MovieChat Forums > United 93 (2006) Discussion > I've always wondered

I've always wondered

posted 8 years ago by SaliceMcD
4 replies | jump to latest

why, given all the planning that went into the attacks, the first tower was hit before the workday started, for most there, at 9 am. I'm of course glad it, and/or the other tower, weren't hit later, but would think the terrorists would want, and carefully plan for, as high a number of casualties as possible.

For those who believe in a governmental conspiracy: do you think those who planned it intentionally went for a more "conservative" number of deaths; "just enough," so to speak?

I've actually thought about this a lot, as, if the first plane had hit 30 to 90 minutes later, a good friend of mine would have been killed; instead, he was "only" walking toward the first tower to be hit. In other words, I hope I haven't come across as flippant or disengaged, as I'm anything but.

[–] franzkabuki 8 years ago

Well the point of terrorism is to strike fear in the enemy and make them feel vulnerable and for this task to be accomplished it doesn't really matter what the exact death toll is. Not that it isn't a valid question though - but one can only speculate why did the terrorists time the attacks the way they did (it should be noted that both flights that crashed into WTC took off about 15 minutes later than scheduled).

"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

[–] Tom_Veil 8 years ago

The leading theory is that the hijackers were scouting flights in the weeks leading up to 9/11 to see which ones had a low number of passengers, thereby limiting passengers' ability to fight back.

[–] jason_zephyr 8 years ago

The leading theory is that the hijackers were scouting flights in the weeks leading up to 9/11 to see which ones had a low number of passengers, thereby limiting passengers' ability to fight back.

That is a very reasonable theory.

Also, remember that a high death toll was never the goal. The goal was to destroy American buildings that represented capitalism and governmental power.

[–] Tabbycat (915) 5 years ago

Hijackers wanted the first flights of the day to minimize chance of cancellation or delay.
As this film shows, the flights were not perfectly synchronized. Frustrating to see had there been a real contingency plan there was plenty of time to take action. There wasn’t because our great federal agencies were too busy fighting each other for funding.