Commandeered Flights
Passenger Jets Taken Over on September 11th
The air assault of September 11th was allegedly conducted by hijackings of the following four flights.
- American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles
- United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles
- American Airlines Flight 77 from Dulles to Los Angeles
- United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco
All the flights except Flight 93 apparently reached their targets, without any interference from the air defense network, due to an unexplained lapse in standard operating procedures. An hour and twenty-eight minutes elapsed between the time that Boston Air Traffic Control lost contact with Flight 11 and the Pentagon was attacked.
The number of people on the flights and the seating capacities of the jetliners has been a source of some confusion. Boeing's website gives the capacities of the 767-200 and 757-200 as 181 and 200. 1 � 2 � However the seat charts given by SeatGuru.com for the seating configurations by American Airlines and United Airlines 757-200s and 767-200s (pictured below) show fewer seats. The following table lists the passenger capacities given by SeatGuru.com, the number of passengers indicated in the victims lists published by CNN.com. 3 � 4 � 5 � 6 � CNN's victims lists did not include the alleged hijackers. Whether one uses the published numbers of passengers or those numbers plus the numbers of alleged hijackers, the occupancies of all four flights appear unusually low.
flight | aircraft | capacity | passengers | hijackers | crew |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Flight 11 | Boeing 767-223ER | 158 | 76 | 5 | 11 |
Flight 175 | Boeing 767-222 | 166 | 46 | 5 | 9 |
Flight 77 | Boeing 757-223 | 188 | 50 | 5 | 6 |
Flight 93 | Boeing 757-223 | 182 | 26 | 4 | 7 |
AA 767-200 | UA 767-200 | AA 757-200 | UA 757-200 |
References
2. Seating Charts, boeing.com, [cached]
3. American Airlines Flight 11, CNN.com, [cached]
4. United Airlines Flight 175, CNN.com, [cached]
5. American Airlines Flight 77, CNN.com, [cached]
6. United Airlines Flight 93, CNN.com, [cached]
7. 9/11 VICTIMS LIST,