Flight 93 - That Pesky C-130 [View All]

Not sure if anyone who visits this forum wants to talk about this, but I'd appreciate the input from those who do.

Most will remember the C-130 that was spotted near Flight 93's impact point right after the crash. There are two interviews with the pilot, Lt. Col. Steve O'Brien.

The first was in the Star-Tribune on 9/11/02, archived here. O'Brien describes himself as on-course for Minneapolis, when he looks "down at a blackened, smoldering field". This makes sense from a timeline perspective, and we've done the math before here: at top speed, and leaving the Pentagon right after it was hit, the Herc couldn't quite make it to the PA crash site in time.

But in the second article (in "On Guard"), the story is told that another airman "seated near one of the rear windows" sees the "big cloud of smoke" first, implying that the C-130 had already passed the impact on its way to MN.

Which is it? If the pilot saw it, it would either have to be pretty far ahead of them (given the height of the cockpit windows), or the aircraft would have had to have been nose-down. Why would an aircraft heading for home be descending sharply if they didn't know about the fourth crash?

Or, alternately, if the man in the rear was the first to see the smoke, how did the Herc get from the Pentagon to an area past 93's impact point so quickly?

Pilots, and other big-brained type "A"s please check in. :)