Hijacked passengers tried to stop terrorists: report

5:30 pm

Passengers aboard the United Airlines flight 93 that crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside yesterday may have tried to wrestle control from the hijackers, CNN reported today.

Passenger Jeremy Glick called his wife from the aircraft to say it had been hijacked.

He said he knew the World Trade Center had been hit and that some of the passengers were talking about retaking control of their plane.

Partial transcripts of conversations from inside the plane's cockpit obtained by CNN show that moments before Mr Glick rang his wife, air traffic controllers heard someone in the cockpit shout, "Get out of here".

The report said scuffles were then heard and somebody again yelled, "Get out of here".

The report said that next a voice in broken English was heard to say: "There is a bomb on board. This is the captain speaking. Remain in your seat. There is a bomb on board. Stay quiet. We are meeting with their demands. We are returning to the airport."

Glick's mother-in-law Joanne Makely told CNN the family called the police on another line and relayed what Glick was saying.

Glick told police he could see three men he described as Arabs.

Ms Makely said Glick wanted to know if it was really true that the World Trade Center had been hit.

After Glick was told the reports were true, he left the phone for a while, returning to say, "The men voted to attack the terrorists," Makely told CNN.

The wife of another man who called home from the flight told the Associated Press her husband "thought he was going to be home. He was going to solve this problem," CNN said.

The Washington Post website spoke to Glick's brother-in-law Douglas B. Hurwitt.

Mr Hurwitt said Glick's wife told him Glick and "others aboard the plane had decided to rush the cockpit and try to subdue the terrorists".

"They were going to stop whoever it was from doing whatever it was they'd planned," Hurwitt said. "He knew that stopping them was going to end all of their lives. But that was my brother-in-law. He was a take-charge guy."

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