9/11 REALITY 
Assembling the Facts About the 9/11 Attacks
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Rick
Renzi a law student - ''The plane came in at an incredibly steep angle
with incredibly high speed,''... was driving by the Pentagon at the
time of the crash about 9:40 a.m. The impact created a huge yellow
and orange fireball, he added.
Cox News 9/12/01 BBC News (video) http://www.pittsburgh.com/partners/wpxi/news/pentagonattack.html |
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I am sorry to rain on your parade, but I saw the plane hit the building.
It did not hit the ground first.... It did not hit the roof first... It
hit dead center on the side... I was close enough (about 100 feet or so)
that I could see the "American Airlines" logo on the tail as it
headed towards the building... The plane looked like it was coming in about
where you have the "MAX APPROACH" on that picture... I was at
about where the "E" in "ANGLE OF CAMERA" is written
when the plane hit... It was not completely level, but it was not going
straight down, kind of like it was landing with no gear down... It knocked
over a few light poles in its way... I did not see any smoke or debris coming
from the plane. I clearly saw the "AA" logo with the eagle in
the middle... I don't really remember the engine configuration, but it did
have those turbine engines on the wing... and yes, it did impact the Pentagon...
There was none of this hitting-the-ground first crap I keep hearing... It
was definitely an American Airlines jet... There is no doubt about that...
When I got to work I checked it out [the airline design]."
Email interview with humanunderground.com 3/11/02 SteveRiskus@aol.com |
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James
S Robbins a national-security analyst:
"I was standing, looking out my large office window, which faces west
and from six stories up has a commanding view of the Potomac and the
Virginia heights." "The Pentagon is about a mile and half distant in
the center of the tableau. I was looking directly at it when the aircraft
struck. The sight of the 757 diving in at an unrecoverable angle is
frozen in my memory, but at the time. " I did not immediately comprehend
what I was witnessing. There was a silvery flash, an explosion, and
a dark, mushroom shaped cloud rose over the building. I froze, gaping
for a second until the sound of the detonation, a sharp pop at
that distance, shook me out of it. "
National Review Online 4/09/02 |
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on a Metro train just pulling into the National Airport Station
I saw the plane but I saw it as it was about to hit. I didn't see it coming
in, because he just caught my attention. He yelled, and I looked up and
... I just saw very little of it. All I could tell it was a mid-sized plane,
then it was gone, then there was just all this smoke... It went straight
for the Pentagon.
The Washington Post 9/11/01 (video) |
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Meseidy
Rodriguez confirms "it was a mid size plane". His brother inlaw also
saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary Rd. in Springfield,
VA. and soon afterwards a military plane was seen flying right behind
it.
http://mfile.akamai.com/920/rm/thepost.download.akamai.com/920/nation/091101-5s.ram http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170005.html |
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Arthur
Rosati, another security officer and an army reservist, was in a meeting
when the plane hit. "I ran down the hallway and there was smoke everywhere.
You could smell the jet fuel, it was unbearable"
http://www.dcmilitary.com/marines/hendersonhall/6_39/local_news/10797-1.html |
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In his office at the Navy Annex Vice Admiral Ryan was on the telephone "when out of the corner of my eye I saw the airplane" a split second before it struck.
Aviation Week 9/17/01 |
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What made me look up was the sound. Because typically you would hear
planes flying over and they make a steady sound like (mimics) when they're
coming to land it's pretty steady. Well I heard (mimics) and so I looked
up and when I looked up. On my left, right above me - a little over. I see an American Airlines
plane, silver plane, I could see AA on the tail. I noticed the landing
gear was up ... I had just heard about what happened at the World Trade
Center. ... Within a hundred feet. It was very low. At that point he tilted his wings
this way and this way (mimics), And the plane was slow, so that happened
concurrently with the engines going down. (mimics) And then straightened
out sort of suddenly and hit full gas. (mimics) It was so loud it hurt
my ears. It was just so loud. He just went straight in at that point.
... No, at that point it went down because I was approaching a hill. And
at that point it went straight down over the hill and a moment later I
heard this terrific boom, a very deep boom sound. Then immediately I saw
all the orange and yellow sort of ball of fire and then thick black smoke
go up into the air. The plane was low enough that I could see the windows
of the plane. I could see every detail of the plane. In my head I have
ingrained forever this image of every detail of that plane. It was a silver
plane, American Airlines plane, and I recognized it immediately as a passenger
plane. (Video)
low bandwidth : http://digipressetmp3.teaser.fr/uploads/488/Ryan.ram high bandwidth : http://digipressetmp3.teaser.fr/uploads/488/Ryan2.ram |
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Rob
Schickler, a Baylor University 2001 graduate and Arlington, Va. resident,
said. "A plane flew over my house," (one mile away from the Pentagon).
"It was loud, but not unusual because the [Ronald Reagan Washington
National Airport] is by my house, on the other side of the Pentagon.
Occasionally planes that miss the landing fly over my house." "A few
seconds later, there was this sonic boom," he said. "The house shook,
the windows were vibrating." "There was a hole in the building,
and you could smell it in the air. It's a beautiful day, but you can
smell the burning concrete and burning jet fuel."
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/091201/alumni.html |
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Don Scott,
a Prince William County school bus driver living in Woodbridge, was
driving eastward past the Pentagon on his way to an appointment at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center: "I had just passed the Pentagon and
was near the Macy's store in Crystal City when I noticed a plane making
a sharp turn from north of the Pentagon. I had to look back at the
road and then back to the plane as it sort of leveled off. I looked
back at the road, and when I turned to look again, I felt and heard
a terrible explosion. I looked back and saw flames shooting up and
smoke starting to climb into the sky."Washington Post, 9/16/01(Lexis
Nexis) |
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Noel
Sepulveda, a Master Sgt. received the awards during a special ceremony
at the Pentagon April 15. He left Bolling Air Force Base, D.C., for
a meeting at the Pentagon, only to be told it was cancelled. Walking
back to his motorcycle he saw a commercial airliner coming from the
direction of Henderson Hall the Marine Corps headquarters.. It "flew
above a nearby hotel [the Sheraton National Hotel near Washington Boulevard at Columbia Pike]. The plane's right
wheel struck a light pole, causing it to fly at a 45-degree angle",
he said. The plane tried to recover, but hit a second light pole and
continued flying at an angle. "You could hear the engines being revved
up even higher," The plane dipped its nose and crashed into the southwest
side of the Pentagon. "The right engine hit high, the left engine
hit low. For a brief moment, you could see the body of the plane
sticking out from the side of the building. Then a ball of fire came
from behind it." An explosion followed, sending Sepulveda flying against
a light pole. "if the airliner had not hit the light poles, it
would have slammed into the Pentagon's 9th and 10th corridor "A" ring,
and the loss of life would have been greater."
http://www.jimroche.com/pentagon_hero.htm http://www.af.mil/news/Apr2002/n20020415_0585.shtml |
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Recognition
of Master Sergeant Noel Sepulveda : (...) on September 11, 2001, Master
Sergeant Noel Sepulveda was on assignment at the Pentagon as a Medic.
He was standing in the parking lot at the Pentagon when he noticed a
jetliner lower its landing gear as if to make a landing an then
he realized that the airplane was actually heading towards the southwest
wall of the Pentagon; and he was standing only 150 feet from the
point of impact and for a brief moment he could see the body
of the plane sticking out from the side of the building, followed by
an explosion; and the blast of the impact was so tremendous, that from
his vantage point, it threw him backward over 100 feet slamming into
a light pole causing him internal injuries; and despite his internal
injuries, Master Sergeant Noel Sepulveda remained on his duty station
at the Pentagon for seven days after this attack while manning a triage
station to assist the other victims of the attack
http://www.lulac.org/Issues/Resolve/2002/30%20Sepulveda.html |
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On the morning of the attack, Philip
Sheuerman was exiting the freeway, turning into the parking lot of the Pentagon, when he noticed a passenger plane American Airlines Flight 77 descend at increasing speed with its wheels up. Sheuerman, who had just heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center minutes before, realized that it was perfectly obvious what (the plane) was going to do. He saw the plane slam into the Pentagon.
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2001/09/20_spalu.html |
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"Where
the plane came in was really at the construction entrance," says Jack
Singleton, president of Singleton Electric Co. Inc., Gaithersburg MD,
the Wedge One electrical subcontractor. "The plane's left wing actually
came in near the ground and the right wing was tilted up in the air.
That right wing went directly over our trailer, so if that wing had
not tilted up, it would have hit the trailer. My foreman,
Mickey Bell,
had just walked out of the trailer and was walking toward
the construction entrance."
http://www.designbuildmag.com/oct2001/pentagon1001.asp |
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Skarlet,
webmaster of punkprincess.com : As I came up [drove] along the Pentagon I saw
helicopters. (...) it was headed straight for the building. It made no
sense. (...) A huge jet. Then it was gone. A massive hole in the
side of the Pentagon gushed smoke. The noise was beyond description.
The smell seemed to singe the inside of my nose. The earth seemed to
stop shaking for a second, but then sirens began and the ground seemed
to shake again - this time from the incoming barrage of firetrucks,
police cars. military vehicles. (...) I called my boss. I had no memory
of how to work my cellphone. I hit redial and his number came up. "Something
hit the Pentagon. It must have been a helicopter." I knew that wasn't
true, but I heard myself say it. I heard myself believe it, if only
for a minute. "Buildings don't eat planes. That plane, it just vanished.
There should have been parts on the ground. It should have rained parts
on my car. The airplane didn't crash. Where are the parts?" That's
the conversation I had with myself on the way to work. It made sense
this morning. I swear that it did. (....) I finally cleared my head enough
to drive and spent hours getting home. I spent an eternity in my car.
I couldn't roll up the windows, the car smelled like the Inferno. Concrete
dust coats the outside of the car, turning it a weird color. Eventually
I got back here, back to the place I should have stayed in the first
place. There seems to be no footage of the crash, only the site. The
gash in the building looks so small on TV. The massiveness of the
structure lost in the tight shots of the fire. There was a plane.
It didn't go over the building. It went into the building. I want them
to find it whole, wedged between floors or something. I know that
isn't going to happen, but right now I pretend. I want to see footage
of the crash. I want to make it make sense. Posted by skarlet at September 11, 2001
08:41 PM
http://punkprincess.com/archives/002150.html |
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Walking home from work at the FAA building, Elizabeth Smiley decided to walk the one mile home from her metro stop at the Pentagon: "I saw the plane not more than 200 feet over my head."
Mid-Valley Online 9/12/01 (Oregon) |
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From Fort McNair "We saw the plane hit the Pentagon."
National Electric Contractors Association website 9/14/01 |
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SGT
Dewey Snavely was driving along Arlington's Quaker Lane when the radio
blasted the morning's first harrowing reports, then warned that a third
plane was heading his way. Minutes later, jet engines rumbled overhead.
"The guy I was with looked up and said: 'What the hell is that plane
doing?' Then we heard an explosion and the truck rocked back and forth."
Snavely, a member of the Engr. Co. on transition leave, knew deep in
his gut that the Pentagon was under attack.
Soldiers Online 10/01
http://www.army.mil/soldiers/oct2001/features/aftermath.html |
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On Route 27 preparing to exit onto Columbia Pike
"That plane was screaming. The engines were so loud ... I followed
the plane down with my eyes. I saw it hit the building."
The Washington Post 10/18/01 (Lexis-Nexis - Avis Thomas-Lester) |
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On the balcony of his apartment building, which is less than a mile away from the Pentagon in Crystal City, Steve Storti caught the glint of silver out of the corner of his eye. He looked
up to see a passenger plane with the trademark stainless-steel fuselage
and stripes of American Airlines. It was way off the normal flight pattern
for Reagan National, said Storti, who had been living in the Crystal City
section of Arlington for about two years. The plane was also alarmingly
low, passing behind nearby apartment buildings that were only several
stories high. ... Time seemed to slip into slow motion as he watched the
plane cross over Route 395, tip its left wing as it passed the Navy annex,
veer sharply and then slice into the Pentagon. "I remember thinking
that whoever is flying this knows what they're doing," Storti said.
"The plane traveled straight as an arrow. It didn't waver and it
didn't flip from side to side." Storti watched the plane slide silently
into the Pentagon "like a car entering a garage."
The Providence Journal 9/12/02 |
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USAToday.com
Multimedia Editor, saw it all: an American Airlines jetliner fly left
to right across his field of vision as he commuted to work Tuesday morning.
It was highly unusual. The large plane was 20 feet off the ground and
a mere 50 to 75 yards from his windshield. Two seconds later and before
he could see if the landing gear was down or any of the horror- struck
faces inside, the plane slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon 100
yards away. My first thought was he's not going to make it across the
river to National Airport. But whoever was flying the plane made no
attempt to change direction. It was coming in at a high rate of speed,
but not at a steep angle--almost like a heat-seeking missile
was locked onto its target and staying dead on course... "I didn't feel
anything coming out of the Pentagon [in terms of debris]," he said.
"A couple of minutes later, police cars and fire trucks headed to the
scene." Ironically, the passage of emergency vehicles got traffic moving
again, which was now crunching over twisted metal Sucherman guessed
was the skin of the plane.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,9306,00.asp |
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It
came screaming across the highway, route 110 - Was it a commercial jet?
Do you know how many engines? - I did not see the engines, I saw the
body and the tail; it was a silver jet with the markings along the windows
that spoke to me as an American Airlines jet, it was not a commercial,
excuse me, a business jet, it was not a lear jet, ... it was a bigger
plane than that.. (Video)
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/day.video.09.html http://play.rbn.com/?url=usat/usat/g2demand/010911_joel.rm&proto=rtsp |
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I
heard a sonic boom and then the impact, the explosion. ... There
were light poles down. There was what appeared to be the outside covering
of the jet strewn about. ... (Audio)
http://play.rbn.com/?url=usat/usat/g2demand/010911sucherman.ra& |
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Jim
Sutherland, a mortgage broker, was on his way to the Pentagon when he
saw ... a white 737 twin-engine plane with multicolored trim
fly 50 feet over I-395 in a straight line, striking the side of the
Pentagon..
http://www.cincypost.com/2001/sep/11/wash091101.html www.thedailycamera.com... |
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Jim
Sutherland, a mortgage broker, was driving near the Pentagon at 9:40
a.m. when he saw a 737 airplane 50 feet over Interstate 395 heading
in a straight line into the side of the Pentagon. The fireball explosion
that followed rocked his car. Drivers began pulling over to the
side - some taking pictures - not quite believing what they were seeing.
http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/news01/091201_news_dcscene.shtml |
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Levi
Stephens 23, courier Armed Forces Information Service - According to
one witness, "what looked like a 747" plowed into the south side
of the Pentagon, possibly skipping through a heliport before it hit
the building. Personnel working in the Navy Annex, over which the airliner
flew, said they heard the distinct whine of jet engines as the airliner
approached. "I was driving away from the Pentagon in the South Pentagon
lot when I hear this huge rumble, the ground started shaking ... I saw
this [plane] come flying over the Navy Annex. It flew over the van and
I looked back and I saw this huge explosion, black smoke everywhere."
Stars and Stripes 9/12/01 |
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FBI
evidence teams combing the area of impact along the building's perimeter
found parts of the fuselage from the Boeing 757, said Michael Tamillow,
a battalion chief and search and rescue expert for the Fairfax County,
Virginia, Fire Department. No large pieces apparently survived.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/pentagon.terrorism/ |
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From the Pentagon parking lot
"I work in a different location, not in the Pentagon. I got there
around 8 o'clock, my normal time, came in and checked my email and noticed
here was an email asking me to come over to the Pentagon as soon as possible.
So I got in my car, rushed over there, found a parking space, and as soon
as I got out of my car, I looked over my shoulder and you can hear the plane
coming in, it was just so loud. Normally you don't see planes on that side
of the Pentagon, and that was my first thought. I thought, 'What is he doing
on that side of the Pentagon, it's so strange.' And then you could just
see him descend and just keep descending lower and lower, until he was almost
on top of Route 27 that runs alongside the Pentagon. And then he just slammed
into the Pentagon, you just knew he was going to hit the Pentagon, I mean
there was no way he could not have hit it."
We Were on Duty documentary (audio) Also see We Were On Duty website |
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"I
glanced up just at the point where the plane was going into the building,"
said Carla Thompson, who works in an Arlington, Virginia, office building
about 1,000 yards from the crash. "I saw an indentation in the building
and then it was just blown-up up--red, everything red," she said.
"Everybody was just starting to go crazy. I was petrified."
Los Angeles Times 9/12/01 |
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There is no doubt in my mind that last week's attack
on America was an act of war. I fought in the Gulf War. I saw bombs
and missiles explode overhead. I saw people die. And when, on my way
to work Sept. 11, I saw an American Airlines jet come overhead and slam
into the Pentagon, it all came back. Hard. I was sitting in heavy traffic
in the I-395 HOV lanes about 9:45 a.m., directly across from the Navy
Annex. I could see the roof of the Pentagon and, in the distance, the
Washington Monument. I heard the scream of a jet engine and, turning
to look, saw my driver's side window filled with the fuselage of the
doomed airliner. It was flying only a couple of hundred feet off the
ground - I could see the passenger windows glide by. The plane looked
as if it were coming in for a landing - cruising at a shallow angle,
wings level, very steady. But, strangely, the landing gear was up
and the flaps weren't down. I knew what was about to happen, but
my brain couldn't quite process the information. Like the other commuters
on the road, I was stunned into disbelief. The fireball that erupted
upon impact blossomed skyward, and the blast hit us in a wave.
http://www.militarycity.com/sept11/911_1068139.html |
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Henry
Ticknor, intern minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington,
Virginia, was driving to church that Tuesday morning when American Airlines
Flight 77 came in fast and low over his car and struck the Pentagon.
"There was a puff of white smoke and then a huge billowing black
cloud," he said.
- "Hell on Earth." Unitarian Universalist World, Jan/Feb 2002 |
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A
pilot who saw the impact, Tim Timmerman, said it had been an American
Airways 757. "It added power on its way in," he said. "The
nose hit, and the wings came forward and it went up in a fireball."
Smoke and flames poured out of a large hole punched into the side
of the Pentagon. Emergency crews rushed fire engines to the scene
and ambulancemen ran towards the flames holding wooden pallets to carry
bodies out. A few of the lightly injured, bleeding and covered in dust,
were recovering on the lawn outside, some in civilian clothes, some
in uniform. A piece of twisted aircraft fuselage lay nearby. No one
knew how many people had been killed, but rescue workers were finding
it nearly impossible to get to people trapped inside, beaten back by
the flames and falling debris.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,550486,00.html |
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Tim
Timmerman, himself a Pilot. I was looking out the window; I live on the 16th
floor, overlooking the Pentagon, in a corner apartment, so I have quite
a panorama. And being next to National Airport, I hear jets all the
time, but this jet engine was way too loud. I looked out to the southwest,
and it came right down 395, right over Colombia Pike, and as is went
by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added power to the engines.
I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then I lost it behind a building.
And then it came out, and I saw it hit right in front of -- it didn't
appear to crash into the building; most of the energy was dissipated
in hitting the ground, but I saw the nose break up, I saw the wings
fly forward, and then the conflagration engulfed everything in flames.
It was horrible. It was a Boeing 757, American Airlines, no question.
It was so close to me it was like looking out my window and looking
at a helicopter. It was just right there. (We were told that it was
flying so low that it clipped off a couple of light poles as it was
coming in) That might have happened behind the apartments that occluded
my view. And when it reappeared, it was right before impact, and like
I said, it was right before impact, and I saw the airplane just disintegrate
and blow up into a huge ball of flames. And the building shook,
and it was quite a tremendous explosion. I noticed the fire trucks
and the responses was just wonderful. Fire trucks were there quickly.
I saw the area; the building didn't look very damaged initially, but
I do see now, looking out my window, there's quite a chunk in it.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.32.html |
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Donald
"Tim" Timmerman, watched from across Interstate 395: I was looking out
the window; I live on the 16th floor, overlooking the Pentagon, in a
corner apartment, so I have quite a panorama. And being next to National
Airport, I hear jets all the time, but this jet engine was way too loud.
I looked out to the southwest, and it came right down 395, right over
Colombia Pike, and as it went by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added
power to the engines. I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then
I lost it behind a building. And then it came out, and I saw it hit
right in front of -- it didn't appear to crash into the building;
most of the energy was dissipated in hitting the ground, but I saw the
nose break up, I saw the wings fly forward, and then the conflagration
engulfed everything in flames. It was horrible. What can you tell
us about the plane itself? It was a Boeing 757, American Airlines,
no question.You say that it was a Boeing, and you say it was a 757
or 767? 7-5-7.757, which, of course..American Airlines.American Airlines,
one of the new generation of jets. Right. It was so close to me it was
like looking out my window and looking at a helicopter. It was just
right there. . .cnn.com TRANSCRIPT
http://commemoratewtc.com/transcripts/tr-13-46.php |
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While at work on the 10th floor of the U.S. Trademark Office in Crystal City Michael Tinyk saw a dark orange and blue commercial airliner just above the tree line "coming in lower and lower" on what he instantly registered
as the "wrong side" of the flight path to the airport. "There
was no reason for a plane to come in that low, that fast" ... The plane
took "a flight path straight up 395,"
The Providence Journal-Bulletin 9/13/01 (Lexis-Nexis) |
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From the deck of his house about 1 mile away from the Pentagon and just
west of I-395
"The engines were just screaming, and the wheels were up," Trapasso
said. "It disappeared over the trees, and I heard a boom. I knew something
awful had happened--that an airplane had crashed somewhere in Washington,
D.C."
Aviation Week 9/17/01 |
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Ron
Turner, the Navy's deputy chief information officer, was standing solemnly
at a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery when American Airlines Flight
77 crashed into the Pentagon Tuesday morning. He had only to turn to
watch the disaster unfold. "There was a huge fireball," he said,
"followed by the [usual] black cloud of a fuel burn." Turner, a
helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War, said the explosion was just
the same as explosions of jet fighters and helicopters during his tour
of duty in 1971. "It reminded me of being back in Vietnam," he said,
"watching Tan Son Nhut Air Base burn."
Pentagon executives bear witness to terrorist attack," by Joshua Dean, Government Executive Magazine, 9/13/01 |
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Alan
Wallace usually worked out of the Fort Myer fire station, but on Sept.
11 he was one of three firefighters assigned to the Pentagon's heliport.
Along with crew members Mark Skipper and Dennis Young, Wallace arrived
around 7:30 in the morning. After a quick breakfast, the 55-year-old
firefighter moved the station's firetruck out of the firehouse. President
Bush had used the heliport the day before: he'd motorcaded to the Pentagon,
then flown to Andrews Air Force Base for a trip to Florida. Bush was
scheduled to return to the Pentagon helipad later on Tuesday, Wallace
says. So Wallace wanted the firetruck out of the station before Secret
Service vehicles arrived and blocked its way. He parked it perpendicular
to the west wall of the Pentagon. Wallace and Skipper were walking along
the right side of the truck (Young was in the station) when the two
looked up and saw an airplane. It was about 25 feet off the ground and
just 200 yards away-the length of two football fields. They had heard
about the WTC disaster and had little doubt what was coming next. "Let's
go," Wallace yelled. Both men ran. Wallace ran back toward the west
side of the station, toward a nine-passenger Ford van. "My plans were
to run until I caught on fire," he says. He didn't know how long he'd
have or whether he could outrun the oncoming plane. Skipper ran north
into an open field. Wallace hadn't gotten far when the plane hit. "I
hadn't even reached the back of the van when I felt the fireball. I
felt the blast," he says. He hit the blacktop near the left rear tire
of the van and quickly shimmied underneath. "I remember feeling pressure,
a lot of heat," he says. He crawled toward the front of the van,
then emerged to see Skipper out in the field, still standing. "Everything
is on fire. The grass is on fire. The building is on fire. The firehouse
is on fire," Wallace recalls. "There was fire everywhere. Areas
of the blacktop were on fire." Wallace ran over to Skipper, who said
he was OK, too. They compared injuries-burned arms, minor cuts, scraped
skin. He ran back into the station to try to suit up. But he found debris
everywhere. The ceiling had crumbled, there were broken lights and drywall
everywhere. His boots were on fire. His fire pants filled with
debris. The fire alarm was blaring.Then Wallace heard someone call from
outside. "We need help over here," someone yelled. He ran back outside
over to the Pentagon building and helped lower people out of a first-floor
window, still some six feet off the ground. He helped 10 to 15 people
to safety. Most could walk, though he helped carry one badly burned
man. "He wasn't too responsive," Wallace recalls. He helped two other
men drag him to the other side of the heliport then he turned around.
"I've got to go back," he said. Working with a civilian, Wallace headed
back to the building. He could hear more cries for help from inside.
There was trash and debris everywhere. The trees were on fire.
Wallace headed into the building through an open door, but couldn't
find anyone else to save. "After a while I didn't hear anybody calling
anymore," he says. "They probably found another way out."
http://www.msnbc.com/news/635293.asp |
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About
9:40, Alan Wallace had finished fixing the foam metering valve on the
back of his fire truck parked in the Pentagon fire station and walked
to the front of the station. He looked up and saw a jetliner coming
straight at him. It was about 25 feet off the ground, no landing wheels
visible, a few hundred yards away and closing fast. "Runnnnn!" he yelled
to a pal. There was no time to look back, barely time to scramble. He
made it about 30 feet, heard a terrible roar, felt the heat, and dove
underneath a van, skinning his stomach as he slid along the blacktop,
sailing under it as though he were riding a luge. The van protected
him against burning metal that was flying around. A few seconds later
he was sliding back out to check on his friend and then race back to
the firetruck. He jumped in, threw it into gear, but the accelerator
was dead. The entire back of the truck was destroyed, the cab on fire.
He grabbed the radio headset and called the main station at Fort Myer
to report the unimaginable. The sun was still low in the sky, obscured
by the Pentagon and the enormous billowing clouds of acrid smoke, making
it hauntingly dark. The ground was on fire. Trees were on fire. Hot
slices of aluminum were everywhere. Wallace could hear voices crying
for help and moved toward them. People were coming out a window head
first, landing on him. He had faced incoming fire before -- he was with
the hospital corps in Vietnam when mortars and rocket shells dropped
on the operating room near Da Nang -- but he had never witnessed
anything of this devastating intensity.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15 |
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The
morning of Sept. 11 was crystal clear in Washington, still summer warm.
It would be easy to relax on a morning like that, but outside the Pentagon,
firefighter Alan Wallace and the safety crew at the Pentagon's heliport
pad already were too busy. President Bush was scheduled to fly from
Florida that afternoon, and his helicopter, Marine One, would carry
him to the Pentagon. Secret Service was everywhere and their
cars blocked the driveway. So the meticulous Wallace moved the fire
truck out of the way, parking it about 15 feet from the Pentagon. That's
when Wallace got a call from his chief at nearby Fort Myer telling him
of the attacks in New York and to be on alert. Minutes later, Wallace
and his buddy Mark Skipper looked up and saw the gleam of a silver jetliner.
But it was flying too low. Maybe less than 25 feet off the ground. And
it was heading right at them. "I yelled to Mark, 'Let's go!' " He bolted
to the right, and a second later felt the searing heat of the blast
behind him. He hit the ground and rolled under a parked van as a fire
engulfed his fire truck, then blew through the firehouse. Wallace got
back to his feet, saw Skipper had escaped, then rushed to the scorched
fire truck to see if it would run, but the truck only belched fire.
It wouldn't move. So Wallace switched on the truck's radio. "Foam 61
to Fort Myer," he said. "We have had a commercial carrier crash into
the west side of the Pentagon at the heliport, Washington Boulevard
side. The crew is OK. The airplane was a 757 Boeing or a 320 Airbus."
Although he was still frantic and shaken, Wallace's report turned out
to be painfully accurate. (...) With bits of cloth and fiberglass still
raining down outside the blackened section of the Pentagon, Alan Wallace's
instincts focused on trying to help somehow. The truck was useless.
So he dashed for his gear inside the torched firehouse. His boots were
filled with debris. His suspenders were on fire. Wallace and two other
firefighters rushed to a window, where Pentagon employees were crammed
together, frantic to escape the darkness. Fire burst through the
windows above them. The ground burned near Wallace with heat so hot
he thought several times that his pants were on fire. They began
grabbing arms and pulling people out - 15 in all. " They were all burned,"
Wallace said. But there wasn't time for Wallace and the other firefighters
to get emotional. "We just seemed to stay in one mode there until we
ran out of people coming out," Wallace said. And no one was sure how
many more remained inside.
www.gosanangelo.com... |
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Washington,
Mike Walter, USA Today, on the road when a jet slammed into the Pentagon:
"I was sitting in the northbound on 27 and the traffic was, you know,
typical rush-hour -- it had ground to a standstill. I looked out my
window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming.
And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.' "And I saw it.
I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right
there and slammed right into the Pentagon. "Huge explosion, great
ball of fire, smoke started billowing out. And then it was chaos
on the highway as people tried to either move around the traffic and
go down, either forward or backward. "We had a lady in front of me,
who was backing up and screaming, 'Everybody go back, go back, they've
hit the Pentagon.' "It was just sheer terror."
http://www.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/trends/09/11/witnesses/ http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.terrorism/ |
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Rodney Washington was stuck in stand-still traffic a few hundred yards from the Pentagon
"It was extremely loud, as you can imagine, a plane that size, it
was deafening," Washington said. The plane was flying low and rapidly
descended, Washington said, knocking over light poles before hitting the
ground on a helicopter pad just in front of the Pentagon and essentially
bouncing into it. It "landed there and the momentum took it into the
Pentagon," Washington said. "There was a very, very brief delay
and then it exploded." Washington speculated that it could have been
worse: "If it had kept altitude a little bit higher it probably would
have landed in the middle of the Pentagon, in that court."
The Boston Globe 9/12/01 |
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Dave
Winslow : AP reporter Dave Winslow also saw the crash. He said, "I saw
the tail of a large airliner ... It ploughed right into the Pentagon."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,550486,00.html |
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10th floor apartment of a 17-floor block in Pentagon City
"I heard this enormous sound of turbulence. . .As I turned to my
right, I saw a jumbo tail go by me along Route 395. It was like the rear
end of the fuselage was riding on 395. I just saw the tail go whoosh right
past me. In a split second, you heard this boom. A combination of a crack
and a thud. It rattled my windows. I thought they were going to blow out.
Then came an enormous fireball."
The Washingtonian 9/02 (Lexis-Nexis) |
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Don
Wright from the 12th floor, 1600 Wilson Boulevard, in Rosslyn: " ..
I watched this ...it looked like a commuter plane, two engined
... come down from the south real low ... " (Real Audio)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com... |
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Ian Wyatt
glanced into the sky just as a commercial airplane roared by about
100 yards off the ground. "I was so scared I thought it was coming
after me and just ducked for cover," said Wyatt, a 1999 graduate of
Mary Washington College who was walking to his federal job when terrorists
struck at the heart of the nation's defense yesterday morning. "It
was going so fast and it was so low," he said, standing on Army-Navy
Drive. "The only intelligent thought that came into my head was, 'Oh
my God, they hit the Pentagon.' I could then hear cars squealing all
around and people were just stunned." After the plane struck
the west side of the famed five-sided building, thick black smoke
billowed from a huge crater as fire raged within.
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2001/092001/09122001/390193/printer_friendly |
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Just
prior to the impact there were three firemen on the helipad at the
Pentagon. The president was supposed to land at the helipad two hours
after the impact, and so they had just pulled the foam truck out of
the firehouse and were standing there when they looked up and saw
the plane coming over the Navy Annex building. They turned and
ran, and at the point of impact were partially shielded by their fire
truck from the flying debris of shrapnel and flames. They were knocked
to the ground by the concussion, were able to get up, go over to the
fire truck, and initially they were able to get it started to call
for help at Fort Myer. And then they had to put out parts of their
uniform--their bunker gear was actually on fire, so the first thing
they had to do was put out their own fire truck and their fire equipment
and they tried to start the truck and move it, but they discovered
that it wouldn't move. They got out and looked, and the whole back
of the fire truck had melted. |
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Madelyn Zakhem, executive secretary at the STC (VDOT
Smart Traffic Center), had just stepped outside for a break and was
seated on a bench when she heard what she thought was a jet fighter
directly overhead. It wasn't. It was an airliner coming straight up
Columbia Pike at tree-top level. "It was huge! It was silver. It was
low -- unbelievable! I could see the cockpit. I fell to theground....
I was crying and scared". "If I had been on top of our building,
I would have been close enough to reach up and catch it,"
http://www.roadstothefuture.com/VA_Sept21.txt |
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Radar
shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle
and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes. The steep
turn was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for
control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had
better flying skills than many investigators first believed. The
jetliner disappeared from radar at 9:37 and less than a minute later
it clipped the tops of street lights and plowed into the Pentagon
at 460 mph.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/national/main310721.shtml |
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Smoke
and flames engulfed the west wall. Cars traveling nearby were lifted
up off the roadway and showered with rocks and other debris.
Among the trash littering the road was a scorched green oxygen tank
marked "Cabin air. Airline use." When the debris shower stopped,
people began getting out of their cars, some of them screaming.
http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2001/09/12terrorspreadsto.html http://www.thejournalnews.com/newsroom/091201/12wtcpentagon.html |
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Another
aspect of overpressure occurring in air bursts is the phenomenon of
Mach reflections, called the "Mach Effect." When a bomb is detonated
at some distance above the ground, the reflected wave catches
up to and combines with the original shock wave, called the incident
wave, to form a third wave that has a nearly vertical front at ground
level. This third wave is called a "Mach Wave" or "Mach Stem,"
and the point at which the three waves intersect is called the "Triple
Point." The Mach Stem grows in height as it spreads laterally,
and as the Mach Stem grows, the triple point rises, describing a curve
through the air. In the Mach Stem the incident wave is reinforced by
the reflected wave, and both the peak pressure and impulse are at a
maximum that is considerably higher than the peak pressure and impulse
of the original shock wave at the same distance from the point of explosion.
Using the phenomenon of Mach reflections, it is possible to increase
considerably the radius of effectiveness of a bomb. By detonating a
warhead at the proper height above the ground, the maximum radius at
which a given pressure or impulse is exerted can be increased, in some
cases by almost 50%, over that for the same bomb detonated at ground
level. The area of effectiveness, or damage volume, may thereby be increased
by as much as 100%.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/docs/warheads.pdf |
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In
the renovated section outside the immediate crash zone, most damage
was caused by smoke and water that poured out of brand-new sprinklers.
Many of these offices are occupied again.But there was extensive
fire damage hundreds of feet away in unrenovated areas that had not
yet had sprinklers installed. The fire was so intense it cracked
concrete.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002/01/01/pentagon.htm |
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The
attack destroyed at least four of the five "rings" that spiral
around the massive office building, hitting in a recently renovated
section between corridors four and five.Fairfax County's Urban
Search and Rescue Team sent two ten-person squads into the Pentagon
to search for survivors and to assess the damage. About 70 members of
the team, staffed with paramedics, doctors, engineers and search dogs,
headed to the scene at 1 p.m. The specially trained unit, one of two
in the United States, has previously responded to bombings in Oklahoma
City and Nairobi, Kenya, and also to earthquakes in Turkey, Taiwan and
Armenia.Ten patients were brought to Inova Alexandria Hospital suffering
from injuries ranging from burns to head lacerations, according to Kathleen
Barry, chief nurse executive. By 1 p.m., two had been discharged, seven
were in stable condition and one was in critical condition suffering
from smoke inhalation. Earlier reports of other explosions in the Washington
region, at the State Department and the Capitol, were not accurate,
law enforcement officials said. The crash at the Pentagon, which occurred
less than an hour after the New York attacks, triggered immediate security
steps in the Washington area, including evacuation of the State Department,
the Capitol building and the West Wing of the White House. A 38-year-old
Marine major who asked to remain anonymous said he and dozens of his
colleagues rushed to the area in the Pentagon that appeared most
heavily damaged -- the B ring between the 4th and 5th corridors.
The major said that hundreds of people worked in the B-ring area and
that it was "decimated ... that heat and fire, it could eat you
alive in three seconds."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/metro/daily/sep01/attack.html |
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