Did UA 93 request the change of flight path to Washington?

[John Doe II]

Though the story seems to have dropped suspiciously out of the focus of the media there were accounts right after 911 that UA 93 indeed requested a change of flight path:

John Nance (ABC): By the same token, we have this as the only one of the four airplanes that made a sudden turn and requested a change in direction. The other three, according to Lisa, we don't have any information they made any request of air traffic control. The fourth one did, and that would indicate possibly, and it could have been one of the hijackers, but it indicates possibly that one of the pilots was allowed to stay functional long enough to agree to take the plane back to Washington. He would not have had any idea what they were going to do, or wherever it was headed, and that at some point in time that still remaining pilot or pilots got into a fight, and that could have led, very much as in Egypt Air, to a tussle in the cockpit, which lost control.
(ABC, 9/12/01)


But once it was over Cleveland, the plane suddenly veered south, according to Flight Tracker. It climbed above 40,000 feet, turned sharply toward the southeast and flew over Pittsburgh. It zig-zagged slightly north and east and then south again.
At 9:56 a.m., the destination code for the plane in FAA computers was changed from "SFO," the code for San Francisco, to "DCA," the code for Reagan National Airport in Washington. That indicates an air traffic controller probably changed the destination. Typically, that is done only when it is requested by the pilots.
For reasons still unknown, the plane crashed near Somerset, Pa., seven minutes later.
(St Petersburg Times, 9/12/01)

Questions:
How on earth can it be possible that at a moment when all plane were requested to land at the nearest airport a flight path change to DC could have been accepted?

[Zaphod 36]

1. Flight path change request or Home Run

Hi John Doe,

I think this request could have been a red herring of the real hijackers on board of UA 93. They want irritate NORAD and fly to the opposite direction after departing from Johnstown airport.
The plan of the hijackers probably implicates to land in Guadalajara and connect the flight with the hostages to Afghanistan(->Moussaouis statement) to press demands.
But shortly after the flight path change request the Home Run system works and the hijackers were hijacked.

But now I assume the flight path change was the Home Run system itself.
How does this system work accurately?
Is it possible that here Home Run was employed to hijack the hijackers and a flight path change request never existed?

[ladjf]

2. Where are the radar tapes? They would answer many of the

important questions.

[Woody Box]

3. Not to forget

that according to all known reports and statements UA 93 was not in contact with air controllers after 9:28.

[spooked911]

4. Wow, very strange. Good question.

I wonder if this has something to do with the hijackers saying "let the guys in now" at 9:45am. If this was a mock hijacking, perhaps the pilots were still alive and were brought back in to the cockpit to change the destination.

[John Doe II]

5. Yes

but the central question is:
How could it have been accepted?
I'm also wondering if it has anything to do with the transponder coming back at around 10:00 according to Stacey Taylor?

[spooked911]

6. How could the flight change have been accepted for DC?

Maybe just confusion on the part of the ATCs? At that point the plane wasn't too far from DC was it?

Do you have a different idea?

But I think we're getting somewhere important here.

This suggests to me the hijacking WAS all a fake and the pilots came back to the cockpit and were trying to cancel the hijacking exercise. And maybe this is why the plane had to be shot down????

[John Doe II]

7. According to this the FAA accepted

At 9:56 a.m., Flight 93 asked the Federal Aviation Administration to change its destination to Reagan National Airport in Washington. A minute later, the FAA approved, according to Flight Explorer, a firm that tracks such communications.
(US News&World Report, 10/29/01)

[spooked911]

8. And then the plane crashed 10 minutes later

is there a connection?