Report Suggests Hijackers Crashed Flight 93

Investigators piecing together the final minutes of United Airlines flight 93 now believe that it was deliberately crashed into a Pennsylvania field by its suicide hijackers.

A version of events that emerged after the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington suggested that a group of passengers, who had learned of the strike on Manhattan from mobile phone calls to their loved ones, forced their way into the cockpit and fought for the controls as the plane went down.

"Let's roll", the last words that businessman Todd Beamer's wife heard him say, became a rallying cry for some in the US as the country adjusted itself in the aftermath of the attacks.

The report about flight 93, which is based on the FBI's analysis of cockpit recordings, does not alter the broader sequence of events, that the plane crashed because of a passenger revolt. However, it questions some of the detail in the more popular version.

Citing transcripts of the still-secret cockpit recordings, the FBI's director, Robert Mueller, told congressional investigators in a closed session that one of the hijack gang had told their pilot, Ziad Jarrah, to crash the plane to end the passengers' attempt to seize control.

His version of events was disclosed in a brief passage in the 858-page report to the US Congress.

Previous statements by FBI and other government officials about what occurred in the cockpit have been ambiguous.

The FBI strenuously maintains that its suggestion that the passengers did not take control of the plane from the hijackers does not diminish their actions.

"While no one will ever know exactly what transpired in the final minutes of Flight 93, every shred of evidence indicates that this plane crashed because of the heroic actions of the passengers," said FBI spokeswoman Susan Whitson.

People who have heard the recording describe it as almost indecipherable, containing static noises, cockpit alarms and wind, interspersed with cries in English and Arabic.

Near the end of the tape, sounds of breaking glass and crashing dishes can be heard, lending credence to the theory that passengers used the food trolley to rush the jet's narrow aisle.

In April 2002, the same cockpit recording was played privately to family members of victims aboard Flight 93, and the FBI also provided them with its best effort at producing an understandable transcript.

Family members today disputed the latest FBI analysis.

"It is totally obvious, listening to that flight recorder, that they made it into the cockpit," Deena Burnett, who lost her husband, Thomas, on Flight 93, told the Associated Press. "You cannot listen to the tape and understand it any other way."

She said that she remembered hearing a hijacker telling Jarrah to crash the plane deliberately, as Mr Mueller described, and the pilot refusing to follow his instructions.

The singer Neil Young used Beamer's last known words as a song title and the US president, George Bush, quoted them in speech two months after the three other hijacked jets were flown into the World Trade Centre's twin towers and the Pentagon.

Mr Bush said that "courage and optimism" led the passengers to save lives on the ground.

Thirty-three passengers, seven crew members and the four hijackers died when the plane, which intelligence officials believe was heading for the White House, plunged to the ground.