Article by Gail Sheehy, New York Observer2/26/04:
"Melody Homer is another young widow of a 9/11 pilot. Her husband, LeRoy Homer, a muscular former Air Force pilot, was the first officer of United's Flight 93. The story put out by United-of heroic passengers invading the cockpit and struggling with the terrorists-is not believable to Melody Homer or to Sandy Dahl, widow of the plane's captain, Jason Dahl. Mrs. Dahl was a working flight attendant with United and knew the configuration of that 757 like the back of her hand.
"We can't imagine that passengers were able to get a cart out of its locked berth and push it down the single aisle and jam it into the cockpit with four strong, violent men behind the door," said Ms. Homer. She believes that the victims' family members who broke a confidentiality agreement and gave their interpretation of sounds they'd heard on the cockpit tape misinterpreted the shattering of china. "When a plane goes erratic, china falls."
http://www.observer.com/node/48805
Interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN 8/8/03:
Wolf Blitzer: A new report suggests a hijacker may have deliberately crashed United Flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field the morning of September 11, 2001. Officials say an FBI analysis of the cockpit voice recorder indicates the hijackers were trying to end a passenger uprising. Earlier speculation was that the passengers stormed the cockpit and crashed the plane themselves.
I'm joined now by Sandy Dahl. She's the widow of Flight 93's captain, Jason Dahl. She listened to the actual voice recorder.
Sandy, thanks very much for joining us. Welcome.
What you to make of the new information the FBI is putting out?
Sandy Dahl: I don't understand it, Mr. Blitzer.
I heard the tape. I listened to it twice, listened to the transcripts. I didn't hear anything that indicated to me the hijackers were intending to crash the airplane.
Wolf Blitzer: What they're suggesting, that a -- sort of an enhanced audio of that cockpit voice recording suggests that perhaps one of the hijackers ordered the hijacking pilot who managed to get into the cockpit to go ahead and crash the plane, as there was a disturbance among the passengers in the back. You've actually heard, though, the discussion, the cockpit voice recorder. And what did it say deliberately, clearly, to you?
Sandy Dahl: There was no discussion of crashing it right now. They talked about ending their mission earlier.
And they -- and they decided not to do that. So I don't think -- I don't think it was deliberate and it certainly wasn't planned.
Wolf Blitzer: One of the suggestions they've suggested, at least some of the experts who heard the cockpit voice recording, was that, in the Arabic, that there may have been a different translation, there may have been a more precise explanation of what was going on that than in the translation or in the English, whatever you may have heard in English. Is that possible?
Sandy Dahl: I heard the translation that the FBI gave us that day.
And I wanted to say, I would really love for the government to come out and marry the flight data record with the voice recorder. And we would have a very clear picture of what went on. I'm kind of disappointed in reading this report.
(CROSSTALK)
Wolf Blitzer: Well, tell us why, Sandy, you are disappointed, because there clearly was resistance aboard the plane, the United flight. The passengers clearly took the matter into their own hands, even if the final order to crash the plane came from the hijackers, as opposed to the passengers, who decided to save, let's say, Washington, D.C., the White House or the Capitol, knowing what happened at the World Trade Center.
Sandy Dahl: I'm disappointed at the FBI report, because I heard something other than what they reported. And I don't understand how they came up with it.
For instance, they talk about passengers indicated that the pilots were dead and laying in the first-class section. I heard evidence to the contrary on this tape. And I don't understand why they would report that.
Wolf Blitzer: Tell us exactly what you heard.
Sandy Dahl: Oh, I can't do that. I have signed papers with the FBI saying that I wouldn't.
