(She did not
witness an A-10 'Warthog' fighter plane as previously speculated.)
"Susan McElwain: It was pure
white, there wasn't any markings on it, there was no rivets. It was that
close I would have seen them. It was so molded like it was all one piece...
It was cylinder, it came back and this spoiler was across it.
Terrorcell: And there were no wings or...?
Susan: I did
not see any wings.
Terrorcell: What do you think it was?
Susan: I can only go by what other people have said to me cuz at the
time I thought it was a plane. But like that guy from California who mailed
me a bunch of pictures and that guy from Bedford who sent me a bunch of
pictures, they all said the same thing that it had to be a missile or an
unmanned plane or something..." - Interviewed by
Terrorcell
and Sam Ettaro.
Susan
McElwain, 51 - who lives two miles from the site, knows what
she saw - the white plane rocketed directly over her head.
"It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50ft above my mini-van," she
recalled. "It was so low I ducked instinctively. It was traveling real fast,
but hardly made any sound.
"Then it disappeared behind some trees. A few seconds later I heard this
great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured
the jet had crashed. The ground really shook. So I dialed 911 and told them
what happened.
"I'd heard nothing about the other attacks and it was only when I got home
and saw the TV that I realized it wasn't the white jet, but Flight 93.
I didn't think much more about it until the authorities started to say
there had been no other plane. The plane I saw was heading right to
the point where Flight 93 crashed and must have been there at the very
moment it came down.
"There's no way I imagined this plane - it was so low it was virtually on
top of me.
It was white with no markings but it was definitely military, it
just had that look.
"It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the
back of a car and with two upright fins at the side. I haven't found
one like it on the internet. It definitely wasn't one of those executive
jets. The FBI came and talked to me and said there was no plane around.
"Then they changed their story and tried to say it was a plane taking
pictures of the crash 3,000ft up.
"But I saw it and it was there before the
crash and it was 40ft above my head. They did not want my story - nobody
here did."
Mrs Mcelwain, who looks after special needs children, is further convinced
the whole truth has yet to come out because of a phone call she had within
hours from the wife of an air force friend of the family.
"She said her husband had called her that morning and said 'I can't talk,
but we've just shot a plane down,' " Susan said. "I presumed they meant
Flight 93. I have no doubt those brave people on board tried to do
something, but I don't believe what happened on the plane brought it down.
"If they shot it down, or something
else happened, everyone, especially the victims' families, have a right to
know." - Daily Mirror (9/13/02)
"Susan Mcelwain of
Stonycreek Township said
a small white jet with rear engines and no discernible markings
swooped low over her minivan near an intersection and disappeared over a
hilltop, nearly clipping the tops of trees lining the ridge.
It was less than a minute later, Mcelwain said, that the ground shook and a
white plume of smoke appeared over the ridge. "It was so close to me I
ducked," Mcelwain said. "I heard it hit and saw the smoke. All I could think
of was how close I came to dying. "
- The Bergen Record (9/14/01)
Tom Spinelli, 28 - was working at India Lake Marina, a mile and a
half away. "I saw the white plane," he said.
"It was flying around all over the place like it was looking for something.
I saw it
before and after the crash."
India Lake also contributes to the view there was an explosion on board
before the Newark-San Francisco flight came down. Debris rained down on the
lake - a curious feat if, as the US government insists, there was no mid-air
explosion and the plane was intact until it hit the ground.
"It was mainly mail, bits of in-flight magazine and scraps of seat cloth,"
Tom said. "The authorities say it was blown here by the wind." But there was
only a 10mph breeze and you were a mile and a half away? Tom raised his
eyebrows, rolled his eyes and said: "Yeah, that's what they reckon."
-Daily Mirror (9/13/02)
More
- Another Somerset County resident, Tom Spinello, said that he saw the
plane. He said that it had high back wings. -The Pittsburgh
Channel (9/12/01)
Val McClatchey - Val McClatchey heard the 757 roar over Indian
Lake, three miles east of where it would crash. She had been watching
the "Today" show, with footage from New York, and now the Pentagon.
She looked out the window, above the
red barns. She caught a glimpse of it, like light off a watch face.
Then nothing, and then a boom that nearly knocked her off the couch.
"I thought it was a small plane. I
figured they were just trying to get out of the air." - Pittsburgh Live
(09/11/02)
Note
that the
official story says Flight 93 came in from the west towards Indian Lake,
but it was first report that it was flying east:
►
Investigators locate 'black box' from Flight 93; widen search area in
Somerset crash
"He also said the National Transportation
Safety Board has told investigators that the plane, which began its
flight in Newark, N.J.,
was flying east when it crashed but could provide no other
information about its path or intended target." -Pittsburg Post Gazette
(09/13/01)
Witnessed mystery aircraft
after the explosion:
"John:
We think it was shot down because as soon as it crashed a big fighter
plane flew over the school.
Brian:We saw that [fighter]
plane like right after it happened. We were the only ones who saw
it pretty much from the school. Nobody one else saw.
Narrator: How long after did you guys see the fighter plane?
John:Like ten seconds. As soon as we saw the
mushroom cloud, this plane goes flying over.
Brian: Right there. It was right after everything." -
GNN: "UA 93: The Road To Shanksville (part 2)"
Robert Blair - Robert Blair,
41, also of Stoystown, was driving his coal-hauling route when he saw the
plane crash a few miles away. He noticed the second plane because he
had heard on his truck radio earlier that the FAA had grounded all aircraft,
and he said it was flying east -- the same direction as Flight 93. He
said the FBI asked him whether it looked like a military plane, but
Blair remembered only that it was "a big jet flying low." -
Washington Post (09/14/01)
Jim
Brandt - "Somerset County resident Jim Brandt said that
he saw another plane in the area. He said it stayed there for one or
two minutes before leaving."
- The Pittsburgh Channel (9/12/01)
Robin Doppstadt - was working inside her family food-and-supply
store when she heard the crash. When she went outside, she said,
she saw a small white jet that looked like it was making a single
circle over the crash site.
"Then it climbed very quickly and took off. "
- The Bergen Record (9/14/01)
"Like I said, probably within, within 45 seconds or a minute of impact,
we were there. We were there before any fireman, any paramedics, or anybody;
we were on site. When we got there, there was a plane flying up above
and he was smart, he flew straight for the sun, so you couldn't, you
couldn't look at it and see exactly what type of plane, or if it was a
fighter or what it was. But we caught a glimpse of it and as he was
swinging, he was basically traveling in the same direction as the plane."
-
GNN: "UA 93: The Road To Shanksville (part 2)"
Lee Purbaugh, 32 - was the only person to see the last seconds of
Flight 93 as it came down on former strip-mining land at precisely 10.06am -
and he also saw the white jet.
He was working at the Rollock Inc. scrap yard on a ridge overlooking the
point of impact, less than half a mile away. "I heard this real loud noise
coming over my head," he told the Daily Mirror. "I looked up and it was
Flight 93, barely 50ft above me. It was coming down in a 45 degree and
rocking from side to side. Then the nose suddenly dipped and it just crashed
into the ground. There was this big fireball and then a huge cloud of
smoke."
But did he see another plane? "Yes, there was another plane," Lee
said. "I didn't get a good look but
it was white and it circled the area about twice and then it flew off
over the horizon." - Daily Mirror (9/13/02)
"Hoping to dispel rumors that United Airlines
Flight 93 might have been shot down by military aircraft, the FBI
Saturday said that two other planes were in the area but had nothing to
do with the hijacked flight crashing in western Pennsylvania.
The FBI said that a civilian business jet
flying to Johnstown was within 20 miles of the low-flying
airliner, but at an altitude of 37,000 feet. That plane was asked to descend to 5,000 feet -- an unusual maneuver
-- to help locate the crash site for responding emergency crews.
The FBI said that is probably why some witnesses say they saw another plane
in the sky shortly after Flight 93 crashed at 10:10 a.m. Tuesday in a grassy
field near Shanksville, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
The FBI said there was also a C-130
military cargo aircraft about 17 miles away that saw smoke or dust near the
crash site, but that plane wasn't armed and had no role in the crash.
That plane was flying at 24,000 feet.
Earlier in the week, witnesses described seeing more planes to WTAE-TV
reporters. Click here for video of those accounts.
On Friday, WTAE-TV reported that the mystery pilot in the white plane may
have been an area farmer.
James K. Will, a Berlin, Pa., farmer who
pilots a white Cessna with red stripes (pictured at right) and who has
an airstrip near his farm, told Team 4 reporter Paul Van Osdol that he
circled the scene
about 45 minutes after the crash." - ThePittsburghChannel (09/15/01)
►
WHAT DID HAPPEN TO FLIGHT 93?
"The
FBI's later explanation for the white jet was that a passing civilian
Fairchild Falcon 20 jet was asked to descend from 34,000ft to 5,000ft
some minutes after the crash to give co-ordinates for the site. The
plane and pilot have never been produced or identified. Susan Mcelwain
says a Falcon 20 was not the plane she saw." - Mirror UK (09/12/02)
Why was an executive jet owned by Omaha
billionaire Warren Buffett "tracking" Flight 93 instead of a military jet
intercepting it?
"Additional recordings would be played from
the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11... An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private
business aircraft, confirmed that
the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company.
The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company
was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made
the request." -Holland Sentinel/AP (8/09/02)
In 1995, world-renowned financier Warren
Buffett purchased his first fractional share in the NetJets® program.
Three-and-a-half years later, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway purchased NetJets
Inc.
"As a NetJets fractional aircraft Owner, I had Three-and-a-half years to
examine the service of NetJets before Berkshire Hathaway purchased NetJets
Inc. We knew we were purchasing the premier provider of aviation solutions
in the world. And you can quote me to the world on that."
- WARREN BUFFETT Chairman and CEO Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
