The Untold Stories of Tony James - A Manassas Neighbor
On Saturday afternoon, March 31st, thanks to Unit Owner Debbie Barlow of Building 2, many residents of The Gatherings were privileged to meet and hear the fascinating behind-the-scenes and untold story of a famous airplane crash told by a former long-time pilot, FAA accident investigator and current Manassas resident Tony James. For over two hours, Tony narrated a slideshow that he had prepared for the Clubhouse TV. Tony, a North Carolina native with an authentic southern accent, held his audience in rapt attention as he related the very personal and extraordinary challenge of his leading role in the investigation into the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 into an abandoned strip mine in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001. It was the unforgettable day that two other planes, controlled by terrorists, crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City while almost at the same time another plane was slamming into the Pentagon.
Note: Most of the photos in the presentation can be enlarged by clicking on them.
Note: Most of the photos in the presentation can be enlarged by clicking on them.
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Tony, an FAA crash scene examiner was on the Agency's "Go" team. Soon after the World Trade Center crashes he had been called and told to go to New York to help in the Federal Aviation Agency investigation of the Trade Center attack. However, on that day he did not make it to New York. Instead, he was diverted to Pennsylvania where there was a report of still another plane crash. A United Airlines Boeing 757 bound from Newark to San Francisco with 44 people aboard had also been captured by terrorists. At 9:34 AM with the terrorists in control, it changed course and doing a U-Turn headed towards Washington, DC with the White House, only 29 minutes away as its intended target. However, the plane never reached Washington.
As it flew over the Ohio and Pennsylvania countryside, many of the passengers on Flight 93 made numerous cell phone calls to tell their families of their captivity. While some of them said final goodbyes, others made a heroic effort to fight for their lives. They created chaos in the passenger cabin and tried to break into the cockpit.
A passenger named Todd Beamer helped lead the heroic revolt. The ruckus created such havoc that the terrorists, in a desperation move of their own, began rolling the plane from side-to-side in an effort to knock the passengers off their feet. According to Tony James had they piloted the plane up and down instead they would have been successful. Finally, in a suicidal act, the hijackers flipped the plane over onto its back and dove straight down into a Pennsylvania field killing everyone on board. Its mission was a failure. The passengers had prevented an even greater disaster than what had just befell them.
When Tony James arrived at the crash site by helicopter a few hours after the airliner had hit the ground he saw a fire still burning in the nearby woods. The inferno had been caused by the plane’s exploding fuel tanks spraying both their contents and other parts of the plane into the air in the same direction that the plane was traveling when it crashed.
Once on the ground, Tony saw nothing more than some big gashes in the earth where the plane, diving almost straight downward at over 500 miles per hour, had penetrated the field's surface. From Tony's helicopter view there was no wreckage in sight. The entire plane had disappeared into the earth below. One investigator said it was like a knife plunging into a vat of butter. There was no smoke, no flames other than the burning forest and no bodies to be seen. Only some deep ruts in the soil. If one looked carefully at those rough markings, they could see the outlines of a plane’s wings and body. Tony saw at once that the plane was upside down when it hit nose first.
Once on the ground, Tony saw nothing more than some big gashes in the earth where the plane, diving almost straight downward at over 500 miles per hour, had penetrated the field's surface. From Tony's helicopter view there was no wreckage in sight. The entire plane had disappeared into the earth below. One investigator said it was like a knife plunging into a vat of butter. There was no smoke, no flames other than the burning forest and no bodies to be seen. Only some deep ruts in the soil. If one looked carefully at those rough markings, they could see the outlines of a plane’s wings and body. Tony saw at once that the plane was upside down when it hit nose first.
What he did not expect was that in very short order he would be asked to lead the FAA’s investigative team whose job it would be to provide as much evidence and as many answers as they could about this crash. Who was flying the plane? What was the intent of the pilots? Where were they heading when it crashed? Why did this plane end up in this field miles from its intended target? Was the crash done on purpose or was it an accident? Was this crash related to the ones in New York and at the Pentagon? Were there other conspirators involved? Who was the mastermind behind this horrendous tragedy? Accurate answers and solid evidence were needed and they were needed fast. Because of his experience in investigating, the cause of a similar crash in Turkey, Tony James was selected on the spot to be the lead investigator for the FAA. He was given a hat that had three large letters spelling out FAA just above its visor. That hat signified that he was the head of the FAA team. Leaders of the FBI and other important groups had similar hats emblazoned with their group’s initials.
Tony and the others, some from the FBI and others from the local and state police, along with local volunteers donned white Teflon coveralls and breathing devices to protect them against any contamination that might have been present. The coveralls was a garment that was uncomfortable and unreasonably hot to wear during some of Tony's 36-hour work shifts. Tony said that at times he was so hot his boots filled up with water. Large earth movers were finally brought in as he and his crews started to dig down to find whatever clues they could uncover that might tell who was behind this unthinkable event.
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As they dug, the crater got bigger and the plane's parts began to pile up.
For over three and a half weeks, Tony directed crews whose job it was to hand shovel and sift through the dirt that contained the tiny remains of the plane. The found the jets engines which had been compressed to a very small size by the impact. Tony said he could examine one of those engines and tell the speed of the plane when it crashed. The crews encountered no bodies and very few body parts. Those body parts they did find were put into red plastic boxes. The boxes were marked “HR” meaning they contained “Human Remains.” Tony told his Clubhouse audience the shocking fact that of the 44 people aboard only 26 pounds of human remains were found. It was mostly teeth and bone fragments. There was no blood. It was though every human being in the plane had been vaporized.
At the top on their list of missing parts were the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), which would help tell what had happened to Flight 93. The FDR recorded the speed, flight path, altitude, engine power and other flight parameters on a metal tape and was the investigator’s mechanical witness to what had actually occurred. It was estimated that the plane had dove into the earth to a depth of close to 50 feet. It had literally exploded underground becoming a mass of fragments numbering close to three million pieces.
Tony told his audience that the CVR, originally mounted in the tail of the plane, was finally recovered at the bottom of the pit the crews were digging. When its 30 minutes of audio were finally heard the investigators heard screaming and what sounded like a fire extinguisher being used in an attempt to break the cockpit door open. The audio also revealed that, among other things, the terrorist pilot had no idea as to what his primary target; the White House, looked like from the air. His co-pilot told him that it was a small, hard-to-see building surrounded by trees. He suggested that the Capitol Building with its huge dome was a more visible target - one that was always full of people. He suggested that Flight 93, when it reached Washington, make the Capitol Building rather than the White House its target
To read the full transcript of what was on the Flight 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder click below.
| transcript-cvr.pdf |
In his two-hour talk to the Gatherings’ residents Tony James also revealed some other incredible details about his investigation that never made the news reports. One concerned, of all things, a rat's contribution to the investigation. A state trooper had been assigned to guard a lonely wooded area of the crash site. After many hours of doing his job and seeing no one around he decided to amuse himself by chasing a rat that appeared in the woods nearby. He stalked the rat following him finally to a tree where the rat became trapped in one of the tree’s crevices. The guard noticed that the rat was carrying a billfold in his mouth that he had picked up in the area. The trooper grabbed the billfold and brought it in for examination. It was quite a find. The billfold had belonged to the terrorist pilot of the plane. It contained his passport and instructions from his supreme leader. There was enough information collected from the billfold to quickly conclude that the mastermind behind the attacks was Osama Bin Laden. This fact was communicated to President George W. Bush who announced it to the nation and the world at 8:30 PM that evening.
Tony also told of a credit card they found stuck in a tree in the woods nearby. The card belonged to one of the terrorists and when it was traced revealed that it had been used to purchase tickets for at least six other flights around the country. Because all flights in American airspace were immediately canceled after the Trade Center crashes the flights carrying those suspected terrorists were quickly returned to their gates and the passengers sent home. The discovery of that card revealed the possibility that the catastrophes on September 11 might have been more widespread had the flight embargoes not been put into effect.
One final unknown incident that Tony James revealed was that of an investigation that had been made of a house that was in the woods near the crash site. The investigators were searching for any other debris that might have scattered in the air. Did any of it land on or near that house? When they approached the building, they noticed that two of the windows had round holes in them. What went through those holes? When no one answered their knocks on the front door, they broke in under the doctrine of "reasonable cause."
What they discovered was that the holes in the glass, a number of feet apart, had been caused by the remains of two human hands that had flown through the air and hit the house after the plane exploded. DNA tests revealed that both hands had belonged to one person and that they had probably been clasped together as if in prayer at the time of the crash. There was also a ring on the finger of one of the hands.
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Uncannily, both the ring and the hands had belonged to Todd Beamer who becamknown as a hero for leading the passengers in revolt against the terrorists. It was Beamer who had famously shouted “Let’s Roll” when the passengers began their counter attack in the plane. Beamer's widow used the cry as the title of a book she wrote about her husband. However, after hearing the cockpit recorder himself Tony James said that what Beamer yelled was more like “Roll it.”
A complete timeline of the Flight 93 incident can be found by clicking on the logo below:
A complete timeline of the Flight 93 incident can be found by clicking on the logo below:
| timeline-2017-revision-marginal-notes-for-wtc-and-pentagon-1.pdf |
When the investigation in Shanksville was complete Tony James flew on to New York for a three month assignment at the World Trade Center. Later in his career he would would be the lead investigator into the safe Hudson River landing of a US Airways flight piloted by Cheslea B. "Sully" Sullenberger after two geese took out both engines in his Airbus A320-214. The team led by Tony James was able to show that "Sully", regardless of what some were saying, had no other choice than to bring the plane down in the river. Using a series of test flights James proved that no other option would have worked. Sullenberger’s experience became the hit movie “Sully” starring Tom Hanks. Tony James never saw the movie. He has since retired and now runs his own investigative business with aviation clients around the world. He says he still thinks of the crashes he has investigated and still has vivid remembrances of the cockpit recorders he has heard.
Tony has revisited the site in Shanksville which is now a national monument managed by the National Park Service. All of the parts of the plane that were retrieved were sent into storage pending the conclusion of litigation that surprisingly , continues to this day. The red boxes that were collected with their “HR” contents were placed in the pit that was excavated. The disturbed earth was replaced. Tony had a large rock from the site placed in the exact spot Flight 93 entered the ground. If anybody remembers the events of 9/11/2001 it is one of our Manassas neighbors Tony James. What untold stories has he yet to tell?
