Terrorist Takedown 3-FLT [UPD]
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The thirty-seven passengers (including the four terrorists) represented a load factor of 20% of the plane's capacity of 182. Some authorities believe that those planning the terrorist attacks purposely chose flights to hijack which were commonly low in passenger numbers so they would face less resistance when trying to take over the plane. The other planes hijacked on September 11, 2001 were similarly low in passengers.
After forty-six minutes of normal flight, at 9:28 am, as the plane neared Cleveland, Ohio, terrorists broke into the cockpit, incapacitated the pilot and first officer, and took control of the plane, turning it southeast, on a path toward Washington D.C.
According to one source, the terrorists were armed with "at least one box cutter that appeared to have been store-bought and another cutting device that seemed to be homemade-a piece of metal wrapped in tape." A published report describes "a stout fighting knife" with a locking, serrated blade that was found at the crash site.
The FBI reported that 14 knives and parts of knives, including a box cutter, were found at the Flight 93 crash site. None of the blades were longer than 3.5 inches. Several of the passengers who made phone calls from on board the plane reported that one of the terrorists had a bomb strapped around his waist. Some of the callers expressed doubt about whether the bomb was real. No evidence of explosives was found at the crash site.
We know that Flight 93 was destined for Washington D.C. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, at 9:55 am, the terrorist pilot Ziad Jarrah dialed in the frequency for the navigational aid at Washington Reagan National Airport, clearly indicating that the attack was planned for the nation's capital.
At 9:57 am, the passengers and crew began their assault on the cockpit. At least two passengers and one crew member terminated phone calls in order to join the revolt. The plane was passing over Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania at this time, east of Pittsburgh. The terrorists responded by rolling the plane to the right and left, repeatedly, apparently attempting to knock the passengers off balance. Planes in the sky over western Pennsylvania and persons on the ground witnessed this erratic flying. The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the assault which continued until the time of the crash. According to the 9/11 Commission, the terrorists remained in control of the plane and chose to crash it here rather than risk the passengers and crew regaining control of the plane.
At 11:00 on Thursday 13 October 1977, Lufthansa flight LH 181, a Boeing 737 named Landshut, took off from Palma de Mallorca en route to Frankfurt with 86 passengers and five crew, piloted by Captain Jürgen Schumann, with co-pilot Jürgen Vietor at the controls. About 30 minutes later, as it was overflying Marseille, the aircraft was hijacked by four militants calling themselves "Commando Martyr Halima" in honour of fellow militant Brigitte Kuhlmann, who had been killed in Operation Entebbe the previous year. The leader of the hijacker group was Palestinian terrorist Zohair Youssif Akache (23, male), who adopted the alias "Captain Martyr Mahmud". The other three were Suhaila Sayeh (24, female), a Palestinian, and two Lebanese people, Wabil Harb (23, male) and Hind Alameh (22, female). Akache ("Mahmud") angrily burst into the cockpit, brandishing a fully loaded pistol in his hand. He forcibly removed Vietor from the cockpit, sending him to the economy class area to join the passengers and flight attendants, leaving Schumann to take over the flight controls. As the other three hijackers knocked over food trays, ordering the hostages to put their hands up, Mahmud coerced Captain Schumann to fly east to Larnaca in Cyprus, but was told that the plane had insufficient fuel and would have to land in Rome first.[7]
The hijacked aircraft changed course at around 14:30 (as noticed by air traffic controllers at Aix-en-Provence), diverting eastward and landed at Fiumicino Airport in Fiumicino, Rome at 15:45 for refuelling. The hijackers made their first demands, acting in concert with a Red Army Faction group, the Siegfried Hausner Commando, which had kidnapped West German industrialist Hanns Martin Schleyer five weeks earlier: they demanded the release of ten Red Army Faction (RAF) terrorists detained at the JVA Stuttgart-Stammheim prison, plus two Palestinian compatriots held in Turkey, as well as US$15 million. West German Interior Minister Werner Maihofer contacted his Italian counterpart Francesco Cossiga and suggested the plane's tyres be shot out to prevent the aircraft from taking off. After consulting with his colleagues, Cossiga decided that the most desirable solution for the Italian government was to rid itself of the problem altogether. The aircraft was refuelled with a full 11 tons of fuel, allowing Mahmud to order co-pilot Vietor (who had been allowed to re-enter the cockpit on the ground at Fiumicino at Schumann's behest) to take off and fly the plane to Larnaca at 17:45 (5:45 p.m.) without even obtaining clearance from Rome air traffic control.[7]
In Dubai, the terrorists instructed the control tower to send airport crew staffers to empty the toilet tanks, supply food, water, medicine, newspapers, and take away the rubbish. Captain Schumann was able to communicate the number of hijackers on board, specifying that there were two male and two female hijackers by dropping different types of cigarettes on the tarmac from out of the cockpit window.[8] In an interview with journalists, this information was revealed by Dubai's Sheikh Mohammed, then Minister of Defence.[9] The hijackers learned about this, possibly from the radio, causing an enraged Mahmud to angrily threaten Schumann's life for secretly sharing this coded message. The aircraft remained parked on the tarmac stationed at Dubai airport all throughout Saturday 15 October, during which the jetliner experienced technical snags with the electrical generator, air conditioning and auxiliary power unit breaking down. The hijackers demanded that engineers fix the plane. On the morning of Sunday 16 October, Mahmud threatened to start shooting hostages if the aircraft was not refuelled, and Dubai authorities eventually agreed to refuel the plane.[7]
In the meantime, both Hans-Jürgen Wischnewski, the West German minister responsible for handling the hijacking, and Colonel Ulrich Wegener, commander of elite German anti-terrorist squad GSG 9, had arrived in Dubai to try to persuade the government to agree to let GSG 9 commandos into Dubai to storm the aircraft. However, after permission was granted for GSG 9 commandos to storm the aircraft, SAS and GSG 9 senior operatives insisted on additional combat exercises and dry-runs on an adjacent airstrip. Reports suggest up to 45 hours of training was conducted while in Dubai (over a period of 80 hours). While Wegener was contemplating his options, the jetliner was on the move again after the hijackers fully refuelled the Landshut plane and the pilots started up the engines. At 12:19 on Sunday 16 October it took off, bound for Salalah and Masirah in Oman, where permission to land was once again denied and both airports were blockaded. After Riyadh also closed and blockaded its airport runways at 14:50 on 16 October (three days after the hijacking began), a course was set to Aden in South Yemen, at the limit of the plane's fuel range.[7]
Approaching and overflying Aden, the flight was yet again denied permission to land, this time at Aden International Airport, and both main runways (including the apron) were blocked by military jeeps, tanks and other vehicles. The plane was running dangerously low on fuel, but the Aden airport authorities adamantly refused to clear the runways, leaving co-pilot Vietor little choice but to make an emergency landing on an unpaved sand strip roughly parallel to (in-between) both runways. The plane remained largely intact following the ground roll but when the Aden authorities told the hijackers and pilots that they needed to fly away, both pilots were concerned about the aircraft's airworthiness after its rough, hard landing on rugged, rocky and sandy terrain, deeming it unsafe to take off and fly the jetliner again until a thorough engineering inspection had been made. After the engineers claimed that everything was all right with the airframe, Mahmud consequently allowed Schumann to check the condition of the landing gear and the engines. Both engines had ingested a copious amount of sand and dirt at maximum reverse thrust and were clogged up. The landing gear had not collapsed, but its structure was weakened and its extension/retraction mechanism was damaged. Schumann did not immediately return to the plane after inspecting it, even after numerous calls by the hijackers threatening to detonate the aircraft because of his departure. The reasons for his prolonged absence remain unclear to this day. Some news reports, including interviews with Yemeni airport authorities, imply that Schumann was asking ground crews to prevent the flight from taking off and to refuse to accede to the terrorists' demands.[10][11]
As a small force, the GSG-9 relied on their Somali counterparts to maintain ground defence around the aircraft as well as deception operations.[13][14] Several minutes before the rescue, Somali soldiers lit a fire 60 metres (200 ft) in front of the jet as a diversionary tactic, prompting Akache and two of the other three hijackers to rush to the cockpit to observe what was going on, isolating them from the hostages in the cabin.[15] At 02:07 local time, the GSG 9 commandos silently climbed up their ladders and opened the emergency doors. Wegener, at the head of one group, opened the forward door, and two other groups, led by Sergeant-Major Dieter Fox and Sergeant Joachim Huemmer, stormed the aircraft using ladders to climb up onto the wings and open both overwing emergency doors at the same time. Shouting in German for the passengers and crew to get on the floor, the commandos shot all four terrorists, killing Wabil Harb and Hind Alameh and wounding Zohair Akache and Suhaila Sayeh. Akache died of his injuries hours later. One GSG 9 commando was wounded by return fire from the terrorists. Three passengers and a flight attendant were slightly wounded in the crossfire. An American passenger aboard the plane described the rescue: "I saw the door open and a man appears. His face was painted black and he starts shouting in German 'We're here to rescue you, get down!' [Wir sind hier, um euch zu retten, runter!] and they started shooting."[16] 2b1af7f3a8