Investigators early yesterday sifted through debris of a hijacked United Airlines jetliner possibly targeting Washington that crashed near this western Pennsylvania town, killing all 45 people aboard, officials said.
United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 carrying 38 passengers, five flight attendants, and two pilots, went down at 10:06am Tuesday in a wooded area 105km southeast of Pittsburgh, two hours after it took off from Newark, New Jersey, bound for San Francisco.
The plane was one of four airliners commandeered by air pirates in a deadly terrorist operation that also targeted the Word Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
Some reports said investigators believed the pirates who hijacked United Flight 93 were trying to crash into either Camp David -- the presidential retreat in Maryland, located 135km from the crash site -- or the Capitol Building, the seat of the US Congress, in Washington.
Local media reports said at least two passengers had telephoned from the plane.
"We are being hijacked! We are being hijacked," one man yelled as he phoned 911 dispatchers.
A California man identified as Tom Burnett reportedly called his wife and told her that somebody aboard the plane had been stabbed.
"We're all going to die, but three of us are going to do something," he told her. "I love you honey."
"There's not a lot to see, small debris, a crater with a lot of little debris," said a state police spokesman Frank Morgan. All 45 people aboard the jetliner were presumed dead.
"It was two miles away, but it shook everything," said Bruce Grine, a Shanksville resident. "It shook the windows. We saw smoke, then the smell. Then somebody came running up the street and said a plane crashed."
Pennsylvania state police officials, who have cordoned off the crash site, were assisting the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration in the investigation.
"United Airlines has confirmed one of its flights has crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft, is the flight number involved," the airline earlier said in a statement.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique