THE PENTAGON
At 9:37 am on 9/11, 51 minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon was similarly attacked. Though dozens of witnesses saw
a Boeing 757 hit the building, conspiracy advocates insist there is evidence
that a missile or a different type of plane smashed into the Pentagon.
HQ ATTACK: Taken three days after 9/11, this photo shows the extent of the
damage to the Pentagon, consistent with a fiery plane crash. PHOTOGRAPH BY
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Big Plane, Small Holes
CLAIM: Two holes were visible in the Pentagon immediately after the attack:
a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building's exterior wall, and a 16-ft.-wide
hole in Ring C, the Pentagon's middle ring. Conspiracy theorists claim both
holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757. "How does a plane
125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. across?"
asks reopen911.org, a Web site "dedicated to discovering the bottom line
truth to what really occurred on September 11, 2001."
The truth is of even less importance to French author Thierry Meyssan, whose
baseless assertions are fodder for even mainstream European and Middle
Eastern media. In his book The Big Lie, Meyssan concludes that the Pentagon
was struck by a satellite-guided missile--part of an elaborate U.S. military
coup. "This attack," he writes, "could only be committed by United States
military personnel against other U.S. military personnel."
FACT: When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon's exterior wall,
Ring E, it created a hole approximately 75 ft. wide, according to the ASCE
Pentagon Building Performance Report. The exterior facade collapsed about 20
minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole
on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged.
Computer simulations confirmed the findings.
Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 757's 124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A crashing
jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced
concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of
structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit the
ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the
Pentagon's load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the
behavior of concrete buildings. What was left of the plane flowed into the
structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. "If you expected
the entire wing to cut into the building," Sozen tells PM, "it didn't
happen."
The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft. wide--not 16 ft. ASCE concludes it was
made by the jet's landing gear, not by the fuselage.
HOLE TRUTH: Flight 77¹s landing gear punched a 12-ft. hole into the
Pentagon¹s Ring C. PHOTOGRAPH BY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Intact Windows
CLAIM: Many Pentagon windows remained in one piece--even those just above
the point of impact from the Boeing 757 passenger plane.
Pentagonstrike.co.uk, an online animation widely circulated in the United
States and Europe, claims that photographs showing "intact windows" directly
above the crash site prove "a missile" or "a craft much smaller than a 757"
struck the Pentagon.
FACT: Some windows near the impact area did indeed survive the crash. But
that's what the windows were supposed to do--they're blast-resistant.
"A blast-resistant window must be designed to resist a force significantly
higher than a hurricane that's hitting instantaneously," says Ken Hays,
executive vice president of Masonry Arts, the Bessemer, Ala., company that
designed, manufactured and installed the Pentagon windows. Some were knocked
out of the walls by the crash and the outer ring's later collapse. "They
were not designed to receive wracking seismic force," Hays notes. "They were
designed to take in inward pressure from a blast event, which apparently
they did: [Before the collapse] the blinds were still stacked neatly behind
the window glass."
Flight 77 Debris
CLAIM: Conspiracy theorists insist there was no plane wreckage at the
Pentagon. "In reality, a Boeing 757 was never found," claims
pentagonstrike.co.uk, which asks the question, "What hit the Pentagon on
9/11?"
FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer was the first structural engineer to
arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the emergency
response. "It was absolutely a plane, and I'll tell you why," says
Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. "I saw the
marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of
the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail
section of the plane, and I found the black box." Kilsheimer's eyewitness
account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the
building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my
hands, including body parts. Okay?"
FLIGHT 93
Cockpit recordings indicate the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93
teamed up to attack their hijackers, forcing down the plane near
Shanksville, in southwestern Pennsylvania. But conspiracy theorists assert
Flight 93 was destroyed by a heat-seeking missile from an F-16 or a
mysterious white plane. Some theorists add far-fetched elaborations: No
terrorists were aboard, or the passengers were drugged. The wildest is the
"bumble planes" theory, which holds that passengers from Flights 11, 175 and
77 were loaded onto Flight 93 so the U.S. government could kill them.
The White Jet
CLAIM: At least six eyewitnesses say they saw a small white jet flying low
over the crash area almost immediately after Flight 93 went down. BlogD.com
theorizes that the aircraft was downed by "either a missile fired from an
Air Force jet, or via an electronic assault made by a U.S. Customs airplane
reported to have been seen near the site minutes after Flight 93 crashed."
WorldNetDaily.com weighs in: "Witnesses to this low-flying jet ... told
their story to journalists. Shortly thereafter, the FBI began to attack the
witnesses with perhaps the most inane disinformation ever--alleging the
witnesses actually observed a private jet at 34,000 ft. The FBI says the jet
was asked to come down to 5000 ft. and try to find the crash site. This
would require about 20 minutes to descend."
FACT: There was such a jet in the vicinity--a Dassault Falcon 20 business
jet owned by the VF Corp. of Greensboro, N.C., an apparel company that
markets Wrangler jeans and other brands. The VF plane was flying into
Johnstown-Cambria airport, 20 miles north of Shanksville. According to David
Newell, VF's director of aviation and travel, the FAA's Cleveland Center
contacted copilot Yates Gladwell when the Falcon was at an altitude "in the
neighborhood of 3000 to 4000 ft."--not 34,000 ft. "They were in a descent
already going into Johnstown," Newell adds. "The FAA asked them to
investigate and they did. They got down within 1500 ft. of the ground when
they circled. They saw a hole in the ground with smoke coming out of it.
They pinpointed the location and then continued on." Reached by PM, Gladwell
confirmed this account but, concerned about ongoing harassment by conspiracy
theorists, asked not to be quoted directly.
Roving Engine
CLAIM: One of Flight 93's engines was found "at a considerable distance from
the crash site," according to Lyle Szupinka, a state police officer on the
scene who was quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Offering no evidence,
a posting on Rense.com claimed: "The main body of the engine ... was found
miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which
a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner."
FACT: Experts on the scene tell PM that a fan from one of the engines was
recovered in a catchment basin, downhill from the crash site. Jeff Reinbold,
the National Park Service representative responsible for the Flight 93
National Memorial, confirms the direction and distance from the crash site
to the basin: just over 300 yards south, which means the fan landed in the
direction the jet was traveling. "It's not unusual for an engine to move or
tumble across the ground," says Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert
who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 out of New York City in 1996.
"When you have very high velocities, 500 mph or more," Hynes says, "you are
talking about 700 to 800 ft. per second. For something to hit the ground
with that kind of energy, it would only take a few seconds to bounce up and
travel 300 yards." Numerous crash analysts contacted by PM concu
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