UA 175 Over Staten Island -- Loss of Control?

[Mangoose]

I was watching the 9/11 Commision video presentation (aired on C-SPAN) that tracks the flight paths of the four planes, and I noticed that it portrays UA 175's flight over Staten Island as involving some very jerky manouvers. Around 9:01:35, the plane is above the Westerleigh neighborhood of Staten Island, and it makes a sudden turn to the right towards Clifton, then drifts over to the left, and then around 9:01:51 makes another sudden jerk to the right. Then it climbs and then descends over the Upper N. Y. Bay until it impacts WTC2 at 9:03:02.

First I wonder what the source of this data is. No FDR was recovered for either WTC plane, so the 9/11 Commission did not have the sort of data that they had for AA 77 and UA 93. Would this flight track have been based on radar data or eyewitness reports. And for that matter, I have never seen any Staten Island eyewitness reports describing the low-lying plane over Staten Island (as there are for Arlington), nor video of the plane shot from Staten Island. I am curious if anyone who has kept an archive of witness reports may have any information on what happened when the plane was over Staten Island.

I know this is all a minor point, but I haven't seen anyone discuss it before and it is interesting that for 15 seconds the plane (allegedly) lost some control in manouvering...was this because Marwan al-Shehhi simply screwed up at the controls (very plausible) or could he have been distracted or interrupted? According to Brian Sweeney, the passengers were planning to storm the cockpit, and I wonder if -- seeing how so very low the plane was flying over New Jersey and Staten Island -- someone actually tried to break down the cockpit door, or at least tried to force it open, at that time. That may explain why al-Shehhi got distracted, if that indeed is the reason why he lost direction over Staten Island. At the same time, Pete Hanson described the plane making "jerky movements" and passengers throwing up.

Anyway, thought it was worth asking.

[Thunder]

The plane was making jerky movemants because the pilots were trying to remove the auto-pilot system installed by the Israelis. But unfortunately, none of them reads Yiddish and they were unable to disable it in time.

[defaultdotxbe]

its possible there was a struggle, it appears that on f11 the passengers tried to regain control of the plane, and ive heard it said that the "muscle" hijackers didnt know the full extent of the mission and may not have wanted to be martyrs

[beachnut]

I was watching the 9/11 Commision video presentation (aired on C-SPAN) that tracks the flight paths of the four planes, and I noticed that it portrays UA 175's flight over Staten Island as involving some very jerky manouvers. Around 9:01:35, the plane is above the Westerleigh neighborhood of Staten Island, and it makes a sudden turn to the right towards Clifton, then drifts over to the left, and then around 9:01:51 makes another sudden jerk to the right. Then it climbs and then descends over the Upper N. Y. Bay until it impacts WTC2 at 9:03:02.

First I wonder what the source of this data is. No FDR was recovered for either WTC plane, so the 9/11 Commission did not have the sort of data that they had for AA 77 and UA 93. Would this flight track have been based on radar data or eyewitness reports. And for that matter, I have never seen any Staten Island eyewitness reports describing the low-lying plane over Staten Island (as there are for Arlington), nor video of the plane shot from Staten Island. I am curious if anyone who has kept an archive of witness reports may have any information on what happened when the plane was over Staten Island.

I know this is all a minor point, but I haven't seen anyone discuss it before and it is interesting that for 15 seconds the plane (allegedly) lost some control in manouvering...was this because Marwan al-Shehhi simply screwed up at the controls (very plausible) or could he have been distracted or interrupted? According to Brian Sweeney, the passengers were planning to storm the cockpit, and I wonder if -- seeing how so very low the plane was flying over New Jersey and Staten Island -- someone actually tried to break down the cockpit door, or at least tried to force it open, at that time. That may explain why al-Shehhi got distracted, if that indeed is the reason why he lost direction over Staten Island. At the same time, Pete Hanson described the plane making "jerky movements" and passengers throwing up.

Anyway, thought it was worth asking.The data of the flight path was recorded radar data that was collected until 175 was close to the WTC and radar data was lost at 1000 feet. This is from the flight path study.

http://www.ntsb.gov/info/Flight_%20Path%20_Study_UA175.pdf

Flight 175 did not turn off the transponder. I thought they had, but the terrorist or the pilot before being killed had changed the transponder twice. This means the flight had altitude and could be seen on radar without resorting to primary target information.

At 300 KIAS, the speed 175 may of been doing prior to lining up with the WTC, the turn radius at 30 degrees of bank would be about 3 miles. The only thing that would be jerky, would be bank angles and pitch changes. The flight path, as in turns, would be large radius turns.