Source of this qoute is wikipedia...but quote is found elsewhere to

Peter Hanson made a second phone call to his father at 9:00 a.m.

"It's getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It's getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast....Oh My God.., oh my God, oh my God."


I just Find this quote a bit perculiar as why would he think that they were going to fly into a building in Chicago. Never before in hijackings has the plane been flown into a building so why would someone think a hijacker is going to fly the plane to Chicago and crash into a building.

Ben

the entire cell phone on the planes thing is beyond belief

I'm a debunker but I've spent some time wondering about this myself. We know that 9 other calls were made by other passengers (all of them on airphones). I'm looking at the chart of which airphone were used and directly behind the seat where his airphone was used, a male flight attendant (probably Robert Fangman) made two calls, one at 8:52 and one at 8:56. Several other calls where made from airphones very close to his. It's possible that, similar to the passengers of Flight 93, the passengers became aware that Flight 11 had crashed into the World Trade Center since it was all over the news since 8:49. Even Peter Hansons parents said that they had the news on and saw about the first crash when he called, but I've never seen an interview with them where they say they told Hanson about the crash. Still, it's likely that one of the other passengers became aware that a plane had crashed into the building, the person passed this information onto Hanson, and he put two and two together. Since the plane was heading west, he may not have known that they'd turned around and assumed they were somewhere around Chicago. We can only guess though.

But there isn't anything "beyond belief" about the phone calls. Of the 64 calls made from the 4 planes, only 2 came from cell phones. All of the others came from seat-back airphones, which did work well in flight. And despite the study of AK Dewdney, which Loose Change uses as their evidence in 2nd edition, cell phone calls were definitely possible. Dewdney performed his study over a metro city center (London, Ontario), where base stations are designed to work up to about 300 feet. Both calls came from Flight 93 and both at 9:58, when the plane was only 2,000 feet above the Appalachian Mountains. In rural areas, base stations have to have a further reach, which is about 9.2 miles. So United 93 could have been flying 9 miles high and still gotten good reception, but if they were over a city center it's likely they wouldn't have. The fact that so few calls were made from cell phones leads me to believe that many other passengers did try, but since most were over populated areas, they couldn't get through. Again, this is just speculation though.

dear rkowens,

thanks for the link to the flights zip from the moussavi trial (the source for some of your above info). i appreciate you hooking me up with it, tho i cant seem to get it working. i had already previously downloaded it along with the other zip of the pentagon victims, and only the pnetagon zip worked on my computer. but anyhow, with all due respect, i wanted to address some of your speculations about the alleged cell calls:


normally, in heavily populated areas with buildings and other objects in the way, the cell towers are aimed DOWNWARD, with multiple towers creating overlapping zones down below.





in less populated areas where there are less cell-towers, the overlapping of zones occurs in a direct line of sight propagation, where instead of down the antennas are pointed more or less at each other:




consequently, there is a maximum height the signal can reach (a height much lower in altitude than an airplane, "flight 93" in this case), described as a fersnel zone:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_zone

regarding the alleged elevation of 93: EVEN IF the plane was low enough for the call to be made (debateable), the speed of the plane would still restrict the call from connecting due to handoffs from tower to tower.

lets say you are accurate (tho a source would be helpful) in your assertion that the cell-towers in non-populated (rural) areas are roughly 9 miles apart. based on that, any cellphone call made from "93" - which has been shown to be moving at over 400 mph, would attempt to reach a tower that it has long flown past. what i mean is: ur on flight 93, u pick up ur phone, dial 911, press "SEND". the call attempts to reach the nearest celltower at that moment, but you have already flown WAY PAST that original tower. meanwhile you're flying past tower after tower. the source of the call (cellphone onboard the plane) never reaches or stays near enough to any SINGLE celltower long enough for the call to be made.

if u were on foot or in a car, u could never outrun the towers, you would have to go faster than 9 miles every few seconds (according to ur data). so on the ground, the hand-offs dont become an issue. on a 757 moving at 400+mph however, the handoffs become THE ISSUE. the only way to reach a signal (especially back in 2001) would be for your signal to go up (to a satellite) and then be bounced back down (to on the ground cell towers), which is what the onboard "airphones" do.


so even if the plane is slow enough and low enough, its chance of being able to reach a working signal is extremely limited. id say its impossible. over the last few years i have been able to convince a few of my friends to attempt to call me from onboard commercial flights. 3 times they have agreed (2 flights going west leaving from washington dc, 1 flight going east from washington dc). in all 3 cases it was agreed that as soon as the pilot announced they could take off their seatbelts, and as soon as they could do so without causing fear/suspicion, that they would punch in my number and hit send and see what happens. when we later contacted one another via email, in all 3 cases they say the calls never connected, and that were no "bars" of signals available on their phones. i know that's hearsay so feel free to dismiss it. but here are some examples about the cell service near flight 93 path:


the following pages contain comments from cell-phone users in the 50-70 mile radius of the crash stating how intermittent and downright crappy their connections are on the ground!

comments on cell-service:

pittsburgh:
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15201&page=1
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15201&page=2

connellsville:
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15425&page=1

johnstown (north of 93crater):
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15902&page=1

greensburg (west of flight 93crater):
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15601&page=1

stoystown:
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15563&page=1

somerset:
http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=15501&page=1


i didnt bother quoting them, but the vast majority say they arent getting signals and/or constantly dealing with dropped calls, even on the ground. this supports the fact that reaching a cell tower in the area, especially from an airplane is that much more unlikely.


but i would really like to focus on the ed felt call. unlike the other calls his reached an actual 911 operator. based on the way the 911 system works, someone had to be in range of the westmoreland county 911 coverage area when they made the call, in order for westmoreland county's 911 to receive the call (glenn cramer received it). based on the alleged speed of the alleged plane, counting backwards from the crash, the plane would indeed be over the correct coverage area for cramer to receive the call. but we know for the most part such a call is technically impossible from a plane. so some person or persons had to have made the call (from the ground or from a slower - lower flying plane) instead. not only that but they had knowledge enough to do it at the right time, the same time as the alleged 93 would have been flying over the area.

if the gov claimed the call came from an airfone, then that claim is BOGUS. why? cuz how would the airfone emergency operator know where the plane was and what local 911 police jurisdiction to forward the call to? i have read the call lasted anywhere from 1:10 (wiki) to 78 seconds (pittsburg newspaper). in that amount of time the airfone operator whould never have been able to find and reach glenn cramer in westmoreland county. the official story says that no one knew where 93 was, so how did the airfone operator know where to forward the call?


thus he could not have made the call from a cell phone onboard the alleged flight93, cuz it was moving at over 400+ mph, nor could he have made it from an airfone.


felt's brother alleges he has heard the tape of the call and he hasnt expressed any doubt of the identity of the caller:

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_90401.html

so maybe ed felt could have made the call, but what he describes is a different scenario than those of the other 93 callers. in particular, what was felt doing hiding in the bathroom, if the other passengers were free enough to call their families freely? the other passenger were free to decide "let's roll" and allegedly "over-take the plane and crash it". meanwhile felt's contrasting version describes an explosion and smoke. so where did his call come from? and was it really him? if it was, what plane was he aboard? if u believe it was him and he was onboard 93, and assert that the official version of ed felt's call was true, then how do you account for his description of the events?

http://web.archive.org/web/20011223160242/...ack_united.html

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