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According to the Cleveland Air Traffic Controller Recording, the hijacking took place at 9:28 am when Captain Jason Dahl began shouting, "Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" over the radio, amidst sounds of violence ("Summary of Flight 93"). The government was notified about the hijacked plane not long after that. This would give the fighter jets ample time to reach the hijacked plane and shoot it down before it was able to reach D.C. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz admitted in a TV interview a few days after the attack that "we were already tracking that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania," (Bunch).
By this time, three planes had already flown into three different building, killing thousands of civilians. In an interview with the New York Times, Maj. Gen. Mike Haugen admitted, "A person came on the radio and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, "I want you to protect the White House at all costs" (Sack & Wald). In this moment of crisis, it is completely reasonable to believe that the fighter pilots would decide to shoot down a plane with 44 passengers on board and save countless lives in Washington. None of the three fighter pilots have been allowed to speak publicly about their actions that day, but we can speculate based on eyewitness reports and factual evidence that the official report isn't telling the whole truth.
The greatest amount of evidence comes from several eyewitnesses who claim to have seen an unmarked jet tailing the aircraft shortly before the crash. Susan Mcelwain who lived only two miles from the crash site has remained adamant about what she saw:.
"It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50ft above my mini-van. It was so low I ducked instinctively. It was traveling real fast, but hardly made any sound. Then it disappeared behind some trees. A few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured the jet had crashed.
