United Airlines:Flight 93 hijack: How the fourth aircraft missed its target during 9/11 attacks, story of courage by American passengers

By | August 16, 2024

United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks.

The hijackers planned to crash the plane into a federal government building in the national capital of Washington, D.C. The mission became a partial failure when the passengers fought back, forcing the terrorists to crash the plane in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, preventing them from reaching al-Qaeda’s intended target, but killing everyone aboard the flight. The airliner involved, a Boeing 757-200 with 44 passengers and crew, was flying United Airlines’ daily scheduled morning flight from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California, making it the only plane hijacked that day not to be a Los Angeles–bound flight.Forty-six minutes into the flight, the hijackers murdered one passenger, stormed the cockpit, and struggled with the pilots as controllers on the ground listened in.

Ziad Jarrah, who had trained as a pilot, took control of the aircraft and diverted it back toward the East Coast, in the direction of D.C. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, considered principal instigators of the attacks, have claimed that the intended target was the U.S. Capitol BuildingThe plane was 42 minutes behind schedule when it left the runway at 08:42. The hijackers’ decision to wait an additional 46 minutes to launch their assault meant that the people being held hostage on the flight very quickly learned that suicide attacks had already been made by hijacked airliners on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center complex in New York City as well as the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, near D.C. By 9:57 a.m., only 29 minutes after the plane had been hijacked, the passengers had made the decision to fight back in an effort to gain control of the aircraft.

In the ensuing struggle, the plane nosedived into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township, near Indian Lake and Shanksville, about 65 miles (105 km) southeast of Pittsburgh and 130 miles (210 km) northwest of the capital. One person witnessed the impact from the ground, and news agencies began reporting the event within an hour.United Airlines Flight 93 was the fourth and final passenger jet to be commandeered by terrorists on September 11, and the only one that did not reach a target intended by al-Qaeda. The hijacking was supposed to be coordinated with that of American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon less than 26 minutes before the crash of Flight 93. A temporary memorial was built near the crash site soon after the attacks.[2] Construction of a permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011,[3] and a concrete and glass visitor center (situated on a hill overlooking the site)[4] was opened exactly four years later.[5]The hijacking of Flight 93 was led by Ziad Jarrah, a member of al-Qaeda.[6] Jarrah was born in Lebanon to a wealthy family and had a secular upbringing.[7] He intended to become a pilot and moved to Germany in 1996, enrolling at the University of Greifswald to study German.[8] A year later, he moved to Hamburg and began studying aeronautical engineering at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.[9] In Hamburg, Jarrah became a devout Muslim and associated with the radical Hamburg cell.[9][10]In November 1999, Jarrah left Hamburg for Afghanistan, where he spent three months.[11] While there, he met with al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in January 2000.[12] Jarrah returned to Hamburg at the end of January and in February obtained a new passport containing no stamped records of his travels by reporting his passport as stolen.[13][11]

In May, Jarrah received a visa from the U.S. Embassy in Berlin,[14] arriving in Florida in June 2000. There, he began taking flying lessons and training in hand-to-hand combat.[15][16] Jarrah maintained contact with his girlfriend in Germany and with his family in Lebanon in the months preceding the attacks.[17] This close contact upset Mohamed Atta, the tactical leader of the plot, and al-Qaeda planners may have considered another operative, Zacarias Moussaoui, to replace him if he had backed out.[18]

Four “muscle” hijackers were trained to storm the cockpit and overpower the crew, and three accompanied Jarrah on Flight 93. The first, Ahmed al-Nami, arrived in Miami, Florida, on May 28, 2001, on a six-month tourist visa with United Airlines Flight 175 hijackers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohand al-Shehri. The second, Ahmed al-Haznawi, arrived in Miami on June 8 with Flight 11 hijacker Wail al-Shehri. The third, Saeed al-Ghamdi, arrived in Orlando, Florida, on June 27 with Flight 175 hijacker Fayez Banihammad.[15] Ziad Jarrah’s and Saeed al-Ghamdi’s passports were recovered from the Flight 93 crash site.[19] Jarrah’s family said he had been an “innocent passenger” on board the flight.[20]

Al-Qaeda had intended for the attacks to be carried out by four teams of five men each, but only 19 terrorists were able to participate when the day came. The missing 20th was Mohammed al-Qahtani, who flew into Orlando from Dubai on August 3, 2001, intending to board Flight 93 as its fifth hijacker on September 11.[21]: 28  He was questioned by officials, who were dubious that he could support himself with only $2,800 cash to his name, and suspicious that he planned to become an illegal immigrant as he was using a one-way ticket. He was sent back to Dubai, and subsequently returned to Saudi Arabia

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