Air
Traffic Control Recording of 9/11 Flight
93 AS
readers of this Website know, the government has
refused to release recordings of communications
from any of the hijacked 9/11 planes
[read
more].
In fact, it also refuses to release transcripts or
any other documents having anything to do with
these communications. However,
AirDisaster.com
has posted a sound file of air traffic control
during the morning of 9/11. Specifically, Cleveland
air traffic control had two brief contacts with
United Airlines Flight 93, when the hijackers
mistakenly broadcast messages meant only for the
plane's passengers. Since this recording wasn't received by me from
the FAA or another government agency, I can't vouch
for its authenticity. However, AirDisaster.com
is a very reputable site, often used by the news
media as a source of information on airplane
accidents, crashes, etc. Some of its forums are
moderated by a commercial pilot, a military pilot,
and a maintenance inspector. I've chosen to post
the sound file here because of AirDisaster.com's
credibility and because if this tape is
authentic--which I strongly believe it to be--it is
extremely important. This
message accompanies AirDisaster.com's
WAV
file
(which I've converted to MP3): "Please note that
this tape is not chronologically accurate; periods
of dead air (silence) have been removed for
brevity." It
should also be noted that this is not the
Flight 93 cockpit tape that the families of
passengers were allowed to hear under strictly
controlled conditions in April 2002 [read
more].
According to the Associated Press, that tape is
around 30 minutes long and the final 5 to 7 minutes
are "filled with violence and yelling in both
Arabic and English." Obviously, that recording is
not the one presented here, which contains four
minutes of communications from an air traffic
controller, several planes in the vicinity, and two
brief bursts from Flight 93. As
far as I know, this is the only available recording
of communications from any of the doomed 9/11
planes. |