The Airline Captain that Told His Passengers to Take Over If Anyone Tried to Hijack His Plane–Truth!
Summary of eRumor:
A passenger writes an account of her experience aboard an airliner shortly after the terrorist hijackings of September 11. She says the pilot gave a pep-talk before take-off that included his instruction that the passengers should overpower any hijackers that might try to take over the flight. Among other things, he allegedly told them to throw things at the hijackers and try to get blankets over their heads so they couldn’t see.
The Truth:
This has been an odd one to track down, but here’s what we’ve got:
The Internet eRumor version of the story merely mentions a female business traveler flying from Denver to Washington, D.C.
There is a commentary in the Washington Times on September 21, 2001 written by Paul Hannaford who is described as a public affairs consultant. He doesn’t say whether he was on the flight but he does give details of what transpired.
There is also an Associated Press story from September 21, 2001 written by Sharon Cohen that says there was a passenger aboard the flight named Kathy Rockel who experienced it all first-hand. She is a medical transcriptionist who was traveling on the flight on September 15, the Saturday after the terrorist attacks. She says it was United flight 564 from Denver to Dulles airport.
TruthOrFiction.com has tried twice to get comment from United Airlines and they have declined. The first time was an outright “We have no comment.” The second was “We’re trying to deal with the needs of families who experienced loss on September 11, and we don’t have the time to look into stuff like this.” In other words, they don’t want to talk about it.