Just Before 10:06 a.m. September 11, 2001: Locals Hear a Missile Before Flight 93 Crashes?

[MEK Note: Observations of a missile and debris scattered over large area away from “crash site” strongly indicate a government back-up story and has the effect of deflecting attention away from the lack of plane and bodies at “crash site” White jet could be government observation plane monitoring in “real time” the ongoing Shanksville situation.]

Several local people believe they hear a missile overhead just before Flight 93 goes down. Barry Lichty, a US Navy veteran and mayor of Indian Lake Borough (just to the east of where Flight 93 crashes), is watching television with his wife. He says he hears “a loud roar above the house that sounded like a missile.… Shortly thereafter, we heard an explosion and a tremor. My first reaction, as a former utility employee, was that maybe someone shot a missile into the substation.” He says Flight 93 “did not come over my house. I don’t know what we heard.” [KASHURBA, 2002, PP. 158-159] 

Joe Wilt, who lives a quarter-mile from the crash site, hears a “whistling like a missile, then a loud boom.” He says, “The first thing I thought it was, was a missile.” [BOSTON GLOBE, 9/12/2001; WASHINGTON POST, 9/12/2001] 

And Ernie Stuhl, the mayor of Shanksville, later says, “I know of two people – I will not mention names – that heard a missile. They both live very close, within a couple of hundred yards.… This one fellow’s served in Vietnam and he says he’s heard them, and he heard one that day.” [PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 11/18/2001] 

Officials will emphatically deny that Flight 93 was shot down, as some people later suggest (see September 14, 2001). [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/14/2001; LONGMAN, 2002, PP. 264] 

However, a number of witnesses report seeing a small, white jet plane near the crash site, around the time Flight 93 reportedly goes down (see (Before and After 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001).

Entity Tags: Barry Lichty, Joe Wilt

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 93, Shanksville, Pennsylvania

(Before 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Flight 93 Breaks Up Prior to Crash?

Flight 93 apparently starts to break up before it crashes, because debris is found very far away from the crash site. [PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 11/15/2001] 

The plane is generally obliterated upon landing, except for one half-ton piece of engine found some distance away. Some reports indicate that the engine piece was found over a mile away. [INDEPENDENT, 8/13/2002] 

The FBI reportedly acknowledges that this piece was found “a considerable distance” from the crash site. [PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 11/15/2001] 

Later, the FBI will cordon off a three-mile wide area around the crash, as well as another area six to eight miles from the initial crash site. [CNN, 9/13/2001] 

One story calls what happened to this engine “intriguing, because the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757’s two large engines.” [PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 11/15/2001] 

Smaller debris fields are also found two, three, and eight miles away from the main crash site. [INDEPENDENT, 8/13/2002; MIRROR, 9/12/2002] 

Eight miles away, local media quote residents speaking of a second plane in the area and burning debris falling from the sky. [REUTERS, 9/13/2001] 

Residents outside Shanksville reported “discovering clothing, books, papers, and what appeared to be human remains. Some residents said they collected bags-full of items to be turned over to investigators. Others reported what appeared to be crash debris floating in Indian Lake, nearly six miles from the immediate crash scene. Workers at Indian Lake Marina said that they saw a cloud of confetti-like debris descend on the lake and nearby farms minutes after hearing the explosion…” [PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, 9/13/2001] 

Moments after the crash, Carol Delasko initially thinks someone had blown up a boat on Indian Lake: “It just looked like confetti raining down all over the air above the lake.” [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/14/2001] 

Investigators say that far-off wreckage “probably was spread by the cloud created when the plane crashed and dispersed by a ten mph southeasterly wind.” [NEWS JOURNAL (WILMINGTON, DE), 9/16/2001] However, much of the wreckage is found sooner than that wind could have carried it, and not always southeast.

Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Carol Delasko

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 93, Key Day of 9/11 Events, Shanksville, Pennsylvania

(Just Before 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Lights Go Out Before Flight 93 Crashes, Allegedly Indicating a Missile Being Fired

John Fleegle, a manager at the Indian Lake Marina about 1.5 miles from where Flight 93 crashes, is indoors with some colleagues, watching the televised coverage of the World Trade Center attack. Then, as he later describes, “All of a sudden the lights flickered and we joked that maybe they were coming for us. Then we heard engines screaming close overhead. The building shook. We ran out, heard the explosion and saw a fireball mushroom,” following the crash. When he later describes this incident while on a training course in Atlanta, Fleegle will be told that what happened means Flight 93 “was shot down.” A man there who says he is a retired Air Force officer will tell Fleegle, “[W]hen your lights flickered, [it was because] they zap the radar frequency on everything before they shoot. Your lights didn’t flicker from the impact—your lights flickered because they zapped the radar system before they shot it.” However, William “Buck” Kernan, a retired four-star Army general, will dispute this claim, saying, “[R]egarding an aircraft engaging an airborne target having an electrical disruption on the ground, no, this would not be a result of lock on or any electromagnetic pulsing.” He will suggest it is “possible that overpressure from explosions could momentarily disrupt microwave connections or cause sensations on ground relays, wiring, etc.” that might result in the lights having flickered. [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/14/2001; LAPPE AND MARSHALL, 2004, PP. 35-36] 

But, consistent with Fleegle’s allegation, a number of local residents—including military veterans—say they heard the sound of a missile overhead just before the time of the crash (see Just Before 10:06 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Another local resident, Val McClatchey, will report her lights and phone going out around the time of the crash. [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/11/2002] 

According to Barry Lichty, the mayor of Indian Lake Borough, the town’s electricity goes out around this time. He later learns that the plane crash had disrupted service to the borough. [PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW, 9/12/2001] 

Interestingly, one alternative theory later suggested is that Flight 93 could have been brought down using “electromagnetic interference” (see August 13, 2002).

The US Air Force and Pentagon have in fact “conducted extensive research on ‘electronic warfare applications’ with the possible capacity intentionally to disrupt the mechanisms of an airplane in such a way as to provoke, for example, an uncontrollable dive.” [INDEPENDENT, 8/13/2002]

Entity Tags: Barry Lichty, Val McClatchey, John Fleegle, William Kernan

Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline

Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 93, Shanksville, Pennsylvania