USAToday

10/03/2001 - Updated 10:46 PM ET Recorder catches passengers' fight with hijackers

By Kevin Johnson and Alan Levin, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Cockpit voice recordings from United Airlines Flight 93 indicate that the hijacked jet's passengers attacked their captors and fought their way into the cockpit before the jet went down, according to data obtained Wednesday. The account is based on an ongoing analysis of the cockpit voice recorder. It provides confirmation of the passengers' heroic efforts as they fought against four terrorists who had commandeered the jet on an apparent suicide mission toward a target in Washington.

By Kevin Johnson and Alan Levin, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Cockpit voice recordings from United Airlines Flight 93 indicate that the hijacked jet's passengers attacked their captors and fought their way into the cockpit before the jet went down, according to data obtained Wednesday. The account is based on an ongoing analysis of the cockpit voice recorder. It provides confirmation of the passengers' heroic efforts as they fought against four terrorists who had commandeered the jet on an apparent suicide mission toward a target in Washington. Read more below

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The digital recording, according to officials with knowledge of its contents, picks up sounds of people shouting and screaming in the cabin and cockpit shortly before the crash. But a high level of background noise has made it difficult for investigators to interpret exactly what was being said or done during the final minutes of the flight.

Also unclear from the recording is who was at the controls of the jet — the hijackers or the passengers — when it slammed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing all 44 aboard. A preliminary review of the jet's flight data recorder indicated that it turned on its back and flew relatively straight into the ground, sources said.

President Bush and other government officials say the passengers' actions may have saved an untold number of lives on Sept. 11, when three other teams of hijackers led attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Several passengers were aware that the hijackings earlier that day ended in suicide crashes. The attacks in New York and Washington left thousands dead or missing.

Authorities have asked outside experts to analyze the recorder a second time in an attempt to glean more from its contents. The use of filters and other computer analysis of cockpit voice recorders is common after an accident.

The recorder is a modern digital model and produced a high-quality record of the last 30 minutes of the flight.

Voice recorders store sounds from microphones that pilots wear on their headsets and from a microphone embedded in the cockpit wall to capture ambient sounds. Normally, it is easy to determine who is speaking on a recording because the voice can be linked to a specific headset. But sounds on the Flight 93 recording come primarily from the cockpit wall microphone, making it more difficult to decipher.

Investigators also are examining a tape of short radio broadcasts from the jet, apparently at the time hijackers took control of the cockpit. Sources who have heard the tape say it recorded a gruesome, violent struggle.

Flight 93 was headed from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco when it was hijacked. Because the jet crashed more than 30 minutes after the hijacking, the recording did not capture the takeover of the cockpit.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001