Rumor One: Cleveland Mayor Mike White told reporters that United 93 haD landed safely at Hopkins on 9/11.
Evidence For: At 11:43 a.m. the morning of 9/11, the following Associated Press news bulletin appeared on the Web site for Cincinnati ABC affiliate station WCPO, Channel 9: "A Boeing 767 out of Boston made an emergency landing Tuesday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport due to concerns that it may have a bomb aboard, said Mayor Michael R. White. White said the plane had been moved to a secure area of the airport, and was evacuated. United identified the plane as Flight 93."...
Evidence Against: Former Mayor White hardly ever talks to the media now, so Free Times contacted his former press secretary Della Homenik.
"It has always been my understanding that United flight 93 diverted from its intended flight plan while it was in Cleveland air space," Homenik writes in an e-mail. "I never heard a single report, from any source, either on September 11 or in its aftermath, that flight 93 landed in Cleveland."
A review of WEWS Cleveland Channel 5's live coverage of White's comments that day show that he never suggested that the grounded plane parked at the end of a Hopkins runway was United 93.
"Let me walk through the most current situation that we are grappling with," says White at the brief press conference. "At this moment, we have a Boeing 767 in a secure area of Hopkins International Airport. The initial reports were that this plane was hijacked and that there was a bomb on board. There was, before this, an additional plane in our airspace. I am told through unconfirmed reports that we could hear screaming in the control tower. This plane has been diverted from Cleveland and at last report was in the Toledo airspace."
Later, we would learn that this 767 was Delta flight 1989. It had originated from the same Boston airport as United 93, but was cleared by inspectors after landing at Hopkins. It had not been hijacked, and there was no bomb. And United 93, by the way, was a 757...