Another 9/11 Mystery - Donetsk or Shanksville - bodies disappear in Pennsylvania but not Ukraine

On 9/1///2001 Captain Jason Dahl taxied United Airlines Flight 93 Boeing 757- 200 at Newark International Airport, ready for its 8:01 AM departure but heavy runway traffic, delayed departure until 8:42 AM. Besides the 2 pilots there were 5 flight attendants and 37 passengers aboard.

The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology DNA lab in Rockville, Md., were later to identify their remains , from the crash site in Shanksville. Except the 4 alleged hi-jackers as Somerset County Coroner Wallace Miller ( pay US$35,854 a year as coroner) explained "To make a DNA identification we need something from the victims or their family members -- personal effects, or blood samples -- to match," Miller said. "We don't have that kind of information about the terrorists."

Which chimed oddly with the report in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette of October 15th 2001, "It was as if the plane had stopped and let the passengers off before it crashed," Miller said.

At the crash site State Trooper Tom Spallone of Greensburg said the impact of the crash was so severe that the biggest piece of debris he had seen there is no bigger than 2 feet.

Eric Peterson, 28, was working in his shop in the Somerset County village of Lambertsville in the morning when he heard a plane - "There was a crater in the ground that was really burning," he said. Strewn about were pieces of clothing hanging from trees and parts of the Boeing 757, but nothing bigger than a couple of feet long, he said. Many of the items were burning.

Peterson said he saw no bodies, there also was no sign of life.

The crash site is now a National Park.


This is a photograph from the Library of Congress - there are some more here. Note how an airplane with some 5,000 gallons of fuel hasn't even scorched the grass round the crater ? No engines , no tail fin ...

Today's New York Time reports the crash at approx 2.30 pm local time of Pulkovo Airlines Tupolev 154 un Sukha Balka, near Donetsk in the Ukraine in which 169 people died. The plane fell from 36,000 feet and by Tuesday evening rescuers had recovered 30 bodies.

It is interesting to compare the specification of the 2 aircraft , the length and wingspan are virtually identical but the Boeing tailfin is 7 feet higher.

TU 154 Length: 48.0 m (157 ft) Wingspan: 37.55 m (123 ft 3 in) Height: 11.40 m (37 ft 5 in)

Boeing 757-200 Length: 47.32 M (155 ft 3 in) Wingspan: 38.5 M (124 ft 10 in) Height: 44 ft 6 in (13.6 m)

Now look again at the Ukraine crash site , engines littered about, parts of the tail fin fires burning evidently some time after the crash when fire trucks have got there and bodies recovered.

Now do you think Flight 93 crashed at Shanksville ?

The NYT picture Victoria Sinistra / Agence France Press - Getty Images