Okay. I just spent literally all night reading all the Wikipedia pages on the four planes involved in the 9/11 attacks, after which I immediately went to work, and came home. So I've had no sleep in over 24 hours. So if this is a total incoherent mess, please forgive me. Also, I figured it would be better to put this in this thread, which is more about discussion, than Warb's thread, which is more about memorializing. And let me preface with a disclaimer that the following is based on the logic I brought out of reading all of this, not something I condone. Nor do I expect any kind of real answer because there's no way to know for sure.
So, anyway, here I go. After I'd finished reading everything about all four flights, and I went in to work with no sleep, a question suddenly entered my mind: Why didn't the hijackers, especially on Flight 93, just kill all the passengers from the getgo? Obviously they weren't interested in hostages or prisoners, as they were eventually going to kill everyone anyway. And it doesn't seem that they were interested in using them as bargaining chips in case they got caught, because, based on how Flight 93 ended, their plan was just to kill themselves if they failed. Having flight crew and passengers on board was just a liability for them, particularly for Flight 93.
Think about it. From the hijackers' perspective, the taking of Flight 93 met all kinds of unexpected resistance. They were under a tight timeframe. The plan was to get all the targets hit almost simultaneously before anyone was able to piece together what was happening. But Flight 93's takeoff ended up being delayed by nearly 45 minutes. By the time it actually took off, 11 and 75 were already being hijacked and about to be en route for their destinations. Unbeknownst to the hijackers, the flight crew of 93 were soon being informed to be on the lookout for cockpit intruders. It was already being pieced together, and their time was running out.
Then, for whatever reason, the hijackers waited another 45 minutes before attempting to take the plane, when Flight 11 only waited 15 minutes. Why they waited so long is anyone's guess. If I had to make a guess, I would say they were getting cold feet due to how far behind schedule they already were but they ultimately decided to go for it.
But this presents multiple problems for them. When they hijacked the plane, they'd already passed through the entirety of Pennsylvania. They had around an hour's travel back to their target. That's an hour for their (apparently not very well guarded) captives to send and receive information, to band together, and plan a revolt. Obviously the time lapse aided in that. Passengers who were able to contact friends and family found out about the WTC and were able to piece things together. And the long journey ensured they'd get a chance. The passengers of Flight 11 had similarly prepared to retake the cockpit, even without all the puzzle pieces that the passengers of 93 had, and the outcome might have been the same, but they simply didn't have time to do so before they reached their destination. Flight 93 did.
And as I earlier stated, it didn't seem that the captives were well-guarded if they were able to make unmonitored phone calls and plot a coup. So that meant the "muscle" hijackers were pretty much standing around doing nothing for the half hour in between hijack and crash.
Obviously the motive for their cover story and lying to the passengers that they'd be alright was to avoid conflict. If they knew they were going to die, they'd probably be a lot more willing to put their lives on the line to take back the plane. But the hijackers on 93 didn't have that luxury. All the odds were stacked against them, yet they left nearly 40 ticking time bombs in the back of the plane. It seems it would have been in their best interest to find some way to bring them up into different parts of the plane and pick them off.
But they obviously lacked that kind of foresight, left the passengers to their own devices, and got exactly what they deserved. I have always found it a shame that the heroes on Flight 93 weren't able to successfully retake the plane. Well, I guess you can certainly call it a success simply in the fact that they caused the terrorists to fail and a brilliant stroke of luck that they crashed in an empty field rather than a populated area. But it is a shame that they were unable to land safely, and that all of them still had to die.
Anyway, I don't know what the point of all that was. It was just an idea that occurred to me. I'm certainly not advocating killing anybody, and I hope that's not the impression I'm giving. I'm just trying to think it through logically from the perspectives of the hijackers, and it seems they thankfully dropped the ball on that.