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Journalism of Courage
US Investigators now believe a hijacker in on board United Airlines Flight 93 instructed terrorist-pilot Ziad Jarrah to crash the jetliner into a Pennsylvania field because of a passenger uprising in the cabin.
This theory, based on the government8217;s analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the controls.
8216;8216;While no one will ever know exactly what transpired in the final minutes of Flight 93, every shred of evidence indicates this plane crashed because of the heroic actions of the passengers,8217;8217; FBI spokesperson Susan Whitson said on Thursday.
Citing transcripts of the still-secret cockpit recordings, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congressional investigators in a closed briefing last year that minutes before Flight 93 hit the ground, one of the hijackers 8216;8216;advised Jarrah to crash the plane and end the passengers8217; attempt to retake the airplane.8217;8217;
Jarrah is thought to have been the terrorist-pilot because only he had a pilot8217;s licence among the four hijackers.
Mueller8217;s description comes in a brief passage of the 858-page report to the Congress. Previous statements by FBI and other government officials have been ambiguous about what occurred in the cockpit.
The same cockpit recording was played privately in April 2002 for family members of victims aboard Flight 93. Some family members said later that they were led to believe that passengers used a food cart as a shield and successfully broke into the cockpit.
The FBI has been loath to publicly put forward a contradictory theory out of sensitivity to the families and because of uncertainty about what happened. People who have heard the recording describe it as nearly indecipherable, containing static noises, cockpit alarms and wind interspersed with cries in English and Arabic. Near the end of the tape, sounds can be heard of breaking glass and crashing dishes 8212; lending credence to the theory that passengers used the food cart to rush the jetliner8217;s narrow aisle.
Separately, the data recorder shows the plane8217;s wings rocking as the jet flew too low and too fast for safe flight. Intelligence officials believe the likely target for Flight 93 was the White House, based on information from Abu Zubaydah, a senior Al Qaeda terrorist leader in US custody who is believed to have played a key role in organising the 9/11 attacks.
Prosecutors have sought a US judge8217;s permission to play recordings from Flight 93 during the terrorism trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only defendant in a US case prosecutors have directly tied to the attacks. Moussaoui has been accused of conspiring with the hijackers.
