September 11, 2010
Updated Sep. 11, 2017
The Wisdom Fund

The Pentagon: Eyewitnesses, Transcripts, Official Records Refute 'The 9/11 Commission Report'

Available evidence does not support the claim that AA Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001

Pentagon: What Really Happened on September 11

by Enver Masud

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At the September 12, 2001, Dept. of Defense News Briefing, "American Airlines", "Flight 77", "Boeing 757", were not even mentioned.

The security camera video of "Flight 77" released by the Pentagon has one frame showing something -- labeled "Approaching Aircraft" -- moving parallel to the ground about 100 yards in front of the Pentagon.

This is the U.S. government's evidence to support its claim that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

However, the government's own records -- Pentagon transcripts, official reports, flight data recorder, and the laws of science belie "The 9/11 Commission Report".

September 11, 2001: CNN News Reports

Just minutes after the alleged attack, standing in front of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Jamie McIntyre, CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent since November 1992, reported to Judy Woodruff: "From my close up inspection there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. . . . . The only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you could pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage -- nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon."

Jamie McIntyre, CNN Sr Pentagon Correspondent, September 11, 2001

McIntyre continued, "If you look at the pictures of the Pentagon you see that all of the floors have collapsed, that didn't happen immediately. It wasn't till almost 45 minutes later that the structure was weakened enough that all of the floors collapsed."

Earlier that day, McIntryre reported: "I could see parts of the airplane that crashed into the building, very small pieces of the plane on the heliport outside the building. The biggest piece I saw was about three feet long, it was silver and had been painted green and red, but I could not see any identifying markings on the plane."
A few years later McIntyre claimed that he had been taken out of context. Jamie McIntyre's original account of September 11, 2001 is confirmed by several eyewitnesses.

Other Eyewitnesses

Bob Pugh, 9/11 Pentagon Eyewitness, YouTube

Bob Pugh, freelance photographer, who filmed the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, said in his videotaped account, "I'm looking for wreckage, . . . I can't see anything that I recognize. I can't see the tail, I can't see the wheel, I can't see the engine. There's no chairs, there's no luggage there's no logo. . . . The largest piece I saw was may be 2 by 3 feet . . . The foam trucks were beginning to show up . . . [the hole] was 16 feet diameter, 20 feet tops."

Lt. Robert Medairos, Arlington County Police

Lt. Robert Medairos, Arlington County Police -- watch commander for the day, who stated (ABC 7, Washington, D.C. September 13, 2001, 3:25 PM), "They said it was a plane, and I didn't see any pieces of any plane, and I couldn't believe a plane hit the building."

Lt Col Karen Kwiatowski, who from her fifth-floor, B-ring office at the Pentagon, witnessed "an unforgettable fireball, 20 to 30 feet in diameter" confirms McIntyre's account.

Writing in "9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out," Kwiatowski noted, "a strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the secretary of defense, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a 'missile'." (DoD News Transcript, October 12, 2001)

Pentagon employee April Gallop, whose "desk was roughly 40 feet from the point where the plane allegedly hit the outside wall" stated in a sworn complaint (before the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York): "As she sat down to work there was an explosion, then another; walls collapsed and the ceiling fell in. Hit in the head, she was able to grab the baby and make her way towards the daylight showing through a blasted opening in the outside wall. There was no airplane wreckage and no burning airplane fuel anywhere; only rubble and dust."

The case was dismissed without trial. The Federal Judge ruled that: "Even assuming the factual allegations of the complaint are true, Gallop's claims are not plausible."

Other Accounts

Barbara Honegger, military affairs journalist, reported in her personal capacity that a pilot sent by Gen Larry Arnold (NORAD) "reported back that there was no evidence that a plane had hit the building." She added, "Multiple standard-issue, battery-operated wall clocks . . . stopped between 9:31 and 9:32-1/2 on September 11" -- a few minutes before Flight 77 that is alleged to have struck the Pentagon at 9:37:46.

The Pentagon appears to have "resolved" the time discrepancy. At the Pentagon Memorial, they just did away with the time and replaced it with blank tiles.

Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret) -- former Commanding General of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, and head of Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence -- stated in a video interview, "I don't know exactly what hit it, but I do know, from the photographs that I have analyzed and looked at very, very carefully, it was not an airplane."

Major Douglas Rokke, U.S. Army (ret) adds: "No aircraft hit the Pentagon. Totally impossible! You couldn't make the turns with a 757. You couldn't fly it in over the highway. You couldn't fly it over the light poles. You couldn't even get it that close to the ground because of turbulence."

Other eyewitnesses reported seeing a large plane hit the Pentagon. Some reported seeing a commuter plane. These have not been vetted.

Phone Calls From Flight 77

In a front page article on September 12, 2001 -- On Flight 77: 'Our Plane Is Being Hijacked' -- Marc Fisher and Don Phillips of the Washington Post reported that Barbara K. Olson called her husband twice in the final minutes before the crash of Flight 77. The FBI contradicts this account.

According to the Washington Post, Olson's last words to her husband were, "What do I tell the pilot to do?"

"She called from the plane while it was being hijacked," said Theodore Olson -- 42nd Solicitor General of the United States. "I wish it wasn't so, but it is."

"The two conversations each lasted about a minute, said Tim O'Brien, a CNN reporter and friend of the Olsons."

However, FBI exhibit (P200054 above) from the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui contradicts the Solicitor General's account. It shows that Barbara Olson made only one phone call -- it did not connect, and it lasted for 0 seconds.

September 12, 2001: Pentagon News Briefing

At the September 12, 2001, Dept. of Defense (DoD) News Briefing by Assistant Secretary of Defense, Victoria Clarke, Ed Plaugher (fire chief of Arlington County), and others, "American Airlines", "Flight 77", "Boeing 757" were not even mentioned.

How significant is this?

With the world's news media assembled at the Pentagon on the day after the alleged attack on the Pentagon by Arab hijackers flying American Airlines Flight 77 -- a Boeing 757 -- "American Airlines", "Flight 77", "Boeing 757" were not considered important enough to mention at the Pentagon News Briefing the day after the alleged attack!

Fire chief Ed Plaugher was asked by a reporter, "Is there anything left of the aircraft at all?" Plaugher responded, "there are some small pieces of aircraft ... there's no fuselage sections and that sort of thing."

When asked, "Chief, there are small pieces of the plane virtually all over, out over the highway, tiny pieces. Would you say the plane exploded, virtually exploded on impact due to the fuel", Plaugher reponded "You know, I'd rather not comment on that."

September 15, 2001: Pentagon News Briefing

At the September 15, 2001, Dept. of Defense (DoD) News Briefing by Mr. Lee Evey, Pentagon Renovation Manager, Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, and others, it was apparent that there were lingering doubts about what had struck the Pentagon on September 11.

When Mr. Evey said, "the nose of the aircraft broke through this innermost wall of C Ring", a reporter asked, "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 replied, "Actually, there's considerable evidence of the aircraft outside the E Ring. It's just not very visible."

Apparently, no one asked how "the nose of the aircraft" (a relatively weak component of the aircraft) remained sufficiently intact to penetrate the C Ring -- the E Ring is the outermost ring.

'Pentagon Building Performance Report'

In January 2003, the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology released the "Pentagon Building Performance Report" (removed from NIST website).

Page 18 of this report reads: "The Boeing 757 approached the west wall of the Pentagon from the southwest at approximately 780 ft/s. As it approached the Pentagon site it was so low to the ground that it reportedly clipped an antenna on a vehicle on an adjacent road and severed light posts. When it was approximately 320 ft from the west wall of the building (0.42 second before impact), it was flying nearly level, only a few feet above the ground."

Page 35 of this report reads: "An examination of the area encompassed by extending the line of travel of the aircraft to the face of the building shows that there are no discrete marks on the building corresponding to the positions of the outer third of the right wing. The size and position of the actual opening in the facade of the building (from column line 8 to column line 18) indicate that no portion of the outer two-thirds of the right wing and no portion of the outer one-third of the left wing actually entered the building."

Had a Boeing 757 struck the Pentagon, its wings would have been found outside the Pentagon. But these wings were not found outside the Pentagon!

Photographs, and CNN's Jamie McIntyre confirm this fact.

Page 36 of this report reads: "The height of the damage to the facade of the building was much less than the height of the aircraft's tail. At approximately 45 ft, the tail height was nearly as tall as the first four floors of the building. Obvious visible damage extended only over the lowest two floors, to approximately 25 ft above grade."

This implies that whatever struck the Pentagon, couldn't have been a Boeing 757 - its tail height is 44 feet 6 inches.

Page 39 of this report reads: "Most likely, the wings of the aircraft were severed as the aircraft penetrated the facade of the building. Even if portions of the wings remained intact after passing through the plane of the facade, the structural damage pattern indicates that the wings were severed before the aircraft penetrated more than a few dozen feet into the building."

As previously noted, these wings were not found outside the Pentagon!

From the preceding it is clear that the "Pentagon Building Performance Report" -- prepared by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute, and released by the U.S. government's National Institute of Standards and Technology -- contradicts the official account of 9/11.

'Arlington County After-Action Report'

The "Arlington County After-Action Report" describes the occurrence of an event at the Pentagon minutes before the alleged strike of Flight 77, and the presence of Fort Myer Foam Unit 161 at the Pentagon prior to impact.

Annex A, Page A-4 of this report states: "Captain Dennis Gilroy and his team were already on station at the Pentagon when Flight #77 slammed into it, just beyond the heliport. Foam 161 caught fire and suffered a flat tire from flying debris. Firefighters Mark Skipper and Alan Wallace were outside the vehicle at impact and received burns and lacerations. . . . Captain Gilroy called the Fort Myer Fire Department, reporting for the first time the actual location of the crash."

Did Fort Myer Unit 161 go the Pentagon following an explosion -- prior to the alleged strike of Flight 77?

It is consistent with the reporter's question at the September 12 News Briefing, "Chief, there are small pieces of the plane virtually all over, out over the highway, tiny pieces. Would you say the plane exploded, virtually exploded on impact due to the fuel"?

It is consistent with April Gallop's sworn complaint that "she was able to grab the baby and make her way towards the daylight showing through a blasted opening in the outside wall. There was no airplane wreckage and no burning airplane fuel anywhere; only rubble and dust."

It is consistent with the "Pentagon Building Performance Report" (Figure 7.9) that indicates a "slab deflected upward" (by an explosion below the slab, or an upward blow by a hard object?).

It is consistent with military affairs journalist Barbara Honegger's account of "Multiple standard-issue, battery-operated wall clocks . . . stopped between 9:31 and 9:32-1/2 on September 11."

Fort Myer Unit 161's arrival at the Pentagon to knock out a fire "seven minutes after their arrival" is not consistent with the official account of 9/11.

'American Airlines' Flight Data Recorder

Pilots for 9/11 Truth state: "video captured by the parking gate cam is in direct conflict with the Aircraft Flight Data Recorder data released by the NTSB" (National Transportation Safety Board) pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request. The "Pentagon Building Performance Report" states (page 14): "A Pentagon security camera located near the northwest corner of the building recorded the aircraft as it approached the building. Five photographs (figures 3.3 through 3.7), taken approximately one second apart, show the approaching aircraft and the ensuing fireball associated with the initial impact."

On page 35 of this report we're told, "The site data indicate that the aircraft fuselage impacted the building at column line 14 at an angle of approximately 42 degrees to the normal to the face of the building, at or slightly below the second-story slab."

However, the NTSB animation (January 2002), according to Pilots for 9/11 Truth, shows an aircraft flying north of the Navy Annex, not leveling off, and being too high to have hit the Pentagon.

When confronted with this discrepancy, NTSB Chief Jim Potter said: "I have no comment on the existence of the discrepancies."

Two Pentagon security officers state categorically that a plane (which they believed was Flight 77) flew north of the Citgo gas station (since demolished) located west of the Pentagon on South Joyce Street at Columbia Pike, rather than flying south of the gas station as stated in official reports.

Damage Path Not Consistent With Boeing 757 Strike

With Flight 77 alleged to have struck the Pentagon at "an angle of approximately 42 degrees", the flight path and the damage path is not likely to form a straight line.

Flying at "an angle of approximately 42 degrees" the Boeing 757's starboard wing would have struck the west wall of the Pentagon before the port wing. This would cause the aircraft to veer to the right, and the damage path would be in line with the aircraft's new heading -- not with the aircraft's heading prior to impact (assuming -- miraculously -- the plane was able to penetrate the C Ring).

However, the "Pentagon Building Performance Report" Figures 6.2 and 6.6 show that the flight path and damage path (damage path also illustrated in the "Arlington County After Action Report", page 23) do form a straight line extending from the center-line of the fuselage of the aircraft to where the "the nose of the aircraft broke through this innermost wall of C Ring".
If the wings sheared off, we may conclude that the wall presented enough resistance to cause the plane to veer right. If the wings sliced through, we would have a 125 ft opening - the wingspan of a Boeing 75 - in the outer wall. Neither occurred, and observed damage did not extend to the height of the aircraft's tail.

The path from outer wall to C Ring is consistent with a missile strike.

G-Force Would Have Destroyed the Boeing 757

Pilots for 9/11 Truth conclude: "Arlington's unique topography and obstacles along American 77 'final leg' to the Pentagon make this approach completely impossible".

Flight 77 is alleged to have flown over Columbia Pike and the Virginia Department of Transportation communications tower located 1143 yards west of the Pentagon before striking the Pentagon at "530 miles per hour".

The antenna on the VDOT tower has been determined to be 169 ft above the ground -- the ground itself is at an elevation of 135 feet (FCC Registration Number 1016111). The Pentagon ground under the "flight path" is not level. Its elevation varies from 30 feet to 50 feet.

This path would have taken Flight 77 south of the gas station at the intersection of Columbia Pike and S. Joyce Street, and over the intersection of Columbia Pike and Virginia Route 27.

Flight 77 would then have been over Pentagon grounds with about 500 feet remaining to level out and to strike the Pentagon "slightly below the second floor slab" at "an angle of approximately 42 degrees".

The 4-storey Navy Annex on the north side of Columbia Pike (its southeast corner is at an elevation of 124 feet), the Columbia Pike and VA-27 intersection, and topography present challenges along the alleged flight path to the Pentagon.

According to the "Pentagon Building Performance Report" (page 14), "The first photograph (figure 3.3) captured an image of the aircraft when it was approximately 320 ft (approximately 0.42 second) from impact with the west wall of the Pentagon. Two photographs (figures 3.3 and 3.7), when compared, seem to show that the top of the fuselage of the aircraft was no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground when the first photograph of this series was taken."

Leaving aside the discrepancies between the official account of Flight 77, and the Flight Data Recorder (which NTSB refuses to answer), Pilots for 9/11 Truth calculated the force on the Boeing 757 at 34 Gs, i.e. 34 times the force due to gravity, at the point that it would have to transition from its downward flight to level flight.

Adam Shaw, Instructor/Airshow Pilot Questions 911, Dec 23, 2010

With a virtual weight of about 8.5 million pounds, Flight 77 could not have leveled off before striking the Pentagon. It would have crashed at the intersection of Columbia Pike and VA-27. This alone is sufficient to refute the official account of "Flight 77" -- Flight 77 cannot have violated the laws of science.

Pilots for 9/11 Truth did another calculation by lowering the height of "Flight 77" below that shown by the FDR. They lowered it to the top of the VDOT antenna.

With this very conservative case, they calculated the force on the Boeing 757 at 11.2 Gs. "11.2 Gs was never recorded in the FDR. 11.2 Gs would rip the aircraft apart" they wrote.

Lastly, why would the hijackers strike the Pentagon from the west when an approach from the east is not only an order of magnitude easier but would have struck the side of the Pentagon occupied by top brass? Are we to believe that these hijackers who were smart enough to beat U.S. defenses were really so dumb as to have not taken the vastly easier and more deadly path? And then they assign Hani Hanjour who "could not fly at all" to pilot the plane? There's no evidence that Hanjour was even on Flight 77.

Conclusion

To conclude, the official account of Flight 77 -- supported by one frame from a security camera showing a puff of something approaching the Pentagon -- is contradicted by the transcripts of Pentagon News Briefings conducted on September 12 and 15; by the "Pentagon Building Performance Report"; by the "Arlington County After-Action Report"; by the FBI's exhibit on phone calls from Flight 77; by the Flight Data Recorder provided by the NTSB.

The official account of Flight 77 contradicts the laws of science. Flight 77 could not have withstood the calculated G-force when it would have had to level out -- about 100 yards before striking the Pentagon -- with "the top of the fuselage of the aircraft . . . no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground".

In criminal cases, the burden of proving the defendant's guilt is on the prosecution, and they must establish that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.

Cynthia McKinney Grills Donald Rumsfeld

On September 10, 2001, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon "cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions". It is alleged that the section of the Pentagon destroyed on September 11, 2001 housed records of DoD spending, and the personnel for monitoring that spending.

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Enver Masud learned to fly a Tiger Moth at the Delhi Flying Club, Safdarjung Airport, New Delhi, India. He received his Private Pilot's License in 1960.

DOD Transcripts September 2001: Can you find Boeing 757 or Flight 77 in these transcripts?

Enver Masud, "No Arab Names on Passenger List," The Wisdom Fund, July 26, 2004

[The New York Times reported that [the alleged pilot] Hani Hanjour "could not fly at all."

His reported lack of flying skills makes it highly unlikely that he could fly a Boeing 757 in a spiral turn from 7000 feet (9/11 Commission Report, p9), over a communications tower on the downslope south of the Navy Annex, over a highway sign on Route 27, over light poles on the off ramp, level off at "approximately 530 miles per hour" in the remaining 150 to 200 yards with "the top of the fuselage of the aircraft no more than 20 ft above the ground" (Pentagon Building Performance Report, p14), and strike the first floor of the 5-story, 71 feet tall Pentagon.--Enver Masud, "What Really Happened on September 11 at the Pentagon," The Wisdom Fund, March 7, 2005]

PRESS RELEASE: "Official Account of 9/11 Flight Contradicted by Government's Own Data," Pilots for 9/11 Truth, March 26, 2007

FREE BOOK: Enver Masud, "9/11 Unveiled," The Wisdom Fund (September 11, 2008)

Enver Masud, "Why Was FMFD Unit 161 at the Pentagon Before the Crash of 'Flight 77'?," The Wisdom Fund, January 1, 2009

Enver Masud, "Pentagon 9/11: Scientific Evidence Proves Official Account of 'Flight 77' Is False," The Wisdom Fund, July 2, 2009

Enver Masud, "FBI Exhibit Contradicts U.S. Solicitor General's Account of Phone Calls From Barbara Olson," The Wisdom Fund, November 17, 2009

Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld, "Why Science Tells Us Not to Rely on Eyewitness Accounts," scientificamerican.com, January 1, 2010

Dwain Deets, "NASA Flight Director Confirms 9/11 Aircraft Speed As The 'Elephant In The Room'," Pilots for 9/11 Truth, June 22, 2010

VIDEO: "9/11: Intercepted," Pilots for 9/11 Truth, June 24, 2011 (jump to 25 min.)

"Overwhelming Evidence Pentagon Aircraft Data Is Not From American Airlines Flight 757," PilotsFor911Truth.org, March 3, 2011

"American Patriots Question 9/11," The Wisdom Fund, September 11, 2011

"On 9/11 Cheney ordered the stand down of the air defense missiles around the Pentagon and the Washington DC area," pilotsfor911truth.org, March 28, 2012

Enver Masud, "9/11: Evidence of Complicity and Cover-up at the Pentagon," The Wisdom Fund, July 12, 2012

VIDEO: "September 11: The New Pearl Harbor," luogocomune.net, Part 2 of 3, 2013

VIDEO: "Skygate 911," Pilots for 9/11 Truth, May 14, 2014

"Security video of plane hitting Pentagon released," AP Archive, July 28, 2015

Craig McKee, Adam Syed, Adam Ruff, "Chandler devotes most of Pentagon talk to boosting 9/11 official story," truthandshadows.wordpress.com, October 3, 2015

MULTIMEDIA PRESENTATION: Enver Masud, "More than 3000 senior officials, engineers, pilots ... question The 9/11 Commission Report," Civil Services Officer's Institute, India, February 19, 2017

9/11 Attacks and Investigation Images, FBI Records: The Vault, Mar 31, 2017 (Why are photos from before the Pentagon wall collapse missing? Is it becasue they tell a different story?)

Enver Masud, "Bringing Closure to the 9/11 Pentagon Debate? Utter Nonsense — Evidence Contradicts Scientists for 9/11 Truth," The Wisdom Fund, August 30, 2017

"Pilots and Aviation Professionals Question the 9/11 Commission Report"

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COMPARE Flight 77 debris with Germanwings Flight 9525 debris

PHOTOS, VIDEO: "Germanwings plane crash," mirror.co.uk, April 1, 2015

PHOTOS: "Germanwings plane crashes in France," cnn.com, April 4, 2015

PHOTOS: "Germanwings debris," google.com

Serial Numbers? Boeing 757 Debris?
There should have been many parts found at the Pentagon with Serial Numbers. These Serial Numbers should have been matched with those in American Airlines logbooks - maintained pursuant to the Code of Federal Regulations - for the Boeing 757 that is alleged to have struck the Pentagon. This would be incontrovertible proof. Show me.

WHERE IS THE NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD (NTSB) REPORT OF THE ALLEGED CRASH OF FLIGHT 77 AT THE PENTAGON? The NTSB is charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United States. The Search Investigation and Recommendation Data (CAROL Query Tool) yields no results.

COMPARE Flight 77 debris with China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 debris, Reuters, March 23, 2022
Boeing 737-800, MU5735 jetliner crash in south China, CGTN, March 24, 2022.

Airplane accidents database

MORE: "What Really Happened on September 11, 2001," The Wisdom Fund