THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WATCHED FLIGHT 77 HIT THE PENTAGON, LIVE WITH THEIR OWN EYES

Henson, Jerry

Inside the hell that was once his office after the impact, amidst serious injury and chaos, Jerry Henson also mentioned jet fuel inside the Pentagon. Now fires were burning closer as deposits of jet fuel ignited. "You could hear them lighting off," Henson said. "They would go 'poof,' kind of like when you light a furnace. You could hear these getting closer."
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/america_at_war/article/0,1426,MCA_945_1300676,00.html

Hernandez, Eugenio

"I was in my Jeep Cherokee, driving on Route 395 toward DC and listening to NPR. I saw the plane coming down."
The Washingtonian, September 2002 (Lexis-Nexis)

Hey,Fred

Congressional staff attorney Fred Hey was driving through Arlington, Virginia on Route 50 [which parallels Columbia Pike, the road that Flight 77 tracked straight into the Pentagon].
"I can't believe it! This plane is going down into the Pentagon!" he shouted into his cellphone. On the other end of the line was his boss, Rep. Bob Ney (R) of Ohio. Representative Ney immediately phoned the news to House Sergeant-At-Arms Bill Livingood, who ordered an immediate evacuation of the Capitol itself.
The Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2001

Hovis, Tom

As most know, the Pentagon lies at the bottom of two hills from the west with the east side being next to the river at 14th street bridge. One hill is at the Navy Annex and the other is Arlington Cemetery. The plane came up I-395 also known as Shirley Highway (most likely used as a reference point.) The plane had been seen making a lazy pattern in the no fly zone over the White House and US Cap. Why the plane did not hit incoming traffic coming down the river from the north to Reagan National Airport is beyond me . Andrews AFB radar should have also picked up the aircraft I would think. Nevertheless, the aircarft went southwest near Springfield and then veered left over Arlington and then put the nose down coming over Ft Myer picking off trees and light poles near the helicopter pad next to building. It was as if he leveled out at the last minute and put it square into the building. The wings came off as if it went through an arch way leaving a hole in the side of the building it seems a little larger than the wide body of the aircraft. The entry point was so clean that the roof (shown in news photo) fell in on the wreckage. They are just now getting to the passengers today. The nosewheel I understand is in the grass near the second ring.
[Website Editor Note: Flight 77 followed Columbia Pike, which runs for 7.5 miles from the Southwest straight as an arrow aimed at the Pentagon. Hovis describes Flight 77 following I-395, which parallels Columbia Pike and converges with it at the Pentagon.]
http://www.beanerbanner.com/a_father____.htm

Hunt, Bob

Bob Hunt was in his office when the explosion at the Pentagon occurred. "About a third of the sky was blacked with smoke", He said. Hunt was in contact with this office via e-mail on September 11 until he left work and decided to walk, rather than catch a crowded subway. "I talked to a number of average people in route who said they saw the plane hovering over the Washington Mall Area at an altitude lower that the height of the Washington Monument" Hunt stated. He said they reported to him they could clearly see the markings of an American Airlines airliner and some even said they could make out faces of passengers in the aircraft windows. Again, this is what Bob Hunt heard from witnesses on the street in Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001.
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/03/15/arjj031502.htm

James,Michael

Driving near the Pentagon: "The plane came over the top of us and brushed the trees. Then it looked like it hit the helicopter pad and skipped up and went right into the first and second floors."
Rocky Mountain News 9/12/01 (Lexis-Nexis - M. E. Sprengelmeyer)

Jarvis, Will

From time spent on military aircraft as part of his job at the Pentagon, Will Jarvis (who graduated with a bachelor of applied science in 1987 while attending New College) knows what aviation fuel smells like. That smell was his only clue that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, where he works as an operations research analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Jarvis, who was around the corner from the disaster, tried but failed to see the plane when he left the building. "There was just nothing left. It was incinerated. We couldn't see a tail or a wing or anything," he says. "Just a big black hole in the building with smoke pouring out of it." For someone sitting only 300 metres away from the carnage of American Airlines Flight 77, Jarvis and his officemates were surprisingly well insulated from it. "We thought the plane was a dump truck backing into the building, because there was a lot of construction going on," he says. The group noticed that the sky was darker than normal, but still didn't think much of it. "Then I saw little bits of silver falling from the sky," says Jarvis.
http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/02winter/f02.htm#jarvis

Kaiser, Andrea

Arlington County Fire Department Fire Truck 101 "As I was driving down 95 heading towards the Pentagon, one of my members, teammates, said, 'What is that plane doing?' And by the time I looked up, the plane was moving so fast all I saw was an explosion."
ABC Good Morning America 10/29/01 (Lexis-Nexis)

Kean, Terrance

Terrance Kean, 35, who lives in a 14-story building nearby, heard the loud jet engines and glanced out his window. "I saw this very, very large passenger jet," said the architect, who had been packing for a move. "It just plowed right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere. . . . It was very sort of surreal."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A13766-2001Sep11

Keglovich, James

Across the street from the Pentagon "They began exclaiming, "Where's he going? What's he doing?" when suddenly they saw the plane clip a taxi cab on the nearby bridge. The crash was exceptionally loud, he said. It shook the building and knocked people down who were closer to the point of impact."
The Tampa Tribune 9/15/01 (Lexis-Nexis - Panky Snow)

Kelly, Cmdr. U.S. Navy (Ret.) Lesley

From a high-rise office building in downtown D.C., looking South across the river [NOTE: The Pentagon sits right along the river, providing a view from many directions]:
On Sept. 11, I was standing in a break room of an office . . . in downtown D.C., when I looked out the window to see an airplane descend into the side of the Pentagon
The Oregonian 9/11/02

Kirk, Mark Steven

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.), a Naval Reserve intelligence officer. ''Apparently, the fire killed everybody in there,'' said Kirk, shortly after he learned that two friends perished in the center. Kirk also went to the site. ''The first thing you smell is the burning. And then you can smell the aviation fuel. And then you can smell this sickly, rotten-meat smell,'' he said.

Kizildrgli, Aydan

Aydan Kizildrgli, an English language student who is a Muslim native of Turkey, saw the jetliner bank slightly then strike a Western wall of the huge five-sided building that is the headquarters of the nation's military. "There was a big boom," he said. "Everybody was in shock. I turned around to the car behind me and yelled ‘Did you see that?' Nobody could believe it."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/attack-usat.htm

Krohn, Charles H.

One of the aircraft's engines somehow ricocheted out of the building and arched into the Pentagon's mall parking area between the main building and the new loading dock facility, said Charles H. Krohn, the Army's deputy chief of public affairs. .
http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20010917/aw48.htm

Lagasse, William

Sgt. William Lagasse, a pentagon police dog handler, the son of an aviation instructor, was filling up his patrol car at a gas station near the Pentagon when he noticed a jet fly in low. He watched as the plane plowed into the Pentagon. Initially, he thought the plane was about to drop on top of him -- it was that close. Lagasse knew something was wrong. The 757's flaps were not deployed and the landing gear was retracted.
http://206.181.245.163/ebird/e20011108vivid.htm

Lagasse, William

I saw the aircraft above my head about 80 feet above the ground, 400 miles an hour. The reason, I have some experience as a pilot and I looked at the plane. Didn't see any landing gear. Didn't see any flaps down. I realized it wasn't going to land. . . . It was close enough that I could see the windows and the blinds had been pulled down. I read American Airlines on it. . . .I got on the radio and broadcast. I said a plane is, is heading toward the heliport side of the building.
http://web.lexis-nexis.com...

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~julianr/lexisnexis/lagasse1.txt

Leonard, Robert A.

driving northbound in the HOV lanes on I-395; "His car passed the crest of the hill, at the point where Washington comes fully into view and the Pentagon is on the left" "I looked in the rearview mirror to check the traffic and saw only a plane, flying very low. I followed it in my left outside mirror. I braked, looked out my left window and saw a large commercial aircraft aiming for the Pentagon." "The aircraft, so close to the ground, was banked skillfully to the right, leveled off perpendicular to the Pentagon's southwest side, then went full throttle directly toward the building. The plane vanished, absorbed by the building, and there was a slight pause. Then a huge fireball rose into the sky."
The Washington Post 9/20/01 (Lexis-Nexis)

Liebner, Lincoln

"I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and low," said Army Captain Lincoln Liebner. "My first thought was I've never seen one that high [sic]. Before it hit I realised what was happening," he said. Captain Liebner says the aircraft struck a helicopter on the helipad, setting fire to a fire truck. "We got one guy out of the [fire truck] cab," he said, adding he could hear people crying inside the wreckage. Captain Liebner, who had cuts on his hands from the debris, says he has been parking his car in the car park when the crash occurred.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/23/1030052968648.html

ABC News Online (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Liebner, Lincoln

After the second plane hit the World Trade Center, Major Lincoln Leibner jumped in his pickup truck and raced to the Pentagon. As he ran to an entrance, he heard jet engines and turned in time to see the American Airlines plane diving toward the building. "I was close enough that I could see through the windows of the airplane, and watch as it as it hit," he said. "There was no doubt in my mind what I was watching. Not for a second. It was accelerating," he said. "It was wheels up, flaps up, engines full throttle. "
http://www.theosuobserver.com/main.cfm/include/smdetail/synid/54846.html

Liebner, Lincoln

Maj. Leibner drove in and made it as far as the south parking lot, where he got out on foot. "I heard the plane first," he said. "I thought it was a flyover Arlington cemetery." From his vantage point, Maj. Leibner looked up and saw the plane come in. "I was about 100 yards away," he said. "You could see through the windows of the aircraft. I saw it hit." The plane came in hard and level and was flown full throttle into the building, dead center mass, Maj. Leibner said. "The plane completely entered the building," he said. "I got a little repercussion, from the sound, the blast. I've heard artillery, and that was louder than the loudest has to offer. I started running toward the site. I jumped over a fence. I was probably the first person on the scene." A tree and the backend of a crash truck at the heliport near the crash site were on fire and the ground was scorched, Maj. Leibner recounted. "The plane went into the building like a toy into a birthday cake," he said. "The aircraft went in between the second and third floors." At that point, no one was outside. Spotting a Pentagon door that had been blown off its hinges, Maj. Leibner went in and out several times, helping rescue several people. "The very first person was right there," he said. "She could walk. I walked her out onto the grass." Maj. Leibner said a police officer pulled up onto the grass and began to help. "Everybody was hurt," Maj. Leibner said. "They were all civilian females. Everybody was burned on their hands and faces.
http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=384&issueID=38

Lyman, Mary

Mary Lyman was driving northbound on I-395 "'I saw a plane coming what I thought was toward National Airport, which is very close. You see that all the time. But this one looked different. It was at a very steep angle, and going very fast. I had been hearing about the World Trade Center before I left, and wondered, is this part of that? Then the plane disappeared, smoke started coming up, and traffic came to a complete stop," Lyman said. "We all got out of our cars."
The Boston Globe 9/12/01

Lyman, Mary

"I was driving northbound to work in the District on I-395 when the Pentagon was hit. I actually saw the plane in front of me, coming in at a very steep angle toward the ground and going fast -- I think I actually heard it accelerate -- and then it disappeared and a cloud of smoke started billowing."
The Washington Post 9/16/01

K.M.

I can't believe what has happened. I live in Pentagon City (part of Arlington) and can see the Pentagon when I look out my window. I still can't believe it. I was supposed to have been going to the Pentagon Tuesday morning at about 11:00am (EDT) and was getting ready, and thank goodness I wasn't going to be going until later. It was so shocking, I was listening to the news on what had happened in New York, and just happened to look out the window because I heard a low flying plane and then I saw it hit the Pentagon. It happened so fast... it was in the air one moment and in the building the next... K.M., Pentagon City, USA
http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking%5Fpoint/newsid%5F1537000/1537530.stm

Marra, David

David Marra, 23, an information-technology specialist, had turned his BMW off an I-395 exit to the highway just west of the Pentagon when he saw an American Airlines jet swooping in, its wings wobbly, looking like it was going to slam right into the Pentagon: "It was 50 ft. off the deck when he came in. It sounded like the pilot had the throttle completely floored. The plane rolled left and then rolled right. Then he caught an edge of his wing on the ground." There is a helicopter pad right in front of the side of the Pentagon. The wing touched there, then the plane cartwheeled into the building.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,174655-4,00.html

Martinez, Oscar

``I saw a big jet flying close to the building coming at full speed. There was a big noise when it hit the building,'' said Oscar Martinez, who witnessed the attack. Extrait article : Away from the Pentagon, unexplained explosions were reported in the vicinity of the State Department and the Capitol.
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/11_APdc.html

McAdams

Daniel and his wife Cynthia McAdams : Two other witnesses, Daniel McAdams and his wife, Cynthia, said they were sitting in their kitchen drinking coffee in their third-floor condominium in Arlington, Va., just two miles from the Pentagon when they heard a plane fly directly overhead around 9:45 a.m. It was unusually loud and low. Seconds later, they heard a big boom and felt the doors and windows of their three-story building shake. From their window, they could see a plume of black smoke coming from the Pentagon. I said, Oh my God, ... I can t even come to grips. It s just a shock, said Daniel McAdams, a freelance journalist. It s scary to just be so close .... Who knows if there's another one being hijacked that could miss the target? I feel like a target here. Soon after, military planes including F-15s were circling the Pentagon. Traffic clogged McAdams street as workers fled.
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2001/09/pdf/09112001EXTRA2.pdf

McClain, Tom

Lt Col (ret) Tom McClain : I saw the remains of the engines in the North parking lot of the Pentagon as well as melted aluminum and other debris left from the aircraft.
[email] http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/pentagon-email_20020316.html

McCusker, Elaine

Traffic is normally slow right around the Pentagon as the road winds and we line up to cross the 14th Street bridge heading into the District of Columbia. I don't know what made me look up, but I did and I saw a very low-flying American Airlines plane that seemed to be accelerating. My first thought was just 'No, no, no, no,' because it was obvious the plane was not heading to nearby Reagan National Airport. It was going to crash.
University Week (U. of Washington) 10/04/01

McGraw, Stephen

Father Stephen McGraw was driving to a graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery the morning of Sept. 11, when he mistakenly took the Pentagon exit onto Washington Boulevard, putting him in a position to witness American Airlines Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon. "The traffic was very slow moving, and at one point just about at a standstill," said McGraw, a Catholic priest at St. Anthony Parish in Falls Church. "I was in the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars." McGraw estimates that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the left hand lane of the road, on the side closest to the Pentagon. "The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car. "I saw it crash into the building," he said. "My only memories really were that it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression," he said. "There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows (of the Pentagon). I saw an explosion of fire billowing through those two windows. "He literally had the stole in one hand and a prayer book in the other and in one fluid motion crossed the guardrail," said Mark Faram, a reporter from the Navy Times who witnessed McGraw in the first moments after the crash. "I hadn't heard about the World Trade Center at that point, and so I was thinking this was an accident. I figured it was just an accident. There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact.
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_39/local_news/10772-1.html

http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Pentagon%5Fcrash%5Feyewitness%5Fcomforted%5Fvictims.html

McGraw, Stephen

"I had no awareness of the incoming plane until it was above our cars, having knocked over the street lamp at the edge of the road. After seeing the plane crash a split-second later, I assumed that it was a terrible accident, and, with my holy oil and stole and manual of care for the sick, I left my car, crossed over the other lanes of traffic, which remained at a standstill, and onto the lawn of the Pentagon."
Arlington Catholic Herald 9/5/02

McClellan, Kenneth

The crew of a military cargo plane watched helplessly on Sept. 11 as a hijacked airliner plunged into the Pentagon, a defense official confirmed Tuesday. The report confirms the eyewitness account of two Hampton Roads residents who were near the Pentagon that day and said they saw a second plane flying near the doomed passenger jet. A C-130 cargo plane had departed Andrews Air Force Base en route to Minnesota that morning and reported seeing an airliner heading into Washington 'at an unusual angle,' said Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman. Air-traffic control officials instructed the propeller-powered cargo plane 'to let us know where it's going,' McClellan said. But, he said, there was no attempt to intercept the hijacked airliner. 'A C-130 obviously goes slower than a jet,' McClellan said. 'There was no way he was going to intercept anything.' The C-130 pilot 'followed the aircraft and reported it was heading into the Pentagon,' he said. 'He saw it crash into the building. He saw the fireball. In the days immediately following the Sept. 11 hijackings, the Pentagon had no knowledge of the C-130's encounter, because all reports were classified by the Air National Guard, the Pentagon spokesman said. 'It was very hard to get any information out,' McClellan said. ("C-130 crew saw Pentagon strike, official confirms", Terry Scanlon et David Lerman, Daily Press, 17 octobre 2001) -
http://dailypress.com

Mencl, Peggy

[NOTE: A MISSILE EXPLODES ON CONTACT, AND WOULD BE LIMITED TO AN EXPLOSION AT THE OUTER WALL. A LARGER MISSILE WOULD NOT PENETRATE DEEPER, BUT WOULD CREATE A BIGGER EXPLOSION AT THE OUTER WALL. By contrast, 140 tons of aircraft traveling at 540 MPH could penetrate deep into the building.] Inside a courtyard deep inside the Pentagon, program analyst Peggy Mencl (cq) heard the blast. "The doors blew out and debris just came flying out from the doors," Mencl said. "It blew me 10 feet." She was uninjured but still had debris in her hair.
http://www.detnews.com/2001/nation/0109/11/nation-291261.htm

http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news01/091201_news_dcscene.shtml

http://maninut.com/patriotic_sites/tribute.htm

Middleton, William Sr.

The worker, William Middleton Sr., was running his street sweeper through the cemetery when he heard a harsh whistling sound overhead. Middleton looked up and spotted a commercial jet whose pilot seemed to be fighting with his own craft. Middleton said the plane was no higher than the tops of telephone poles as it lurched toward the Pentagon. The jet accelerated in the final few hundred yards before it tore into the building.
SouthCoast Today 12/20/01 (Massachusetts)

Milburn, Kirk

I was right underneath the plane, said Kirk Milburn, a construction supervisor for Atlantis Co., who was on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of Interstate 395 when he said he saw the plane heading for the Pentagon. "I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying. I guess it was hitting light poles," said Milburn. "It was like a WHOOOSH whoosh, then there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second explosion." - (Washington Post, September 11, 2001) -
http:// www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/sep01/attack.html

Mitchell, Ret. Army Col. Mitch

Col. Mitchell was coming from National Airport on I-395 towards the Pentagon: "Just as we got even with the Pentagon, I looked out to the front and saw, coming straight down the road at us, a huge jet plane clearly with American Airlines written on it, and it looked like it was coming in to hit us. I told my wife, 'It's going to hit the Pentagon.' It crossed about 100 feet in front of us and at about 20 feet altitude and we watched it go in. It struck the Pentagon, and there was no indication whatever that it was doing anything other than performing a direct attack on that building. The landing gear was up. There were no flaps down and it looked like a deadly missile on the final phase of its mission into the building." "We saw what I estimate to be about the last seven seconds of the flight. It was a straight-in flight, angled slightly down, and there was--there was no intent to turn or to maneuver in any way. It was headed straight for its target and we were helpless to do anything about it but watch."
CBS The Early Show 9/13/01 (Lexis-Nexis)

Moody, Sheila

Sheila Moody, in Room 472, heard a whoosh and a whistle and she wondered where all this air was coming from. Then a blast of fire that left as fast as it came. She looked down and saw her hands aflame, so she shook them. She saw some light from a window but could not reach it and could not find anything to break it with in any case. Then she heard a voice. "Hello!" a man called out. "I can't see you." Hello, she called back, and clapped her hands. She heard him approach and sensed the shoosh of a fire extinguisher and then saw him through a cloud of smoke, the rescuer who would bring her out and ease her fear that she would never get to see her grandchildren.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15

Morin, Terry

Terry Morin, a former USMC aviator, Program Manager for SPARTA, Inc was working as a contractor at the BMDO offices at the old Navy Annex. Having just reached the elevator in the 5th Wing of BMDO Federal Office Building (FOB) # 2. He heard "an increasingly loud rumbling" One to two seconds later the airliner came into my field of view. By that time the noise was absolutely deafening. The aircraft was essentially right over the top of me and the outer portion of the FOB (flight path parallel the outer edge of the FOB). Everything was shaking and vibrating, including the ground. I estimate that the aircraft was no more than 100 feet above me (30 to 50 feet above the FOB) in a slight nose down attitude. The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I couldn't be sure. It looked like a 737 and I so reported to authorities. Within seconds the plane cleared the 8th Wing of BMDO and was heading directly towards the Pentagon. Engines were at a steady high-pitched whine, indicating to me that the throttles were steady and full. I estimated the aircraft speed at between 350 and 400 knots. The flight path appeared to be deliberate, smooth, and controlled. As the aircraft approached the Pentagon, I saw a minor flash (later found out that the aircraft had sheared off a portion of a highway light pole down on Hwy 110). As the aircraft flew ever lower I started to lose sight of the actual airframe as a row of trees to the Northeast of the FOB blocked my view. I could now only see the tail of the aircraft. I believe I saw the tail dip slightly to the right indicating a minor turn in that direction. The tail was barely visible when I saw the flash and subsequent fireball rise approximately 200 feet above the Pentagon. There was a large explosion noise and the low frequency sound echo that comes with this type of sound. Associated with that was the increase in air pressure, momentarily, like a small gust of wind. For those formerly in the military, it sounded like a 2000lb bomb going off roughly 1/2 mile in front of you. At once there was a huge cloud of black smoke that rose several hundred feet up. Elapsed time from hearing the initial noise to when I saw the impact flash was between 12 and 15 seconds. (...) the aircraft had been flown directly into the Pentagon without hitting the ground first or skipping into the building. (...) The firemen were appreciative, as the heat inside the building generated from the 8,500 gallons of jet fuel was, in their words, "unbelievable." It was reported that at least three of the fireman had to be given IV fluids due to the extreme heat.
http://www.coping.org/911/survivor/pentagon.htm

Mosley, James

James Mosley, four stories up on a scaffold at the Navy Annex, "`... I looked over and saw this big silver plane run into the side of the Pentagon"
http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/admin_dept/ext_affairs/loeb/finalists/entry/september11-2.pdf

Munsey, Christopher

A silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon, just hundreds of yards away. It was a nightmare coming to life. The plane, with red and blue markings, hurtled by and within moments exploded in a ground-shaking "whoomp" as it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon. A huge flash of orange flame and black smoke poured into the sky. Smoke seemed to change from black to white, forming a billowing column in the sky.
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-467181.php

Myers, Richard

General Richard Myers, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that before the crash into the Pentagon, military officials had been notified that another hijacked plane had been heading from the New York area to Washington.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0%2C1300%2C550486%2C00.html

Narayanan, Vin

"The plane exploded after it hit, the tail came off and it began burning immediately. Within five minutes, police and emergency vehicles began arriving," said Vin Narayanan, a reporter at USA TODAY.com, who was driving near the Pentagon when the plane hit.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/washscene.htm

Narayanan, Vin

At 9:35 a.m., I pulled alongside the Pentagon. With traffic at a standstill, my eyes wandered around the road, looking for the cause of the traffic jam. Then I looked up to my left and saw an American Airlines jet flying right at me. The jet roared over my head, clearing my car by about 25 feet. The tail of the plane clipped the overhanging exit sign above me as it headed straight at the Pentagon. The windows were dark on American Airlines Flight 77 as it streaked toward its target, only 50 yards away. The hijacked jet slammed into the Pentagon at a ferocious speed.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/17/first-person.htm

O'Brien

At the Dulles tower, O'Brien saw the TV pictures from New York and headed back to her post to help other planes quickly land. "We started moving the planes as quickly as we could," she says. "Then I noticed the aircraft. It was an unidentified plane to the southwest of Dulles, moving at a very high rate of speed ... I had literally a blip and nothing more." O'Brien asked the controller sitting next to her, Tom Howell, if he saw it too. "I said, 'Oh my God, it looks like he's headed to the White House,'" recalls Howell. "I was yelling ... 'We've got a target headed right for the White House!'" At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol. "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." The plane was between 12 and 14 miles away, says O'Brien, "and it was just a countdown. Ten miles west. Nine miles west ... Our supervisor picked up our line to the White House and started relaying to them the information, [that] we have an unidentified very fast-moving aircraft inbound toward your vicinity, 8 miles west." Vice President Cheney was rushed to a special basement bunker. White House staff members were told to run away from the building. "And it went six, five, four. And I had it in my mouth to say, three, and all of a sudden the plane turned away. In the room, it was almost a sense of relief. This must be a fighter. This must be one of our guys sent in, scrambled to patrol our capital, and to protect our president, and we sat back in our chairs and breathed for just a second," says O'Brien. But the plane continued to turn right until it had made a 360-degree maneuver. "We lost radar contact with that aircraft. And we waited. And we waited. And your heart is just beating out of your chest waiting to hear what's happened," says O'Brien. "And then the Washington National [Airport] controllers came over our speakers in our room and said, 'Dulles, hold all of our inbound traffic. The Pentagon's been hit.'"
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_011024_atc_feature.html

O'Keefe, John

Northern Virginia resident John O'Keefe was one of the commuters who witnessed the attack on the Pentagon. 'I was going up 395, up Washington Boulevard, listening to the the news, to WTOP, and from my left side-I don't know whether I saw or heard it first- I saw a silver plane I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet,' said the 25-year-old O'Keefe, managing editor of Influence, an American Lawyer Media publication about lobbying. 'It came swooping in over the highway, over my left shoulder, straight across where my car was heading. I'd just heard them saying on the radio that National Airport was closing, and I thought, That's not going to make it to National Airport." And then I realized where I was, and that it was going to hit the Pentagon. There was a burst of orange flame that shot out that I could see through the highway overpass. Then it was just black. Just black, thick smoke.'"
The National Law Journal
http://www.lexisone.com/news/nlibrary/b091201a.html

O'Keefe, John

"I don't know whether I saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet," said the 25-year-old O'Keefe, managing editor of Influence, an American Lawyer Media publication about lobbying. "It came swooping in over the highway, over my left shoulder, straight across where my car was heading. "The eeriest thing about it, was that it was like you were watching a movie.".
http://www.nylawyer.com/news/01/09/091201l.html

O'Keefe, John

"There was a burst of orange flame that shot out that I could see through the highway overpass. Then it was just black. Just black thick smoke. "
http://www.nylawyer.com/news/01/09/091201l.html

Owens, Mary Ann

Mary Ann Owens, a journalist with Gannett News Service [located in one of the two high-rise office buildings in Rossyln overlooking the Pentagon] - was driving along by the side of the Pentagon. Here, she recalls the events of that horrific day and her feelings about the tragedy 12 months on. "The sound of sudden and certain death roared in my ears as I sat lodged in gridlock on Washington Boulevard, next to the Pentagon on September 11. Up to that moment I had only experienced shock by the news coming from New York City and frustration with the worse-than-normal traffic snarl ... but it wasn't until I heard the demon screaming of that engine that I expected to die. Between the Pentagon's helicopter pad, which sits next to the road [Route 110 running North-South], and Reagan Washington National Airport a couple of miles south, aviation noise is common along my commute to the silver office towers in Rosslyn where Gannett Co Inc. were housed last autumn. But this engine noise was different. It was too sudden, too loud, too encompassing. Looking up didn't tell me what type of plane it was because it was so close I could only see the bottom. Realising the Pentagon was its target, I didn't think the careering, full-throttled craft would get that far. Its downward angle was too sharp, its elevation of maybe 50 feet, too low. Street lights toppled as the plane barely cleared the Interstate 395 overpass. Gripping the steering wheel of my vibrating car, I involuntarily ducked as the wobbling plane thundered over my head. Once it passed, I raised slightly and grimaced as the left wing dipped and scraped the helicopter area just before the nose crashed into the southwest wall of the Pentagon. Still gripping the wheel, I could feel both the car and my heart jolt at the moment of impact. An instant inferno blazed about 125 yards from me. The plane, the wall and the victims disappeared under coal-black smoke, three-storey tall flames and intense heat. As the thudding stopped, screams of horror and hysteria rose from the line of cars (...) The full impact of actually being alive overwhelmed me. A mere 125 yards had made me a witness instead of a casualty. Survival wasn't a miracle, it was luck ... pure luck.
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/display.var.624436.Top+Stories.0.html

Owens, Mary Ann

Gannett News Service employee Mary Ann Owens was stopped in traffic on Route 110, one of three roads that snake around the Pentagon, listening on the radio to the news of the World Trade Center attacks, when she heard a loud roar overhead and looked up as the plane barely cleared the highway. "Instantly I knew what was happening, and I involuntarily ducked as the plane passed perhaps 50 to 75 feet above the roof of my car at great speed," Owens said. "The plane slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon. The impact was deafening. The fuselage hit the ground and blew up."
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2001/09/12terrorspreadsto.html

Pak, Zinovy

On his way to the Pentagon, he "saw a plane crash into the building."

Moscow Times 11/21/01 (Lexis-Nexis - Yevgenia Borisova) [NOTE: Like most news outlets from around the world, Moscow Times has a correspondent office in Washington, DC]

Patterson, Steve

[NOTE: A Boeing 757 can be called a commuter jet.] Steve Patterson, who lives in Pentagon City, said it appeared to him that a commuter jet swooped over Arlington National Cemetery and headed for the Pentagon "at a frightening rate ... just slicing into that building." Steve Patterson, 43, said he was watching television reports of the World Trade Center being hit when he saw a silver commuter jet fly past the window of his 14th-floor apartment in Pentagon City. The plane was about 150 yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetary so low that he thought it was going to land on I-395. He said it was flying so fast that he couldn't read any writing on the side. The plane, headed straight for the Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent runway, Patterson said. "At first I thought 'Oh my God, there's a plane truly misrouted from National,'" Patterson said. "Then this thing just became part of the Pentagon ... I was watching the World Trade Center go and then this. It was like Oh my God, what's next?" He said the plane, which approached the Pentagon below treetop level, seemed to be flying normally for a plane coming in for a landing other than going very fast for being so low. Then, he said, he saw the Pentagon "envelope" the plane and bright orange flames shoot out the back of the building. "It looked like a normal landing, as if someone knew exactly what they were doing," said Patterson, a graphics artist who works at home. "This looked intentional.".
Barbara Vobejda - Washington Post Staff Writer - Sept. 11, 4:59 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/sep01/attack.html

Perry, Scott

Scott Perry was looking out the window of his office in the Navy Annex which faces the Pentagon "[The plane] was coming straight into the wedge," Perry said. "I saw it crash." [NOTE: 'Wedge' is the name used for each of the 5 sections of the Pentagon.
The Free Lance-Star 9/12/01

Peterson, Christine

October 18, 2001 - Christine Peterson, '73 found herself in the thick of last month's terrorist tragedy, and submitted this report. It offers a personal perspective on the events in Washington, D.C., which have perhaps been overshadowed in the media by the scope of the horrors in New York. "It was 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11th, and traffic was terrible. For all of my twenty-eight years living in the Washington, D.C. area, terrible traffic was a constant. I'd been in Boston the day before and gotten home late. That morning I repacked my suitcase because I was heading out to San Francisco on the 3:20 p.m. flight. I just needed a few hours in the office first, and now I was officially late for work. I was at a complete stop on the road in front of the helipad at the Pentagon; what I had thought would be a shortcut was as slow as the other routes I had taken that morning. I looked idly out my window to the left -- and saw a plane flying so low I said, "holy cow, that plane is going to hit my car" (not my actual words). The car shook as the plane flew over. It was so close that I could read the numbers under the wing. And then the plane crashed. My mind could not comprehend what had happened. Where did the plane go? For some reason I expected it to bounce off the Pentagon wall in pieces. But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents of fire. (...) A few minutes later a second, much smaller explosion got the attention of the police arriving on the scene."
NAU Alumni Association website 10/18/01

Plaisted

Plaisted,Linda

Probst, Frank

Frank Probst : a Pentagon renovation worker and retired Army officer, he was inspecting newly installed telecommunications wiring inside the five-story, 6.5-million-square-foot building. The tall, soft-spoken Probst had a 10 a.m. meeting. About 9:25 a.m., he stopped by the renovation workers' trailer just south of the Pentagon heliport. Someone had a television turned on in the trailer's break room that showed smoke pouring out of the twin towers in New York. "The Pentagon would make a pretty good target," someone in the break room commented. The thought stuck with Probst as he picked up his notebook and walked to the North Parking Lot to attend his meeting. Probst took a sidewalk alongside Route 27, which runs near the Pentagon's western face. Traffic was at a standstill because of a road accident. Then, at about 9:35 a.m., he saw the airliner in the cloudless September sky. American Airlines Flight 77 approached from the west, coming in low over the nearby five-story Navy Annex on a hill overlooking the Pentagon. He has lights off, wheels up, nose down," Probst recalled. The plane seemed to be accelerating directly toward him. He froze. "I knew I was dead," he said later. "The only thing I thought was, 'Damn, my wife has to go to another funeral, and I'm not going to see my two boys again.'" He dove to his right. He recalls the engine passing on one side of him, about six feet away. The plane's right wing went through a generator trailer "like butter," Probst said. The starboard engine hit a low cement wall and blew apart. He still can't remember the sound of the explosion. Sometimes the memory starts to come back when he hears a particularly low-flying airliner heading into nearby Reagan National Airport, or when military jets fly over a burial at Arlington National Cemetery. Most of the time, though, his memory is silent. "It was pretty horrible," he said of the noiseless images he carries inside him, of the jet vanishing in a cloud of smoke and dust, and bits of metal and concrete drifting down like confetti. On either side of him, three streetlights had been sheared in half by the airliner's wings at 12 to 15 feet above the ground. An engine had clipped the antenna off a Jeep Grand Cherokee stalled in traffic not far away.
http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/fortress1.html

Probst, Frank

"I was standing on the sidewalk (parallel to the site of impact)...and I saw this plane coming right at me at what seemed like 300 miles an hour. I dove towards the ground and watched this great big engine from this beautiful airplane just vaporize," said Frank Probst, a member of the Pentagon renovations crew commented. "It looked like a huge fireball, pieces were flying out everywhere."
MDW News 9/12/01 (Military District of Washington)
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_55/local_news/10660-1.html

Ramey,Wanda

Wanda Ramey, a DPS master patrol officer, had had a bird's eye view. Ramey stood at the Mall plaza booth when she saw a low-flying airplane. "I saw the wing of the plane clip the light post, and it made the plane slant. Then the engine revved up and crashed into the west side of the building," she said. "It happened so fast. One second I saw the plane and next it was gone." Recalling those moments again, Ramey said it appeared the building sucked the plane up inside. "A few seconds later, I heard a loud boom and I saw a huge fireball and lots of smoke," she said.
MDW News 9/22/01 (Military District of Washington)

Regnery, Alfred S.

As I approached the Pentagon, which was still not quite in view, listening on the radio to the first reports about the World Trade Center disaster in New York, a jetliner, apparently at full throttle and not more than a couple of hundred yards above the ground, screamed overhead. Although airplanes regularly fly over the Pentagon on their way to Reagan National Airport, just a mile or two south, this plane was too low and going too fast. As I watched it disappear behind bridges and concrete barriers I knew it was about to crash.
Human Events Online 9/17/01