FLIGHT 93'S FINAL MOMENTS: A STRUGGLE AND SCREAMS

Flight 93's final moments: A struggle and screams

October 25, 2001
By Kevin Johnson and Blake Morrison
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Passengers aboard United Flight 93 may have used makeshift weapons, including a fire extinguisher, to fight hijackers moments before the jet crashed, sources with knowledge of the investigation said Wednesday.

In fact, according to a theory federal authorities are pursuing, the passengers might have incapacitated the hijacker at the controls only to see the jet plunge into an irreversible dive, law enforcement officials said.

Investigators believe the hijacker flying the jet may have been in the seat normally reserved for the co-pilot, sources said.

"It's very hard to determine exactly where people were positioned because of the screaming and yelling on the recorder," a senior law enforcement official said. "We have some reason to believe that the altercation contributed to the crash."

Sometime after the fight began, investigators believe the jet was pushed, perhaps inadvertently, into its fatal dive. The jet then flipped on its back and slammed into the ground at more than 575 mph.

Flight 93 was headed from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it was commandeered. Authorities believe four hijackers set the jet on course for a target in Washington.

Repeated examinations of the jet's cockpit voice recorder reveal desperate screams and the apparent passenger-led assault, sources said. But after weeks of analysis, a senior law enforcement official said, it remains unclear whether anyone was in control of the jet when it slammed into an open field in Shanksville, Pa., killing all 44 aboard.

Authorities said it has been difficult to decipher the flight's final minutes because of the chaos captured by the cockpit voice recorder. It also remained unclear what evidence was leading investigators to suspect that the passengers used makeshift weapons.

Earlier that day, other hijackers guided two jets into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon. Several passengers on Flight 93 learned of the other hijackings via cellphone calls.