Mrs Mcelwain, who looks after special needs children, is further convinced the whole truth has yet to come out because of a phone call she had within hours from the wife of an air force friend of the family.
"She said her husband had called her that morning and said 'I can't talk, but we've just shot a plane down,' " Susan said. "I presumed they meant Flight 93. I have no doubt those brave people on board tried to do something, but I don't believe what happened on the plane brought it down.
Lee Purbaugh, 32, was the only person to see the last seconds of Flight 93 as it came down on former strip-mining land at precisely 10.06am - and he also saw the white jet.
"Yes, there was another plane," Lee said. "I didn't get a good look but it was white and it circled the area about twice and then it flew off over the horizon."
Tom Spinelli, 28, was working at India Lake Marina, a mile and a half away. "I saw the white plane," he said.
"It was flying around all over the place like it was looking for something. I saw it before and after the crash."
The FBI's later explanation for the white jet was that a passing civilian Fairchild Falcon 20 jet was asked to descend from 34,000ft to 5,000ft some minutes after the crash to give co-ordinates for the site. The plane and pilot have never been produced or identified. Susan Mcelwain says a Falcon 20 was not the plane she saw." -Daily Mirror (9/13/02) / "At least four witnesses who were at the crash scene within five minutes of the crash told WTAE's Paul Van Osdol that they saw another plane in the area <http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/957912/detail.html>.
Somerset County resident Jim Brandt said that he saw another plane in the area. He said it stayed there for one or two minutes before leaving.
Another Somerset County resident, Tom Spinello, said that he saw the plane. He said that it had high back wings.
Both men said that the plane had no markings on it, either civilian or military. The FBI said that it does not think that it was a military plane, but it would not rule out the possibility of it being a civilian plane. -The Pittsburgh Channel (9/12/01) / "In separate interviews Thursday, five residents who live and work less than four miles from the crash site said they saw a second plane flying erratically <http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/2001/bergenrecord091401.html> within minutes of the crash of the Boeing 757 that took off from Newark two hours earlier Tuesday morning.
Susan Mcelwain of Stonycreek Township said a small white jet with rear engines and no discernible markings swooped low over her minivan near an intersection and disappeared over a hilltop, nearly clipping the tops of trees lining the ridge.
It was less than a minute later, Mcelwain said, that the ground shook and a white plume of smoke appeared over the ridge. "It was so close to me I ducked," Mcelwain said. "I heard it hit and saw the smoke. All I could think of was how close I came to dying. "
"As soon as we looked up, we saw a midsized jet flying low and fast," Decker said. "It appeared to make a loop or part of a circle, and then it turned fast and headed out. " Decker and Chaney described the plane as a Lear-jet type, with engines mounted near the tail and painted white with no identifying markings.
Earlier Thursday, FBI Special Agent William Crowley said investigators could not rule out that a second plane was nearby during the crash. He later said he had misspoken. He dismissed rumors that a U.S. military jet had intercepted the plane before it could strike a target in Washington, D.C. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, President Bush's nominee for chairman of the joint chiefs of staff rejected rumors that the military had shot down the hijacked plane.
"The armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft," Air Force Gen. Richard Myers said.
An official at the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center in Oberlin, Ohio, which tracked Flight 93 as it turned in the sky and tracked eastward from the Cleveland area, said "no comment" when asked if there was any record of a second plane over the crash site.
"That's something that the FBI is working on and I cannot talk about," said Richard Kettel, head of tower operations at the Cleveland center. He spoke shortly before the FBI announced it had no evidence of a second jet.
Susan Custer said she saw a small white jet streaking overhead.
"Then I heard the boom and saw the mushroom cloud. " Robin Doppstadt was working inside her family food-and-supply store when she heard the crash. When she went outside, she said, she saw a small white jet that looked like it was making a single circle over the crash site.
"Then it climbed very quickly and took off. " "It's the damndest darn thing," said Dale.
Browning, a farmer.
"Everybody's seen this thing in the sky, but no one can tell us what it is." -The Bergen Record (9/14/01) / "Two other airplanes were flying near the hijacked United Airlines jet when it crashed in Somerset County, but neither had anything to do with the airliner's fate, the FBI said yesterday.
In fact, one of the planes, a Fairchild Falcon 20 business jet, was directed to the crash site to help rescuers. The request for the jet to fly low and obtain the coordinates for the crash explains reports by people in the vicinity who said a white or silver jet <http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010916otherjetnat5p5.asp> flew by moments after the crash.
"There was a hole in the ground -- that was it," said Yates Caldwell, the pilot who was at the controls of the 10-passenger corporate jet for Greensboro, N.C.-based apparel maker VF Corp. "There was no way to know what it was .... I didn't know there had been a crash until I landed, until I was on the ground in Johnstown." -Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (9/16/01) / Why was this "Falcon 20" plane directed by authorities to give "coordinates" to the crash site and this single-engine Piper plane told to immediately turn away and land without explanation? / "A few minutes before the crash Bill Wright, piloting a single-engine Piper, could see Flight 93 three miles away, but was suddenly told to turn away and land <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12192317&method=full&siteid=50143> immediately without explanation." -Daily Mirror (9/13/02) //
Why was an executive jet owned by Omaha billionaire Warren Buffett "tracking" Flight 93 instead of a military jet intercepting it? "Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11...
An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company <http://www.hollandsentinel.com/stories/080902/new_080902020.shtml>.
The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request." -Holland Sentinel/AP (8/09/02) In 1995, world-renowned financier Warren Buffett purchased his first fractional share in the NetJetsŪ program. Three-and-a-half years later, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway purchased NetJets Inc <http://www.netjets.com/aboutej/berk.asp>.
"As a NetJets fractional aircraft Owner, I had Three-and-a-half years to examine the service of NetJets before Berkshire Hathaway purchased NetJets Inc. We knew we were purchasing the premier provider of aviation solutions in the world. And you can quote me to the world on that."
- WARREN BUFFETT Chairman and CEO Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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