reelected president George W. Bush than from any
discovery of new or more compelling evidence or an improvement of the technical quality of
the presentation of the theories. Knight Ridder news theorized that revelations that weapons
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of mass destruction did not exist in Iraq, the belated release of the President's Daily Brief of
August b, 2OO1, and reports that NORAD had lied to the 9/11 Commission, may have fueled
the conspiracy theories.
2.2. Types of criticism
The most prevalent conspiracy theories can be broadly divided into two main forms:
LIHOP ("Iet it happen on purpose") suggests that key individuals within the government
had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or actively
weakened America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted.
MIHOP ("Make/Made it happen on purpose") that key individuals within the government
planned the attacks and collaborated with, or framed, alQaeda in carrying them out.
2.3. Main theories
2.3.1. Foreknowledge
It has been claimed that action or inaction by U.S. officials with foreknowledge was intended
to ensure that the attacks took place successfully. Author David Ray Griffin alleges that the
9/11 conspiracy was considerably larger than the government claims and that the entire 9/11
Commission Report "is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11
is true."
2.3.2. Air Defense Stand Down Theory
A common claim is that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued
a stand down order or deliberately scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to
reach their targets without interference. According to this theory, NORAD had the capability
of locating and intercepting planes on 9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government
conspiracy to allow the attacks to occur. StandDown.net's Mark R. Ilsis says "There is only
one explanation for this.... Our Air Iorce was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."
In September 2OO1, NORAD generals said they learned of the hijackings in time to scramble
fighter jets. Iater, the U.S. government released tapes claiming to show the Iederal Aviation
Agency (IAA) did not tell the military about the hijackings until three of the four planes had
crashed, a fact that would indicate that the IAA repeatedly lied to other U.S. government
agencies.
According to Popular Mechanics, only 14 fighter jets were on alert in the contiguous 48 states
on 9/11. There was no automated method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert
NORAD. A passenger airline hadn't been hijacked in the US since 1979. "They had to pick up
the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD.
According to Popular Mechanics, only one civilian plane was intercepted in the decade prior
to 9/11, which took 1 hour and 22 minutes.
Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic flight on intercepts. Before 9/11,
all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones
(ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says IAA spokesman Bill Schumann.
After 9/11, the IAA and NORAD increased cooperation. They set up hotlines between
command centers while NORAD increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch
airspace over the continent.
1O
2.3.3 Israeli agents
It has been claimed that Israeli agents may have had foreknowledge of the attacks. Iour hours
after the attack, the IBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from
the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an apartment building, for "puzzling behavior".
The Israelis were videotaping the events, and one bystander said they acted in a suspicious
manner: "They were like happy, you know ... They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was
very strange." The IBI eventually concluded that the five Israelis had no foreknowledge of
the attacks.
2.4.World Trade Center Collapse
Criticism of the reports published by NIST on the destruction of the World Trade Center
buildings plays a central role in theories about an alleged controlled demolition. The picture
shows the simulated exterior buckling of 7 WTC during the collapse.
The controlled demolition conspiracy theories claim that the collapse of the North Tower,
South Tower and 7 World Trade Center was not caused by the plane crash damage, or by
resulting fire damage, but by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.
Demolition theory proponents, such as physicist Steven I. |ones, architect Richard Gage,
software engineer |im Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft
impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a
catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the
speeds that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their structures. |ones, in a
paper published in the Open Chemical Physical |ournal, has presented the hypothesis that
thermite or nanothermite was used to demolish the buildings and says he has found evidence
of such explosives in the WTC dust.
Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published that the towers had collapsed
due to melted steel. Knowledge that the burning temperatures of jet fuel would not melt the
steel support structure of the WTC contributed to the belief among skeptics that the towers
would not have collapsed without external interference (something other than the planes).
NIST does not claim that the steel was melted, but rather that the weakened steel (at 1OOO
degrees Celsius steel weakens to roughly 1O% of its room temperature strength), together with
the damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused the collapses. NIST reported that a
simulation model based on the assumption that combustible vapors burned immediately upon
mixing with the incoming oxygen showed that "at any given location, the duration of |gas|
temperatures near 1,OOO C was about 15 to 2O |minutes|. The rest of the time, the calculated
temperatures were 5OO C or below."
The government/media approved version of events insists that the fires in the World Trade
Center burned so hot that they caused steel supports to melt and buckle, thus triggering a total
collapse of the towers. This is a strange theory for a number of reasons:
1. The architects who designed the World Trade Center designed it to withstand the direct
impact and fuel fire of a commercial airline crash. Aaron Swirsky, one of the architects of the
WTC described the collapse as "incredible" and "unbelievable." 9b Iee Robertson, the
11
project's structural engineer said: "I designed it for a 7O7 to hit it. The Boeing 7O7 has a fuel
capacity comparable to the 7b7." 97
2. The history of highrise building fires provides no case histories of buildings collapsing due
to steel beams melting from a fire.
8. The collapse of both towers were both perfectly symmetrical and methodical. The straight
down collapse was identical in appearance to a well engineered, controlled implosion. A
demolition company could not have done it better. Now that we know that all one has to do to
bring a tall building straight down is set a fuel fire in it, the well trained experts who work for
demolition companies should all be out of a job by now! Iven a layman with no explosives
background should be able to see this. But many specialists in the explosives and structural
engineering have also made this observation and commented on these inconsistencies. After
the WTC collapse, the Vice President of New Mexico Tech, Van Romero, gave an interview
to the Albuquerque |ournal. He stated plainly that he believed that the WTC collapse was too
methodical and that explosive devices must have been placed in key points of both buildings.
2.5.The Pentagon
The first of the five video frames leaked in 2OO2 showing the Pentagon just before impact.
The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section.
Debris scattered near the Pentagon.
According to some theories, the U.S. administration deliberately chose not to shoot down a
plane that was heading for the Pentagon, while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon
at all.
Thierry Meyssan and Dylan Avery argue that American Airlines Ilight 77 did not crash into
the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements
from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls
were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and
155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only bO ft. across
Airplane debris including Ilight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane
tire, and an intact cockpit seat were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from
Ilight 77 were found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA
analysis. Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Iurther, Ilight 77 passengers
made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. .
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2.0.Flight 03
Ilight 98 Crash Site
The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Ilight 98, crashed in an open field near
Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on
that day, it was the only one not to reach its target.
One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is that Ilight 98 was actually
shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. David Ray Griffin and Alex |ones say that large parts of the
plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away from the main wreckage site,
too far away for an ordinary plane crash..
Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Iake by local residents are accurate. CNN reported
that investigators found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site,
including in New Baltimore. However, according to CNN, this debris was all very light
material that the wind would have easily blown away
Some internet videos, such as Ioose Change, speculate that Ilight 98 safely landed in Ohio,
and a substituted plane was involved in the crash in Pennsylvania. Often cited is a preliminary
news report that Ilight 98 landed at a Cleveland airport, it was later learned that Delta Ilight
1989 was the plane confused with Ilight 98, and the report was retracted as inaccurate.
Several websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim, citing the wreckage at
the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for
another, and claim that such "hoax theories... appear calculated to alienate victims' survivors
and the larger public from the 9/11 truth movement".
The woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from the impact of Ilight
98 hitting the ground says she has been harassed by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked
the photo. The FBI, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Services Flight 93 National
Memorial consider it to be authentic.
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Ilight 98 and/or Ilight 77 were
murdered or that they were relocated, with the intent that they never be found.
2.7.Hijackers
During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC
published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers. Some of
the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11
conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked. The BBC explained that the
initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2OO1 were
common Arabic and Islamic names. In response to a request from the BBC, the IBI stated
that it was confident to have identified all nineteen hijackers, and that none of the other
inquiries had raised the issue of doubt about their identities. When the IBI released
photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were
quickly resolved. " In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving
attackers, Said alGhamdi and Walid alShari, are "as common as |ohn Smith in the United
States or Great Britain."
18
Iive of the alleged hijackers may have received training at U.S. military facilities. The
Defense Department confirmed that three of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al
Omari and Saeed alGhamdi, "have the same names as alumni of American military schools."
2.8.Phone calls
After 9/11, cellular experts said that calls were able to be placed from the hijacked planes, and
that they were surprised that they lasted as long as they did. They said that the only reason
that the calls went through in the first place is that the aircraft were flying so close to the
ground. Alexa Graf, an AT&T spokesperson said it was almost a fluke that the calls reached
their destinations. Other industry experts said that it is possible to use cell phones with
varying degrees of success during the ascent and descent of commercial airline flights.
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 18 passengers from Ilight 98 made a total of over
8O calls to both family and emergency personnel (twentytwo confirmed air phone calls, two
confirmed cell phone and eight not specified in the report). According to
Debunk911myths.org, all but two calls from Ilight 98 were made on air phones, not cell
phones, and both calls lasted about a minute before being dropped. There were reportedly
three phone calls from Ilight 11, five from Ilight 175, and three calls from Ilight 77. Two
calls from these flights were recorded, placed by flight attendants Madeleine Sweeney and
Betty Ong on Ilight 11.
2.0.Planned by Israel
A conspiracy theory documented by the AntiDefamation Ieague, Abraham Ioxman, Thom
Burnett and others, is that Israel planned the attacks. A variety of motives are suggested,
including: to cause the United States to attack enemies of Israel, to divert public attention
away from Israel's treatment of Palestinians, to help Zionists take control of world affairs, and
to persuade Americans to support Israel. Variants of the theory contend that the attack was
organized by Ariel Sharon, Mossad, or the government of Israel. Analysts often associate this
conspiracy theory with the related theory that agents of Israel knew of the impending attack,
but did not stop it.
2.10.Cover-up allegations
Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating
the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict
the accepted account.The debris from groundzero, for example, was removed without a
proper forensic investigation, making it very difficult to discover why the World Trade Center
buildings collapsed.
2.11.Cockpit recorders
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the cockpit voice recorders (CVR) or flight data
recorders (IDR), or "black boxes", from Ilights 11 and 175 were not recovered from the
remains of the WTC attack, however, two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi, who
worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, stated in the book Behind
TheScenes: Ground Zero that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes"
from the jetliners:
"At one point I was assigned to take Iederal Agents around the site to search for the black
boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the
stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of
equipment and strapped it into the ATV. There were a total of four black boxes. We found
three."
The cockpit voice recorder from Ilight 77 was heavily damaged from the impact and resulting
fire.
14
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Ilight 77 and both black
boxes from Ilight 98 were recovered. However, the CVR from Ilight 77 was said to be too
damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2OO2, the IBI allowed the families of victims from
Ilight 98 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2OOb, a transcript of the CVR was released
as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.
2.12.Bin Laden tapes
A series of interviews, audio and videotapes have been released since the 9/11 attacks that
have been reported to be from Osama bin Iaden. At first the speaker denied responsibility for
the attacks. In a tape released in December 2OO1 the speaker claimed responsibility for the
attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency claimed the tape was probably from Osama bin
Iaden. Some observers, especially people in the Muslim world, doubted the authenticity of
the tape.
2.13Other theories
2.13.1 Foreign governments
There are allegations that individuals within the Pakistani InterServices Intelligence (ISI)
may have played an important role in financing the attacks. There are also claims that other
foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks,
and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks.
2.13.2 No plane theories
The "no plane theory," promoted by internetonly videos like 911 Taboo,asserts that this shot
of the second impact, taken from a news helicopter, depicts a video composite of a Boeing
7b7 accidentally appearing from behind a Iayer Mask.
Nico Haupt and Morgan Reynolds, formerly the chief economist within the Iabor Department
under the Bush administration argue that no planes were used in the attacks. Reynolds claims
it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes of Ilights 11 and 175, being largely
aluminium, could have penetrated the steel frames of the Towers, and that digital compositing
was used to depict the plane crashes in both news reports and subsequent amateur video.
"There were no planes, there were no hijackers. According to David Shayler, "The only
explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes," he
says.
15
2.14 Motives
2.14.1 Pax Americana
In 2OOb, members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth argued that a group of US neo
conservatives called the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which included Paul
Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, set on US world dominance and orchestrated
the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to hit Iraq, Afghanistan and later Iran.
2.14.2 Invasions
Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether the Oil Iactor and 9/11 provided the United
States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time,
and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or
allowing them to take place. Ior instance, Andreas von Blow, a former research minister in
the German government, has argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq. Iormer Malaysian premiere Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying
that there was "strong evidence" that the attacks were faked so the US could go to war against
Muslims.
Conclusions
I have called attention to glaring inadequacies in the final reports funded by the US
government. I have also presented multiple evidences for an alternative hypothesis. In
particular, the official theory lacks repeatability in that no actual models or buildings (before
or since 911O1) have been observed to completely collapse due to the proposed firebased
mechanisms. On the other hand, hundreds of buildings have been completely and
symmetrically demolished through the use of prepositioned explosives. And high
temperature
chemical reactions can account for the observed large pools of molten metal, under both
Towers and WTC 7, and the sulfidation of structural steel. The controlleddemolition
hypothesis cannot be dismissed as "junk science" because it better satisfies tests of
repeatability and parsimony. It ought to be seriously (scientifically) investigated and debated.
A truly independent, crossdisciplinary, international panel should be formed. Such a panel
would consider all viable hypotheses, including the prepositionedexplosives theory, guided
not by politicized notions and constraints, but rather by observations and calculations, to
reach a scientific conclusion. If possible it would question, under oath, the officials who
approved the rapid removal and destruction of the WTC steel beams and columns before they
could be properly analyzed.
None of the governmentfunded studies have provided serious analyses of the explosive
demolition hypothesis at all. Until the above steps are taken, the case for accusing illtrained
Muslims of causing all the destruction on 911O1 is far from compelling. It just does not add
up. And that fact should be of great concern to Americans. (Ryan, 2OO4). Clearly, we must
find out what really caused the WTC skyscrapers to collapse as they did. The implications of
what happened on 9/11/2OO1 clearly supercede partisan politics. Physics sheds light on the
issue which we ignore to our peril as we contemplate the wars that have been and may yet be
justified on the basis of the 9/11 tragedy and its "official" interpretation. To this end, NIST
must release the b,899 photographs and over 8OO hours of video recordings acquired mostly
by private parties which it admits to holding (NIST, 2OO5,
p. 81). Ividence relating to WTC 7 and its mysterious collapse must not be held back. In
particular, photos and analyses of the molten metal observed in the basements of both
Towers and WTC7 need to be brought forth to the international community of scientists and
1b
engineers immediately.
I believe that the conspiracy theories are far more plausible than the official report released by
the government but the only thing that mattersin this case is that The September 11, 2OO1
attacks were the most deadly international terrorist attack in history and the largest attack on
United States territory since the |apanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
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