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".
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.
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.
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 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.
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-storeyNavy Annex on the north side of Columbia Pike (its southeast corner is at an elevation of 124 feet), the Columbia Pike and VA-27intersection, 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".
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.
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.
[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
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?)
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 Regualtions - 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.
Pentagon employee 
