9/11 REALITY 
Assembling the Facts About the 9/11 Attacks
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At 9:37 a.m., in Arlington County, Captain Steve McCoy and the crew of ACFD
Engine 101 were en route to a training session in Crystal City, traveling north on
Interstate 395. Their conversation about the World Trade Center attack earlier
that morning was interrupted by the sight and sound of a commercial airliner in
steep descent, banking sharply to its right before disappearing beyond the
horizon.
At the same time, ACPD Corporal Barry Foust and Officer Richard Cox,
on patrol in south Arlington County, saw a large American Airlines aircraft in a
steep dive and on a collision course with the Pentagon.
At 9:38 a.m., American Airlines Flight #77 crashed into the west side of the
Pentagon, just beyond the heliport. It was traveling at a speed of about
400 miles per hour, accelerating with close to its full complement of fuel at the
time of impact.
http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/Fire/edu/about/docs/after_report.pdf [PAGE 16] |
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Arlington County (Virginia) Fire Department Engine 101 actually saw the jetliner plow into the northwest side of the Pentagon. The radio crackled, “Engine 101—emergency traffic, a plane has gone down into the Pentagon. I made a quick U-turn and was on scene within a minute to a minute and a half of the initial impact. En route, I remembered my wife was scheduled to be on a flight to Dulles at 10 a.m.
People were just leaving their vehicles on Highway 110 and staring in disbelief. I wanted to put myself in a position where we wouldn’t be threatened by a secondary explosion. I set up triage, treatment and transport sectors in a grassy area on a hill with a good vantage point of the incident. I special ordered 20 paramedic units and a bus for the walking wounded, along with a couple of helicopters.
http://arlingtonfirejournal.blogspot.com/2005/03/attack-on-pentagon-sept-11-2001.html |
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An Alexandria police officer said the jet was going "full power, no flaps," when it struck the Pentagon
Baltimore Sun |
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I
witnessed the jet hit the Pentagon on September 11. From my office on
the 19th floor of the USA TODAY building in Arlington, Va., I have a
view of Arlington Cemetery, Crystal City, the Pentagon, National Airport
and the Potomac River. ... Shortly after watching the second tragedy,
I heard jet engines pass our building, which, being so close to the
airport is very common. But I thought the airport was closed. I figured
it was a plane coming in for landing. A few moments later, as I was
looking down at my desk, the plane caught my eye. It didn't register
at first. I thought to myself that I couldn't believe the pilot was
flying so low. Then it dawned on me what was about to happen. I watched
in horror as the plane flew at treetop level, banked slightly to
the left, drug it's wing along the ground and slammed into the west
wall of the Pentagon exploding into a giant orange fireball. Then
black smoke. Then white smoke.
http://www.jmu.edu/alumni/tragedy%5Fresponse/read%5Fmessages.html |
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Lt.
Col. Ted Anderson : "We ran to the end of our building, turned left
and saw nothing but huge, billowing black smoke, and a brilliant,
brilliant explosion of fire." (...) One of the Pentagon's two fire
trucks was parked only 50 feet from the crash site, and it was "totally
engulfed in flames," Anderson says. Nearby, tanks full of propane
and aviation fuel had begun igniting, and they soon began exploding,
one by one. (...) Back in the building again, Anderson said he began
"screaming and hollering for people as secondary and third-order explosions
started going off. One of them was a fire department car exploding-I
think my right eardrum exploded at the same time, and it unequivocally
scared the heck out of me."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/635293.asp |
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Mrs.
Deb Anlauf, resident of Colfax, Wisconsin, was in her hotel room in the 14th floor of
the Sheraton Hotel [located 1.6 mile from the explosion], (immediately
west of the Navy Annex) when she heard a "loud roar": Suddenly I saw
this plane right outside my window. You felt like you could touch it;
it was that close. It was just incredible. "Then it shot straight across
from where we are and flew right into the Pentagon. It was just this
huge fireball that crashed into the wall (of the Pentagon). When it
hit, the whole hotel shook. (...) Jeff didn't feel the impact of
the plane crash as directly as his wife. He was attending an environmental
meeting on the second floor of the hotel when the plane struck the Pentagon.
About five seconds before the crash, Jeff said he heard the sound of
"tin being dropped," likely as construction workers building an addition
to the hotel saw the plane and dropped their building materials. "Then,
about 5 seconds later, the whole hotel shook," Jeff recalled.
"I could feel it moving. We said 'Oh, my gosh, what's going on?'
"
http://www.leadertelegram.com/specialreports/attack/storydetail.asp?ID=7 |
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Battle,
an office worker at the Pentagon, was standing outside the building
and just about to enter when the aircraft struck. "It was coming down
head first," he said. "And when the impact hit, the cars and everything
were just shaking." |
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Gary
Bauer, a former Presidential candidate, happened to be driving into
Washington, D.C. that morning, to a press conference on Capitol Hill.
[The region's 2nd busiest highway, I-395, runs right past the Pentagon
,
carrying commuter traffic from suburban Virginia into Washington, DC.]
"I was in a massive traffic jam, hadn't moved more than a hundred yards
in twenty minutes. ... I had just passed the closest place the Pentagon
is to the exit on 395 . . . when all of a sudden I heard the roar
of a jet engine. I looked at the woman sitting in the car next to
me. She had this startled look on her face. We were all thinking the
same thing. We looked out the front of our windows to try to see the
plane, and it wasn't until a few seconds later that we realized the
jet was coming up behind us on that major highway. And it veered to
the right into the Pentagon. The blast literally rocked all of
our cars. It was an incredible moment."
massnews.com / Amy Contrada / December 2001 |
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"...came
from behind us and banked to the right and went into the Pentagon."
Interview with Warren Smith |
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Anger
and guilt still sear Lieutenant Colonel Michael Beans who shakes his
head ruefully and asks himself why he survived: "Why you, not them?
Who made that decision?" (...) Inside the Pentagon, the blast lifted
Beans off the floor as he crossed a huge open office toward his
desk. "You heard this huge concussion, then the room filled with
this real bright light, just like everything was encompassed within
this bright light," said Beans. "As soon as I hit the floor, all
the lights went out, there was a small fire starting to burn."
His friends were not so lucky. Not far away on the same floor, Beans'
once familiar world had turned into a terrifying maze as well. Opening
a door to the outer E-ring corridor, Beans saw waves of fire rolling
towards him like surf on a beach. Turning back, he groped slowly back
across the room on hands and knees. The sprinkler came on and that kept
the smoke and heat down. But it was nervewracking and Beans was alone,
listening as the building burned. "It was so quiet," he recalled. "There
was no screaming, nobody saying anything, just nothing." He thought
he might not make it out alive. He thought about his wife, his daughter
and son, his 22 years in the army. "I remember taking a couple of breaths
there, and I made up my mind: I just can't go out this way," he said.
Suddenly out of the smoke a man ran by. "I tried to grab him, and I
tried to yell at him," Beans said. But "he just disappeared into the
smoke." Alone again, Beans crawled with his face to the floor. Then
the carpet turned to wet tile, and he looked up and saw he was in a
corridor. He ran and as the smoke cleared, he saw a guard. Beans discovered
later that his head and forearms were burned. He now wears special flesh-colored
compression sleeves on his arms. "These burns are going to heal, eventually,"
he said. But the memories "will be with me for the rest of my life."
http://www.theosuobserver.com/main.cfm/include/smdetail/synid/54846.html |
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Paul
Begala, a Democratic consultant, said he witnessed an explosion near
the Pentagon. "It was a huge fireball, a huge, orange fireball," he
said in an interview on his mobile phone. He said another witness told
him a helicopter exploded. AP, Washington, 9/12/2001 11:45:33 PM
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0%2C1300%2C550486%2C00.html |
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Mickey
Bell [near construction trailer in construction zone outside Pentagon]: The jet came in from the south and banked left as it entered
the building, narrowly missing the Singleton Electric trailer and the
on-site foreman, Mickey Bell. Bell had just left the trailer when he
heard a loud noise. The next thing he recalled was picking himself off
the floor, where he had been thrown by the blast. Bell, who had been
less than 100 feet from the initial impact of the plane, was
nearly struck by one of the plane's wings as it sped by him. In shock,
he got into his truck, which had been parked in the trailer compound,
and sped away. He wandered around Arlington in his truck and tried to
make wireless phone calls. He ended up back at Singleton's headquarters
in Gaithersburg two hours later, according to President Singleton, not
remembering much. The full impact of the closeness of the crash wasn't
realized until coworkers noticed damage to Bell's work vehicle. He had
plastic and rivets from an airplane imbedded in its sheet metal,
but Bell had no idea what had happened. During Bell's close call,
other Singleton workers, including sub-foreman Greg Cobaugh, were doing
other work on the first and third floors. The blast wasn't very loud
to them. They were talking about reports that two planes crashed into
the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York - not considering the
noise they heard could be a similar attack.
http://www.necanet.org/whats_new/report.cfm?ID=1003 |
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Richard
Benedetto, a USA TODAY reporter, was on his way to work, driving on
the Highway parrallel to the Pentagon : "I heard an airplane. A very loud airplane. ... I heard the airplane
coming from behind me. ... So I looked up, and I saw this airplane coming,
heading straight down toward the ground. It was an American
Airlines airplane, I could see it very clearly. The plane went down and for a split second
it was out of my line of vision because there was a bridge there and a
hill. I didn't see
the impact. (...) The sound itself sounded more like a thud rather
than a bomb (...) rather than a loud bomb explosion it sounded
muffled, heavy, very deep. I didn't see any flaps, it looked like
the plane was just in normal flying mode but heading straight down.
It was straight. The only thing we saw on the ground outside there
was a piece of a ... the tail of a lamp post. (Video) |
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Members
of Congress have been shuttled to the site to inspect the damage. Rep.
Judy Biggert (R-Ill.) made the trip on Thursday. She saw remnants
of the airplane. 'There was a seat from a plane, there was part
of the tail and then there was a part of green metal, I could not tell
what it was, a part of the outside of the plane,' she said.
'It smelled like it was still burning.'
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LTC
Brian Birdwell. He was just heading back down the hall to his office
when the building exploded in front of him. The flash fire was immediate
and the smoke was thick. The blast had thrown him down, giving
him a concussion. He wanted to head down the hall toward the A ring...but
because he couldn't see anything he had no idea which way to go and
he didn't want to head in the wrong direction. (...) Once they stabilized
Brian, they transferred him to George Washington Hospital where...the
best, cutting edge burn doctor in the U.S. The doctor told him that
had he not gone to Georgetown first, he probably would not have survived
because of the jet fuel in his lungs.
http://www.aog.usma.edu/Class/1961/BirdwellLuncheon.htm |
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Down
the hall from Yates, Lt. Col. Brian Birdwell, 40, had been at his desk
in Room 2E486 since 6:30 a.m. (...) Birdwell walked out to the men's
room in corridor 4, a move that saved his life. He had just taken three
or four steps out of the bathroom when the building was rocked. "Bomb!"
the Gulf War vet immediately thought as he was knocked down. When he
stood up, he realized he was on fire. "Jesus, I'm coming to see you"
http://www.hjpa.org/morenews.html |
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Sean
Boger, Air Traffic Controller and Pentagon Tower Chief at the Pentagon Heliport - "I just looked
up and I saw the big nose and the wings of the aircraft coming right
at us and I just watched it hit the building." "It exploded. I fell
to the ground and covered my head. I could actually hear the metal
going through the building." The crew, Boger and Spc. Jacqueline
Kidd, air traffic controller and training supervisor, prepared for President
George W. Bush to arrive from Florida around 12:30 p.m.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_46/local_news/12049-1.html |
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Donald
R. Bouchoux, 53, a retired Naval officer, a Great Falls resident, a
Vietnam veteran and former commanding officer of a Navy fighter squadron,
was driving west from Tysons Corner to the Pentagon for a 10am meeting.
He wrote: "At 9:40 a.m. I was driving down Washington Boulevard (Route
27) along the side of the Pentagon when the aircraft crossed about 200
yards in front
of me and impacted the side of the building. There was an enormous
fireball, followed about two seconds later by debris raining down. The
car moved about a foot to the right when the shock wave hit. I had what
must have been an emergency oxygen bottle from the airplane go flying
down across the front of my Explorer and then a second piece of jagged
metal come down on the right side of the car. Washington Post, Sept.
20, 2001
http://web.lexis-nexis.com... |
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John
Bowman, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a contractor, was in
his office in Corridor Two near the main entrance to the south parking
lot. "Everything was calm,' Bowman said. "Most people knew it was
a bomb. Everyone evacuated smartly. We have a good sprinkling of
military people who have been shot at."
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_37/local_news/10380-1.html |
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I was on a bridge in a car on the way to work in DC
I work in Washington DC area, and was on my way to work, in my car, sitting
on a bridge, and saw the plane hit the Pentagon. I am in a complete state
of shock.
BBC News |
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Staff
Sgt. Chris Braman : The lawn was littered with twisted pieces of
aluminum. He saw one chunk painted with the letter ``A,'' another
with a ``C.'' It didn't occur to Braman what the letters signified until
a man in the crowd stooped to pick up one of the smaller metal shards.
He examined it for a moment, then announced: ``This was a jet.''
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Defense
Protective Service officers were the first on the scene of the terrorist
attack. One, Mark Bright, actually saw the plane hit the building. He
had been manning the guard booth at the Mall Entrance to the building.
"I saw the plane at the Navy Annex area," he said. "I knew it was going
to strike the building because it was very, very low -- at the height
of the street lights. It knocked a couple down." The plane would have
been seconds from impact -- the annex is only a few hundred yards from
the Pentagon. He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it
struck the Pentagon. "As soon as it struck the building I just called
in an attack, because I knew it couldn't be accidental," Bright said.
He jumped into his police cruiser and headed to the area.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/marines/hendersonhall/6_39/local_news/10797-1.html |
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Pentagon
staff raced along a wooden pathway opposite the Pentagon building, all
heading towards bridges that would take them across the Potomac River.
Grown men ran at full pace. Rich Brown was sitting at his desk and "there
was just a huge sound that shook the building for a second or two".
"I don't know what's happened. I assume it's a co-ordinated terrorist
attack."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/23/1030052968648.html |
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It
was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane, Mr Campo said.
"I was cutting the grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt
the impact. The whole ground shook and the whole area was full
of fire. I could never imagine I would see anything like that here."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0%2C1300%2C550486%2C00.html |
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As
former Cincinnatian James R. Cissell sat in traffic on a major highway I-395
by the Pentagon Tuesday morning, he saw the blur of a commercial jet
and wondered why it was flying so low. ''Right about the time it was
crossing over the highway, it kind of dawned on me what was happening,''
said Cissell, son of Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Jim Cissell. In
the next blink of an eye, he realized he had a front-row seat to history,
as he watched the plane plow into the Pentagon, sending a fireball exploding
into the air and scattering debris - including a tire rim suspected
of belonging to the airplane - past his car. "Out of my peripheral vision, I saw this plane coming in and it was low - and getting lower. If you couldn't touch it from standing on the highway, you could by standing on your car. I thought, 'This isn't really happening. That is a big plane.'" Cissell remembers the helipad the plane flew over before smacking into the Pentagon was close enough to him that "I could have thrown a baseball at it and hit it." "It came in in a perfectly straight line," Cissell said. "It didn't slow down. I want to say it accelerated. It just shot straight in."
http://www.cincypost.com/attack/cissel091201.html |
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"I was standing on the platform high above the [Washington Reagan National]
airport awaiting a Metro subway train to my office in the heart of the district,
on Constitution Avenue, admiring the lovely blue skies when I saw the plane
hit and the fireball and explosion at the Pentagon."
Jacksonville.com |
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Allen
Cleveland of Woodbridge Virginia looked out from a Metro train going
to National Airport, to see a jet heading down toward the Pentagon.
"I thought, 'There's no landing strip on that side of the subway tracks,'
" Before he could process that thought, he saw "a huge mushroom cloud.
A lady staThe lady next to me was in absolute hysterics."" . . a silver
pasenger jet, mid sized"
http://mfile.akamai.com/920/rm/thepost.download.akamai.com/920/nation/091101-5s.ram |
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From a Metro commuter train on an elevated track high above National Airport Station near the Pentagon: "I was just pulling in on the subway station just at National
Airport. I just happened to look over - actually my back was facing in
the direction of the Pentagon - I looked to the right of the train as
we were coming into the station, and noticed a jet flying in real low,
about a mid-sized passenger jet flying in. I know it was silver, that's
the only thing I know." [Note Metro trains in DC run above ground in the suburbs and underground in the center of the city.]
Washington Post |
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"There was a commercial airliner that said American Airliners over the side of it flying at just above treetop height at full speed headed
for the Pentagon."
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He
and two colleagues from Oracle software were stopped in a car near the
Naval Annex, next to the Pentagon, when they saw the plane dive down
and level off. "It was no more than 30 feet off the ground, and
it was screaming. It was just screaming. It was nothing more than a
guided missile at that point," Creed said. "I can still see the plane.
I can still see it right now. It's just the most frightening thing in
the world, going full speed, going full throttle, its wheels
up," Creed recalls.
http://www.ahwatukee.com/afn/community/articles/020906a.html |
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Damoose
said the worst part was leaving the Pentagon and walking along Fort
Meyer Drive, a bike trail, "you could see pieces of the plane."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/sep01/attack.html |
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Near
the Lincoln Memorial, Dave heard two booms, which sounded like
the artillery salutes on the Mall on the Fourth of July, he said. It
was likely the noise from a secondary blast at the Pentagon -
http://www.gridlockmag.com/911/ |
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For one
employee with Wedge One's mechanical subcontractor John J. Kirlin
Inc., Rockville MD, "lucky" is an understatement. "We had one guy
who was standing, looking out the window and saw the plane when it
was coming in. He was in front of one of the blast-resistant windows,"
says Kirlin President Wayne T. Day, who believes the window structure
saved the man's life. According to Matt Hahr, Kirlin's senior project
manager at the Pentagon, the employee "was thrown about 80 ft down
the hall through the air. As he was traveling through the air,
he says the ceiling was coming down from the concussion. He got thrown
into a closet, the door slammed shut and the fireball went past him,"
recounts Hahr. "Jet fuel was on him and it irritated his eyes,
but he didn't get burned. Then the fireball blew over and the
sprinklers came on, and he was able to crawl out of the closet and
get out of the building through the courtyard." |
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"The
only way you could tell that an aircraft was inside was that we saw
pieces of the nose gear. The devastation was horrific. It was obvious
that some of the victims we found had no time to react. The distance
the firefighters had to travel down corridors to reach the fires was
a problem. With only a good 25 minutes of air in their SCBA bottles,
to save air they left off their face pieces as they walked and took
in a lot of smoke," Captain Defina said. Captain Defina was the shift
commander [of an aircraft rescue firefighters crew.]
http://www.nfpa.org/NFPAJournal/OnlineExclusive/Exclusive_11_01_01/exclusive_11.01.01.asp |
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Looking out of the window of an office in the Navy Annex "We saw the shadow of a plane. We heard the engine. We all said, 'That plane is flying kind of close.' "
USA TODAY |
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Michael
DiPaula 41, project coordinator Pentagon Renovation Team - He left a
meeting in the Pentagon just minutes before the crash, looking for an
electrician who didn't show, in a construction trailer less than 75
feet away. "Suddenly, an airplane roared into view, nearly shearing
the roof off the trailer before slamming into the E ring. 'It sounded
like a missile,' DiPaula recalls . . . Buried in debris and covered
with airplane fuel, he was briefly listed by authorities as missing,
but eventually crawled from the flaming debris and the shroud of black
smoke unscathed.
http://www.sunspot.net/search/bal-archive-1990.htmlstory |
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Marine Corps officer Mike Dobbs was standing on one of the upper levels
of the outer ring of the Pentagon looking out the window when he saw
an American Airlines 737 twin-engine airliner strike the building.
"It seemed to be almost coming in slow motion," he said later Tuesday.
"I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started
running. They evacuated everybody around us."
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news01/091201_news_dcscene.shtml
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Standing on one of the upper levels of the outer ring of the Pentagon
looking out the window
"It was an American airlines airliner. I was looking out the window
and saw it come right over the Navy annex at a slow angle. It looked to
me to be on a zero-to-zero course. It seemed to be almost coming in in slow
motion. I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started
running."
Scripps Howard News Service |
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"...
we saw a plane coming toward us, for about 10 seconds ... It was like
watching a train wreck. I was mesmerized. ... At first I thought it
was trying to crash land, but it was coming in so deliberately, so level...
Everyone said there was a deafening explosion, but with the adrenaline,
we didn't hear it."St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 13, 2001 - Philip
Dine
http://web.lexisnexis.com ... http://www2.hawaii.edu/~julianr/lexisnexis/dobbs.txt |
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"I could see the windows. I saw the entire plane and then saw it
fly right into the Pentagon."
CNN News (Lexis-Nexis - Transcript #090803CN.V46, September 8, 2001) |
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"It just was amazingly precise," Daryl Donley, another commuter,
said of the plane's impact. "It completely disappeared into the Pentagon."
The News Journal |
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"
Every morning for years Bob Dubill drove past the Pentagon on his way to work at USA Today [then in Rosslyn, Virginia]. He was passing the building the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he saw a jetliner fly over the roadway. It filled his field of vision. The jet was 40-feet off the ground speeding toward the Pentagon. “The wheels were up and I knew that this plane was not heading for National Airport,” he said. “This plane was going to slam into the Pentagon. I steeled myself for the explosion.”
The Times Herald (Olean, NY) |
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"As we slowly crept along in traffic at about 9:30 am, we rounded a
bend and had the Pentagon in our sights -- right in front of us. ... Riding
in a convertable with the top down, I then heard a tremendously loud noise
from behind me and to my left. I looked back and saw a jet airliner flying
very low and very fast. It's amazing what can run through your mind in
just a matter of seconds. As a pilot, I can't help but look at an airplane
and think about airplane topics. What I saw sent a shiver down my spine
as I realized something was not right. The aircraft was so very low --
as an aircraft would be on its final approach to an airport. However,
if you have watched any aircraft come in for a landing, even though the
aircraft is descending, it is angled up slightly. This aircraft was angled
downward. In addition, landing gear would also be visible on a aircraft
so low and so near landing. This aircraft had its landing gear retracted.
Finally, an aircraft on final approach is traveling rather slowly. This
aircraft sped by very loudly an very quickly. All of this flashed in my
mind as the aircraft passed from behind my left shoulder to in front of
me. It was then that the other events of the morning crystallized in the
realization that tragedy was about to occur. With all of these images
spinning in my head, the only words that came out of my mouth were "Oh
no!" With that, the airliner crashed into the Pentagon and exploded.
http://www.gopusa.com/bobby/bobby_091201.shtml |
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Steve
Eiden, a truck driver, had picked up his cargo that Tuesday morning
in Williamsburg, Va., and was en route to New York City and witnessed
the aftermath. He took the Highway 95 loop (I-395) in the area of the Pentagon
and thought it odd to see a plane in restricted airspace, thinking to
himself it was odd that it was flying so low. "You could almost see
the people in the windows," he said as he watched the plane disappear
behind a line of trees, followed by a tall plume of black smoke.
Then he saw the Pentagon on fire, and an announcement came over the
radio that the Pentagon had been hit.
http://www.baxterbulletin.com/ads/chronology2001/page2.html |
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Traffic
was at a standstill. I heard a rumble, looked out my driver's side window
and realized that I was looking at the nose of an airplane coming straight
at us from over the road (Columbia Pike) that runs perpendicular to
the road I was on. The plane just appeared there- very low in the air,
to the side of (and not much above) the CITGO gas station that I never
knew was there. My first thought was "Oh My God, this must be World
War III!" In that split second, my brain flooded with adrenaline
and I watched everything play out in ultra slow motion, I saw
the plane coming in slow motion toward my car and then it banked in
the slightest turn in front of me, toward the heliport. In the nano-second
that the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car, the plane
seemed to be not more than 80 feet off the ground and about 4-5 car
lengths in front of me. It was far enough in front of me that I saw
the end of the wing closest to me and the underside of the other wing
as that other wing rocked slightly toward the ground. I remember recognizing
it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the
color stripes. And I remember thinking that it was just like planes
in which I had flown many times but at that point it never occurred
to me that this might be a plane with passengers. In my adrenaline-filled
state of mind, I was overcome by my visual senses. The day had started
out beautiful and sunny and I had driven to work with my car's sunroof
open. I believe that I may have also had one or more car windows open
because the traffic wasn't moving anyway. At the second that I saw the
plane, my visual senses took over completely and I did not hear or
feel anything -- not the roar of the plane, or wind force, or impact
sounds. The plane seemed to be floating as if it were a paper glider
and I watched in horror as it gently rocked and slowly glided straight
into the Pentagon. At the point where the fuselage hit the wall, it
seemed to simply melt into the building. I saw a smoke ring surround
the fuselage as it made contact with the wall. It appeared as a smoke
ring that encircled the fuselage at the point of contact and it seemed
to be several feet thick. I later realized that it was probably the
rubble of churning bits of the plane and concrete. The churning smoke
ring started at the top of the fuselage and simultaneously wrapped down
both the right and left sides of the fuselage to the underside, where
the coiling rings crossed over each other and then coiled back up to
the top. Then it started over again -- only this next time, I also saw
fire, glowing fire in the smoke ring. At that point, the wings disappeared
into the Pentagon. And then I saw an explosion and watched the tail
of the plane slip into the building. It was here that I closed my
eyes for a moment and when I looked back, the entire area was awash
in thick black smoke.
National Museum of American History website |
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Bruce Elliott, former commander of the Iowa
Army Ammunition Plant had just left the Pentagon and was about to board a shuttle
van in a south parking lot when he saw the plane approach and slam into
the west side of the structure. "I looked to my left and saw the plane
coming in," said Elliott, who watched it for several seconds. "It was
banking and garnering speed. I felt it was headed for the Pentagon."
(...) "It was like a kamikaze pilot. I felt it was going to ram the
Pentagon," he said. He said the craft clipped a utility pole guide wire,
which may have slowed it down a bit before it crashed into the building
and burst into flames. (...) Elliott said the rubble was still smoldering
Wednesday morning.
http://www.thehawkeye.com/features/911/IdxThur.html |
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The plane
approached the Pentagon about six feet off the ground, clipping
a light pole, a car antenna, a construction trailer and an emergency
generator before slicing into the building, said Lee Evey, the
manager of the Pentagon's ongoing billion-dollar renovation. The plane
penetrated three of the Pentagon's five rings, but was probably stopped
from going farther by hundreds of concrete columns. The plane peeled
back as it entered, leaving pieces of the front of the plane near
the outside of the building and pieces from the rear of the aircraft
farther inside, Evey said. The floors just above the impact remained
intact for about 35 minutes after the crash, allowing many people
in those offices to escape, Evey said |
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Internally,
the Wedge One [Southwest face of the Pentagon] project included: complete demolition of existing facilities;
significant abatement of hazardous materials (most notably, 28 million
lbs. of asbestos-contaminated material was removed); installation
of all new electrical, mechanical, plumbing and telecommunication
systems within the existing floorplan; structural steel reinforcement;
and replacement of all 1,282 windows in the section, including 386
blast-resistant units on the outermost "E Ring" and innermost "A Ring"
of the building. All-new office space was created with an open space
plan aimed at enhancing flexibility (...) Amazingly, the plane pushed
through the outermost "E Ring", and drove deep into the interior,
its nose coming to rest just inside the "C Ring."
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We've
learned -- this is wedge one [Southwest face of the Pentagon], okay, the newly-renovated area. The
path of the airplane seems to have taken it along this route, so it
entered the building slightly, on this photo, slightly to the left
of what we call corridor four. There are 10 radial corridors in the
building that extend from A ring out through E ring, and this is the
fourth of those radial corridors. So it impacted the building in an
area that had been renovated, but its path was at a -- it appears
to be at a diagonal, so that it entered in wedge one but passed through
into areas of wedge two, an unrenovated portion of the building. And,
of course, you all know it's got rings A through E, five stories tall,
et cetera. QUESTION: That seems to indicate that it came to rest in
ring C, the nose cone. EVEY: Let me talk to that, because you've asked
a number of questions already about the extent of penetration, et
cetera. This is an overhead of the building. The point of penetration
was right here, and we blocked that out to show that's the area of
collapse. The plane actually penetrated through the E ring, C ring
-- excuse me -- E ring, D ring, C ring. This area right here is what
we call A-E Drive. And unlike other rings in the building, it's actually
a driveway that circles the building inside, between the B and the
C ring. The nose of the plane just barely broke through the inside
of the C ring, so it was extending into A-E Drive a little bit. So
that's the extent of penetration of the aircraft. The rings are E,
D, C, B and A. Between B and C is a driveway that goes around the
Pentagon. It's called A-E Drive. The airplane traveled in a path about
like this, and the nose of the aircraft broke through this innermost
wall of C ring into A-E Drive. QUESTION: One thing that's confusing
-- if it came in the way you described, at an angle, why then are
not the wings outside? I mean, the wings would have shorn off. The
tail would have shorn off. And yet there's apparently no evidence
of the aircraft outside the E ring. EVEY: Actually, there's considerable
evidence of the aircraft outside the E ring. It's just not very visible.
When you get up close -- actually, one of my people happened to be
walking on this sidewalk and was right about here as the aircraft
approached. It came in. It clipped a couple of light poles on the
way in. He happened to hear this terrible noise behind him, looked
back, and he actually -- he's a Vietnam veteran -- jumped prone onto
the ground so the aircraft would not actually -- he thinks it (would
have) hit him; it was that low. On its way in, the wing clipped. Our
guess is an engine clipped a generator. We had an emergency temporary
generator to provide life-safety emergency electrical power, should
the power go off in the building. The wing actually clipped that generator,
and portions of it broke off. There are other parts of the plane
that are scattered about outside the building. None of those parts
are very large, however. You don't see big pieces of the airplane
sitting there extending up into the air. But there are many small
pieces. And the few larger pieces there look like they are veins
out of the aircraft engine. They're circular. QUESTION: Would you
say that the plane, since it had a lot of fuel on it at the impact,
and the fact that there are very small pieces, virtually exploded
in flames when it tore into the building? I mean, since there are
not large pieces of the wings laying outside, did it virtually explode?
EVEY: I didn't see it. My people who did see it enter the building
describe it as entering the building and then there being flames
coming out immediately afterwards. Whether you describe it as
an explosion or not, people I talk to who were there, some called
it an explosion. Others called it a large fire. I'm not sure. I wasn't
there, sir. It's just a guess on my part. |
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Walker
Lee Evey, program manager of the Pentagon restoration project :
The fire was so hot, Evey said, that it turned window glass to liquid
and sent it spilling down walls into puddles on the ground.
The impact cracked massive concrete columns far beyond the impact site,
destabilizing a broader section of the building than contractors had
originally thought.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/03/07/attack/main503257.shtml On Sept.
11, Flight 77 sliced through the outermost three of the Pentagon's
five concentric rings. Fires from the plane's 20,000 gallons of fuel
melted windows into pools of liquid glass. The impact of the
crash fractured concrete pillars well beyond the incisions in the
three outer rings. |
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[TOOK A PHOTOGRAPH USED BY 9/11 TRUTHERS TO QUESTION LACK OF AIRCRAFT DEBRIS OUTSIDE PENTAGON.] I
hate to disappoint anyone, but here is the story behind the photograph.
At the time, I was a senior writer with Navy Times newspaper. It is
an independent weekly that is owned by the Gannett Corporation (same
owners as USA Today). I was at the Navy Annex, up the hill from the
Pentagon when I heard the explosion. I always keep a digital camera
in my backpack briefcase just as a matter of habit. When the explosion
happened I ran down the hill to the site and arrived there approximately
10 minutes after the explosion. I saw the piece, that was near the heliport
pad and had to work around to get a shot if it with the building in
the background. Because the situation was still fluid, I was able to
get in close and make that image within fifteen minutes of the explosion
because security had yet to shut off the area. I photographed it twice,
with the newly arrived fire trucks pouring water into the building in
the background. The collapse of the building above area happened long
after I left the scene. I was not even aware that that had happened
until that evening when I watched the news. My photos were on the wire
by noon. That was the only piece of wreckage of any SIZE that I saw,
but was by no means the ONLY piece. Right after photographing that piece
of wreckage, I also photographed a triage area where medical personnel
were tending to a seriously burned man. A priest knelt in the middle
of the area and started to pray. I took that image and left immediately.
As I stepped onto the highway next to the triage area, I knelt down
to tie my shoe and all over the highway were small pieces of aircraft
skin, none bigger than a half-dollar. Anyone familiar with aircraft
has seen the greenish primer paint that covers many interior metal surfaces
- that is what these shards were covered with. I was out of the immediate
area photographing other things within 20 minutes of the crash.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frameup/message/1254 |
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Kim
Flyler was turning into a parking space near to the building
when she saw the plane: "At that moment I heard a plane and then a loud
cracking noise.... Right before the plane hit the building, you could
see the silhouettes of people in the back two rows. You couldn't
see if they were male or female, but you could tell there was a human
being in there."
The Guardian The Observer, Sept. 8, 2002 |
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"Traffic
was at a standstill, so I parked on the shoulder, not far from the scene
and ran to the site. Next to me was a cab from D.C., its windshield
smashed out by pieces of lampposts. There were pieces of the
plane all over the highway, pieces of wing, I think. (...) "There
were a lot of people with severe burns, severe contusions, severe lacerations,
in shock and emotional distress"
http://www.msnbc.com/news/635293.asp |
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Kat Gaines, was on her way to a part-time job at Reagan National Airport, heading south on Route 110, in front of the Pentagon parking lots. As she approached the parking lots, she saw a low-flying jetliner strike the top of nearby telephone poles. She then heard the plane power up and plunge into the Pentagon. "
Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce website |
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Gaskins was driving to his job at USA TODAY: "(The plane) was flying fast and low and the Pentagon was the obvious
target," said Fred Gaskins, who was driving to his job as a national
editor at USA TODAY near the Pentagon when the plane passed about 150 feet
overhead. "It was flying very smoothly and calmly, without any hint that anything was wrong."
USA TODAY |
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While driving: "I got on Interstate 395 and saw the plane come in. I didn't see the actual impact, but 395 curves around the Pentagon, and I saw that plane coming in and said to myself, 'That plane is too low; it's going to crash.'"
Los Angeles Times (Lexis-Nexis - Ronald Brownstein, 9/11/02) |
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Afework
Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work but stuck in a
traffic jam near the Pentagon when the plane flew over. "There was a
huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over.
Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting
its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some
lampposts on the way in."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0%2C1300%2C550486%2C00.html |
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Asework
Hagos, 26, of Arlington, was driving on Columbia Pike on his way to
work as a consultant for Nextel. He saw a plane flying very low and
close to nearby buildings. "I thought something was coming down on me.
I know this plane is going to crash. I've never seen a plane like this
so low." He said he looked at it and saw American Airline insignia and
when it made impact with the Pentagon initially he saw smoke, then flames.
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Cheryl Hammond was the person who called Harrington and his crew out into
the Pentagon's parking lot. "I thought they'd put out an alert or something,"
Hammond said. "We saw the big American Airlines plane and started running."
The Pentagram [Pentagon Newsletter] 9/14/01 |
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Harrington
was working on the installation of new furniture in Wedge One [Wedge = a side of the Pentagon], when
he was called out to the parking lot to talk about security with his
customer moments before the crash. "About two minutes later one of my
guys pointed to an American Airlines airplane 20 feet high over Washington
Blvd.," Harrington said. "It seemed like it made impact just before
the wedge. It was like a Hollywood movie or something.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_37/local_news/10380-1.html |
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From
a window of the Navy Annex on Columbia Pike, elevated above and with a clear view of the Pentagon: After a few moments, Lt Gen Ron Kadish,
Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization entered the Secure
Conference Room to pursue the day's activities and do real work. This
office, with two nice windows and a great view of the monuments, the
Capitol and the Pentagon was "good digs" by any Pentagon standard. I
walked in the office and stood peering out of the window looking at
the Pentagon. As I stood there, I instinctively ducked at the extremely
loud roar and whine of a jet engine spooling up. Immediately, the large
silver cylinder of an aircraft appeared in my window, coming over my
right shoulder as I faced the West side of the Pentagon directly towards
the heliport. The aircraft, looking to be either a 757 or Airbus, seemed
to come directly over the annex, as if it had been following Columbia
Pike - an Arlington road leading to Pentagon. The aircraft was moving
fast, at what I could only be estimate as between 250 to 300 knots.
All in all, I probably only had the aircraft in my field of view for
approximately 3 seconds. The aircraft was at a sharp downward angle
of attack, on a direct course for the Pentagon. It was "clean",
in as much as, there were no flaps applied and no apparent landing
gear deployed. He was slightly left wing down as he appeared in
my line of sight, as if he'd just "jinked" to avoid something. As he
crossed Route 110 he appeared to level his wings, making a slight
right wing slow adjustment as he impacted low on the West side of the
building to the right of the helo, tower and fire vehicle around corridor
5. What instantly followed was a large yellow fireball accompanied
by an extremely bass sounding, deep thunderous boom. The yellow fireball
rose quickly as black smoke engulfed the entire West side of the
Pentagon, obscuring the whole of the heliport. I could feel the concussion
and felt the shockwave of the blast impact the window of the Annex,
knocking me against the desk.
http://lists.travellercentral.com/pipermail/tml/2001-September/013153.html http://www.ournetfamily.com/WarOnTerror/emails/pentagonwitness.shtml |
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