Jadzia

Did anyone else watch this? I recorded it last night and am watching it now. It is a documentary of Flight 93, but it also has re-enacted footage mixed in with the interviews. Kiefer Sutherland is narrating.

Pretty powerful stuff, even though I have always had doubts if this crash happened the way the government has led us to believe.

I liked the "Inside 9/11" doc better, but this is interesting as it only focuses on the one flight so there is a lot of information about the phone calls and conversations that happened.

RyoHazuki

How do you believe the plane crashed?

DeanoBKN

Maybe we shot it down with a missle?

leepyswetr

I thought it was a moving documentary, if a little too "24" production-values-wise.

..and when one of them was going up the escalator to get on his airplane at Newark, he was at O'Hare.

Jadzia

I have no idea, but I have always wondered if perhaps it was shot down. It seems like the families all latched onto the idea that their loved ones were heroes and it would have been convenient for the government to let them think that.

I find it troubling that the recordings have never been publicly released and the details of this flight have always seemed shrouded in secrecy compared to the other three. They did play the tapes for the families, but I find it strange that they have never been released to the media for scrutiny. It just makes me wonder if the families heard heavily edited versions or what.

I don't know, I am such a cynic, I just think we aren't being told the whole truth here.

I agree that it is a nice story, and I'd like to believe it is true. I just have doubts.

djbrown

What channel did this air on? Any chance it'll be re-aired? If it was on the History Channel, I realize there's virtually no chance it'll re-air

Jadzia

It was on the Discovery Channel. I just checked my Tivo Guide and did not see any re-airings. I remember at the end they mentioned the DVD was coming out though.

Doug Schiller

It was shown on HiDef Discovery and looked great.
It was nice to hear the first hand accounts of people on the phone with the passengers.
I think they went a little over board on the reenactment to appease some family members (I know my child/wife/husband would have fought the terrorists!).
They show one young girl barely breathing saying a tearful goodbye to her parents, then the next scene she was running down the aisle swinging an axe and screaming a battle cry.
It took me out of the mood a little.
I missed the first 15 minutes so I'm interested in seeing it again.

Groucho

Are you serious?

PASS

Doug Schiller

Substitute the axe (I was exaggerating) with a coffee pot of hot water, other than that, it was like I said.

Jadzia

Yeah, I thought that was ridiculous. They interviewed the one family that said "I bet my daughter would have been on the second team, that would come in and give relief to the front team blah, blah, blah" as they showed her marching up the aisle with boiling hot water.

I mean come on! These people have no idea what happened up there. I really doubt they were able to organize "teams" and that complicated of a batle plan in the few minutes they had. This wasn't Seven Samurai, for pete's sake.

I think this glorification of the people on that flight is what makes me suspicous. I mean, I am sure there were some brave individuals on that flight who, knowing what happened in NY, decided to take action against the terrorists. (It was also suggested by this film that the terrorist team aboard this flight wasn't the brightest of the bunch.) But none of these families seem to think their loved ones may have been the ones who were quietly shitting their pants in their seats. I thought the interviews were particularly telling: "I know he would have done this..."

Something my mom pointed out was that after this story came out, it seemed like Scott Beamer was the big hero who got all the attention. But this movie seemed to downplay his role. My mom said she had heard some of the other families were pissed that he got a lot of credit before, so I wonder if that is why they agreed to do this movie. I don't remember seeing Lisa Beamer interviewed for this.

I genuinely feel for all these families and the loss they suffered, but there does seem to be a lot of ego involved here. When they talk about how brave and heroic their loved ones were, I wonder how the families of the other flight victims must feel?

Derrich

I thought itwas excellent but the ending was over the top. Everyone knew that they're loved one would've fought like Rambo. The phone calls were chilling. Listening to people who knew that would probably die. I liked the mom who told her son to take over the plane. Thats a hardcore mom.

D

RyoHazuki

Yeah that crossed my mind as well. It would be hard to tell the familes that they shot a missle at the plane.

superdeluxe

There was no axe (except the terrorists)

She had a pot of boiling water.

BigDan

While I think the Air Force would have shot the plane down before it got close enough to crash into any targets in Washington, D.C., it seems like they would wait until the last possible minute to do so. It's certainly possible that the plane was shot down, though it would be an interesting coincidence that it was shot down so soon (eight minutes) after the passengers had told their loved ones (and others) of their plan to fight back.

EDITED TO ADD: Plus, if Flight 93 was shot down, it's a good thing the Air Force picked the right flight to shoot down. According to reports, there were as many of 11 flights that were suspected to have been hijacked during that morning.

Jadzia

The flight was only 15 minutes flying time out of DC, so they would have had to act quickly, especially to insure the plane went down in an uninhabited area. I doubt the Air Force or that Cheney would have had any idea at the time what the people had told their loved ones of their plan.

The FAA knew that the plane had been hijacked, the air traffic controllers in Cleveland heard the hijackers voices and they were tracking the plane when it made it's sudden turnaround to DC.

There were also eyewitnesses at the time who claim they saw an unmarked white jet flying low in the area and that it circled the crash site before taking off. One witness saw smoke coming from the plane before as it hit the ground, suggesting it may have been hit before the impact.

BigDan

Like I said, I think it's possible, but I think it's just as possible that the plane crashed after the hijackers lost control and crashed trying to prevent the passengers from entering the cockpit (or purposely crashed the plane during the passenger "revolt").

The fact that Cheney, et al had no idea of the passenger revolt makes it even more likely that the plane wasn't shot down. Since that information would've taken time to get to the government, it's likely they would've reported the shoot down before they learned of the revolt.

And do Lear Jets carry air-to-air missiles?

One witness saw smoke coming from the plane before as it hit the ground, suggesting it may have been hit before the impact.

Or suggesting any number of other things, anything from the plane breaking apart from panicked manuevering by the hijacker pilot, etc. to simply an optical illusion.

Spiderbite

I DVR'ed this & watched it this evening. It looked great on Discovery-HD.

While I have never been a fan of reinactments, I thought that they did a pretty good job. It was a little eerie how some of the actors looked so much like who they were playing.

While I do agree with some of you that everyone would like to think of their relative acting like Rambo in this situation, you must remember that they really did focus their attention on around 6 to 8 people out of 40. The 6 to 8 people seemed to be the most likely ones to attempt a resistance and that was who they focused on. This seems even more prominent when they name every person who was on the flight (most who got no mention during the meat of the documentary).

The Beamer angle was definitely more subdued in this. I think him saying "Let's roll" was the reason he originally got so more press than anyone else.

I thought it was great and something everyone should see. I hope I would be that brave in such a situation. I was definitely hoping to see some recreations of the passengers beating the shit out of those Islamic cowards but alas they went by the final recordings and it appears they did not get the chance.

I still don't get why the final tapes haven't been released. Criminal charges? Yeah, right.

To me the scariest part of the entire documentary was the first hour. It really made you feel that it could have happened to you. Just going about your normal day and you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. The last hour was as intense as any good thriller movie but they repeated some of the recreations too much. It's hard to put yourself in their position and have the feeling of knowing you are truly doomed.

I have no doubt that any future hijackers will definitely run into more problems from the passengers than ever before.

By the way...Sutherland is turning into a damn fine narrator. I could listen to him all day.