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was flight 93 headed for TMI?







> Below is an article from today's Sunday Times (London, UK) about the

> possibility that United Flight 93 was targeting a nuclear power plant.

> =============================================================

>

> At 11:17 AM 10/21/01 , Preston Truman posted:

>

> October 21 2001TERRORISM

>

> ©

> Mission aborted: the downed plane's flight path took it close to five

> nuclear plants

> Photograph: Gary Tramontina

>

> NUCLEAR MYSTERY: Crashed plane's target may have been reactor

>

> Nicholas Rufford, David Leppard and Paul Eddy

>

> THE hijackers who forced a fourth passenger jet to crash during the

> September 11 attacks in America may have been intending to use it to bomb a

> nuclear power station to cause a Chernobyl-type disaster.

>

> The FBI is studying a report that the four terrorists who seized the plane

> may have been attempting to steer it towards a cluster of nuclear power

> stations on the east coast of America. The most likely target was Three

> Mile Island, site of America's most serious nuclear accident in 1979.

>

> United Airlines flight 93 crashed into a field near the tiny town of

> Shanksville, in Pennsylvania, 90 minutes after taking off from Newark, New

> Jersey. All 44 passengers and crew on board died.

>

> Until this weekend it had been assumed that the hijackers of the plane, a

> Boeing 757, were planning to fly it either to the presidential retreat at

> Camp David, or to Washington and crash it into the White House or the

> Congress and Senate buildings on Capitol Hill. But security officials have

> now revealed that within a week of the attacks, the FBI sent a report to

> MI5 saying that a "credible source" had said that the terrorists might have

> been planning to hit a nuclear plant.

>

> Had it breached the plant's reactor vessel, such a strike could have caused

> an incident on the scale of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, which

> spread radioactive material over thousands of square miles in 1986.

>

> US security sources say that Three Mile Island, which is part-owned by

> British Energy, was the subject of surveillance by some of the hijackers

> and their associates in the months before the terrorist attacks. One

> security official said: "Early on in the investigation we did receive a

> report from the FBI that the plane may have been heading for a nuclear

> power station. This was based on their analysis that Pittsburgh is near

> several power stations.

>

> "There is some plausibility to this and we're not trying to dismiss it. But

> it may well be that nobody will ever know where the plane was going."

>

> The "nuclear meltdown" assessment has not been independently confirmed but

> was taken seriously enough by the FBI to pass to European governments,

> including Britain and France.

>

> The analysis is based on a study of flight 93's flight path and the fact

> that there are five nuclear power stations in the area. Experts say that

> the plane does not appear to have been hijacked until it was passing over

> West Virginia, some 200 miles beyond Washington. It then made a series of

> sharp turns before going into a steep descent. Aviation experts say that at

> this point there were three nuclear power stations between the plane and

> Washington and directly in its line of flight: Three Mile Island, Peach

> Bottom and Hope Creek.

>

> Investigators cannot understand why the plane would have descended so

> early, unless its intended target was much nearer than Washington. The

> descent could have been an error by one of the hijackers, but if so, they

> cannot understand why the plane did not then climb again once control was

> regained.

>

> America has since tightened security around nuclear stations and has taken

> steps to withdraw maps on the internet showing the location of nuclear

> plants. A French government minister said last week that fighters would

> shoot down aircraft heading for its nuclear plants. A missile defence

> system had been positioned at the Le Havre nuclear reprocessing plant.

>

> In Britain, security around all nuclear sites has also been increased.

> David Blunkett, the home secretary, has given new powers to the 500-strong

> police force that guards the sites. Atomic Energy Authority police will be

> able to patrol an extra 13 civil nuclear sites, including Sizewell, Hinkley

> Point and Dungeness.

>

> Engineering experts are divided over whether concrete containment shields

> around nuclear power stations could withstand a direct hit from a large

> passenger aircraft, especially one carrying 200,000lb of fuel, as was

> flight 93, enough to reach its destination of San Francisco.

>

> The containment buildings generally have an outer structure, which for much

> of the dome is 3ft-thick concrete containing large amounts of reinforcing

> steel. Inside is a steel "lining" 1in-4in thick.

>

> There are usually two more concrete walls close to the reactor, each 1ft

> thick and with reinforced steel bars. But these walls do not enclose the

> top of the reactor completely. The reactor vessel itself is about 4in-6in

> thick and made of high-carbon steel.

>

> All reactors are designed to withstand impact by a light plane. Experts say

> it is unclear whether a larger modern jet loaded with fuel, deliberately

> flown at high speed, could break open the reactor vessel. The resultant

> fire could, however, cause enough damage to allow radioactive material into

> the air.

>

> The drama aboard flight 93 as a small group of passengers tried to seize

> control of the plane from the hijackers during its final few minutes has

> become an emblem of American heroism during the events of September 11.

>

> Delayed 40 minutes in taking off from Newark's congested airport, the plane

> was in the early stages of its journey when its passengers started hearing

> that other aircraft had been hijacked and at least one had flown into the

> twin towers of the World Trade Center.

>

> Todd Beamer, one of the passengers, called an emergency operator on an

> onboard telephone after he and fellow passengers learnt of the first

> attack. He explained that flight 93 had also been hijacked. He said there

> were three hijackers - two with knives and one with what he thought was a

> bomb strapped to his waist. In fact, there were four, and by this time the

> fourth was almost certainly flying the plane.

>

> Beamer, who was married with two young sons, told the operator: "We're

> going to do something. I know I'm not going to get out of this." He

> explained that some of passengers had decided to jump on the terrorist

> thought to have the bomb.

>

> With the telephone left on, he could be heard saying: "Are you guys ready?

> Let's roll." The operator heard screams and a few minutes later the line

> went dead.

>

> The FBI is looking into whether another United Airlines flight, scheduled

> to leave Kennedy International Airport for San Francisco, was a target of

> hijackers on September 11. When the plane was grounded because of the

> attacks, four Middle Eastern-looking men refused to return to their seats

> and hurriedly left as soon as its doors opened.

>

> Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd. This page is provided by

> www.sunday-times.co.uk on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions.

> To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Sunday Times,

> visit the Syndication website.

>

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