BBC Documentaries

9/11: Conspiracy Road Trip (2011x157)

Uitzenddatum: Sep 08, 2011

This September marks the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, one of the biggest terrorist atrocities of the 21st Century. Nineteen hijackers, all members of Al Qaeda, crashed four planes on American soil, leading to the deaths of 2,973 innocent people. This horrific event has generated a multitude of conspiracy theories that contradict the official findings of the US government's investigation into the events of that day. Andrew Maxwell, a comedian, believes in the findings of the official investigation, which claim the responsibility for the attack lies with Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He thinks the conspiracies theories are unsubstantiated nonsense. So in this film he offers to take five young Brits, who believe some of these conspiracy theories, on a road-trip from New York to Washington. They visit Ground Zero where two planes hit the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, home of vast American defence HQ and Shanksville in Pennsylvania where United 93 crashed. Each of them believes different elements of the conspiracy theories. Charlotte, a North London nanny who witnessed the attacks, thinks the American government is responsible. She can't believe the hijackers, barely out of flying school, could have steered jetliners into the Twin Towers with such deadly accuracy. Rodney a health worker who studied biochemistry suspects the collapse of the towers was not caused by the planes that went in to them and he wants to get to the bottom of the science. Student Emily, an active member of the 9/11 Truth Movement, thinks the US government was forewarned of the attacks and yet ignored the intelligence allowing it to happen. Shazin, a qualified surveyor, wants to find out how the passengers on United 93 could have made phone calls to loved ones from a plane. And Charlie, an ex-banker thinks 9/11 was an excuse for the US Government to go to war with Iraq. Andrew Maxwell thinks all five of them are wrong and wants to change their minds by confronting them with the fa