Day of Terror: Outside tiny Shanksville, a fourth deadly stroke

Wednesday, September 12, 2001

This story was written by staff writer Jonathan D. Silver, based on his reporting and that of staff writers Bob Batz Jr., Mark Belko, Mike Bucsko, Tom Gibb, Monica L. Haynes, Ernie Hoffman, Ginny Kopas, Cindi Lash, Timothy McNulty and James O'Toole.

Yesterday's rapid-fire blitz of terror began in the world's most glamorous city, continued in the nation's capital, and ended atop a rural hill in Somerset County.

It was there, just outside the tiny town of Shanksville, that a United Airlines jetliner crashed, killing all 45 people aboard in what appeared to be the fourth and final stroke of a choreographed wave of terrorism that was equated to the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.

United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757-200 en route from New Jersey to San Francisco, fell from the sky near Shanksville at 10:06 a.m., about two hours after it took off, leaving a trail of debris five miles long.

The Washington Post reported that leaders of Congress -- including Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas and House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, D-Mo. -- were told at a briefing by the Capitol Police that the hijacked plane might have been bound for the Capitol or Camp David, the presidential retreat in Thurmont, Md., 85 miles southeast of the crash site, according to participants in the meeting.

The participants discussed a possible shoot down of the aircraft, said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind.

"All of a sudden, terrorism is here in my back yard," said retired coal miner Charles Rhoades, 80, of Shanksville, who was watching TV when he heard the large boom as the plane went down less than a quarter-mile from his home. "You live in the country to escape this kind of stuff."

Authorities weren't ready yesterday to pronounce the crash a result of terrorism. But a telling detail came minutes before the plane went down when dispatchers at the Westmoreland County Emergency Operations Center intercepted a frantic cell phone call made to 911 by a passenger aboard the doomed flight.

Investigators who swarmed to the scene were sparing no effort to uncover the truth.

Law enforcement agencies from Western Pennsylvania and across the state have made the crash their "primary investigation, if not their only one," said FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley, spokesman for the Pittsburgh FBI office.

The FBI is coordinating the investigation and relying on the services and expertise of dozens of other local, state and federal agencies, he said. One special evidence response team from Pittsburgh went to the crash scene yesterday, and three more teams are on their way to the site from other parts of the country.

Investigators will be in Somerset County around the clock collecting evidence and performing the gruesome task of body identification, Crowley said.

"We'll do whatever is needed to get the job done," he said. "It's going to require the skills of many different agencies."

Information from federal agencies was scant about Flight 93's flight path or final destination after departing from Newark at 8:01 a.m. with 38 passengers, two pilots and five flight attendants aboard.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Johnstown, said last night he could only guess that the plane's likely target was "a second shot at the Pentagon or the Capitol or the White House itself."

"The destination sure wasn't an open field," he said. "It's fortunate it didn't come down sooner, on Johnstown."

***Murtha also said the Pentagon denied reports that the 757 was being shadowed by U.S. military aircraft.*** But he suggested that terrorists would have picked the 757 because it would have worked as a fuel-packed bomb. A 757-200 can carry up to 11,276 gallons of fuel.

As the plane neared Pittsburgh, Mayor Tom Murphy stayed in contact with the FBI and the Federal Aviation Administration.

At the John P. Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport near Johnstown, a call from air traffic controllers in Cleveland set off 10 minutes of high tension before the plane crashed 14 miles southeast of the airport.

"It was an aircraft doing some unusual maneuvers at a low level, which is unusual for an aircraft that size," Fritz said last night. "It happened so quickly."

Then, somewhere within the air zone, about 15 miles south of Johnstown, the plane turned again toward the south.

The impact "sounded like dynamite," said Lucy Menear, 83, who lives less than a half-mile from the crash site. "It seems as though everything was falling apart."

Eric Peterson, 28, was working in his shop in the Somerset County village of Lambertsville yesterday morning when he heard a plane, looked up and saw one fly over unusually low.

Peterson rushed to the scene on an all-terrain vehicle and when he arrived he saw bits and pieces of an airliner spread over a large area of an abandoned strip-mine in Stonycreek Township.

"There was a crater in the ground that was really burning," Peterson said. Strewn about were pieces of clothing hanging from trees and parts of the Boeing 757, but nothing bigger than a couple of feet long, he said. Many of the items were burning.

Throughout the day, as a plume of smoke hung in the sky, a steady stream of firefighters, police cars, emergency management crews, national guard members and local volunteers swarmed over the crash site. Dotted with strip mines, woods and cornfields, the site is atop a gradual, 500-yard-long slope about one or two miles south of Route 30 near Stoystown.

Jeff Killeen, an FBI spokesman from Pittsburgh, said the main thrust of the agency's investigation will begin today when authorities divide the crash scene into grids and comb the area for evidence.

Yesterday, the priority of the FBI and state troopers was to protect the scene.

"The FBI will follow every lead to bring this case to a successful conclusion," Killeen said during a news conference held at the foot of the hill below the crash site under a hastily erected white tent.

Gov. Tom Ridge arrived about 6:15 p.m., flying over the crash scene in a National Guard helicopter before being briefed on the ground by state police.

The FBI issued a plea for anyone who saw Flight 93 before it crashed to call 412-471-2000.

Killeen said agents were looking for facilities in the area to use as repositories for evidence and human remains, noting that no morgue had been established.

Joseph McKelvey, executive director of the Johnstown-area airport, said he didn't know whether it would be an operations headquarters or serve as a morgue.

But as he spoke, one of the few planes in the skies over America, a United Airlines 727 arrived carrying what McKelvey said was equipment for the recovery, and a half dozen rental trucks pulled into the airport to carry the equipment to the crash scene.

Throughout the day, beginning at 9:44 a.m., United Airlines updated its Web site with information about the crash of Flight 93 and Flight 175, a Boeing 767 that was crashed into the World Trade Center.

The airline stated it would send families of the victims aboard the two flights an initial sum of $25,000 each to help meet immediate needs.

http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010912crashnat2p2.asp

http://www.americanmemorials.com/memorial/tribute.asp?idMemorial=1320&idContributor=7487

 
<span style="font-size: 10pt"><span style="font-family: Courier New"><span style="color: red">**</span><span style="color: #000000">two unidentified members of the media who attempted to sneak through a</span></span></span>

 
<span style="font-size: 10pt; color: #000000; font-family: Courier New">wooded area onto the crash site. He said the reporters were handcuffed</span>

 
<span style="font-size: 10pt"><span style="font-family: Courier New"><span style="color: #000000">and were being held temporarily at the command center.</span><span style="color: red">**</span></span></span>

http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/2001cov/Flight_93_Brought_Down___

Until the discovery of the flight-data recorder, which will be taken to Washington, D.C., for analysis, the best evidence of the final moments had come from cellphone calls and a recording of comments from the cockpit.