A recent investigation discovers alarming evidence pointing to likelihood that a fifth plane was employed in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. United Airlines Flight 23 failed to take off at 9am on September 11 and its captain, Tom Mannello believes his aircraft was intended to be hijacked.
“There is a good chance that somebody was plotting to try to use our airplane as a weapon of mass destruction,” pilot Tom Mannello admitted. His unsettling declaration is a part of a six-month probe that will be unveiled in the Fox special, “TMZ Investigates: 9/11: The Fifth Plane.”
Investigators have probed for months, looking into questionable events surrounding the Los Angeles-bound flight which failed to take off from JFK on that fateful day. The hour-long documentary includes interviews with Flight 23’s flight attendants who speak of four suspicious first-class passengers.
One passenger was covered in sweat which “was odd because it was 8 o’clock in the morning, and airplanes are cold anyway, but it was a cool morning,” flight attendant Sandy Thorngren recalled. Another passenger who was dressed in a hijab was thought to be a man dressed as a woman, according to the flight crew.
The passengers told a flight attendant identified as “Deborah” that they didn’t want their meals since meat was included, and they’d like to take off without receiving their fruit plates. “I could hear them say, ‘We do not want to eat; we don’t need food. We want to take off. We don’t need food. We just want to go,’” Thorngren said.
Flight 23 was approaching the runway when JFK was closed after the Twin Towers were hit. It taxied back to the gate where crew and passengers disembarked, and the aircraft was locked. Witnesses on the tarmac described seeing two people in uniforms running about the cabin which resulted in authorities unlocking and entering the plane. They discovered an open floor hatch, leading from the passenger cabin to the underbelly of the plane. The documentary hypothesized that the two people were searching for box cutters which were erroneously placed in the neighboring plane.
Captain Mannello stated the plane parked next to Flight 23 had a tail number with only one different digit, and box cutters had been discovered in first class seat pockets of that aircraft. “If somebody was on the ground cooperating with them, they just simply made a mistake and put the box cutters on the wrong airplane,” Mannello said.
The special, airing tonight on Fox at 9pm EST, also revealed the flight crew was immediately interviewed by the FBI on September 12 to see if they could identify (from a lineup) the four suspicious passengers from first class.
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