Final words from hijacked passenge
( 2001-09-12 11:49 ) (7 )

A passenger aboard the ill-fated United Airlines Flight 93 which crashed outside Pittsburgh on Tuesday called from a airplane phone to report to his mother: "We've been taken over by three men that say they have a bomb" before the plane crashed.

Mark Bingham, a 31-year-old California public relations official traveling on the plane -- one of four that crashed during a wave of terrorist hijackings -- called from the plane's airphone just after 6:30 am (1300 GMT), his mother Alice Hoglan told reporters.

Bingham's flight was traveling from Newark to San Francisco International Airport when it was hijacked. The Boeing 757 left Newark at 8:01 am (1201 GMT), and came down at 10:10 am (1410 GMT) 129 kilometers (80 miles) southeast of Pittsburgh, just north of Somerset County airport.

"I love you very much, in case I don't see you again," Hoglan, herself a flight attendant for United Airlines, remembers her son saying during the phone call. The FBI has been interviewing the Hoglans and other survivors of the plane crash at a hotel near San Francisco International Airport.

"There was a lot of commotion in the background when he called," she said. "Lot of voices, but I couldn't make them out individually."

Just after Hoglan told Bingham she loved him, "the phone went dead."

US media reported another phone call was placed from the lavatory of the plane via cell phone to an emergency operator, reporting a hijacking.

Hoglan said it was possible her son may have clashed with the hijackers. Flight 93 was the only one of the four planes hijacked that did not hit a target.

"He was the type of person who would intercede," said Hoglan.

Forty-five passengers and crew were aboard the plane when it crashed, killing all aboard and leaving an enormous crater. The largest piece of debris found so far is 1.5 meters (five feet) long.

Hoglan said she'll remember her son as someone who loved life.

"He was a very happy-go-lucky person," she said.

The crash of Flight 93 was part of a coordinated assault that also saw hijacked planes crash into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Two Los Angeles-bound Boeing 767 jets -- one from American Airlines and the other from United Airlines -- were hijacked shortly after taking off from Boston, Massachusetts, and flown directly into the World Trade Center's 110-floor twin towers within 18 minutes of each other.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said the hijackers were armed with knives.

The planes, with a combined 157 passengers and crew, smashed gaping holes in the side of the landmark skyscraper's two towers, exploding in fireballs that later toppled them to the ground.

Just 40 minutes later, an American Airlines Boeing 757 with 64 people aboard crashed into the Pentagon, partially collapsing one side of the Defense Department's sprawling five-sided complex.