SMEARING THE HEROES OF FLIGHT 93 Aug 14, 2003 MICHAEL SMERCONISH THE Associated Press sullied the memory of the heroic passengers of Flight 93 last week by blowing out of proportion one paragraph in the 900-page congressional report about 9/11. Perhaps desperate to find a new angle, the AP misconstrued seven sentences and promoted the idea that the plane crashed because the hijackers ditched it rather than be overtaken by the passengers. The victims of Flight 93 and their families deserved better. Here is what the congressional report says on Page 143: "Telephone calls from passengers and crew to family and friends described attempts by passengers and crew to retake the plane prior to the crash. One call described three hijackers wearing bandanas and armed with knives, with one hijacker claiming to have a bomb strapped to his waist. Two hijackers entered the cockpit and closed the door behind them. "The passengers were herded to the back of the plane. The captain and co-pilot were seen lying on the floor of the First Class section, possibly dead. At the words 'Let's roll,' passengers rushed forward. As described by the FBI Director, the cockpit tape-recorder indicates that a hijacker, minutes before Flight 93 hit the ground, 'advised Jarrah to crash the plane and end the passengers' attempt to retake the airplane. ' " It is the last sentence that AP writer Ted Bridis twisted into a front-page story across the country with this lead: "U.S. investigators now believe that a hijacker in the cockpit aboard United Airlines Flight 93 instructed terrorist-pilot Ziad Samir Jarrah to crash the jet into a Pennsylvania field because of a passenger uprising in the cabin. "This theory, based on the government's analysis of cockpit recordings, discounts the popular perception of insurgent passengers grappling with terrorists to seize the plane's controls. " No wonder the Washington Post gave the story this headline: "Gov't.: Hijacker Crashed Flight 93 on 9/11. " What a stretch. Truth is, the report did not say that Jarrah crashed the plane to thwart the passengers' rebellion. It simply said that another terrorist had advised him to do so. The report is entirely in sync with the view that the passengers fought back and that their struggle itself resulted in the crash, not that the hijackers crashed the plane because of the rebellion. And there is a distinct difference. Alice Hoglan is the mother of Mark Bingham, who died in the crash. With other family members of Flight 93 victims, she attended an April 2002 playing of the cockpit recorder in Princeton, N.J. They were requested to keep the bulk of what they'd heard private so as not to jeopardize the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui, at whose trial the tape may be played. But Mrs. Hoglan was fairly forthcoming with me. She told me that the tape was 31 minutes long and picked up right after the murder of the pilots. She said the first 25 were "routine" but the last 5-6 were "chilling. " She said it was badly recorded, the sound of wind rushing over wings creating a roar, with voices shouting in Arabic and English could be heard. It was "very dramatic. " What did she conclude? "Any reasonable person would come to conclusion that I did, and the other family members, that there was indeed a successful breach of the cockpit door by the passengers. " In other words, the jet crashed because the passengers reached the controls, not because the terrorists crashed before they got there. "They definitely got into the cockpit," she said. Her opinion was "confirmed by the forces she heard, by the things being said and by the things being done that were recorded violently. " Based upon what she heard, she told me that she believes "the terrorists were themselves terrorized. " I sure hope so. She explained that the FBI told her that the terrorists dropped the cruising altitude from 28,000 feet to 1,500 at full cruise speed of 575 mph and that any "little tweak" by the controls could easily have put the airplane in the ground. The two pilot hijackers "were agonized, they knew two of their crew were killed by passengers. That is my opinion and conclusion based on what I heard. " She knew that the terrorists did indeed discuss the prospect of intentionally crashing the airplane, but that they never did "There was frantic dialogue between the two pilots, one asking the other, 'Should we put it in ground now, what are we going to do, we are not going to make it to Washington . . . should we put it in the ground? ' " "The answer consisted of two words and meant we should wait. The question was asked again after the sound of a crashing of a food cart against door. It got the same answer. " She takes issue not with the congressional report, but with the AP interpretation. "I was not surprised to hear that report because it does corroborate what we heard on the flight cockpit voice recording, however the interpretation that is being put on it is creating the apparent inconsistency. " Here is the bottom line: Two terrorists managed to get themselves behind the controls of Flight 93. Two more terrorists were in the cabin, hopefully killed violently by the heroes who fought back. Regardless of whose fingers gripped the controls, the airplane crashed because Americans confronted the terrorists, not because the terrorists decided to ditch the craft. "I am very sorry that this misunderstanding has occurred," said Mark Bingham's mom. That makes at least two of us. * Michael Smerconish can be heard week- days 3-6 p.m. on the Big Talker 1210/AM. Contact him via www.mastalk.com.