United Airlines Flight 93 - Aftermath

Aftermath

Flight 93 fragmented violently upon impact. Most of the aircraft wreckage was found near the impact crater. Investigators found some very light debris including paper and nylon scattered up to eight miles (13 km) from the impact point in New Baltimore, Pennsylvania. Other tiny aircraft fragments were found 1.5 miles (2.4 km) away at Indian Lake, Pennsylvania. All human remains were found within a 70-acre (28 ha) area surrounding the impact point. Somerset County Coroner Wally Miller was involved in the investigation and identification of the remains. In examining the wreckage, the only human body part he could see was part of a backbone. Miller later found and identified 1,500 pieces of human remains totaling about 600 pounds (272 kg), or eight percent of the total. The rest of the remains were consumed by the impact. Investigators identified four victims by September 22 and eleven by September 24. They identified another by September 29. Thirty-four passengers were identified by October 27. All the people on board the flight were identified by December 21. Human remains were so fragmented that investigators could not determine whether any victims were dead before the plane crashed. Death certificates for the 40 victims listed the cause of death as homicide and listed the cause of death for the four hijackers as suicide. The remains and personal effects of the victims were returned to the families. The remains of the hijackers, identified by the process of elimination, were turned over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as evidence.

Investigators also found a knife concealed in a cigarette lighter. They located the flight data recorder on September 13 and the cockpit voice recorder the following day. The voice recorder was found buried 25 feet (8 m) below the crater. The FBI initially refused to release the voice recording, rejecting requests by Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher and family members of those on board. The FBI subsequently allowed the relatives of the Flight 93 victims to listen to the recording in a closed session on April 18, 2002. Jurors for the Zacarias Moussaoui trial heard the tape as part of the proceedings and the transcript was publicly released on April 12, 2006.

The intended target of Flight 93 has never been decisively confirmed. Before the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and Mohammed Atef developed a list of potential targets. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the White House and the Pentagon. Sheikh Mohammed wanted to strike the World Trade Center and all three wanted to hit the Capitol. No one else was involved in the initial selection of targets. Bin Laden told 9/11 planner Ramzi bin al-Shibh to advise Mohamed Atta that he preferred the White House over the Capitol as a target. Atta cautioned bin al-Shibh that this would be difficult, but agreed to include the White House as a possible target and suggested they keep the Capitol as an alternative in case the White House proved too difficult. Eventually, Atta told bin al-Shibh that Jarrah planned to hit the Capitol. Atta briefly mentioned the possibility of striking a nuclear facility, but balked after the other attack pilots voiced their opposition. Based on an exchange between Atta and bin al-Shibh two days before the attacks, the White House would be the primary target for the fourth plane and the Capitol the secondary target.

Immediately after the attacks, there was speculation that Camp David was the intended target. According to testimony by captured al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah, U.S. officials believed the White House was the intended target. A post-9/11 interview with Sheikh Mohammed and bin al-Shibh by Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda revealed that Flight 93 was headed for the Capitol. The 9/11 Commission Report cited the actions of the crew and passengers in preventing the destruction of either the White House or the Capitol. According to further testimony by Sheikh Mohammed, bin Laden preferred the Capitol over the White House as a target and Sheikh Mohammed revealed that the interview to Fouda was a lie to make the 9/11 attacks seem larger than they were. Salim Hamdan, bin Laden's driver, told interrogators that he knew the flight was headed for the Capitol.

Two F-16 fighter jets from the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard were scrambled and ordered to intercept Flight 93; the pilots intended to ram it since they did not have time to arm the jets. They never reached Flight 93 and did not learn of its crash until hours afterwards.

NORAD insisted to the 9/11 Commission that fighters would have intercepted Flight 93 before it reached its target in Washington, D.C., but the commission disagreed, stating that "NORAD did not even know the plane was hijacked until after it had crashed" and concluding that had it not crashed it probably would have arrived in Washington by 10:23. The 9/11 Commission Report stated that NEADS fighters pursued Delta Air Lines Flight 1989, a flight thought to be hijacked. The commission found that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the FAA gave inaccurate testimony.

All passengers and crew on board Flight 93 were nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal on September 19, 2001. Congressman Bill Shuster introduced a bill to this effect in 2006, but as of 2008, these awards had not been granted.

Beamer's final words, "let's roll", became a national catchphrase. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey changed the name of Newark's airport from Newark International Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport and a flag now flies over Teminal A's Gate A17. Flight 93 has been the subject of various films and documentaries including The Flight That Fought Back, Flight 93, and the feature film United 93.

In keeping with standard airline practice after disasters, the flight number "93" was discontinued by United Airlines after the hijacking. United has many nonstops from Newark to San Francisco. The 8:00 A.M. flight has been moved to 8:41 A.M, and is now Flight 1479 using an Boeing 737-800. It was reported in May 2011 that United was reactivating flight numbers 93 and 175 as a codeshare operated by Continental, sparking an outcry from some in the media and the labor union representing United pilots. United said the reactivation was a mistake and said the numbers were "inadvertently reinstated", and would not be reactivated.