This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Americans marked the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on their nation by Islamic terrorists with tributes, recollections, remembrances and more.
And one pilot took the opportunity to reveal how he thinks his jet, sitting on a runway that day, was intended to be the fifth aircraft hijacked and turned into a weapon of mass destruction.
Ceremonies were held Thursday in New York and at the Pentagon, both targeted that day, as well as in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a flight augured into the ground after a failed scheme to turn it into another weapon.
Nearly 3,000 civilians died that day.
Jennifer Nilsen explained to reporters that the loss of her husband, Troy Nilsen, is "heart-wrenching" every year.
Even those who weren't born by then marked the day.
But one man, Tom Mannello, has recollections that go a bit further.
He was to pilot United Airlines Flight 23 that day, and says it was his aircraft that was intended to be used as another "weapon of mass destruction" on that day.
But he said a terrorist's mistake saved the lives of those aboard.
In a report in the Daily Mail about a video documentary, he said, "I now believe that it is more likely than not that we were the fifth airplane. There's a good chance that somebody was planning to try to use our airplane as a weapon of mass destruction."
That flight was at New York's JFK airport, lined up to leave at about 9 a.m.
But it was called back to the gate after other jets hit the World Trade Center towers.
He said he learned afterward that box cutters – the weapons used by hijackers to gain control of other four flights – were discovered on an aircraft that was parked next to his jet that morning.
That craft was not due to depart, but it's number was one digit off of the one Mannello was flying.
He said he learned two box cutters were found in the seat pockets in the first class section in that empty jet.
"Connecting the dots, the captain now believes the box cutters placed inside the seats on the neighboring aircraft had been intended for his flight, which would have departed JFK at a similar time to the other deadly vessels," the report said.
He said he thinks the mistake was that someone, assigned to leave the box cutters for later use, left them in the wrong jet.
"If somebody was on the ground cooperating with them, they just simply made a mistake and put the box cutters on the wrong airplane," he said. "You have people who clean the airplane, people who load food on the airplane, who have access to the airplane."
Further, he explained that flight attendants on his plane later raised concerns about several passengers.
"Flight attendant Barbara Brockie-Smaldino recalled one individual dressed in a burka with a niqab, who she was convinced was 'really a man,'" the report said.
Another passenger even sought to take his son into the cockpit "to look around," a move that is strictly forbidden.
Further alarm bells rang when "attendants were trying to serve first-class passengers their food, but all onboard were insistent that they didn't want to eat." Instead, they wanted to take off.
A total of 2,977 people died when four jets were hijacked and intentionally crashed into New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.
