Italian plane crash produces plume just like Flight 93's "ordnance" plume

Last updated: 23 November 2006.

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The conspiracy theory: plane crashes don't make plumes like that, bombs do

This is the only known photograph of the cloud of smoke rising from the impact area of Flight 93 in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The picture was taken by Valeria McClatchey from the porch of her home near Indian Lake, as reported by Shanksvillememorial.com and Post-Gazette.com.

Some conspiracy theorists say this picture proves conclusively that Flight 93 did not crash there. The shape of the cloud is wrong, they say: it's typical of ordnance, not of a plane crash. The implication is that the crater and debris were produced by using a bomb and so the tragic crash of the plane is staged.

This is an allegation made by an Italian conspiracy-theory site, Luogocomune.net, in a video entitled La verità di cristallo (Crystal Truth) released on national TV on September 11, 2006, and by many other similar sites:

"the mushroom cloud in her photo is more reminiscent of an ordnance blast than a jet fuel column" - Lisa Guliani, Wingtv.net.
"It proves that this blast is more likely an ordnance plume" - Killtown.

The theorists say their claim is demonstrated by comparing the Flight 93 photo with images of plane crashes and ordnance blasts, as in this montage used by Killtown:

Left to right: the photo taken at Shanksville, an ordnance blast and a plane crash.

But is it really true that a plane crash always forms a smoke cloud whose shape is distinctly different from the one shown in Valerie McClatchey's photograph? No, it isn't. On August 13, 2006, an Algerian C-130 Hercules four-engine turboprop crashed near Piacenza, Italy, as reported by local news and government sources (such as the ARPA environmental protection unit). If you're not familiar with the appearance and size of a Hercules, Wikipedia has the specs and a photograph:

A cloud of smoke rose from the crash site and a local resident, Gianluca Pietta, took a picture of it (shown here with his permission):

The resemblance to the Shanksville plume is impressive:

Therefore, it's beyond doubt that sometimes plane crashes do form clouds shaped like the one in McClatchey's Flight 93 photograph. Accordingly, anyone who claims that a cloud with that shape can only come from an ordnance blast is making a false claim and any theories based on such a premise are flawed.