25 years ago this month, on a Tuesday morning with a clear blue sky from Boston to Washington, 19 men changed this country in about 102 minutes. We’ve done a lot of episodes on this show. Some of them are fun, some of them are dark, but we generally can laugh through them. This isn’t one of them. This is 9/11. Over the next several weeks, we’re doing something we’ve never done before. A full eight-part series, start to finish. Not just the day, the leadup, the day itself, the investigation, the 20 years of war that followed, and the manhunt of Osama bin Laden that ended it. Tonight is part one.

It’s called the day, and that’s exactly what it is. Start to finish, minuteby minute, from the moment those 19 men walked through the airport security to the moment the president addressed the nation that night. We’re not skipping the hard parts. We’re not watering it down. Real people live through every single minute we’re about to cover. And a lot of them didn’t get to see you to the end of it. We owe them the truthful version, not the comfortable one. So if you were alive for this, you already know where you were. And if you weren’t or you were too young to really understand it, this is also for you.

American 11, are you trying to call? Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any move, you danger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. We have some planes. Stay quiet and you’ll be okay. We’re turning to the airport. We have a a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York and we need you guys to we need someone to scramble some F16s or something up there to help us out. This is this real world or exercise? No, this is not an exercise, not a test. See two sides of the World Trade Center definitely affected by this crash. Black smoke continuing to to billow out there in a in a playlist.

Another explosion. Explosions. Multiple explosions. Ladies and gentlemen, we just saw another explosion. Uh, obviously we’re just watching it again. It’s the first time. This is now This is the other tower, ladies and gentlemen. Another explosion at tower number two of the World Trade Center just happened live on our air. Uh, today we’ve had a national tragedy. Uh, two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. Of one of the exchanges, there’s actually Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Oh my god. We’re not sure exactly what happened, but it was another explosion on the far side of one of the buildings from where we’re standing.

The ver the reverberation and another explosion on the right hand side. Another building has gone. Another building has gone up on the right hand side of the road. People are now running down the street. We’re not sure if that was another explosion or if that was advanced debris. Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts, despicable acts of terror. for tonight’s ceremonial first pitch. And please welcome the President of the United States. [cheering] [cheering] I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11.

To them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask once all the facts are out for your understanding and for your forgiveness. We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now, watch this drive. There can be no doubt that Sodom Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more. Sodom Hussein has chemical weapons. Sodom Hussein has used such weapons.

Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children. This is the story told all the way through. This is September 11th, 2001. This is the Conspiracy Podcast. So, we’re going to do a quick uh I know we always do the Patreons first so that we are obviously we’ll never not shout out the patronons, but this is going to be a quick version so we can dive back dive right into 911 big episode here.

So, we got Patrick Ryan with a founding crew membership from Over the Pond, brother. I said your last name. Sorry about that, Patrick. [laughter] Oopsies. Uh then we’ve got uh one and done one and only DWT. Nice. All right. So with the founding crew membership, love you. We got Will W founding crew membership. We got Amazing Grace with a yearly founding crew from Australia. We’re starting to get a big following in Australia. Also, she’s been around for a long time, by the way. She’s she’s been around for years. Then we got Adrien C with a founding crew. We got Jack B with a yearly founding crew.

Another over the ponder. We’ve got Stuart from Australia with a founding crew membership. We’ve got uh Zach with a yearly founding crew. Gotta love those. Got Jasmine with a Z H with a founding crew membership. And last, but certainly not least, Candace S, the founding crew membership. We love you and we love our Canadian brethren. Absolutely. Thank you guys. And we’re down to what 50 51 51 left. Yeah. So, if you wanted to support the show, go to patreon.com/theconspiracy podcast. And without further ado, let’s begin. [sighs] Okay. So, if you’ve been following along, the first in this series that we did do was the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Correct. And then last week, uh, we did the rise of al-Qaeda. Yes. Yeah. Yep. And, um, here we are. Now, I’ve spent a lot of time on this, and you know, before we really dive in, I I just want to make a bit of an announcement that that um this is heavy. Uh I I don’t know how else to put it. It’s it’s a heavy uh topic. It’s a heavy story. Almost 3,000 people lost their lives and even more afterwards from the illness. Uh you know, being at ground zero and then also our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Mh. So thousands of people were affected by this and and not not just that it’s like all of us who were alive then were affected by it in some way.

It may not have been like with a family member or a friend or anything like that but we everybody in this country we were affected like and that is the thing that’s why it’s so deep is you know most of these conspiracies we have it’s it’s nothing to do with us whatsoever. Yeah. because we’ve done some heavy ones in the past, but they were like in the past and like but this one for you know like you were saying like we all live through it and Yeah. So, uh we also try to to to make [clears throat] this show light and not like you know the world is ending.

Sure. Um, and so, you know, we do this with as much respect and remembrance that we can. And I subscribe to the fact that, and because some people were like, you know, just leave it alone. Like, you know, we don’t need to redo this, etc. But you know, I watched the um 9/11 commission hearings and almost every victim or family of family wanted it to be brought to light and questions answered. Oh, 100%. [clears throat] So, I I don’t actually feel that the people who actually were affected by this are like upset that we’re trying to bring this story fully there. I think the families and the people who live through it want to know the unanswered questions.

Of course they do. Yeah. And that’s why we titled this series 911 unanswered is because we’re going to try to take up the questions that weren’t answered. Fully agree. Make sense? Yeah. Yep. All right. Now, this episode is called 911 the day. A majority of this episode is taken from the 911 commission report. Yeah. So, like as we do, this is the story. Yeah. And it’s going to be a long story. Yeah. But and and don’t get pissed off because a lot almost all of you listening were alive during it and so you know what happened. But I think it’s important that we get we lay you know lay the groundwork of this is this is the story.

Yeah. This is what happened. And then in the in the future episodes, we can pick apart and Sean has got a great couple episodes where he we’re going to pick apart these things that we’re being told happened and then the inconsistencies. That’s right. It’s pretty much it’s two episodes on all the inconsistencies about each of the major Yeah. the you know events. Yeah. Yeah. But so after the research of this, honestly, I have learned so much more about 911. I thought I knew 911, but I did not know this amount of detail of 911 until So, honestly, uh I think I think you guys are going to learn a lot in this, and we’re going to go we’re going to go through it.

So, um here we go. Let’s do it. Cool. Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, 6 a.m. East Coast. The morning was extremely normal. It was a very normal Tuesday. It was beautiful. It was a gorgeous day. Clear blue sky from Boston down to Washington. Not a cloud anywhere. Kind of crisp late summer morning. It was honestly like all the videos that you see, it was just perfect weather. Mhm. Perfect weather. Kids were being dropped off at school. Congress was back in session on Capitol Hill. The stock market is about to open. primary elections were actually happening that same day in New York City. Interesting. It is interesting.

It’s something always happening around the primary. [laughter] Yeah. So, people were literally walking around New York and about to vote on a new mayor. H Okay. In Sarasota, Florida, the president of the United States is going for his usual early morning jog before a scheduled photo op at an elementary school to talk about their reading scores and this new education bill they were trying to push push forward. It is in every measurable way a normal Tuesday. And at four different airports strung along the east coast, a tiny regional airport in Portland, Maine, Boston’s Logan International, Washington Dulles out of Virginia, and Newark in New Jersey.

19 men are also just going through that Tuesday morning. They were standing in line, checking bags, showing their IDs to a gate agent who had already forgotten their face by the time the next passenger stepped up. Because that’s the entire design of what’s about to happen. It’s not supposed to look like anything. No, they were trying to fool us. Mhm. So, let’s actually do the boarding and the real detail of that. What happened that early morning, hours before the event, the actual event, because this is the part almost nobody tells you about, but it matters. So, you’re about to hear in this report over and over and over that it was a system failure.

9/11 was a overall American system failure. That’s that’s the theme. Yeah. That’s the that’s the theme of this report, right? That’s who the blame goes. The system blame failed us. And that’s true. And that’s that’s really what what uh So no one like everyone. Exactly. That’s what it’s your fault. It’s like a couple times like it never No one ever takes responsibility. No, it’s a system. And what’s here here’s what’s wild is um in the actual commission report and this enraged me and I I can only imagine if you were a family of somebody who died. Yeah. In the beginning, the preface or the the intro of the commission report, it says, “We are not looking to find blame.” Cool.

Wow. Why the are you there? Isn’t that the whole point? Define who is responsible. Crazy. So that’s enraging because if you lost somebody and you spent years trying to get them to do a commission on it, you want them to find who’s responsible for for the death of your family member. I need the blame. So I have closure. Like the blame will provide me with the closure I need. So how enraging is that at the beginning of the whole report is we’re not seeking blame. It’s already invalid. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it didn’t fail because nobody was paying attention. It failed because the system watching these men that morning had built piece by piece over decades to stop different kinds of threat than the one that actually showed up.

So here’s the baseline you need to know in your head before any of this makes sense because it’s 2026 right now. And in September of 2001, a knife with a blade that was under four inches long was legal to carry on airplanes. Totally fine. Yeah. Now I take Oh, I take two little lotion bottles. Oh, you’re like, “Get out of here.” Oh, yeah. They’re like, “Sir, come with us.” Forget to take your belt off and you’re like getting felt up, right? Oh, dude. Yeah, cuz we just we just me and my wife just flew into to DC a couple weeks ago to see my my my parents and Yeah, it was luckily my wife’s pregnant and you know, we’re not we get like kind of the easy pass.

Oh yeah. Yeah. But no, it’s like Yeah, like they’re you can’t take anything with it, right? Box cutters legal. Totally legit. Yeah. mace and pepper spray in many cases not totally leg illegal but they wouldn’t reliably screen for it so they wouldn’t make a big deal about it that makes sense well was there even any screening like nobody they checked your bags screening they check your bags and then they do the wand and you go through the thing you did I don’t remember that I thought I thought that didn’t exist until afterwards no and we know this because there’s actually video of some of the hijackers.

Really? Go into CCTV. Yeah, CCTV. That’s right. Yeah. I just We’re gonna go into that actually and we’re going to post a lot of this stuff and just so everybody knows a lot of this extra stuff and video because this is an audio podcast. So, a lot of this stuff will be posted on our Patreon, uh, including sources for this entire series. Yeah, for sure. So, if you wanted to do the to follow it up. So, um, so the entire security apparatus at American airports had essentially been designed around one scenario. And I don’t know, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, but it’s it’s what happened in Lockerby.

You ever heard of Lockerby? No, never heard of that. Okay. It’s somebody smuggling a bomb onto a plane and in 1988 they smuggled a bomb into one of the suitcases. Yeah. And they didn’t even get on the flight and it exploded. Oh. blowing up in the airport. That’s right. There’s actually a new documentary on Netflix called Something About Lockerby and that story. Yeah. But so the entire security of American airports were designed for that. It wasn’t about like the plane being the weapon. That’s right. That’s right. So keep that in mind. Yeah. Okay. 5:41 in the morning, Muhammad Ata and a man named Abdul Laziz almari check in at the tiny airport of Portland, Maine.

It’s not Portland, Oregon. Portland, Maine. They did a little like a jump like a puddle jumper. Yeah. Like Well, like a really tiny flight that’s like 30 minutes. Okay. They did it from Portland, Maine to Boston and then they flew out of Boston International to That’s right. Nobody knows why they did that. In the commission, it it says they don’t know why they took a tiny little plane from Portland, Maine. because they drove there the night before from Boston to Portland, Maine. Well, one would one interesting one would think maybe it’s like maybe the security is looser at this little tiny airport and then once you’re there, you’re already you’re already in the concourse.

You don’t have to go through security again. True. You’re already you’re already there. So, the commission just said maybe it was to look ordinary. Maybe to deliberately add another layer of confusion and separation. Sure. Don’t know. When Ada, Muhammad Ada, he checks his two bags, a computer system called CAPS, computer assisted passenger pre-screening system. Okay. Flagged him. Interesting. Selected him right there at the counter for additional security. Now, he had seven he had seven uh this like names and they were like, “This is totally random. This is a random screening.” Now, here’s the part that’s going to enrage you is that getting flagged by Caps in 2001 didn’t mean anything.

Almost didn’t mean anything. This is like They’re like, “You good?” He’s like, “Yeah.” They’re like, “Cool. Come on down.” That’s the extra security. Okay. The only logical thing that I could surmise from this was that it was built to protect the situation that happened in that hijacking in Locker B. Mhm. So, like, we’re going to check your bags to make sure there’s no bomb in it. And they’re like, “Okay, there’s no bomb. was fine. So, what it meant to be flagged by caps was that your checked bags would be held on the tarmac until the airline confirmed that you personally boarded the plane because they didn’t think that they would kill yourself.

That’s so like lax. Nobody who designed that rule had ever imagined a scenario where the passenger himself would become the weapon. So, ADA gets flagged by the system that morning. doesn’t change anything and he keeps going. I mean, this technically is before like the age of the suicide bomber. That’s right. Yeah. Like, so they did hold his bags, but that’s it. That’s it. They fly the short hop from Portland into Logan on a tiny commuter plane. They landed at 6:45 a.m. And that’s exactly where the rest of the operation of hijackers converged on them. Now, apologies for the pronunciation, but Wal al Shari and his brother Wed al-Shari along with a third man named Satam al- Sukami also landed at Logan by this point and parked a rental car in the airport’s garage.

At 6:52 a.m., Ada gets on a pay phone for roughly 3 minutes with a man named Marwan Al- Shahi, who’s standing in a completely different terminal of the same airport, waiting for a different flight. Mhm. It’s the last conversation the two of them will have. One more detail from this stretch of the morning that becomes historically enormous because that Portland to Boston connection flight was so tight. A’s two check bags never make the transfer to his connecting flight. Oh, really? Interesting. So, his two bags got left behind. But that’s not like on him. That’s not like the air airline. Yeah. Uh but later on in the investigation, those bags were found by the FBI.

Okay. The evidence log says that they found them at 4:01 p.m. Tucked into the outer pocket of the black bag, they found a four-page handwritten document, a spiritual preparation, operational reminders, what investigators would come to call the last night. But like, why would you have like op uh maybe you read it before? It’s it’d be pointless to have operational reminders because like it’s in the cargo bay under the plane and like you’re Yeah, that’s true. Your whole point is to use the plane as a projectile. It also had just like leading up to that. Yeah, that’s what I’m Yeah, that’s what I’m assuming. So, the last night was essentially [clears throat] Ada’s own private instructions to himself for how to carry out the day.

But like why? Sorry, real quick. I know I don’t want to like drag us on too long, but yeah, like why would you even have that in your check bag? Because if they check your check bags and they’re like, “What’s this? Operational reminders. What the fuck?” You know, like it seems like maybe this is stupid. Like it seems like an extra way for you to get caught. Yeah. Yeah. And Yeah. Exactly. Why would you check your bags of your plan? Yeah. Like why have the plan I knew you were going to just throw the plan out. Like you got to burn it. Burn it. Yeah.

Burn it. Yeah. Yeah. I know that document only exists as physical evidence. Uh meaning we don’t know what it I you can’t really pull it up on like it’s not been scanned. Yeah. That’s not like a document [clears throat] like and it’s somewhere in the in FBI right now. Yeah. Now split into your four crews because from here this is happening at four different gates in four different states all at once. Now just so you know we will take this up later in the later episodes too in in more detail but here we go. American Airlines flight 11 Boston to LA. Five hijackers. Mhm. Okay.

Ada, Amari, Sukami, and the two Sheree brothers. Three of the five Sukami and both Shereice also get flagged by caps. Okay, so Caps is clearly like on to something here. So, at this point, we’re at four people with like what are the odds that your security system is flagging Yeah, same result as before. Bags held, nothing else happens. They walk through. The checkpoint they clear that morning is run by a private security contractor called Globe Security. So TSA at that moment was private security. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. TSA didn’t exist. [snorts] Yeah. Every airport had its own their own like private security team. Yeah. Now the TSA is like a Isn’t that a government?

It’s a government agency. No supervisor on duty that morning ever recalled seeing anything out of the ordinary. Ada takes seat A D or 8 D. Omari sits 8G. Sucami’s in 10B. All business class. I mean, how is it not out of the ordinary get four of these guys flagged on the same flight? I mean, it’s the Sheree brothers take 2 A and 2B. You can see they’re all in the front. They’re all in the Yeah. Yeah. 2B and 2 A were was the row closest to the cockpit. First class, right? Oh, yeah. They’re in business. Yeah. So, that seating is not an accident because it’s the same pattern across all four flights.

Oh, they all Okay. Yep. Boarding wraps by 7:40 a.m. The plane pushes back from the gate at 7:40 on the nose. United flight 175. Boston to LA. Also, also five hijackers. Marwin al-Shai, the one who’s going to actually fly the plane along with Fiz Bani Hammed, Moand Al-Shari, and two more brothers, Ahmed and Hamzi, Hamza Al Gamdi. Not one of these five gets flagged by the caps that morning. But a United ticket agent does later recall when interviewed by investigators that a couple of them seemed to genuinely struggle to understand basic security screening questions. Meaning like, “Are you alive?” Like almost like almost like you ever been behind somebody and they’re like, “Take your laptop out.” And they’re like, “Why?” I I Dude, nothing pisses me off.

You know what I mean? Like almost like they have never flown before. It’s It’s so annoying. It’s like the actual worst. Yeah. And I got my kid and I’m like, “I’ll kill you.” Yeah. You’re like about to take the out of yourself. So Yeah. Like this is a problem now. So, it’s kind of a small forgettable moment, but in hindsight, it becomes interesting that there were all these red flags. Yeah, there’s so many red flags. And also, when we get into their training later, it’s a little confusing because if they were fully trained, you would know the process. You would think that they would have trained on the security process.

I mean, that would seem like as a like an operational thing, like we have to know how to get through security and get on the planes. Mhm. Like you think that that would be Yeah. the priority number one, get through security. Yeah, that’s right. Bonnie Had and Mo al-Shari sits in 2A and 2B, first class, front row. Same playbook. Shah himself is in 6 C. The Gambdi brothers sit together in row nine. And the wheels up on United 175 just before 8 a.m. American Airlines flight 77 was dolest to LA. Five hijackers. This is the crew where the security footage survives and that you can look up right now.

It’s genuinely chilling. Where’s Doulles? Or do is in Virginia. Oh, Virginia. Okay. Yeah. It’s the main Washington Dulles. Yeah. It’s the main airport that I fly into typically to see my family. Yeah. Into DC, right? Well, we could do Reagan. Oh, there’s two like pretty close together. Remember now. So Reagan is like right next to DC and then Dallas is it’s just slightly Yeah. Okay. So this is the the this is the airline or the check-in of security that you can look up the video. Okay. And you can see them going through checkpoint. Um they check in at 7:15. Within the next 20 minutes, the Hani Honour and two brothers Naif and Salm Al Hamzi check in right behind them.

Caps flag three of the five. I mean, like I wonder how how normal is it that you get flagged, you know? Like what’s the percentage? This seems pretty high percentage. Yeah. I mean, it seems like caps like they keep that system pretty like on point. Yeah. Listen to it. So, this part is This part’s going to make me mad and you mad. I’m already I know there’s so many cats flagged 80% of the hijackers. Okay, so so three of them got flagged by CAPS. Caps is an automated flagging system. Sure. Yeah, sounds like original AI. The Hosmi brothers, they got flagged too, but not by a computer.

They got flagged by the dudes by a United customer service rep who found Naif suspicious because he had no photo ID. Why’ they let him on the plane? Don’t know the answer to this one. What the Damn. We don’t know the answer to this other than pre 911 Lucy Goosey. I don’t know what it is. No, but dude, even back then you had to have photo ID. Like, yeah, that was like the one thing they’re going to be like, remember it was Lucy. It was loose, but it wasn’t that loose. You remember DB Cooper? Just cash. Yeah. [laughter] But that was in like the 60s, bro.

That’s different. Like 50 bucks. You could also smoke sigs on the airplane, too. You need to make a name. [laughter] [clears throat] Yeah. So, the United customer service rep tagged them or him as suspicious because a he had no photo ID and he had no Aiden couldn’t speak English. Well, I mean, that’s a red flag. Yeah. Sorry. So now when you watch the tape of of what actually happened, the 9/11 commission reviewed the footage and put it in the report second by second. And at 7:18 in the morning, Midhar and Mo both walk through the first metal detector and both of them set it off.

They’re sent over to the second detector. Midhar clears that one. Moad sets off the second detector as well. Gets pulled aside. You know when you get pulled aside to the I’m going to touch you. We’re going to get I’m going to scan you, etc. It gets pulled aside hand wanded by a screener. Give him the go ahead. [snorts] [sighs] 7:35. Honor walks through the detector completely clean. No alarm at all. And then Nif Al Hanzi, the one without the ID, sets off both metal detectors. Also gets pulled for a hand wanding. has his shoulder bag run through an explosive trace detector. Yeah, they’re all I care a about is explosives now.

Clear’s checkpoint. In the surveillance video, and I do suggest you watch it, shows something clipped to his back pocket that a screening expert who reviewed the tapes later would only describe as marginal at best. Marginal was like the box cutter. Nobody watching in real time could say for certain what that item actually was. I’m I’m sorry. Like what purpose does anyone have a for a box cutter on the plane? Like for what for what reason? I don’t know. A weapon like to to take the stewardist out I guess or the No, I’m saying like if you’re a normal dude if you’re TSA or Well, it wasn’t TSA.

No. If you’re just like a guy walking through, he’s like, “Well, I need my box cutter with you on the plane.” Like, but why? Like, what do you need? What are you doing on this 45minute flight? Like, what the do you need this box cutter for? Yeah. Whatever it was, it he wasn’t stopped for uh it didn’t stop him from boarding. All five clear a checkpoint run that morning by a different private contractor, Argan Bright Security. Yeah, there’s like zero continuity like on like the security here. I know. Like cuz maybe [clears throat] if we could tie the conspiracy of Yeah. into like Yeah. All the securities are in on it.

There’s no continuity here. Midhar and Mo sit together in coach at 12 A 12B. Oh, they’re in coach. What? Still close. 12. Yeah, I mean they’re like right on the cusp. Honor and the Hosmi brothers sit up in first class. Uh Hour in 1B. That’s the number one. I mean that’s the front seat. 1B. Yeah. Um he’s the one who knows how to fly. M okay. Okay. United 93 was Newark to San Francisco. This crew only has four men on it. Okay. And we need to stop here and slow the slow down because the reason why is one of the single most consequential what if moments.

So, 6 weeks before any of this, on August 4th, 2001, a 26-year-old Saudi man named Muhammad Al Kantani Katani lands at Orlando. He’s flown in from London on a one-way ticket carrying roughly $2,800 in cash. No return flight, no hotel reservation, one way cash, nothing lined up on the other end. Mhm. And that specific combo is exactly the kind of thing that’s supposed to draw a red flag. Yeah. No return, especially from immigration. Let’s just talk immigration for a second. Yeah. Let’s not talk terrorism. FBI. Yeah. Let’s not talk terrorism. Just straight immigration. And on that Saturday, out of all of these people, that’s that is one that got flagged like flagged intensely.

An immigration inspector named Joseé Melendez Perez pulls Katani aside for secondary screening and he’s very combative at the start. He’s very evasive. He refuses to answer questions under oath. His story about why he’s there, why, where he’s staying, and who he’s supposed to be meeting keeps changing every 10 minutes. Perez spends close to 90 minutes in that room with him and walks away with a gut feeling that something about this man is wrong, even though he can’t fully articulate it and doesn’t necessarily have evidence of it. I mean, he’s got some evidence. The guy’s clearly lying. But under a legal process called expedited removal, Katani is formally denied entry into the United States.

Oh, good. Great. Be put on a plane immediately. Yeah. Get the out of here. Yeah. Surveillance footage from the airport in Orlando pulled much later shows a man waiting patiently in the parking lot to pick him up. You know who that man was? Muhammad Ata. Muhammad Ata was is on one of the other flights and we had talked about him in the rise of al-Qaeda. Yeah, we did. As one of the leaders of the crew. Yeah. So, the 911 commission’s own conclusion stated plainly in their final report is that he was almost certainly meant to be the fifth man. Oh, that’s why it only was a fourman crew.

Okay, that makes sense. The extra muscle hijacker rounding out what would have become the team on United 93 and five on each. Yeah. Yeah, it makes more sense. Yeah, that does make more sense. So, one immigration officer on one unremarkable Saturday acting purely on instinct is actually what I consider the entire reason Flight 93 ended up with four hijackers that day. And it’s possible that it’s one of the reasons why they were able to pull the plane down cuz United 93 is the one where the passengers revolted or right. So if there was another muscle man, I don’t know what would have happened. The thing is like if you’re going to be at Bucks box cutters too, but if you’re going to like revolt like you’re going to and that’s what I was thinking like the whole time like you’re you’re [clears throat] talking about this and I’m thinking like okay, what would I do?

Yeah. And like I’m I don’t care like in a situation where like that’s happening. And obviously everyone’s in a different scenario. Everyone’s not in my scenario. But like if I have my kid there, like I’m if I I would view myself as a bad father if I didn’t try to do something, right? Like if they’re clearly it’s clear that they’re trying to take the plane over and like we’re gonna die anyways. If I don’t try to do something like I couldn’t live with myself personally because of my situation. And obviously if you’re alone and that’s a different thing and like obviously everyone has their own priorities and that’s that’s totally fine.

It’s not like a this not a dig against anyone who was on those planes. I was just trying to think of like how I would personally handle it. I just like couldn’t y cuz like there’s a lot of people on those planes and like they got a lot a lot of people like hold back because you don’t know are you going to cause the plane to crash. You know that’s a good point. There’s a lot of factors you know. Yeah. So I I’m very shortsighted. I’m I’m thinking like fight fight fights on well like that’s my daughter you got to die it like whatever if I have to die to stop it from happening I’ll that’s what I got to do fight or fight that’s all you got there’s a lot of there’s a lot more good info that we’ll we’ll bring this conversation back up when we have that info and it’s really to your guys’ point it’s really good actually um so United 93 also happened to leave the gate more than 25 minutes late that morning nothing sinister just a routine Tuesday traffic at New York airport, which if you’ve ever been to New York, it’s just a worse.

It’s always never ending delay, right? That and LAX are like the worst. So, what does that mean? That means three other flights took off on time and this one other flight that was manned with one less hijacker took off 25 minutes late. And that’s probably like they’re already like, Like, you know, like, oh, the nerves are kicking. Oh, Yeah. Then on top of being late leaving the gate, it spent an extra 40 minutes sitting on the tarmac. Oh Jesus. That gap and that missing man is what some consider the reason a plane of full ordinary people ended up with the numbers and information. Yeah, they’re already furious and we’re going to go into it later.

But on United 93, we have records of phone calls of people being told on the plane that they crashed into the tower. Yeah. By that time, they already knew family members. So that’s why phone then that’s why people say that they were like, “Oh that’s why they took That’s why they revolted.” Yeah. They’re going to crash it down. The other flights didn’t know. No, I see. Okay. Okay. See what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Never uh Have you ever seen that movie night 93? No, I never saw. It’s gnarly. Yeah, you got to watch it. dude. It’s It’s pretty intense. I was I was just crying the whole time.

It was Jesus. It was intense. Yeah, definitely worth a watch. Yeah. Um Okay, so on United 93, Sed Algami, Ahmed Al- Nami, Ahmed Al Hans Nawa, and Zia Jar. Who’s going to be the pilot? Only Haznawi gets flagged by Caps. So, one of the four. But I’m But if you look at Cap I mean Caps is like mathematically caps like 60 70%. I mean it’s crazy. Yeah, it’s very true. Bring it back, dude. I mean, why did they get rid of that? I know. His check bag gets pulled for additional explosive screening, gets cleared, then gets loaded on United 93. Newark’s checkpoint that particular morning doesn’t even have working security cameras installed.

So we have no surviving tape. Of course, Newark. All four. No one gives a about all four All four of these men sit in first class. Zed Jer sits up front in 1B, which is, you know, the first. Mhm. Yeah. Same pattern, etc. Boarding finally wraps at 7:48 a.m. So 19 men, four airports, four states. 10 of the 19 men flagged by the system. Oh, 10. Oh, wow. So, they’re it’s Yeah, it’s like 60%. Every single one of them gets through. Every single one of them boards. 7:59 in the morning. American Flight 11 lifts off out of Boston. Captain John Oganowski and his first officer, Thomas McInness, are flying it.

81 passengers in the back of the plane. Now, this is very important. Most airliners, especially of this size, can generally fit about 250. Oh, so it was a light. It was like very empty. Very light. And you’re going to see this as a pattern. Mhm. I don’t We don’t know if it was planned or not. Most of them were 70% empty. Maybe it’s because maybe they probably like worked out like what’s the what’s the least traveled date? Like, you know, like okay, they flew on a was it Tuesday? Yeah. Yeah. Which so it’s like a random Tuesday morning. Like who’s actually flying? Like not a lot of people are It’s not like prime time.

So there were nine flight attendants and 92 people total. So that’s including the hijackers and the flight attendants. Yeah. And like the pilots. Yeah. For about 15 minutes, it’s completely normal. Then at 8:14 a.m., air traffic control instructs the crew to climb to 35,000 ft. 16 seconds later, the pilots stop responding entirely. H. And that’s the moment 9/11 begins. Somewhere inside those 16 seconds, the hijacking of American Flight 11 happened. And here’s how the reconstruction lays it out. The Alsarie brothers, seated up front and first class, are the closest hijackers to where the flight attendants would be prepping the morning service. They move first, knives, and by several credible accounts, some kind of pepper spray or mace.

And they use that to force everyone in the front of the cabin towards the back and clear the area around the cockpit. I mean, Mace will do that. I’ve been around it. It’s very uncomfortable. It’s especially Can you imagine a close Oh my gosh. In a in a in a Oh my gosh. You just can’t breathe. It’s so hard to breathe. It’s like gh. It’s like, how would you even describe it? It’s like a You ever been really close to a skunk and you’re like a skunk that Yeah. and your eyes start watering and it’s like it’s unbearable. It’s in your mouth. It’s like like eating something really spicy and like you actually like breathe in and like it like goes to the back of your throat and you’re like it’s really hard to breathe.

Uncontrollable coughing. Like it’s like that on crack literally. Now imagine you’re in an al, you know, a container, a pressurized tube. Yeah. 30,000 ft up with 90 people. You know, it’s going to be way worse. Yeah. Um, a passenger sitting in 9B, a man named Daniel Leuen, is directly in front of uh, Sakami. And Luen is not just some guy. He’s a former officer in elite Israeli special forces unit. He’s exactly the kind of passenger you want agent sitting [laughter] on a hijacked plane that morning. It’s crazy. But it’s very likely that he was the first to get killed. There are reports that he was stabbed from behind.

Um they say that he was the first to do anything and so he didn’t realize that there was a dude right. There was a dude behind him and you know stands up somebody in front and then was stabbed from behind. That’s unfortunate. at 8:19, a flight attendant named Betty. And I’ve listened to every um voicemail and uh phone recording of Betty, and she is incredible. She is what I consider one of the absolute heroes of this story. She literally sat on the phone for 25 straight minutes telling everything was that was going on. Completely calm, composure in the back of the plane on one of those those things.

Yeah. Mhm. She picked up one of those. So back in the day, they had these phones connected to the seat. Yeah. Remember, you could you could swipe your credit card in. That’s right. And then you would call, etc. So she called uh Americans Southeastern Reservation Office because she didn’t know who to call. She sat for 25 minutes while her own plane is being actively hijacked around her. She stayed on the line. She was calm, specific, giving usable, actionable data detail the entire time. And she says, “Uh, the cockpit is not answering. Somebody’s stabbed in business class and I think there’s mace. We can’t breathe. I don’t know.

I think we’re getting hijacked. That call still exists recorded word for word and it stands as one of the single most extraordinary pieces of this entire story because it’s happening and it’s for a long period. It’s not just like 10 seconds of whatever. Yeah. Um, and what’s infuriating about that record, it’s almost like she was talking to customer service and she had to never ending repeat herself. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It’s like, who are you? No. Why are you calling? Oh, let me transfer you. Transfers. Who are you? What? What? You’re calling? Where are you right now? I am on a You know what I mean?

Like, I am on a flight now. They’re like, oh, are you on the tarmac? It was like pure frustration. The amount of rage. I would have been like, “Oh my god.” Yes. But also, why is she calling the reservation? I mean, I know that she probably that’s all she knew. Maybe she just knew like the first thing she knew off the top of her head like, “Send me to the FBI. Send me the police.” Like something transfer me. And this next part is very uh also frustrating. And I almost texted We have a buddy who’s a United Airlines pilot. Oh yeah. And I actually almost texted him to try to figure this part out.

But but uh you guys you guys tell me if this is weird or if there’s a logical idea behind this. So, at 8:21 a.m., the plane’s transponder gets turned off, and that’s the device that identifies an aircraft’s location and altitude to ground radar. Turning it off doesn’t make it fully invisible, but it makes it extremely harder for controllers to track and positively identify the plane. Why is it something you can even turn off? There it is. That is the question that I was going to pose. Like, I don’t understand why it’s okay. Why it’s like why can it be turned off? Why would you have the ability to turn on only?

Yeah. Like but it was Yeah, it was turned off. So, I don’t totally know the answer to that. We’re going to try to like dig in a little bit more, but I’m assuming that it’s some sort of security protocol, but not security as like terrorism, but like for the the plane maybe if it catches fire. I don’t know. It’s either that or like let’s say like everything’s it’s a it’s an electrical obviously circuit and if that’s like something up you can turn it off and like cut the flow of power then maybe something like that. It does seem crazy though. It seems insane. Yeah. But from an air traffic controller perspective, it’s a big red flag when a plane turns off the transponder.

Yeah. Yeah. So rightfully so. Yeah. Between 8:25 and 8:29, a second flight attendant, Maline Amy Sweeney, reaches Americans Flight Services office in Boston directly and starts feeding a manager named Michael Woodward a stream of specifics, stabbings, a slashed throat reported in first class, a claimed bomb by the hijackers. And this is important because if you were a passenger on the first plane and they’re telling you there’s a bomb, like you’re not doing That’s right. You’re like, “Okay, they want a ransom.” Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. You’re not thinking they’re that they’re going to blow it up. You’re probably thinking, “Yeah, like ransom.” Mhm. FBI will figure this out.

Everyone be cool. Just be cool. Yeah. Just be cool. Yeah. Because she is somehow keeping her head clear enough to gather this information about an active hijacker. the actual seat numbers where they were sitting. So that’s how we know a lot of this information. Oh, because they Okay, she’s like they’re in blah blah, you know, 1A, 2B, blah blah blah. At 8:24, Muhammad Ata keys the cockpit radio. He believes in that moment that he is addressing the passengers only on the intercom. He’s not. He’s broadcasting live directly to air traffic controller on the ground. And this is what is heard and it’s recorded and I’ve heard it.

You can pull it up. It’s still it’s of record. And he and quote, “We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you’ll be okay. We are returning to the airport. Pause.” Then I quote, “Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you’ll endanger yourself in the airplane. Just stay quiet. Okay. Now, an important part of this is the first sentence was we have some planes plural. Yeah. Multiple. Multiple. On the very first hijacking of the entire morning, before a single soul on the ground has any idea of what’s happening, the man flying the plane already tells them on accident that this isn’t one isolated hijacking.

It’s more than one. Oh, that’s right. Cuz he’s talking to air traffic control. That’s right. Wait, so he’s already flying the plane at this point? This is the Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I thought we think Yeah, this is our first evidence that he is. Well, yeah, cuz he’s obviously on the internet. Hey, let me in the cockpit, buddy. No, no, I thought he was um in a Yeah, on one of the phones or whatever from the outside, but he’s in the cockpit. Well, the evidence would show that the only way to do that is from the pilot. I don’t think Yeah, I don’t think you can hit air control from like a normal Yeah.

At 8:37 now. Okay. And this is this is parts that I want you guys all to remember. This is the 911 commission report. Yeah. 100%. Okay, this is that version. This is where this is coming from. Yeah, this isn’t our version. This is their version. And this is going to just it just just keeps getting insane from and I’m trying to look at it from the viewpoint of the victims or the families of the victims. Of course. Yeah. Because they’re trying to find out what happened. Yeah. They want to know. Okay. So, at 8:37, Boston air traffic control finally reaches military air defense. a command called NIADS.

It’s the Northeast Air Defense Sector for the first time that morning. It’s 8:37. Okay. The exchange survives on tape today. And it’s quote, “Is this real world or exercise?” Quote, “No, this is not an exercise, not a test.” At 8:44, Amy Sweeney is still on the line with Boston and she says, “Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent. We are all over the place. We are flying very very low. Oh my god. We are way too low and then the line cuts. But that but that’s also why they were able to get signal and sell service and like cuz they were so low when they were like calling.

It probably helped. Probably helped. Yeah. I mean you can’t Well, you could still do phone calls. You remember you could like he just said that you can do the credit card. Yeah, but some a lot of people were on their cell phones. True. Very true. Very true. You can still do that, but like even now it’s like I accidentally didn’t turn my phone on airplane mode. Whoopsity. Yeah. And there was there was it was like there nothing’s happening. There’s no signal. No. So at 8:46, fighter jets scramble out of Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. But here’s the detail that tells you everything about how this entire morning is actually going for the people trying to figure it out.

The controller directing those jets into the air has no target because they turned the transponders off. He doesn’t and he’s not getting any information. Oh, he doesn’t know. Oh, okay. So, all they got got told is scramble. Just go in there. Scramble the jets. So, he doesn’t know where the hijack plane is. Actually, in his own words on tape, he says, quote, “I don’t know where I’m scrambling these guys to. I need a direction. I need a destination.” So, these fighter jets are airborne with no they’re just kind of meandering around the sky. That’s right. And at 8:46, the exact same moment those two fighters are lifting off a runway more than 100 miles away, American Airlines Flight 11 slams into the north tower of the World Trade Center, hitting between the 93rd and 99th floors.

Everyone aboard is killed instantly along with an unknown number of people who are already at their desks on those floors. Yeah, it’s so up. For roughly the next 16 minutes, most of the country that’s even aware anything happened believes it’s an accident. Mhm. Well, yeah. One Yeah. Obviously, your first thought is going to be it’s an accident. And a lot of reports were it’s a small plane that was possibly off course. Well, it’s like we say it’s like one is one is a you know one could be an accident but two is a conspiracy and then you get the second one hits and it’s like okay this is a targeted event.

United 175. Now, they took off from that same airport, Boston Logan, at 8:14, the exact same minute that Flight 11 stopped responding. Remember the Mhm. the U transponder? 200 miles apart in the sky at that moment on a slow silent collision course with history. And nobody anywhere yet knows it. The captain and first officer are flying it. 56 passengers in the back. So once again, another like flight. Seven flight attendants working the cabin and five hijackers with Marwan al- Shahi at the center of the plan. At 8:42, the crew of flight 175 actually radio something strange to air traffic control. They’d overheard a garbled transmission.

They heard ought to say, “We have some planes.” M. So this plane heard flight 11 that that [clears throat] recording that we heard or that we quoted. Yeah. Yeah. I also thought that they locked like I thought the cockpit was like locked. I think the maybe they put that in afterwards. It I think it No, I think it was like how do they get in? Like if that shit’s locked. I don’t know. But I don’t know. I actually don’t know that answer. So that turns out to be the last completely routine contact anyone has with this crew of flight 175. Somewhere between 8:42 and 846 the takeover happened.

Knives mace a claimed bomb and according to reports that eventually came out of the cabin. Both pilots were killed immediately. Oh So to Sean’s point, we don’t know how they got into the cabin. Yeah. I think at this time it was still locked, but there may have been a like in the movie in one of the movies 1993 or which one? Yeah. Yeah. 93 they at the beginning there’s a a a part where the captain and the stewardist does like a secret knock. Oh, okay. Okay. And they go, “Okay, that’s the secret knock today.” Well, it’s also like you can probably So, okay. So, then the flight attendant gets a knife put to her neck.

Yeah. She’s not going to Yeah, she a knock. They open it. I don’t know. Well, obviously like she’s not going to try to like Yeah. You know, be a be a hero. And you can’t expect her to be a hero. Like, come on. Like, I know. Exactly. So, I’m That’s all we really know about how they entered, right? So, we could I don’t know. Yeah. At 8:52, a passenger named Peter Hansen gets his father Lee on the phone. He says, and I quote, “I think they’ve taken over the cockpit. An attendant’s been stabbed. Call United. Tell them it’s flight 175 Boston to LA. Around that same window, a male flight attendant manages to get through to United’s own operation center in San Francisco and relays the identical devastating news.

Both pilots are dead. Oh my god, dude. At 8:58, the plane banks hard and turns toward New York City. The passenger named Brian David Sweeney, no relation to the flight attendant on the other plane, leaves his wife a voicemail. In a separate call to his mother, he tells her that some of the passengers around him are actively discussing storming the cockpit. And then at 9:00 a.m. exactly, Peter Hansen calls his father. And I’m going to read out what he says. Quote, “It’s getting very bad on the plane. I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we’re going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building.

Don’t worry, Dad. If it happens, it’ll be fast. My god. My god. End of transition. Oh my god. It’s the worst. It’s like Oh, like making that call, receiving that call. Like, dude, there’s so many of those. To his dad, too, right? Yeah. There’s a lot of those. voicemails. I think they played some of those in that movie, too. Yeah. Like real ones. Yeah. 903 um United 175 slams into the south tower between the 77th and 85th floors. Investigators later estimated at a speed of 590 mph. And this impact, unlike the first one, millions of people were watching the TV, so they watched it live.

I watched it live. I watched it live. watch live in the social studies class. So basically everybody was watching it. Yeah. Like I watched it impact live. Yeah. Which was upsetting. Yeah. And that’s the exact moment the entire country understands what’s actually happening. It was no longer an accident. It was two commercial jets 17 minutes apart, both flown directly into the same two building complex. And as we have said, it’s not a coincidence. It was realized that it was a coordinated attack unfolding on live television. The Pentagon. While the first two planes were unfolding over New York, American 77 had already been in the air on a completely quiet different trajectory for almost 40 minutes.

It left Dulles at 8:20. Captain Berling Game, a Naval Academy graduate and Navy reserve officer himself, and first officer David Charlbrra are flying. 58 passengers on this flight. Four flight attendants and five hijackers. So again, back to it’s this one’s even emptier. 58 passengers on a full commercial airline. That’s crazy. This was the flight that Hour, Midhar, Moed, and the Hazmi brothers were on. Their last radio contact was 851. The hijacking itself happens between 851 and 854. And this particular crew notably is reported to have used box cutters, not knives. And this is something that investigators later would say it was a difference in the other teams that these this was the flight that had box cutters.

Okay. Not sure what that means. Yeah. At 854, the plane makes an unexplained turn to the south. 2 minutes later, 856, transponder goes dark. Indianapolis air traffic control loses the aircraft completely off their radar. For a frightening stretch of time, controllers in Indiana believe this plane may have already crashed somewhere in Ohio. Nobody at that point has the faintest idea. is actually turned around and is now flying east towards DC. Well, why didn’t they scramble the jets if they already because by this time they already know what happened in New York. Yeah, for sure. And so if you see this transponder go offline, it’s like, okay, here we have another one.

It’s it’s one of the worst points of this. And honestly, we’ll take it up for sure. Um, I know Sean will probably have some stuff on it in the next couple episodes, which is where is the American response? Mhm. Where is the military response in this? Mhm. I get I get it. We don’t know the first one. First one. I get it. We’re caught off guard. Yeah. But we’re talking about the third one. True. Right. And how long? Fourth one, right? How long does it Also, this is the fourth one though because the first one transponder goes off. You heard that they were h you know you heard the accidental transmission.

This is the third one because United 93 has been delayed. Correct. So this is third one. So this so two have crashed into the World Trade Center and now this one is flying and did a Uturn and is heading towards DC now. Yeah. And so 93 is not in the air yet. So 93 took off at the moment or or like 5 minutes before it crashed into the World Trade Center. The other ones crashed into the World Trade. I mean, at this point, you you would think super delayed. Yeah. You would think that they would be like, “Okay, any any suspicious activity that you see on radar in terms of flights deviating from flight path, anything like that, it’s got to be like red alert.” And you see the thing, it it it’s obviously turning around.

You would think that would be an instant red flag. Like, uh, yo, like, hit up the higherups. This thing’s going off course. Yeah. Nobody at that point has the faintest idea it has actually turned around and is now flying towards DC at a high speed with a hijacker at the controls who spent months at flight schools across the US for the sole purpose of learning to fly a commercial jet poorly and didn’t but well enough in the end to hit exactly what he was aiming at. But didn’t they also like too like I believe on the one that hit the Pentagon it did it was it did the giant circle loop-de-loop like it wasn’t like before it went down.

Yeah. Before it literally did like a giant like corkcrew loop-de-loop like huge loop-de-loop before it hits the pentagon like it wasn’t like it just like oh flew straight into it. It it like did a giant circle like a descending circle before [clears throat] it hit it at 9:12 a.m. So the towers have already been hit. So 9:12, a flight attendant named Renee May calls her mother, reports a hijacking, gets the head count of the attackers slightly wrong, says six instead of five, tells her mother the passengers are being moved to the rear of the plane, and ask her to relay all this information to American Airlines.

Then between 9:16 and 9:26, a passenger named Barbara Olsen, married to the sitting solicitor general of the US, Ted Olsen, makes two separate calls to her husband’s office. The first call, knives and box cutters, passengers being physically herded towards the back. Then the second call, the hijackers have now made an announcement to the entire cabin. And she asked Ted directly what she should relay to the captain or who whomever is flying the plane. Now Ted tells her for the first time that the two towers have been hit in New York. Holy So, at 9:29, the autopilot disengages roughly 7,000 ft up, about 38 miles west of the Pentagon.

At 9:32, controllers at Dulles spot a fastmoving, unidentified aircraft heading east, and they immediately alert Secret Service. The plane executes a steep, spiraling 330° turn. This is what we’re talking about. and begins descending hard straight down out of the sky toward the ground. 937 and 46 seconds. American 77 slams into the western side of the Pentagon at roughly 530 m anph. A National Guard pilot who happened to be facing toward the area to help visually identify the aircraft radios in almost in disbelief at what he’s watching in front of him. and he says, and I quote, “Looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir.” 125 people inside the building are killed, along with all 64 people aboard the plane.

[snorts] Less than an hour after the very first tower was struck in New York, the physical seat of the United States military had just been hit directly on American soil by a hijacked American commercial airliner. Now, there’s a reason that number 125 isn’t dramatically higher. And it comes down to luck in timing. Meaning it flew into an office building, right? Yeah. So 125, it’s horribly high number, but but in retrospect, it’s not very high for what happened. The section of the building AA77 hit is called Wedge One, and it had by total coincidence just come out the other side of a massive multi-year renovation. Structural steel, and had been welded into the external walls, the windows in inch and a half thick, blast resistant glass, each pane weighing over a ton, bolted into steel frames, had just been installed.

And most people don’t realize like how big because I we drove past it. Mhm. The Pentagon is ginormous. Massive. You know, it’s it’s like 6 and a half million square feet of like it’s it’s not like some Yeah. small thing. It’s humongous. It’s ginormous. And I know some people who who you know, I know a lot of us are going to be like, well, you know, okay, you guys aren’t bringing up again. I just want to repeat this. We are This is the This is the episode where we tell you the official story by the government. Yeah. And we’re going to get into all we’re going to get into all the Jews.

Calm down. I know you guys are are waiting for it. Yeah. Ranging. Yeah. But it’s so important to me that we tell the full story so that you know the data and you know the arguments of what is missing data. It’s also Yeah. It’s also important that you see like this is the official story that they’re given us with the government. So then you can pick apart and then you could weigh your thoughts and your findings and what we find against the story that we’re being given. Yeah. Additionally, a brand new sprinkler system was just installed. And because the renovation had only just wrapped, a lot of that wedge hadn’t even been fully reoccupied yet, meaning it was empty tenants or empty office space.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Engineers who studied the impact afterward were blunt about it. And they said if [clears throat] that plane had hit almost anywhere else in the building, the death toll inside the Pentagon would have been many times higher. But see, that’s also another weird like the odds of them hitting the only thing in this massive complex that That’s right. It’s just just something to think about. Put that in the back. Yeah. Something This is This is a concept. The plane came in at roughly 530 mph and physically drove itself more than 300 ft through the first three of the building’s five concentrics rings.

It was a hole longer than the football field, igniting a fireball that set close to 400,000 square feet of the Pentagon on fire. And here’s a detail that surprises people every time. The building didn’t fully collapse on impact. A section of it held for nearly 20 minutes before a portion of the outer ring finally gave way and came down. And that 20inut window is the reason why so many people who were in the building that morning are alive today. Engineers who studied it afterward found that everyone above the second floor in the impact area survived specifically because that section held long enough for them to evacuate.

But it didn’t hold for everyone. The Navy command center sat almost directly in the aircraft’s path. Normally 50 to 70 people on duty at any given time. and 42 of them were killed. Down the hall, an Army office called Resource Services Washington, mostly civilian accountants and budget analysts sitting at their desk, lost 34 of its 65 employees. Jeez. And in the middle of that same wreckage, there was stories of people who got other people out. An army accountant named Sheila Moody was trapped in total darkness and smoke. She started clapping her hands over and over as loud as she could. And a defense protective service officer named Isaac, who sprinted back into the building after hearing the news, followed the sounds of her clapping and pulled her out.

I mean, good for her. What? I would have not thought to do that. Yeah, like good for for her. So now that brings us to United 93. And this is the flight where the story of this day stops being purely about what was done to us and becomes at least in part about what the people managed to do back. It left Newark at 8:42. So this is way late. Yeah. Way late. I’m pretty Yeah, that’s like And that’s like 5 minutes before the first plane hit. Yeah. So, Captain Jason Dah and first officer Leroy Homer are flying it. 37 passengers. That’s it. Can you imagine?

Like, dude, if it got like if it got delayed just a little bit longer, it would have been grounded. That’s right. Yeah. Absolutely. It would have never taken off. Absolutely. [clears throat] Well, actually, the the there was a there was a grounding like nationwide. Oh, yeah. But it was like hours later. It was hours later. Oh, yeah. Pretty crazy. By noon. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah. But to to the point that you brought up though, it left at 8:42. The first hit the tower at around 8:56. Yeah. That’s like right before. So it literally takes off and then 10 minutes later hits. Yeah. At 9:19, a United dispatcher named Ed Ballinger, who has spent the last several minutes frantically trying to warn all of the flights under his responsibility, sends out a message, and I quote, and it’s it’s almost like an old school text message.

Mhm. And it says, “Beware any cockpit intrusion. Two aircraft hit World Trade Center. It reached flight 93 at 9:23 a.m. Captain Dah, clearly and understandably confused by the message, radios back 3 minutes later and he says, “Ed, confirm latest message, please.” Yeah. I could You can imagine getting that shocking message like, “Wait, what?” Mhm. And as far as the investigation goes, they think that four minutes later, the cockpit was breached. Oh Unlike the other three, it’s violent from the very first second. The plane drops nearly 700 ft almost instantly. Cleveland air traffic control picks up a mayday. Oh, somebody said they they hit a mayday before they were taken over.

That’s right. and it was clearly in the middle of some sort of physical struggle or noise. 35 seconds later, a voice in the recording yells three times, “Hey, get out of here. Get out of here. Get out of here.” Investigators would later sit both pilots widows down and play the exact recording for them. Leroy Homer’s wife, Melody, listening to it, said she believed that was her own husband’s voice on the tape. The commission never drew a hard final conclusion either way about exactly whose voice it was, but I think it’s worth sitting with for a second regardless. That might genuinely be the sound of a man fighting physically for control of his own plane and the lives of every passenger in it.

At 9:32 AM, Zed Jarra, who has now taken over the controls, makes an announcement intended purely for the cabin. And part of it is accidentally broadcast over the open air traffic control frequency. Mhm. Same mistake as keep doing it. Quote, and it says, “Ladies and gentlemen, hear the captain. Please sit down. Keep remaining seating. [snorts] Yeah. Okay. We have a bomb on board, so sit. Okay. So, they weren’t trying to I I at first I thought he was like trying to play it off that like he’s a he’s a captain captain. Yeah, they’re not fooled, my man. Like, you He banks the plane and turns east towards Washington.

And here’s precisely where the flight becomes different from the other three because of that one missing hijacker and those extra minutes that they were delayed. Passengers on this plane managed to make call after call after call. More than 30 separate phone calls total from 10 different passengers. Damn. And because of the specific timing of this particular hijacking, every single person making those calls already knew in real time what happened at the World Trade Center. Mhm. Yeah. See, that delay like really it these plans up. They are the only people on any of the four planes hijacked this morning who fully understand while it’s happening exactly what is what they’re about to happen.

Yes. The urgency of the situation. Todd Beamer can’t get a call through to his own family. So he ends up on the line instead with a GTE airphone supervisor named Lisa Jefferson for roughly 13 minutes. And he describes the hijacking in detail. He asks her to recite the Lord’s Prayer together with him. He asks her to make sure his wife is safe. And two young sons know that he loves them. Damn. And then turning away from the phone entirely toward the passengers gathered around him in the aisle, he says the words that will end up defining the entire flight. And he says, “Are you guys ready?” Okay, let’s roll.

yeah. This guy rules. this guy’s the Yeah. love this guy. Like this is this guy is this guy is him. Yeah. Jeremy Glick was a former collegiate judo champion. Oh he spends close to 25 minutes on the phone with his wife. He tells her the passengers have taken an actual vote. They’re going to rush the cockpit together. And he says, I quote, I know I could take the guy with the bomb. He tells her. Tom Bernett, a former high school quarterback, calls his wife Dena multiple separate times in a row, and the message is the same every single time. We’re gonna do something about this.

Mark Bingham, a rugby player, this is like this is the most stacked plane ever. Holy It’s he gets through to his aunt’s house and he says, and I quote, “This is Mark Bingham. I want to let you guys know that I love you in case I don’t see you again.” Two of the flight attendants, Sandra Bradshaw and CC Lyles, start boiling pot after pot of water in the galley. Dude, hell yeah, dude. This is like med. I These guys rule. Yeah, I I They didn’t even show this in the movie. I was totally expecting you to be like and and then John Wick falls [laughter] home and was like, “We’re going to handle this shit.” An improvised weapon because there’s genuinely nothing else on board.

Liles leaves her own husband a final voicemail message. A passenger named Linda Gronland calls her sister at 9:46 a.m. and says apparently they flew a couple of planes into the World Trade Center already. And it looks like they’re going to take this one down as well. At 9:57, the cockpit voice recorder captures the exact sound of the passenger assault beginning. One of the very last callers, still on the ground, hears it happening live and in real time. Quote, “Everyone’s running up to first class now. I’ve got to go. Bye.” From 9:58 to 10:03, the cockpit recorder captures nearly five straight minutes of chaos. Arguably the single most harrowing five minutes of audio that exists.

Jara rolls the plane hard side to side, deliberately trying to throw the charging passengers off their feet. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean? Some people, and this is just a note that I’m putting in here, some expert pilots note that if you actually knew how to fly a plane, you would know that going left to right doesn’t do anything. It’s going up and down. So like that like that is like if you’re going to left to right it’s just like it’s easy for them to like restabilize. But yeah, if you just like suddenly go down they’re going to fly upwards. Yeah. So it’s called inertia.

Yeah. Later on in the investigation they point to that being that they didn’t know how to fly the plane. Really? They they weren’t experts at flying planes. Yeah. At 9:58, he orders another hijacker to physically block the cockpit door. A minute later, he asks, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” And another hijacker answers back, “No, not yet. When they all come, we finish it off.” And you can hear a passenger shouting clearly in English over the noise in the cockpit. If we don’t, we’ll die. and another voice, roll it. And at 10:01, Jara begins shouting, “Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest.

Allah is the greatest.” And then the final quote is, “Pull it down. Pull it down.” 1003 United 93 slams into the ground upside down, nose first in an empty field just outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, traveling at roughly 580 m an hour upside down. Jesus. All 44 people aboard are killed instantly on impact. Investigators would later conclude the plane was almost certainly headed for either the US capital or the White House. Yeah. Because if you’re in Pennsylvania, that’s that’s kind of where. And if you mapped out the distance, they were roughly 19 to 20 minutes away from DC. Oh yeah, for sure. Especially you’re going five you’re going 5 600 miles hour flight time.

Yeah. Yeah. [sighs] So if they had just delayed just for a few minutes, man, like it would have been so imagine if they would have hit the White House, dude. Like it would it would have been so different. These guys these guys are if they honestly if they hit the White House, I’m pretty sure we’re nuking Iraq. Yeah. And and Afghanistan. Yeah. Like they’re dropping nukes for sure. So while four of those flights were unfolding in the sky, the president was states away sitting on a small chair in a second grade classroom. George Walker Bush, [snorts] GW, Gub. He had gone for his usual early morning run and then traveled to Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota for what was supposed to be a completely routine campaign style photo op built around his education agenda.

Somewhere between 8:46 and 8 8:55 that morning, right as the first plane was actually hitting the north tower, he was told, and this is what most people don’t know, he was told that a plane hit the tower, but that it was an accident and it was a small aircraft. Oh, I didn’t know that part. So, you know, you ever see the video of him and he’s whispered? Yeah. He already knew that a plane hit it, right? But he didn’t know it was like what it was. That’s right. He didn’t know that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what? The second plane. So when he was being whispered to Yeah.

At the That was the second plane. That was the second. So like Yeah. So he already knew about the first plane, but maybe they were like, “It’s an accident. It’s not It’s not like us.” Does that make sense? Like Yeah. So he was told the first one, but it was like small accident. Then the the video that we’ve all seen Yeah. where he’s in he’s in the he’s in the classroom and the guy is like whispering in his ear and he’s like yeah so most people think that that’s when he’s being alerted to the first time that a plane crashed into the tower. That’s what I thought.

And it’s not true. Yeah. That’s that’s the second plane. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. That’s when they knew they’re like without a shadow of a doubt like this is an attack. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So, he’s been told there’s some kind of accident involving an aircraft at the at the North Tower. His first instinct, according to his own chief of staff, is that it’s probably a pilot error, maybe a heart attack at the controls, a small plane, what bad luck, nothing more, a horrible accident. At around 9:02, right around the exact minute the second plane is hitting the South Tower, Bush walks into Sand K. Daniel’s second grade classroom where a group of small children are getting ready to read aloud a story called The Pet Goat.

You have almost certainly heard this referred to as My Pet Goat. It’s actually a small but extremely persistent misquote popularized years later by a documentary film. But the real title of the actual passage that those kids had in their desk was the pet goat. It’s probably like this another like what’s it called? Oh, Mandela. Mandela effect. Jesus. Yeah. At around 9:05 a.m., Andy Card walks up quietly behind the president, leans down close to his ear, and says the following. A second plane hit the tower. America is under attack. And here’s the part that people have argued about for 25 years now. Bush didn’t leave. Why did he get up?

Yeah, he didn’t get up immediately. Let’s continue. Yeah, he does that weird like he sits back. He’s just kind of like I know he kind of he like blank st like he’s like some sort of I don’t know. I mean, you know, you know what it really is? Bush is like I need someone to tell me what to do. Like I need someone to tell me what to do right now otherwise I don’t know what to do. I mean I definitely think he should have just got up react you know like go do something. But I also could understand like you just don’t know what if I was him I’d be like all right kids I’ll be right back.

I got I got important president business and like get the go like 100%. I’m just saying like if somebody told like even I remember when I saw it and I’m you’re just in shock and disbelief. You’re just you just how why you’re also you’re also not responsible for the you know the United States. I wasn’t you’re not the commanderin-chief. I was I was in seventh grade. Like of course I didn’t know what to do. Like [laughter] a child. So he doesn’t get up. He just kind of makes a weird movement and then he starts listening more. He stays seated in the classroom for roughly seven minutes.

Then he finally gets up. His own explanation that he’s given many times and there’s an interview with that he did later on. It’s his own explanation. And he says that he made a split-second judgment call to not alarm a room full of small children by visibly standing up frantically and bolting for the door. That projecting calm in that exact moment in front of those kids was genuinely worth the seven minute minutes. It I’m sorry, but they’re they’re they’re second graders. Like just you you can just get up and be like, I’ll be right back, kiddos. like you could easily just handle that in in a million different ways.

And a lot of this story is all about lack of action, delayed action, the system, the system fail. It’s a system. We’re not here to find blame. I hate to say it, but you know, and we’ll go we’ll go over it in some of the conspiracy theories and the the the the unexplained or unanswered parts, which is that seven minutes counted at that moment because there were two other planes out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. Great. You know, critics have spent 25 years arguing the exact opposite of his statement, which was that those seven minutes and the seven minutes of the leader of the free world spent not actively leading anything while the country was under attack.

I don’t know the answer to which one is right. I’m going to tell you though that both of those things existed at the exact same time in this exact same classroom. The calm or the criticism. We’ll take that up later. Yeah. Around 9:30 a.m. Bush gives brief remarks at the school, publicly calling it an apparent terrorist attack on our country. And by 9:54, Air Force One is wheels up out of Sarasota with genuinely no fixed destination in mind, just to keep flying. Yeah. Be don’t be stationary, just be in the air. Yeah. The Secret Service and the VP Cheney are both pushing back hard against the idea of him flying back to Washington.

Bush wanted to fly back to Washington, but they didn’t want to because at that exact moment, absolutely nobody in the federal government knows how many hijacked planes existed. Yeah. Andor where their next targets were. Yeah. Good call. Mhm. I mean, that’s why there is a such thing as, you know, you’re at like operation speed. If you ever see if you ever notice if you watch any of like the spy movies or high action movies, they’re always driving fast as Oh yeah. Yeah. And there’s a reason for that. And that’s an actual real thing. They drive fast because if someone is driving that fast is with you, you know it’s a threat, right?

So like in that situation it’s like Yeah. You can’t be stationary. Just fly. Yeah. And if anyone’s flying near you, like it. You know it’s a problem. Well, he flies with the fighter jets next to him, right? I’m sure they I’m sure they were. I’m 100% [laughter] sure they were next to it. So, Air Force One turns west around 10:20. Word comes back that the nearest genuinely safe option is Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. And Air Force One lands there just before noon. While on the ground, Bush tapes a short public statement. Now, he didn’t do it live. Yes, it taped. He taped it and he condemned what he called in one of the first times an act of terror and that would become later known as the war on terror.

Terror and he says it so many terror t terrorids or terrors and this is not a I’m not this is just a fact. He said it a bunch aboard the plane during this stretch. Staff are also told incorrectly that as many as six planes may have been hijacked that morning instead of four. And at one especially chilling moment, the crew receives a radio call using Air Force One’s own code name, warning that Angel is next. Later, determined to be an exaggerated false alarm. Separately on the ground at Barksdale, a report of a fastmoving aircraft heading toward the base sends a jolt of real fear through the security detail, and it turns out in the end it was nothing more than a crop duster.

You know, like a Yeah. Just like a little little agricultural Yeah. a little plane. Yeah. From Barksdale, the plane moves on to Offet Air Air Force Base in Nebraska and it’s home of the US Strategic Command where the president joins a secure National Security Council video conference from deep inside the Underground Command Center. Yeah. That’s like they’re like that’s like the nuke base where they’re like underground. Yeah. So at 8:30 that night, he addresses the entire nation from the Oval Office, 5 minutes long, heavily drafted in the hours beforehand by his counselor, Karen Hughes. And I quote, “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America.

These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve. And then in a single line buried in an otherwise brief five-minute speech that would go on to define the next two decades of American foreign policy. And I quote, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” Yeah. Oh yeah. He closes the address with Psalm 23. Some critics even at the time felt the speech was simply too short for the sheer scale of what just happened to the country. History in the end would remember the doctrine buried inside that speech a great deal more than it remembers the speech itself.

And that leads to the war on terror. Mhm. That was a long war. So, here’s what we’re going to do. Because at this point, we’re going to transfer over to the World Trade Center. You know, we’re going to turn this into an extra part. I think that’s just the decision that we’re going to make here because we’re we’re far we’re far in, but there’s so much more that goes over the day that we haven’t even touched upon, which is what’s happening at the World Trade Center, Tower 1 and two. Exactly. You know what I mean? So, we’re going to get more into that because I think it deserves it.

That’s right. It definitely is. Uh, it’s while it’s a lot of it is very upsetting and I I know a lot of this has already been upsetting, but I think like especially with what happened in the towers, it was especially with what we saw when it it’s really it’s gruesome, dude. Yeah. But I think it deserves it deserves its moment. it deserves it being told. So, I think we just want to add an additional kind of chapter in in the story. Yeah. So, we’re going to turn this into the day is two parts. Yeah. So, we’ll come back and then, you know, obviously before, you know, before we kind of sign off, we’ll we’ll kind of go into kind of what we think, you know, as of right now.

All right. And and and there you go. I mean there’s a lot more there’s so many more stories that are within the stories within the stories just of this day you can do I know hours oh dude we could do weeks but I mean there you go it was important to give like what happened but then know obviously we’ll get into the inconsistencies in the next couple episodes of you know the major points and and the way I kind of structured it is we’ll we’ll focus on each individual thing. We’ll focus on the the towers and the inconsistencies. We’ll focus on uh World Trade Center 7, building seven, which collapsed.

We’ll focus on the Pentagon. We’ll focus on Osama and then we’ll focus on But But it was it was it was good, man. I mean, I I learned a bunch of different details that I hadn’t heard before. Yeah. And I’m definitely And I also like I mean I think we all did like dive deep into this one and for a while we have. I’m also like glad we we’re finally putting this one. I mean we’ve been talking about this since we started the podcast like since we began and like when we we did our first we recorded our first 10 episodes before we before we went live.

Yeah. And we were like we can’t do 911 because like we don’t know what we’re doing. [laughter] like we like don’t know how to do this yet. We have to give it the weight that it that it deserves and and you know I feel I still feel that we are coming up short but you know I mean I think we’ll always we’ll always come up short because the only way it doesn’t come up short is if there’s closure for the families and for the people that were affected and I unfortunately I don’t know if that particular level of closure will ever happen. Yeah, I agree.

So, what do you what do you what do you like from today’s episode like what did you I got enraged. That’s that’s what happened. Definitely anger the first thing. I mean, come on. The system failing us like there’s there’s so much failure. I mean, there’s so and like the fact that the the cap system got 55 fucking% of I mean, yeah, come on. I mean, that’s crazy. This is a crazy statistic. now. Like, are you kidding me? And like, I get it. They’re looking for bombs, but like Yeah, but remember from the previous episodes, we were tracking at least some of them and their plan like months before.

So, even more so why the what’s it called again? The cap. Yeah, cap system picked them up like there’s also a reason like there it’s like the cap system picked them up for a reason. Yeah. 100%. So what is the reason that they were identified were they there must have been a no-fly list of there had to be something there had to be some sort of reference point that these people are and the fact that so many of them were flagged means that they it was right like there’s something that’s why there’s so many conspiracies around this like I know one one time two time but 60% yeah like I mean all the time [laughter] I mean Jesus I also would love to know like how any other people got picked up even just that day.

Let’s say just randomly like maybe like how many were identified by the gas as something cuz maybe it’s like oh it actually skews like too much. Oh yeah, there were like there were 7,000 people flagged. So it was more like a routine thing and they just kind of like flag it off like whatever, you know? Yeah. I would love to have like the actual raw data because if it was like out of the there was 10 there was 10 of the of those hijackers flagged and then there was like 35 flag people total that would be crazy. But if it was like thousands then it’s like okay maybe who knows.

Well we have so much more to get into. Um so much more I can’t even I’m overwhelmed by how much more we have to get into. And it’ll it’s not even like the tip of the iceberg on what could be done on it. Yeah. So definitely subscribe, stay tuned for Patreons, stay tuned for the after hours. Oh yeah. And help us spread this one is it’s going to be That’s right. That’s right. The best one that we’ve done, I think. So yeah, I think it’ll be our most help us share it. I mean, besides JFK, it’ll be our most like thorough like in-depth version that we’ve done.

Mhm. And last last question. Um, after hearing this, does it change anything in your world like of of like putting together like what happened or not necessarily? Not yet. For me, I think it it it definitely I think it kind of bolsters some of my already preconceived kind of ideas. And and I’ll get we’ll get obviously when we get into the conspiracy part, I’ll I’ll reiterate this what I’m talking about right now of how it’s bolstering what I perceive to have happened. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, as always, guys, we love you. Jorge, you want to say something? We love you. Yes, we do. Join the Patreon conspiracy.comthe, sorry, patreon.com/theconspiracy podcast.

And as always, my friends, night. See you on the after hours. What’s up, guys? I hope you enjoyed this episode. I want to invite you to join us for our Patreon. So, what that is is an exclusive membership. We’re going to be able to get exclusive discounts like 15% off on all our merch and you won’t have to listen to these ads ever again. Ads ever again. Plus, you’re going to be able to access our minis episodes. So, that’s something that nobody else is going to get access to. They’re just short podcast episodes where about 15 minutes long or so. So, cool, you know, extra content that you’re going to get access to.

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