call ended.
United Airlines Flight 175 was scheduled to depart for Los Angeles at 8:00. Cap-
tain Victor Saracini and First Officer Michael Horrocks piloted the Boeing 767,
which had seven flight attendants. Fifty-six passengers boarded the flight.
flight attendants would have begun their cabin service.
sion" overheard from another plane (which turned out to have been Flight 11)
just after takeoff. This was United 175's last communication with the ground.
passenger), and the threat of a bomb (reported by the same passenger). They
stabbed members of the flight crew (reported by a flight attendant and one pas-
senger). Both pilots had been killed (reported by one flight attendant).The eye-
witness accounts came from calls made from the rear of the plane, from
passengers originally seated further forward in the cabin, a sign that passengers
and perhaps crew had been moved to the back of the aircraft. Given similari-
ties to American 11 in hijacker seating and in eyewitness reports of tactics and
weapons, as well as the contact between the presumed team leaders, Atta and
Shehhi, we believe the tactics were similar on both flights.
minute. At 8:51, the flight deviated from its assigned altitude, and a minute
later New York air traffic controllers began repeatedly and unsuccessfully try-
ing to contact it.
"I think they've taken over the cockpit--An attendant has been stabbed--
and someone else up front may have been killed. The plane is making
strange moves. Call United Airlines--Tell them it's Flight 175, Boston to LA."
Lee Hanson then called the Easton Police Department and relayed what he
had heard.
hijacked, both pilots had been killed, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and