United Airlines Flight 175 is believed to be the plane that hit the World Trade Center's South Tower. It was a Boeing 767-222 on a scheduled flight from Boston to Los Angeles, with 56 passengers, 7 flight attendants, and 2 pilots.

Known Course

This illustration from USA Today shows the alleged flightpath of Flight 175. Note that Albany is positioned about 50 miles south of its actual location.
More accurate flight path descriptions are found in NTSB reports published in 2006.

At 8:14 AM, Flight 175 took off from Boston's Logan Airport, 16 minutes after its scheduled departure time. 1 At 8:41, a Flight 175 pilot reported that he had overheard a transmission (presumably from by-then-hijacked Flight 11):

ya we figured we'd wait to go to you center ah we heard a suspicious transmission on our departure out of Boston ah with someone ah, ah sound like someone sound like someone keyed the mike and said ah everyone ah stay in your seats.

Shortly thereafter, the last radio communication was made from the pilots and air traffic control: "that's ah cut out ... did you copy that?" ² At 8:42, Flight 175 veered off its planned course, and began flying south. ³ According to NORAD's June 18 timeline and prior press reports, at 8:43 the FAA notified NORAD that the flight had been hijacked. ⁴ ⁵ ⁶ At 8:46, Flight 175 stopped transmitting its transponder signal. ⁷

Flight 175 apparently flew in a southwesterly direction as it crossed the Hudson River, continued into New Jersey until it was southwest of New York City, and then made a sharp turn to the northeast in order to approach the World Trade Center from the southwest. According to the NTSB Report on Flight 175, the plane started a turn to the northeast at 8:57 and descended from 28,000 feet as it approached the World Trade Center. ⁸

Peter Hanson, his wife Sue Kim, and their daughter Christine Lee were killed when Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower.

Phone Calls

There were reportedly two calls from passengers, and one from an unnamed flight attendant on Flight 175. Around 8:43 the father of passenger Peter Burton Hanson received a call from a man claiming to be his son and saying "Oh, my God! They just stabbed the airline hostess. I think the airline is being hijacked." 9 At 8:58 passenger Brian Sweeney is said to have left a message for his wife "We've been hijacked, and it doesn't look too good" and talked to his mother. ¹⁰ ¹¹

Collision

At 9:03, Flight 175 collided with the South Tower. The NTSB places the crash time at 9:02:40. (Some people question the identity of the plane, as Flight 175, despite evidence such as the identification of human remains at Ground Zero as belonging to Flight 175 victims.)

The impact was 43 minutes after Flight 11 first went off course, 21 minutes after Flight 175 went off course, and 17 minutes after the North Tower impact, yet the jet was not intercepted.

References

1. Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Washington Post, 9/12/01 [cached]
2. Flight Path Study - United Airlines Flight 175, NTSB, 2/19/02
3. Probe reconstructs horror, calculated attacks on planes, Boston Globe, 11/23/01 [cached]
4. Related major developments in the year since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, AP, 8/21/02 [cached]
5. NORAD's Response Times, NORAD, 9/18/01 [cached]
6. Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Washington Post,
7. 'We have planes. Stay quiet' - Then silence, Guardian, 10/17/01 [cached]
8. Flight Path Study ... Flight 175, 2/19/02
9. A day of unspeakable terror, Toronto Sun, 9/16/01 [cached]
10. Another Workday Becomes a Surreal Plane of Terror, startribune.com, 9/21/01 [cached]
11. School Mourns a Teacher's Loss, Hyannis News, 9/13/01 [cached]

page last modified: 2006-12-22