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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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