Phone Calls and Seating Chart

Seating chart showing where passengers purchased tickets and where crew members were located Seating chart showing where passengers purchased tickets and where crew members were located

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Original Seating Assignments for Crew and Passengers
Credit: NPS

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Locations where passengers and crew members made phone calls
Credit: NPS

 

Seating Assignments for Flight 93

Airline records indicate seating assignments for passengers and hijackers based on ticketing information. Crew members were not assigned seating but stationed throughout the cabin and cockpit based on their job, such as flight attendant or captain and first officer.

Click on the dropdown boxes for seating assignment locations. 
 

 

 

 
 


Phone Calls of Flight 93


When United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked, thirteen passengers and crew members responded by placing phone calls to authorities, to United Airlines, and to their family members and friends. According to the FBI, thirty-seven phone calls were placed from on board Flight 93 between 9:28 am when the plane was hijacked until the time of the crash at 10:03 am. Thirty-five of these calls were made on the Airfones located on the back of the seats. The series of calls from the flight provided vital information both to the ground and to the passengers.

Calls from on board the plane revealed that:
  • The plane had been hijacked
  • The hijackers wielded knives
  • The hijackers had entered the cockpit
  • The hijackers had a bomb
  • The hijackers wore red bandanas
  • The passengers were forced to the back of the aircraft
  • A passenger had been stabbed (reported by at least two callers) and the victim had died (reported by one)
  • Two individuals were lying on the floor of the aircraft injured or dead, possibly the captain and first officer
  • A flight attendant had been killed
Through these phone calls, the passengers and crew learned that:
  • The World Trade Center Towers were struck by two commercial airliners
  • The Pentagon was struck by a commercial airliner
A chronological listing of the phone calls were made between 9:28 am and 10:03 am appears below, including transcripts of three of the calls which were recorded. All times are in Eastern Daylight Time. Unless noted, the calls were made on Airfones. Information sources are cited in this manner:
  • Notes from interviews conducted by FBI agents with those who received calls
  • Evidence presented at the Moussaoui Trial
  • Notes from the published report of the 9/11 Commission, Third Monograph or Memoranda for the Record prepared by the 9/11 Commission Staff
All information based on the best available data and evidence. Direct transcripts are noted. Quoted content is cited. Most of the quoted material comes from FBI reports and notes, but is not a direct transcript of a recording unless specifically noted as such.

Click on the dropdown boxes for more information regarding each phone call
 
Phone call locations on Flight 93
Seating chart locations where passengers and crew of Flight 93 made phone calls

NPS

 

Last updated: June 12, 2024

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