USS Clueless Stardate 20010914.1553

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Stardate 20010914.1553 (On Screen): They've recovered the flight data recorder from flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania without hitting a major target. This flight has been the subject of substantial speculation about the possibility that passengers on the flight tried to take the jet back. The question, of course, is why it crashed. If they did take it back, you'd think they'd try to land it safely; and if the terrorists retained control, you'd assume that they would try to hit their assigned target. One possibility is a struggle in the pilot's cabin, but I don't think I believe that.

The door on the pilot cabin has a lock on it; one of the things that the hijackers did was to lure the pilot out and then take over the jet. Presumably they would then have locked that door themselves. The passengers may have been able to overpower hijackers left in the cabin of the plane, but would have been no more capable of forcing that door than were the hijackers in the first place. But a jet is a tricky thing to fly; the hijackers who were flying it had never actually been in control of one. They had minimal training and were capable of handling it in benign conditions, but would not have had the ability to react to unexpected events that an experienced pilot could handle. What I'm wondering is whether, after regaining control of the cabin, the passengers opened one of the doors on the jet? That would cause the cabin to depressurize, and it would radically unbalance the jet for a while as the air escaped. It may have been enough to cause the hijackers to lose control of it and crash (which would have been the objective). If this is actually what happened, there may be enough information from the flight data recorder to reconstruct that. (discussion in progress)

Update: Apparently my idea is untenable. So it goes.

Update 20010915: They've found the voice recorder and it looks like it is in decent shape. Maybe we'll find out now.

Captured by MemoWeb from http://denbeste.nu/entries/00000728.shtml on 9/16/2004