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Was there a fifth plane involved in 9/11 attack? United 23 captain Tom Manello believes so

Tom Mannello claims that his flight might have been a part of the 9/11 attack and terrorists might have aimed to hijack it as well

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Tom Mannello, the captain of a United Airlines flight, has cast doubt on the possibility that his flight, United 23, was also a target of the terrorists during the 9/11 attack. He was sitting on the tarmac in the cockpit of United Flight 23 at 9 am, waiting to take off. Manello says that he learned that box cutters were present in a flight that was parked near the gate.

Mannello believes the ground crew assisted the terrorists as they got into the wrong plane, which prevented any attempted attack on the plane. Authorities have never commented on the flight being a possible fifth plane planned for the attack though there have been speculations on these lines. Mannello makes his revelation on 'TMZ Investigates: 9/11 The Fifth Plane', which will air on Monday, March 20 at 9 pm ET on Fox. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were the masterminds behind the attack.

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Was there a fifth plane involved in the 9/11 attack?

"There is a good chance that somebody was plotting to try to use our airplane as a weapon of mass destruction," said Mannello. He then added, "The chief pilot reported to me that they had found two box cutters in the seat pockets in first class in the plane next to it, which had a tail number one digit off. If somebody was on the ground cooperating with them, they just simply made a mistake and put the box cutters on the wrong airplane. You have people who clean the airplane, people that load food on the airplane, that have access to the airplane. If somebody was in cooperation with the group they could have been put there. It wouldn't be the hardest thing in the world to get on an airplane like that. It's the one thing that makes me think that there's a good chance that somebody was plotting to try to use our airplane as a weapon of mass destruction," as per Daily Mail.

Meanwhile, a flight attendant, Sandy Thorngren, claimed, "I definitely think Flight 23 was the fifth plane. They wanted to take us to show us a line up of people at the Port Authority. They got us all in a van, a windowless van. I felt like we were getting snuck into this van. And driven over to the Port Authority offices where everyone - I mean, gates were locked and guarded with the armored military that had machine guns, or whatever rifles they were using. We were escorted to this one room with those double windows where you could see in but not out. And they asked us if we could identify any of the people that were behind that window."

Which other planes were involved in the attack?

One of the first planes involved in the attack is American Airlines Flight 11, which took off at 7.59 am from Boston and was headed for Los Angeles with five hijackers onboard. Later, at 8.46 am, it crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower. Meanwhile, the second flight was United Airlines Flight 175, which took off from Boston at 8.14 am and they were headed for Los Angeles with yet another set of five hijackers onboard. However, at 9.03 am, it crashed into the WTC's South Tower. At 8.20 am, another flight American Airlines Flight 77 took off from Dulles which was headed for Los Angeles, with five hijackers onboard. However, it then crashed at 9.37 am into the Pentagon. United Flight 93 was the fourth flight that took off at 8.42 am from Newark, New Jersey. The take-off got delayed due to routine traffic. It was headed for San Francisco and had four hijackers onboard. It was forced to plow into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania since the passengers revolted against the hijackers. The target of this flight was most likely the White House or the Capitol.

'There had to be at least four more terrorists'

The Internet is now debating over why the information on the fifth plane has not yet been revealed. A user asked, "So they never arrested the guys suspected of plotting to hijack the plane." Another said, "Same reason they stay quiet about f**king thing there corrupted." "So there had to be at least four more terrorists the fbi left out of the report of 14 or so known hijackers than they showed us," added another. Another explained, "The feds knew that grounds crew members planted box cutters under seats. After 9/11, the government wanted to ban assigned seating. The theory was that grounds crew knew under which seats to put the weapons, but airlines complained SW style seating would kill business travel."

This article contains remarks made on the Internet by individual people and organizations. MEAWW cannot confirm them independently and does not support claims or opinions being made online.