But other questions remain -

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14439058.htm

Posted on Thu, Apr. 27, 2006

VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING that is known about United Flight 93, the
hijacked jetliner that crashed into a coal field in western
Pennsylvania, has been put into the new Hollywood feature film about
the doomed voyage.

Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and
accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11,
2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight
controllers in filming "United 93."

"They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film
an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us,"
Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. "It gave the film a
veracity, an authenticity."

But while Greengrass tackled everything known about the flight - which
the government believes was purposely crashed by its four al Qaeda
hijackers because of the uprising by passengers who'd learned of the
World Trade Center crashes - there were things the movie could not
address.

Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.

Today, few but the most radical skeptics about 9/11 would question the
events at the core of "United 93," the struggle with heroic passengers
that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia
courtroom earlier this month.

But other questions remain - most notably about the government's
response. Why was the hijacked jet not intercepted by the military
jets that had been sent aloft after the Trade Center strikes? Did
President Bush or Vice President ***** Cheney order a shoot-down as the
plane neared Washington? And why didn't it happen?

"Unfortunately, we have yet to have a serious and honest investigation
into what happened on 9/11," said Paul Thompson, the author of "The
Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute."

Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for
what he considers a flawed military response.

Here are some other questions:

Q. Why weren't military fighters under the command of the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the
doomed flight?

A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was
geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic
hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In
fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a
June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario
with two simultaneously hijacked planes.

NORAD also told the 9/11 Commission that it hadn't been informed of
the Flight 93 hijacking until it was much too late to respond.
However, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold told an author in 2004, "We
watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area
and started to turn south toward D.C." That was about 27 minutes, or
more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its
remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at
approximately 9:30 a.m. - roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93
crashed - but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the
fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.

Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order
fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did Bush know about it?

A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was about 10 a.m. when Cheney -
running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking
at a Florida elementary school - was told that a hijacked plane was 80
miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.

Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff,
testified that he suggested that Cheney reconfirm that order with
Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such a call had
been made.

But according to a June 24, 2004, article in Newsweek, "some on the
[9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice
president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft
of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some
staffers 'flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.' "

Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the
unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.

Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen
by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93
crashed?

A. After several accounts, the government and a supporting 2005
article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet had been a Dassault
Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina
clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into Johnstown
Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal
Aviation Administration.

The plane was seen by about a dozen witnesses, including Susan
McElwain, who told Britain's Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear
engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and
two upright fins at the side... . It definitely wasn't one of those
executive jets." Several residents said the plane resembled the
military's A-10 Warthog.

Q. Why haven't we heard cockpit recordings nor seen the flight-data
recording from the other three flights?

A. Government agencies have insisted that the "black boxes" (actually
orange) found at the Pentagon were too badly damaged, while the four
in New York were never recovered, which was a first.

However, the Daily News reported in 2004 that two Ground Zero rescue
workers claimed they helped the FBI recover three of the four "black
boxes" there. Last year, Philadelphia free-lance writer Dave Lindorff
reported that a National Transportation Safety Board source told him:
"Off the record, we had the boxes. You'd have to get the official word
from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."

--------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/14439058.htm

Posted on Thu, Apr. 27, 2006

VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING that is known about United Flight 93, the
hijacked jetliner that crashed into a coal field in western
Pennsylvania, has been put into the new Hollywood feature film about
the doomed voyage.

Director Paul Greengrass not only relied on known transcripts and
accounts of real conversations that took place during the Sept. 11,
2001, drama, but he even used some real pilots, crew and flight
controllers in filming "United 93."

"They also believed, as the families believed, that making this film
an accurate account - not a conspiratorial effort - would help us,"
Greengrass told the Boston Herald recently. "It gave the film a
veracity, an authenticity."

But while Greengrass tackled everything known about the flight - which
the government believes was purposely crashed by its four al Qaeda
hijackers because of the uprising by passengers who'd learned of the
World Trade Center crashes - there were things the movie could not
address.

Those are the unknowns of Flight 93.

Today, few but the most radical skeptics about 9/11 would question the
events at the core of "United 93," the struggle with heroic passengers
that was captured on the cockpit voice recording played in a Virginia
courtroom earlier this month.

But other questions remain - most notably about the government's
response. Why was the hijacked jet not intercepted by the military
jets that had been sent aloft after the Trade Center strikes? Did
President Bush or Vice President ***** Cheney order a shoot-down as the
plane neared Washington? And why didn't it happen?

"Unfortunately, we have yet to have a serious and honest investigation
into what happened on 9/11," said Paul Thompson, the author of "The
Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute."

Thompson believes that officials should still be held accountable for
what he considers a flawed military response.

Here are some other questions:

Q. Why weren't military fighters under the command of the North
American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, able to intercept the
doomed flight?

A. Ever since 9/11, Pentagon officials have insisted that NORAD was
geared toward a foreign attack and not set up to deal with a domestic
hijacking, but there is considerable evidence to contradict that. In
fact, the 9/11 Commission found that NORAD had been planning for a
June 2002 exercise called Amalgam Virgo 2 that involved a scenario
with two simultaneously hijacked planes.

NORAD also told the 9/11 Commission that it hadn't been informed of
the Flight 93 hijacking until it was much too late to respond.
However, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold told an author in 2004, "We
watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area
and started to turn south toward D.C." That was about 27 minutes, or
more, before Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pa.

In defending its actions, NORAD has said that it launched its
remaining F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at
approximately 9:30 a.m. - roughly 33 to 36 minutes before Flight 93
crashed - but after another hijacked jet had struck the Pentagon, the
fighters were needed to defend the perimeter of Washington.

Q. Did high-ranking officials from the Bush administration order
fighters to shoot down Flight 93, and did Bush know about it?

A. The 9/11 Commission said that it was about 10 a.m. when Cheney -
running the White House command center because Bush had been speaking
at a Florida elementary school - was told that a hijacked plane was 80
miles away and was asked for military authority to shoot it down.

Joshua Bolten, the aide who is now White House chief of staff,
testified that he suggested that Cheney reconfirm that order with
Bush, and the two top officials and other aides said such a call had
been made.

But according to a June 24, 2004, article in Newsweek, "some on the
[9/11] commission staff were, in fact, highly skeptical of the vice
president's account and made their views clearer in an earlier draft
of their staff report. According to one knowledgeable source, some
staffers 'flat out didn't believe the call ever took place.' "

Some have even speculated this issue is why Bush and Cheney took the
unusual step of testifying jointly to the 9/11 Commission.

Q. Who was flying the fast-moving, low-flying white jet that was seen
by a dozen or more Shanksville residents just seconds after Flight 93
crashed?

A. After several accounts, the government and a supporting 2005
article in Popular Mechanics said the mystery jet had been a Dassault
Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corp., a North Carolina
clothing firm. The magazine said the jet was descending into Johnstown
Airport and circled the crash site at the request of the Federal
Aviation Administration.

The plane was seen by about a dozen witnesses, including Susan
McElwain, who told Britain's Daily Mirror in 2002: "It had two rear
engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and
two upright fins at the side... . It definitely wasn't one of those
executive jets." Several residents said the plane resembled the
military's A-10 Warthog.

Q. Why haven't we heard cockpit recordings nor seen the flight-data
recording from the other three flights?

A. Government agencies have insisted that the "black boxes" (actually
orange) found at the Pentagon were too badly damaged, while the four
in New York were never recovered, which was a first.

However, the Daily News reported in 2004 that two Ground Zero rescue
workers claimed they helped the FBI recover three of the four "black
boxes" there. Last year, Philadelphia free-lance writer Dave Lindorff
reported that a National Transportation Safety Board source told him:
"Off the record, we had the boxes. You'd have to get the official word
from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here."

--------------------------------------------------------------------