The Terrifying Truth Behind 9/11's Flight 77 Hijacking! | Mayday Air Disaster

there was a sense of something coming over the tops of our cars a commercial jet screams low over Washington DC and the Fireballs just billowed out of the Pentagon you have watched the tragedy of an outrageous Act of barbaric terrorism want passenger manifest surveillance video The Works the attack on the Pentagon mobilizes hundreds of FBI agents and NTSB investigators left you had the largest investigation in American history going on they uncover a mountain of evidence what are you guys doing shocking details about the terrorist hijacking of American Airlines flight 77 stay where you want now or die their strategy was audacious but not complicated and it worked [Music] it's nearly 8 a.m. at Dallas airport near Washington DC American Airlines flight 77 will soon be heading to Los Angeles 39-year-old David shabir is the first officer any plans for the big day going to take in the ball game at Angel Stadium oh yeah that'll be great the captain Charles Berling game turns 52 tomorrow Captain Berling game was a former Navy pilot he was a graduate of the fighter weapons school otherwise and more commonly known as Top Gun a very experienced airline pilot a lot of years in service very [Music] professional can I help you the Boeing 757 is less than half full this morning there were only 58 passengers on [Music] board no I'm booked all day that day what about next week Barbara Olen is on her way to LA to appear on a TV talk show Barbara Olsen was a high-profile lawyer in Washington DC very active in the political circles out there she was also the wife of the US solicitor General at the time tedson departure frequency will be2 5.05 Runway 30 cleared for takeoff cleared for takeoff uh 30 American 77 on the [Music] roar at 8:20 a.m. American Airlines flight 77 gets underway [Music] V1 [Music] rotate it was just a beautiful day the skies were clear throughout most of the country in fact and it was just a really really gorgeous day for flight it takes roughly 5 hours to make the 2,300 m trip from Washington to Los [Music] Angeles at 8:46 flight 77 reaches cruising altitude 35,000 ft looks like we're going to have clear skies all the way what's what we like to hear American 77 turn right 10° vectors for traffic on the ground air traffic controllers guide the 757 that right American 77 I've always equated it to like a three-dimensional chess game if you will Steve B was an air traffic controller for more than 20 years we worked a lot of airplanes 12 to 17 airplanes at a time and they're moving along pretty fast and so things are happening pretty quickly American Airlines 77 clear direct uh fouth clear dra Falmouth American 77 thanks Falmouth Kentucky is the next way point on flight 77s route West to Los Angeles all right time for a bit more coffee there's not a lot of passengers on board for the crew they don't have as many people to take care of there's not as much food service to worry about I'll have some water please so it's typically a more relaxed flight when the plane's not [Music] full 34 minutes into the flight controllers noticed something odd what are you guys doing flight 77 is veering off course American 77 Center at the point where the controller noticed the aircraft take a turn that he did not instruct him to do that's when he would become concerned American 77 radio check 2 minutes later their concern turns to alarm check flight 77 has vanished from their radar Center calling American 77 American [Music] 77 that's extremely rare that a plane would ever go missing right they just don't disappear controllers usually track flights using a signal from a transponder on board the aircraft the transponder gives them the flight number the speed and altitude the controller switches his screen to search for a more basic signal primary radar supervisor but there's still no sign of the plane American 77 radio check how do you read their concern grows with each second of [Music] Silence if I can't see him on the secondary or the primary radar and I can't speak with him I would assume that he has gone down somewhere in Crash senent then just after 9:00 a.m. a call comes in from American Airlines that's almost impossible for controllers to digest it is Tuesday September member the 11th 2001 thousands of people are feared dead Lowa Manhattan is in chaos almost everybody that saw what happened saw it on TV saw it live said this is not an accident there's no way two planes two commercial aircraft accidentally hit both towers of the World Trade Center no one knew what was going on except for the country was under attack and so I think it was very difficult where are these airplanes are there any other airplanes out there that have gone missing the fate of the missing 757 is now much more worrying what if it hasn't crashed somewhere in the midwest we need to find that plane with two aircraft already in the World Trade Center towers another aircraft missing air traffic controllers were most likely just going nuts trying to figure out what's happening supervisor [Music] I've got a Target tracking Eastbound at a high rate of speed at 9:32 more than half an hour after losing contact with the plane controllers spot a mysterious radar return primary radar that doesn't give you altitude or any real information if it is flight 77 it means the plane has turned around back towards Washington we got to warn DC America's capital could be the next Target at this point since he was aware of the attacks on the country I'm sure he already thought that was one of the hijacked aircraft go for 06 do you have a commercial aircraft in sight controllers recruit another pilot to try to learn more they radio the only other plane in the immediate air space a C130 cargo plane from nearby Andrews Air Force Base looks like an American airlin 757 it's got to be our plane Center calling American 77 American 77 but the 757 is ignoring all Radio Calls and it's heading straight for Washington it's 9:35 a.m. and traffic into Washington is getting congested I was on my way from my Parish to the Arlington National Cemetery for a grayside service father Steven mcro is stuck on a freeway right beside the Pentagon I took that exit actually because I I knew that the Pentagon was near uh AR National Cemetery and I couldn't remember how to get to a national so I thought I can't be that far off I'll take this exit but in front of the building there ended up being standstill traffic and then without warning there was a rush feeling the vibrations or the sound I just know there was there was overwhelming sense of something coming over the tops of our cars the plane clipped a light pole as it went over the highway and I turned instinctively to my right and to see just in time the plane coming in and um just crashing into the building right right in front of my eyes there were these two huge Billows of fire that came out of the two top Windows of the Pentagon and the Fireballs just kind of billowed out the symbol of US military might is now in Flames smoke pours from a gaping 90 ft wide hole in the pentagon's West Wall one entire section of the building has collapsed I had not heard anything about the World Trade Center crashes didn't have my radio on hadn't heard anything and so I just assumed that this was an accident there's no chance that any of the 64 people aboard the plane have survived the impact and there are sure to be many more dead among Pentagon staff on average any given day 23,000 some odd people work in the building it's five rings five floors and five levels of military space with news of a third airliner attack the FAA issues an unprecedented order attention all Pilots we have a National Emergency we need to get everyone on the ground every commercial flight in the Country Must land 10° right begin descent it's the first time in US history they grounded the whole Fleet be advised we are clearing the airspace controllers are trying to figure out a situation they've never prepared for and trying to figure out how to get all the airplanes on the ground and accounted for before more loss of life attention all Pilots Attorney Richard numi was on one of those diverted flights Captain comes over the intercom system and said we've just been notified that all air traffic in the United States has been required to land it was a little bit startling it was a little bit looking out the window going what's going on num's flight lands in witor Kansas he'll soon learn how lucky he is to be alive I was scheduled to speak at a conference they booked me a ticket uh on American Airlines flight 77 out of dollars to the West Coast at the last moment he switched his ticket to a more convenient flight I had left the original flight uh itinerary on the refrigerator drove to the airport changed the ticket got on the airport plane um was very very concerned that the my wife was thinking that I was still on that plane it was one of those things where you know God was smiling on me that day at the Pentagon father MRA rushes towards the devastation he wants to help whoever he can and we coming to one man in particular he said what is your name I'm father mcra I'll stay with you and he said I'm Catholic and so I actually gave him in those moments the uh sacraments um and anointed him on his forehead with the blessed oil the oil of the sick and when I did that I remember saying to him I tell you Jesus is with you now can't go back in there got maintain thousands of military staff evacuate the burning Pentagon the United States is under siege just across the pomac river the hunt for those responsible is already underway what passenger manifest Witnesses surveillance video the works we were setting up and actually getting our crew ready to respond to New York at the time and then obviously we were hit then at the Pentagon so we changed our plans FBI supervisor John Parn sets up the agency's Washington command post you realize it we're we're under attack is what we are then you realize that this is this is something that's never happened before This Is War but before anyone can grasp the full magnitude of what has happened another threat appears the FAA has reports of a fourth [Music] hijacking we were told that there was another aircraft heading towards Washington DC and the last timeline we were given was it was about 8 minutes out so what we did was we sent snipers up on the roof with binoculars to look out for this aircraft across the us thousands of flights are now grounded there's just airliner after airliner after airliner parked on the tarmac then at 10:15 a.m. a blackened crater in rural Pennsylvania reveals what's left of the fourth hijacked plane what was unique about that flight is the passengers tried to retake the flight they were unsuccessful to the extent that the plane still crashed but they were successful that it did not crash into whatever its intended target was going to be four passenger Jets have been hijacked and turned into flying bombs nearly 3,000 people have been killed we have watched the tragedy of an outrageous Act of baric terrorism carried out by Fanatics against both civilians and military people you never in your wildest dreams would think that they would take aircrafts full of people and turn it into literally a missile Americans aren't used to being sucker punched we're pretty much convinced that there's a Pacific Ocean and there's an Atlantic Ocean and this doesn't happen here and I think on that day the reality that this is a new world uh happen the Pentagon is now a federal crime scene the FBI is in charge of the investigation I'd seen my Sher deceased uh but to see that much and that certain amount of time in that area I don't care how adjusted you are to it you feel it the FBI faces intense pressure to figure out who committed this terrible crime and how because the crime scene is also an aviation crash site experts from the national Transportation safety board joined the investigation the FBI experts on crimes and criminal investigations and that covers many areas they aren't necessarily airplane experts and that's where the NTSB can come in Tom hter was one of the first NTSB investigators at the scene this airplane was hitting a very heavy structure so most the aircraft was reduced down to small pieces investigators need to find the black boxes and any other evidence that could identify the hijackers it won't be easy the massive impact has left a confusing mixture of debris we provided five six people at different times who assisted on going through the wreckage going through the building trying to find identify aircraft parts for them anything that we took out of the site we had them look at it and they would identify it to us as either being an aircraft or a file cabinet it was very apparent that we needed that type of expertise on the same hundreds of Searchers and investigators work around the clock deep inside the badly damaged structure the risk of building collapse is a constant danger the engineers they had a a technique to see if the building was starting to shift and if they noticed shifting or heard creaking uh everybody would rush out of there everybody El that happened at least a half a dozen times the number of people killed inside this legendary building reaches 125 it would have been even higher but some offices on the west side of the Pentagon were empty the area where American Airlines 77 hit had been undergoing some some reconstruction some remodeling so there were not as many people at work as there normally would be probably saved hundreds of lives as the nation tries to cope with the enormity of the devastation FBI agents are already gaining valuable information about how the flights were turned into weapons of Terror some passengers managed to make phone calls from the air describing their ordeal everyone's in the back of the plan now one of those calls was from Barbara Olen Barbara Olson called her husband Ted Olson the US solicitor general at the time tells him that the plane has been hijacked that the hijackers have box cutters and knives and they've moved people to the back of the plane she reveals that the hijackers then forced the pilots to leave the cockpit they need to do something Barbara Olson was incredibly Brave if she's caught she calls attention to herself which may draw immediate violence to her we'll make it out of here it's fine I love you not much more information is shared at that point before the the phone is cut off Pilots probably thought that by cooperating everyone would get home safe prior to the 911 terrorist attacks all flight Crews were told to cooperate with the hijackers do what they want and buy for time please stay calm everybody move to the back traditionally it had been the aircraft was hijacked the plane landed the FBI would come on scene there'd be hours of negotiation and eventually the hijacking somehow ends it really just wasn't in the imagination that they were going to crash these into buildings it's now clear how the hijackers took control of flight 77 but who were they and how were they able to carry out their lethal [Music] attack at Dallas airport the search for evidence takes a major step forward airport security Flags a suspicious car abandoned in one of the parking lots what investigators find in the car is astounding that was a treasure troll of investigative leads the items include a box cutter diagrams of cockpit instruments and documents bearing Middle Eastern names they scanned flight 77s passenger manifest checking to see if any of the suspicious names are [Music] listed didn't take too long to figure out who the hijackers were the trail leads to five attackers three were in first class two more were seated in economy the Pentagon attackers are quickly linked to 14 Suspects on the three other hijacked planes they found some commonalities right away one that 15 of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and the other notable is that most of them had been in the United States for quite some time identifying the hijackers is key but important questions remain how did terrorists get weapons past security at a modern airport and how were they able to fly a sophisticated commercial airliner straight into the pend Pon the FBI needs to uncover all it can about the Pentagon attackers including their movements in the days and weeks before 9/11 they scour government records credit card transactions travel itineraries and more all those pieces of paper and all those documentation they were generating leads because you probably had the largest investigation in American history going on at the Pentagon the exhaustive search effort is paying off agents recover the plane's two black boxes the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder When the boxes were found the FBI investigators brought them to the NTSB laboratory American 77 radio check the recorders could help fill in key gaps in the timeline if their data can be successfully downloaded Center calling American 77 American 77 the most critical question what was happening in the cockpit when controllers lost contact with the doomed plane while they wait for word on the recorders investigators scrutinize pentagon's security video they soon discover that the deadly impact was caught on tape a direct high-speed hit on the Southwest wall of the Pentagon it's now clear why the plane virtually disappeared when you have an airplane hitting pretty much solid brick it just vaporizes there's not a lot left but the question remains how did the hijackers evade security and board the plane potentially dangerous passengers are supposed to be identified before they even get to the airport the airlines rely on a computerized screening system known as caps one of the things that that caps does is the computer assisted passenger pre-screening system is it it Flags you if you have certain suspicious indicators investigators Wonder did that pre-screening system somehow fail when they study the records for flight 77 they make a startling Discovery caps did not fail it actually flagged three of the five hijackers a special code was printed on their boarding passes selecting them for extra security screening yet they still got through how could this happen there's no question that security was inadequate Brian Jenkins is an Aviation Security expert the cap select e process really didn't mean that much anymore and that was critical on the morning of 911 investigators learned that the extra security screening is minimal passengers flagged by caps are not searched the airline merely keeps their checked bags off the plane until after they've boarded once they were certain you boarded the flight your bags were loaded onto the plane presumption was that the major threat was from a bomb in the hold of the aircraft and a presumption that the terrorist would not be suicidal after years without a major incident it seems the airlines may have become complacent the focus on customer service passenger efficiency moving people through the airport was the top priority not security but Washington Dallas like all major airports has more than one layer of security how did armed hijackers get past metal detectors did they have some elaborate scheme to conceal their weapons investigators Hope Airport security video from the morning of September the 11th Can Shed light on the mystery there was a level of security in play uh certainly looking for bombs on the person bombs on luggage you know guns you know the typical type of thing the first two hijackers reached the security checkpoint at around 7:20 a.m. one calmly proceeds through the metal detector without raising an alarm but the second suspect does set it off he's carrying something made of metal metal T cut the weapon then the security process breaks down an officer scans The Suspect with a handheld detector the wand turns up nothing they've done this thousands of times okay the alarm went off okay now I'm supposed to the one the guy okay good enough instead of searching the suspect further security lets him through they've got a line of passengers back there move on at the time the bar was set very low for individuals coming through the checkpoint and resolution of alarms none of the hijackers get a rigorous inspection even though one of them is clearly carrying what looks like a tool or a knife there was something clipped to his back pocket which in the video shows that the the screener never really resolved what that was and and that's a failure but the FAA policy at the time was knives of no greater than 4 in in blade length so even if they had found box cutters and knives on them those items were allowed on board at the time under FAA policy investigators come to a shattering conclusion the 9/11 attackers didn't have an elaborate plan to foil airport security because they didn't need one the scary part of their hijack is that it is so simple it's like having a security alarm system for your entire house and forgetting to secure the dog door and oh that's how they came in their strategy was a ious but not complicated and it worked the five of them got through security and got on board an airplane but getting on board with weapons was only the first step everyone to the back of the plane now the big mystery to solve now is how the hijackers were able to carry out the rest of their murderous [Music] Mission FBI agents dig through financial doents connected to the Pentagon attackers they uncover a crucial lead a check made out to a flight school in Arizona records show that Saudi national Hani Hur spent several years trying to become a commercial airline pilot he'd applied to schools in Saudi Arabia to fly and was rejected uh eventually ended up doing Flight Training in Arizona and was kind of unusual in in his flight training cuz he he flunked a lot of checks along the way two months before the attacks Hur rented several private planes including one he flew to a small airport near Washington DC for the pilot perspective it's one thing to fly a flight simulator it's a completely different thing to be up in the air to see what the real world looks like from the air airport flight records reveal more chilling details about hu's preparations for 9/11 just weeks before the attacks he and one of his co-conspirators booked a commercial flight out of Washington's Dallas airport they bought seats in first class aboard a Boeing 757 I think they use the surveillance flights to try to understand how they could take over the aircraft and get into the cockpit to learn things like wow about 30 minutes after takeoff once we're at Cruise they open the door to give the pilots coffee so all of that is valuable intelligence and insight for the hijackers right American 77 but flying a sophisticated airliner is very different from piloting a small private plane how did the hijackers steer a 757 towards a Target 35,000 ft below investigators hope the plane's flight data will provide some answers unfortunately the copet voice recorder was too damaged and no information could be recovered from it but we were able to read at the flight data recorder they studi the flight data to reproduce the exact movements of the plane throughout the flight power's increasing vertical speed is good take off and climb look completely normal you know obviously you look at the data you you speculate when did the hijackers take over the airplane when did the terrorist you know start doing what they did that we don't know with any Precision clearly is sometime before the airplane turned back banking left nice and smooth must be the autopilot the data reveals how the hijackers managed to turn the 757 around this head think should take us back to DC they relied on the plane's automation you don't need to be a pilot at all in the ailan he can put it heading into the autopilot he can put air speeds into the autopilot everything can be done for him very smoothly and he doesn't have to do a lot of control [Music] input why are turning keep quiet but as the plane nears the Pentagon the autopilot disengages and the flying begins to change left right this guy is really [Music] struggling the altitude is is jumpy it it moves up and down it's a little bit erratic it's quite clear looking at the data this is somebody who has never handled a big airplane before we should s another P closer the hijacker quickly re-engages the the autopilot to help take the 757 to a lower altitude descending now he's probably never flown an airplane this High having to come down from you know 30,000 ft down to ground level that's a whole different maneuver than he's used to in a small airplane but the autopilot isn't pre-programmed to fly to the precise location of the Pentagon it's just ahead have to pile it off 8 minutes from Impact the hijacker must once again fly the aircraft by [Music] [Music] hand keep it stud only 4 miles from the Pentagon they're still flying higher than 6,000 ft we way too high we're never going to head to shed altitude they make a sharp diving turn to the right he misjudged his speed in altitude and had to do as 360 de turn the aircraft can only come out of the sky so fast without breaking up so he makes a circle to get the aircraft lower and get it into position to hit the Pentagon he had a lot of luck going for him he had a very clear day so getting back he probably could see the Pentagon from quite a distance [Music] out in the final seconds they accelerate to top speed almost to the point of breakup the airplane's over speed warnings are probably going off he doesn't care [Music] the terrorist probably could not have successfully landed that airplane U crashing is a lot easier than Landing it and um they Prov that investigators Now understand the deadly flight path of American 77 the flight data solves one more mystery as well [Music] why controllers lost radar contact with the 757 when The Crisis began Center calling American 77 American 77 looks like somebody deliberately Switched Off the transponder here the hijackers turned off the signal used to track the plane the transponder controls are on the centeral console between the two pilots so you can turn it off right there is it it's very easy to do American 77 radio check how do you read with the transponder off supervisor controllers could no longer see the flight on their secondary radar American 77 so turning off the transponder if you're a criminal makes sense because you don't want people track you at the moment controllers switch to primary radar to search for the missing plane flight 77 just happened to be passing through an area of poor primary coverage for American Airlines 77 to drop off radar in an area of limited radar coverage one that's incredibly lucky for the hijackers but also not totally unexpected because not every square mile in the United States is covered by radar luck may have helped the hijackers hit their target but the FBI now has no doubt the attack was planned down to the Last Detail they chose their seats [Music] carefully they wanted to be closer to the cockpit so they could observe when would be the appropriate moment to make their Rush at the cockpit the crew has no reason to suspect a thing the attack is underway before passengers have any hint of danger the dat of flight 77 is now sealed H Hur he's the pilot in all likelihood he's not going to get involved at all in the initial stages of the hijacking please don't hurt me because if he's hurt or killed then the mission's unsuccessful at that point open the door and cut your Thro okay okay the flight attendants carry keys to the cockpit door so an option is to overtake a flight attendant take their key and then just unlock the [Music] door the cockpit no the pilots have no warning and no time to alert authorities there is a hijacking troll code that the pilot scan put into the transponder but apparently that didn't happen stay calm stay calm don't hurt anybody that's the flight attendant they've been lying with probably for years one of your best friends is on the other side of that door with a knife to their throat that's a different scenario than somebody you don't even know everyone's in the back of the plan now the hijackers begin their descent American 77 radio check how do you [Music] read I love you I'll see you soon it is unlikely that crew or passengers would have thought that the plane is going to be turned into a missile the erratic flying almost certainly gets the attention of the captain but there's nothing he can do you have to let me back in the [ __ ] stay where you want now or die I've got a Target tracking Eastbound at a high rate of speed by the time controllers spot flight 77s primary radar returns the plane is only 5 minutes from DC but nothing the controllers could have done the 100 ton jet screams lower and [Music] lower steel light poles snap like Twigs pull up 21 911 shook us to our core anybody that was of age during that time it's like the Kennedy assassination where were you on 911 and everybody has their story it it it has marked Our Generation it was a win for the bad guys and we can't let that happen again the 9/11 attacks bring immediate and profound change to commercial Aviation both in the US and around the world the situation for airport security airplane security was a lot different prior to 9/11 than it is today just 2 months after the attacks the US government creates the Transportation Security Administration or TSA the federal government took direct responsibility for Aviation Security and the screeners are now federal employees the training certainly has improved the TSA brings in strict new rules on what Travelers can carry on planes airports start screening passengers with full body Scanning Machines there are also major changes to onboard security the cockpit doors I mean it's not just the door the whole bulkhead on the aircraft has been made darn near impregnable it's it's bulletproof you can't get through the locks but perhaps the most important change to security has come not from new rules or technology but from the permanently altered attitudes of airline passengers everywhere today the Assumption by passengers if they feel threatened with hijacking is not one of compliance you saw somebody in the back of the plane get up and say you know start screaming things running to the front of the plane you have a choice of sitting in your seat and minding your own business or you have the option of standing up saying uh-uh I guarantee you you're going to stand up the Paradigm has changed changed until we invent the silver bullet or the X-ray for a man's Soul there are going to be performance problems but it is much better than it [Music] was

Channel: Mayday: Air Disaster

Views: 1,369,339

Keywords: 9/11 Attacks Impact, 9/11 Flight 77, Air Disasters, Airline Industry Impact, American Airlines Flight 77, Aviation Crisis Management, Aviation Experts, Cabin Crew Procedures, Cockpit Voice Recorder, Flight Investigations, Flight Security Measures, Flight Simulation, Historic Plane Crashes, Incident Response Training, Mayday: Air Disaster, Pilot Error Investigation, Pilot Training, Surviving a Plane Crash, Terrorism in Aviation, Tragic Events Impact, World Trade Center

Id: 7-WKhAvZNsU

Length: 42min 36sec (2556 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 18 2024