Widow presses FBI to release hijack tape

Family members of some of the passengers killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th are pushing for more complete…

Family members of some of the passengers killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11th are pushing for more complete accounting of what actually occurred on the aircraft.

United's Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco was one of four jets hijacked on September 11th. Two were sent crashing into New York's World Trade Center and the third hit the Pentagon. Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field, apparently brought down by a passenger revolt.

Family members of some of those killed on Flight 93 are asking the FBI to release the cockpit voice recording of the plane's final minutes.

The Justice Department and the FBI have so far declined to release even an edited transcript of Flight 93's cockpit voice recorder, saying it is evidence in a criminal investigation.

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Mrs Deena Burnett, whose husband was among those aboard the aircraft, and another family member say they deserve to hear the recording - if only to answer once and for all what happened as the last hijacked plane veered off course and crashed, killing all 45 people aboard.

"We might be able to shed some light for investigators," Mrs Alice Hoglan, whose son Mark Bingham was aboard Flight 93, told the San Francisco Chronicle. The public has a picture of what many believe happened on Flight 93 - a band of heroic passengers, after learning of the other hijack attacks, stormed the cockpit to prevent their hijacked jet from hitting another target.

The story has been pieced together through bits of telephone conversations that passengers had with people on the ground and cockpit communications overheard by air traffic controllers.