Questions about the tape; no question of the bravery

Most of the controversy that has erupted following release of the congressional report on the Sept. 11, 2001 attack on America has centered around what wasn't released: 28 pages that detailed the links between Saudi Arabia and the terrorists who carried out the attacks.
A lower profile, but nonetheless highly emotional, controversy has centered on another portion of the report, that which discussed United Flight 93. That was the plane that crashed into a Western Pennsylvania field. It is a plane that was flying toward Washington, D.C., and is largely believed to have had the White House or the Capitol as its target.
Contradiction
Testimony by FBI Director Robert Mueller that is contained in the report contradicts the conventional version of what happened in the cockpit of Flight 93 before it crashed.
The accepted story is that the United airliner crashed as passengers wrestled with the hijackers for control of the plane. But Mueller's version is that cockpit recordings indicate that the hijacker-pilot sent the plane into a dive on the orders of another terrorist.
Families of passengers who died in the crash and who have heard the recordings, which have not been released to the public, take strong exception to Mueller's reading of the events.
It is as if some of the families believe the accomplishments of their loved ones in bringing the plane down would be lessened by Mueller's rendition.
That's not true. Families and the FBI can disagree over what they hear on the recordings, which are apparently difficult to follow, given cockpit noise and the fact that the hijackers are speaking Arabic. But there can be no argument over the bravery of those passengers who rallied around the now famous phrase, "Let's roll," and launched an attack on the cockpit.
Acted on what they knew
To be sure, the passengers knew, intellectually, that they had little choice. They had been talking by cell phones to family members and knew what the rest of the nation knew -- that two planes had been purposefully rammed into the World Trade Centers.
But it still took courage to act. And it was their action that kept Flight 93 from being used as a missile against yet another target.
Whether they actually managed to breach the cockpit door before the plane began its final descent, whether that descent was caused by the pilot or during a struggle by passengers to take over the controls does not diminish what they accomplished. Nor does it lessen the sacrifice they made.
In the end, there may never be a single accepted reading of those cockpit tapes, but there truly is no controversy.