"What the search for the truth about September 11 desperately needs right now is a zealous prosecutor somewhere in America—someone like New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison...—willing to investigate and indict the 19 suspected hijackers as well as their still-living associates to compel federal investigative agencies like the FBI to present at trial the evidence they have been sitting on."

"Instead, what we got was the recent 9/11 Conference in San Francisco, where you could hear all about the Bush’s links to the Nazis... find out that the hijacked planes were operated—Look Ma! No hands!—by Remote Control. The “No Arabs aboard” attack was fail-safed and backstopped with missiles hidden in the undercarriage of the airliners..."
- May 5, 2004, Daniel Hopsicker, 'The 'Red Herrings' of 9/11'.

"David Ray Griffin has established himself—alongside Seymour Hersh—as America's number one bearer of unpleasant, yet necessary, public truths."
- David Ray Griffin, supported by Richard Falk of the CFR and anti-neoconservative and Cercle-linked Middle East Policy Council. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

This article has been written in response to the many claims that no 757-223 could have hit the Pentagon. These days, anybody who has heard of skepticism surrounding the 9/11 events, has come across the no-757 theory. As bizarre as this may sound, at first glance it does indeed look as if the hole created by the airplane is a bit on the small side - even some individuals who saw a large airliner crash into the building mentioned this to the press (consider this a first hint).

Combine the assumption that the hole is "too small" with the fact that 1) several exercises were going on the morning of 9/11 that simulated the attack; 2) that apparantly no serious action was undertaken to intercept the airliners for the first 1,5 hours; 3) that the hijackers were connected to US intelligence, arms merchants and international drug trafficking networks; 4) that no Arab names were found on the passenger lists; and 5) that numerous other unexplained aspects of 9/11 haven't been investigated; and it's obvious that an overall conspiracy theory is created to explain all these strange things.

Keep in mind that, like quantum theory, I have nothing against conspiracy theory. The problem is that conspiracy theorists usually do not have the power to subpoena their suspects, and therefore it's often a bit hard to get past the theory phase. Despite that, the CIA's past involvement in the world cocaine and heroin trade to fund black operations is pretty much proven fact, just as their involvement in Gladio-organized "communosocialist" terrorism over in Europe. Instead of the newest conspiracy theory, Mohammed Atta's association with CIA-fascists like Wolfgang Bohringer and the international drug trade sounds more and more like "deja vu" than anything else.

The one thing that I think is important with conspiracy theories, is that they are not based on false assumptions, or on the selective gathering of evidence. The problem is that this is exactly what has been done with the Pentagon crash. And not just a little, it has been taken to the extreme. And that's a problem, because now that more and more people have been getting involved with the alternative 9/11 movement it's getting harder for them by the month to escape the pointless "yes 757" vs "no 757" debates (update: lately, the tide has been turning). The important Pentagon related questions had already been raised right after 9/11. The thing left to do here is to get testimony from the people who know more about the 9/11 event, while at the same time making sure the truth movement A) gains momentum B) doesn't derail itself into bogus issues.

Although, I have to admit, even after many hours of research over more than a year, the only conclusion I'm willing to make these days about 9/11 is that nobody really knows what happened. And the people who should be able to find out what happened, have done everything in their power to limit the research as much as possible.

Recommended link:
Researchers who have supported the no-757 theory

Part 1 Dimensions of the Pentagon and Flight 77 Part 2 The reported size of the Pentagon hole Part 3 The dimensions of the main hole Part 4 The damage done at both sides of the main hole Part 5 Adding up the damage that was done to the building Part 6 More on the angle of attack Part 7 The debris discussed Part 8 The witness testimonies Part 9 Debunking ALL missile witness testimonies Part 10 Addressing the alternative airplane testimonies Part 11 Questions that remain unanswered about the Pentagon-crash Part 12 Conclusion

Part 1 - Dimensions of the Pentagon and Flight 77:

Flight 77 - Boeing 757-223 - dimensions:

* You can measure the pixels and calculate these distances for yourself if you know how to use a program like Photoshop. The scale-drawing of the plane is very accurate. The calculation could be a bit off though, but no more than 3-5%. Links you might need are airliners.net and a conversion-tool website.

Pentagon dimensions:

*In an article from 'Structure Magazine' called 'Retrofitting The Pentagon For Blast Resistance' the wrong windows width has been given. The dimensions in feet are alright, but someone recalculated 5 feet as 1.8 meters, which is wrong. It will be shown below that the width of the windows is indeed 5 feet / 1.5 meters and not 6 feet / 1.8 meters. A link for information on the outer dimensions of the Pentagon can be found at the renovation of the Pentagon website.

Part 2 - The reported size of the Pentagon hole

According to the news media, the hole in the Pentagon was about 15 meters or 50 feet. Some later articles are talking about 19.5 meters or 64 feet. I haven't really found out which part of the hole they were talking about... Did they mean the upper part of the collapsed area or did they mean the lower part of the collapsed area? And did they, or anyone else, incorporate all of the damaged area at ground level? It doesn't seem like this was taken into consideration by a lot of people. Especially not by those who are advocating the "no-757-hit-the-Pentagon-theory". This is one of the reasons why I think that the "911 skeptics" public needs to get a little bit more specific here.

When I was gathering and analyzing all this data for a website, I just assumed that the hole was indeed too small for a 757 to have passed through. However, that changed the moment I read all the eye-witness accounts of the people who had been present that day at the Pentagon. Almost every single one described a large American Airlines jetliner that came crashing into the building. It was also interesting to see how some people just couldn't believe how such a large airplane had disappeared into such a small hole. I have gathered and organized all of these eye-witness accounts in a different article that can be found here. In that article, you will also find my views on every single theory that has been put forth about the Pentagon crash.

In this article I will try to prove that the damage that was done to the Pentagon allows for a 757-223 to have crashed. But regardless of what crashed at the Pentagon, questions will remain. Those are put forth in the last part of this article.

Part 3 - The dimensions of the main hole

I will use the same method I used to measure and calculate some of the dimensions of the airplane. What I do is, I import a picture in Photoshop and start measuring the pixels between certain areas. Of course, I have to know the real-life size of one of these areas for this method to work.. For obvious reasons that have to do with the perspective, the picture will need to have been taken relatively square to the facade of the building. It is also important that you don't start calculating horizontal spaces with vertical measurements. (and vice-versa) Last thing someone will need to keep in mind, is that he needs to make a measurement of a known real-life length, that is as close to the actual unknown space he wants to measure. Again, that has to with the perspective. The greater the angle deviates from 90 degrees the more important this will be.

Picture 1 - According to some witnesses, the plane's nose touched the ground a couple of feet before the facade.

The first measurement will be a test, to see how accurate this method is. I know that the height of the building is 23.56 meters or 77 feet and 3.5 inches. So at first, I correct the the sagging of the roof above the main-impact. Then I measure the amount of pixels from the red line to the bottom of the building....that turns out to be 298 pixels. I also know that the height of each window in 2.1 meters or 7 feet.When I measure this height in pixels (notice I took the window that is closest to the reference-line) it turns out to be 27 pixels. Now, let's pretend I don't know the size of the window, I only know the height of the roof...let's calculate:

Windows height in meters:
23.56 : 298 = 0.0791 meters per pixel x 27 = 2.13 meters (Official number around 2.1 meters)
Windows height in feet:
77.3 : 298 = 0.2594 feet per pixel x 27 = 7.00 feet (Official number around 7)

Personally, I could not have hoped for better results. Keep in mind that the next time you'll do this you might measure 28 pixels or 26 pixels, so you will always have some slight deviations of the real size or length. (Of course I checked this time if I should take 27 or 28 pixels)

Now that we know that this method is very accurate, let's measure and calculate the height of the main hole. The hole that should have been made by the fuselage of the airliner:

Main hole height in meters:
23.56 : 298 = 0.0791 meters per pixel x 118 = 9.33 meters.
Main hole height in feet:
77.3 : 298 = 0.2594 feet per pixel x 118 = 30.61 feet.
757-223 from the top of the fuselage to bottom engines, since the landing gear was up according to all witnesses:
5.4 meters.
17.7 feet.

This time we will not be able to check how accurate our answer is. However, I am confident it is within 5% of the real height of the hole. At the secondary picture, on the left side of the main picture, you will see that the hole starts somewhere around ground level. This calculation means that if we are talking about the height, a 757-223 would have easily passed through this hole. Notice the steel beam that is still hanging on the ceiling in the middle of the hole. This might be an indication that the airplane moved into the building several meters or feet below the top of the hole. It doesn't really matter, because there would have been plenty of space according to the calculation.

Picture 2 - simple math

This time we will calculate in a different way. Since we know the windows size is 1.5 meters or 5 feet wide and the walls in between these windows are also 1.5 meters or 5 feet wide, (as you can see again in the lower-right corner of the above pic) we can just add these up. In the above picture you can see at the upper-left the width of the hole. The limestone and bricks have fallen off, exposing the steel frame. (the other wings still had concrete) The calculation should be self evident, just look how many windows & spaces-in-between you can add-up between the two yellow lines.

Needless to say that we now know that a Boeing 757-223 fuselage could easily have passed through the main impact hole.

Part 4 - The damage done at both sides of the main hole

Picture 3 - The beams have not been blown outwards. They have been torn from the ground.

This is the right area of the impact hole. Do you notice that the main damage has been done at ground level? Only at the very end of the damaged area we see heavy damage on the floor above. The cause for this might be that the wings of a 757-223 are tilted upwards, or as witnesses have said, that the airplane was leaning towards the left when it hit the building. (This second floor damage is not present on the other side)

Ok, since we know the windows are 1.5 meters or 5 feet wide and the same goes for the spaces in between, we just add them up. The picture has been taken almost square on the facade, so this means we can just keep counting up the pixels. Every 39 pixels is about 1.5 meters or 5 feet. The results are added in the picture:

Right wing heavy-damage area:
15.5 meters
51.6 feet

Picture 4 - Might be a bit confusing at a first glimpse. Keep looking.

Now we will try to assess the heavy impact-damage on the left side of the main hole. In the above image, in the upper-left, you can see that the ground floor on the left side of the impact has been transformed into a big gaping hole. Again, only on the ground floor and not on any of the upper levels. (except for the far-right of the right wing) I added a few pointers so that you can recognize the main hole in the background, the point at which the floors start to sag and the area with the "missing" window. These clues are necessary if you want to recognize the exact area from other pictures, ideally pictures that we can use to measure pixels or count all the windows. Like those pictures in the upper-right and lower-right corner. Just look at them for a minute and they should explain themselves. So:

Left wing heavy-damage area:
15.5 meters
51.5 feet

Picture 5 - Possibly the best photograph for observing the damage the left wing has done.

Picture 6 - The limestone and part of the brick wall is shattered. The white debris might be the airplane's wing.

Can there be any doubt about the damage caused by the left wing? We see that the steel beam between the ground floor and the first floor is exposed for a length of 6 additional windows. As usual, the windows are 1.5m / 5ft wide and the 5 spaces in between are also 1.5m / 5ft wide.

Total damage field caused by the left wing:

Part 5 - Adding up the damage that was done to the building

Picture 7 - Previous damage drawn on the reconstructed Pentagon

Picture 8 - Mike J. Wilson's excellent reconstruction. For some reason, a lot of people use this reconstruction to debunk the official story. I really don't know why. It's obvious that most of the carbon fiber/aluminum wings are gonna get smashed to pieces while only the central cilinder, with all the mass behind it, is going to penetrate the reinforced steel/concrete building to any extent.

Some additional information:

Part 6 - More on the angle of attack

Basically everyone agrees on the angle of attack of 'the object', whether you are talking to people who believe a missile hit or whether you are looking at some official schematics that have been drawn. These schematics have been assembled by looking at the physical evidence and by listening to the witnesses.

Picture 9 - Reconstructing the angle of attack.

Picture 10 - The theoretical hole the 757-223 should have created. A
calculation with sin would show a theoretical hole of 49.6 meters, so
both methods are accurate.

Picture 11 - This shows that the theoretical impact is quite consistent with the observed damage.

Picture 12 - Added again for comparison.

Picture 13 - One of the best pictures to see the extent of the impacted area. It was made by Steve Riskus.

If you want to read a bit more you might want to take a look at this site and this site.

Part 7 - De debris discussed (Witness testimonies have moved to part 8)

Picture 14 - Another perfect match with the 757-theory.

Picture 15 - Engine part can easily be traced to a 757. Can we do the same with a Global Hawk?

Picture 16 - There's no reason to assume nr 1 shows part of a small jet engine.

Picture 17 - The visible debris before it was gathered and moved away.

Picture 18 - WTC comparison - Thick steel beams are the only significant debris falling down.

Picture 19 - The exit hole. Some informed persons actually thought this was the entry-hole.

Is it reasonable to assume the hole above has been created by a missile or small plane? A missile usually explodes before it goes through 6 or 7 walls. And if it explodes after such a long time, you wouldn’t get a nice round hole you can see above. Instead, this whole part of the building would have been leveled.

A small jet would never have been able to penetrate this far. If it carried explosives, it would not have left such a nice round hole so far back. Unless you like to assume it was a giant shaped charge....mmmmmmmmm.

Wouldn’t the best explanation be that it was the fuselage of a 757, which pushed forward tons of debris, breached the wall and poured all this waste out? The heavily disfigured fuselage itself is still 10 or 20 feet back and melts/burns up. The plane consists mostly of aluminum and fiberglass, which basically sits inside an oven. I mean, it's not that I can prove this has happened, it's just that it fits perfectly with the rest of the story.

If you want to read a bit more you might want to take a look at this site and this site.

Part 8 - The witness testimonies

Keep in mind that the Pentagon has 25,000 people working there. A lot of these witnesses have high ranks in the Army, Navy and Air Force. Some of the witnesses were commercial airline pilots and many people in the neighborhood are familiar with military and commercial airplanes, since there are multiple military and commercial airfields close by. So, if all those witness testimonies form a coherent story, why then do so many people support the "theory" that an F-16, missile or global hawk hit the Pentagon? The funniest thing is that nobody even reported seeing any of those planes (or a missile). All of these quotes have been taken out of context. You don't believe me? Then read this table and follow the link at the bottom.

*** This way you can get a good indication if they saw a large or a small plane. If someone just said: "I saw the plane and I saw it crash", it is not counted, even though chances are 99,9999% they were talking about a 757-223, also known as flight 77.

November 1-2, 2007, Arlington National Cemetery - Pentagon with plane over it and a picture of a plane over Arlington Memorial Bridge (no zoom). Planes come by every few minutes so people in the neighborhood couldn't be more familiar with them. Flight 77 crashed in the wing seen on the right here, halfway behind the (superimposed) plane's semi-transparant wing. Pictures taken by author.

If you want to read all the individual quotes you can start here.

Part 9 - Debunking ALL missile testimonies

The following quotes (usually only the portion that has been underlined) have been used at some point or another to provide evidence that a missile instead of an airplane hit the Pentagon. Since this article was first published in January 2005, there has been a significant change in how the Pentagon crash is perceived by the 9/11 Truth community. Whereas back in 2004 and early 2005, no serious opposition existed to the no-757 arguments of Eric Hufschmid and others, many readers and researchers have realized that these arguments were bogus. I suggest you never forget who repeated (or still promotes) the quotes below to promote the theory that no-757 could have hit the Pentagon. In many cases they are spreading other disinformation as well, which has now become more easy to recognize.

1. Tom Seibert, a network engineer at the Pentagon [September 11, 2001, Washington Post, ''Extensive Casualties' in Wake of Pentagon Attack']:
   "We heard what sounded like a missile, then we heard a loud boom...We just hit the dirt. We dived instinctively. We were sitting there and watching this thing in New York, and I said, 'you know, the next best target would be us. And five minutes later, boom."
   Explanation: This "witness" was watching TV inside the Pentagon.
2. Kirk Milburn, a construction supervisor for Atlantis Co., who was on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of Interstate 395 [September 11, 2001, Washington Post, ''Extensive Casualties' in Wake of Pentagon Attack']:
   "I was right underneath the plane," said Kirk Milburn, a construction supervisor for Atlantis Co., who was on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of Interstate 395 when he said he saw the plane heading for the Pentagon. "I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying. I guess it was hitting light poles," said Milburn. "It was like a WHOOOSH whoosh, then there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second explosion."
   Explanation: The witness clearly stated that he saw a plane.
3. Michael DiPaula, project coordinator Pentagon Renovation Team, in construction trailer 75 feet from the crash [September 8, 2002, Baltimore Sun, 'A Rolling Memorial']:
   "Suddenly, an airplane roared into view, nearly shearing the roof off the trailer before slamming into the E ring. It sounded like a missile… Buried in debris and covered with airplane fuel, he was briefly listed by authorities as missing...There were three loud thump, thump, thumps. You could hear the metal cracking and crinkling, and the explosion."
   Explanation: The article clearly states an airplane roared into DiPaula's view. And he only says it sounded like a missile, not that it actually was a missile.
4. Mike Walter of USA Today [September 11, 2001, CNN, 'Witnesses to the moment: Workers' voices']:
   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."
   Explanation: Nice quote but he clearly stated that he saw a big loud American Airlines jet as everyone else.
5. Tony Terronez, from a nearby highway [2001, Counseling Today, 'Amazing stories: The air, the island and the fortress']:
   "So I got about 100 yards or so past the heliport and then all of the sudden I heard this loud screeching sound that just came out of nowhere and it intensified. This huge WHOOSH! And something made me look in my rearview mirror and by the time I looked up I saw the side of the Pentagon explode....At that point I realized -- you see at that point I didn't know it was a plane, I thought it was a missile strike..."
   Explanation: He didn't see anything impact, he only heard a loud ‘whoosh’ and saw an explosion.
6. Lon Rains, Editor Space News, from Springfield somewhere on Interstate 395 [June 30, 2005, Space News, 'Eyewitness: The Pentagon']:
   "With the Pentagon to the left of my van at about 10 o’clock on the dial of a clock, I glanced at my watch to see if I was going to be late for my appointment. At that moment I heard a very loud, quick whooshing sound that began behind me and stopped suddenly in front of me and to my left. In fractions of a second I heard the impact and an explosion. The next thing I saw was the fireball. I was convinced it was a missile. It came in so fast it sounded nothing like an airplane...I remember vividly that as I turned off my cell phone I was watching the almost serene image of thick pieces of flaming fiberglass insulation floating down onto the highway."
   Explanation: From reading the text it is clear that he did not see any object, only a large fireball a few seconds after impact. This person did not question the fact that an airliner hit the building.
7. October 12, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld in Parade Magazine [link at DoD website]:
   "Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center."
   Explanation: You can refer to the plane as a missile because it was used as one. It's not a bad description at all. For example, take the Babylon dictionary: "object that can be thrown or hurled (stone, arrow, bullet, etc.)" You can add to that list a suicide airliner which uses its fuel supply as warhead.

Part 10 - Addressing the alternative airplane testimonies

Same story as with the missiles, but in this case quotes have been selectively highlighted to convince people that a small plane instead of an airliner or a missile hit the Pentagon. Although in a few cases more convincing than the missile testimonies, confusion and doubt is the only purpose of this game.

1. Steve Patterson, 43, a graphics artist, who was watching TV in his 14th-floor apartment in Pentagon City, when he saw a silver commuter jet fly past the window [September 11, 2001, Washington Post, ''Extensive Casualties' in Wake of Pentagon Attack']:
   "The plane was about 150 yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetery so low that he thought it was going to land on I-395. He said it was flying so fast that he couldn't read any writing on the side. The plane, which appeared to hold about eight to 12 people, headed straight for the Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent runway..."
   Explanation: The flight path of the plane seems to be accurate, but since this person couldn't even identify the American Airlines logo, which dozens of others could, he doesn't seem to have been in a particularly great spot to have given an accurate description of the airplane. What is also possible, is that the 8 or 12 people Steve mentioned was a reference to the faces he glimpsed behind the windows of the plane (several other witnesses did see a number of passengers). Another interview is needed to draw any conclusions. However, even if this person would state that he saw a small plane, he would be among a tiny, tiny few.
2. Anonymous, his location is also unknown, supposedly from NBC on 9/11:
   "I saw what looked to be maybe a 20-passenger corporate jet, no markings on the side, coming in at a shallow angle like it was landing right into the side of the Pentagon."
   Explanation: We know absolutely nothing about this witness, including his location at the time of the Pentagon crash, or, in fact, if NBC even interviewed this witness. At the time it was included in this article, this quote could only be found on one small geocities site which tried to prove a 757 did hit the building. The quote was later used in a popular flash movie that tried to convince people no-757 could have hit the Pentagon, giving you an indication of how desperate the no-757 crowd is for evidence to support their theory. Interestingly, this witness also didn't see any markings on the side of the plane, in contrast to dozens of other witnesses who identified the American Airlines logo. Therefore it seems an obvious conclusion that this person was looking from too far away, from a less than ideal angle (into the sun maybe), or did not have his glasses on.
3. John O’Keefe, who was listening to the radio in his car at Interstate 395 [Also saw the C-130 cargo plane turning away after the crash] [September 11, 2001, American Lawyer Media, 'Terrorist 'Situation'']:
   "I don’t know whether I saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet...It came swooping in over the highway, over my left shoulder, straight across where my car was heading. There was a burst of orange flame that shot out that I could see through the highway overpass. Then it was just black. Just black thick smoke.
   ...The eeriest thing about it, was that it was like you were watching a movie. There was no huge explosion, no huge rumbling on ground, it just went ‘pfff.’ It wasn’t what I would have expected for a plane that was not much more than a football field away from me."
   Explanation: These statements about the sound and the explosion are so contradictory when comparing it to all the other claims that they seem to be the result of a shock. A few witnesses described seeing everything in slow-motion or losing track of sound as soon as they understood the situation. At least one is included somewhere above. John does however, state to have seen an American Airlines jet. Of course, if you like pointless discussions you can argue how large that jet was.
4. Ervin Brown, who works at the Pentagon [original source lost]:
   "I saw pieces of what appeared to be small aircraft on the ground, and the part of the building by the heliport had collapsed."
   Explanation: Quite a normal statement considering that many people saw small pieces of fiberglass everywhere. Ervin hadn't seen the impact of the plane [a conclusion based after seeing the original article back in late 2004/early 2005].
5. Steve DeChiaro, engineer [original source lost]:
   "I reached the west side of the building I saw a light post bent in half. But when I looked at the site, my brain could not resolve the fact that it was a plane because it only seemed like a small hole in the building,… No tail. No wings. No nothing…shortly after 10 a.m. police yelled at people to get back. Just as we're about to open the door[to get into the building], they start screaming, 'There's another inbound plane'…For nearly 15 minutes, they stood watching the Pentagon burn and periodically checked the sky for another plane."
   Explanation: There were witnesses to the crash who had seen the incoming airliner and also expected to see a much larger hole. It is not clear to me if Steve had seen the plane. He was about a mile away when the impact occurred [a conclusion based after seeing the original article back in late 2004/early 2005. That's where the contextual sentences come from].
6. State Department employee Ken Ford looking from the 15th floor [September 11, 2001, Newsday (Long Island), 'Striking At Heart Of the U.S.']:
   "We were watching Reagan National Airport through binoculars a short distance away. The plane was a two-engine turbo prop that flew up the river from National. Then it turned back toward the Pentagon. We thought it had been waved off and then it hit the building."
   Explanation: The witnesses were 1,5 miles away at the State Department. No one else described seeing a turboprop. It's not clear if they watched the plane the whole time.
7. D.S. Khavkin., from an 8 story building nearby [September 13, 2001, BBC, 'More eyewitness accounts of the attack on the US']:
   "At first, we thought it was the jets that sometimes fly overhead. However, it appeared to be a small commercial aircraft...The engine was at full throttle. First, the plane knocked down a number of street lamp poles, then headed directly for the Pentagon and crashed on the lawn near the west side the Pentagon."
   Explanation: It depends on what you call small. Compared to a 747 the 757 is quite small indeed. Without an additional interview nothing can be said about his statement. The plane didn't crash on the lawn, by the way. It only touched the ground with its left wing near or on the helipad.
8. Don Wright in an interview with the Sun Sentinel (audio) [link]:
   "It was about 9:35 and I was looking out our 12th floor windows at 1600 Wilson Boulevard in Rosslyn, Virginia, and I watched this...it looked like a commuter plane, two engined ... come down from the south, real low, perceived right on and crashed right on into the Pentagon…I watched it come down real low over the trees and it just dipped down…came down right over 395 right into the Pentagon."
   Explanation: A commuter plane usually means a small plane. However, not everyone is an expert in airplane terminology and on the internet you can find press reports that call a Fokker-100 with 122 passengers a commuter airplane. We would need an additional interview to clarify exactly what Don saw.

737 witnesses:

1. Jim Sutherland, a mortgage broker:
   "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."
2. Terry Morin, form. United States Marine Corps Aviator, from Federal Office Building [Navy Annex]:
   "I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I couldn't be sure. It looked like a 737 and I so reported to authorities."
3. Mike Dobbs, Marine Corps officer from one of the upper levels in the Pentagon:
   "… I saw an American Airlines 737 twin-engine airliner strike the building."

Three known witnesses who saw a 737. I must say, I found this quite interesting for a while, especially because I thought the Pentagon hole was too small for a 757-223. But now that I'm certain that that is not the case, I don’t see a reason why someone would substitute a 757 with a 737 or why someone would say that a 757 has been hijacked while it is a 737. Then again, a Boeing 737 and 757 can easily be confused with each other (I wouldn't have recognized a 757 from a 767 or 737 before 9/11). These 3 witnesses are an overwhelming minority that leads me safely to conclude that indeed Flight 77, a Boeing 757-223, slammed into the building around 9:40 AM. And except for the type of plane they saw, their statements fit right in with the majority.

Part 11 - Questions that remain unanswered about the Pentagon-crash

• Why have no Arabs appeared on the any of the passenger lists of the four planes released immediately after the event?
• Hani Hanjour was a terrible pilot according to all the different reports. And those reports were about Cessna-type planes. How could he have flown such a large airliner? And with such skill?
• Why had air traffic controllers such a hard time tracking flight 77?
• Why was the tape of a gathering between FAA air traffic controllers cut to pieces and thrown in many different dumpsters?
• Why did the plane fly a full circle around the Pentagon, over the White House and close to Andrews Air Force Base, only to fly into the same wing as it had approached in the first place? This was a very risky and seemingly unnecessary move. Important note: This could easily be explained as a mistake of the pilot who came in at too high an altitude. The reason this question remains included in this list is because it serves as an excuse to dispel a common misunderstanding. The plane's circle around the Pentagon was much wider than the no-757 crowd likes to promote. Judging from various witness testimonies and other newspaper statements, the plane went over central Washington and then way south to Andrews AFB before coming back up to the Pentagon area. The circle seems to have been at least 10 miles wide, not half a mile as some no-757 promotors seem to imply.
• Isn't it strange that the terrorists decided to hit the only wing of the Pentagon that had been under restoration for several years and was much stronger than the other wings of the building? Didn't they carefully observe their future targets?
• Why were the jet fighters only dispatched after the Pentagon was hit? The government knew full well that planes were heading for Washington well before flight 77 made it to the Pentagon.
• Why doesn't the FBI release any videos of the airliner? (The 5 gifs are a faked "leak" by someone unknown and completely worthless) There were enough camera's in the area.
• Is it normal that a crashing 757 creates a powerful blast wave, generates a tremendous amount of heat that melts glass and the back of a firetruck, sends people 30 - 70 feet flying through the hallway and smells like cordite? (2 known witnesses for that last point)
  Update - General Benton K. Partin in the The New American:
  "When you slam an aluminum aircraft at high velocity into a concrete structure, it's going to do exactly what we saw happen at the Pentagon on 9/11," Partin said. "If you look at a frontal mass cross-section of the plane, you see a cylinder of aluminum skin with stringers. When it impacts with the exterior [Pentagon] wall at 700-800 feet per second, much of the kinetic energy of the plane converts to thermal energy, and much of the aluminum converts to vapor, burning to aluminum oxide. That's why on the still photos from Pentagon surveillance camera, you first see the frame with that brilliant white luminescent flash just before the frame of the orange fireball, the jet fuel burning. The aluminum cylinder — the plane fuselage — is acting like a shaped charge penetrating a steel plate. It keeps penetrating until it is consumed. The Boeing 757 is over 150 feet long, so it's going to penetrate quite a ways before it's spent. The wings have a much lower mass cross-section and are loaded with fuel besides, so there is little left of them except small bits and pieces."
  link

Part 12 - Conclusion

In the end if someone chooses not to believe it, then of course I cannot prove with 100% certainty that flight 77 hit the Pentagon. However, I have proven the following things, which seem to make a couple of dents into the works of most of the well-known 9/11 gurus:

1. Claims that the Pentagon hole is (much) too small for a 757-223 are false.
2. Claims that witnesses have said they saw a missile are false.
3. Claims that witnesses have said they saw a small plane and implying a significant amount did the same are misleading.
4. Claims that witnesses have said the plane was quiet were an extreme minority and are brought to the public in a misleading way. As usual, the context has never been addressed. (In the car, windows shut, radio on. One person said it was the shock)
5. Claims that a Global Hawk or a F-16 hit the Pentagon aren't backed up by any witnesses. So why have these theories been put forward in the first place?
6. Quotes from the aftermath of the crash site are no proof something else than a 757 hit the building. As you can read in the quotes I gathered, even a few people who saw a large airliner dive into the building wondered about the relatively small amount of visible damage it did.

So before the 9/11 skeptics start complaining that this or that hasn't been explained to their satisfaction, first disprove the list I gave above. I personally don't care if you see a 737 engine or an alien spacecraft in a pile of rubble on a blurry photograph. I don't care if you assume there has to be an indentation of the tail on the building, even though it's complete speculation whether or not it should have left it. I don't care if you believe the color blue from a piece of wreckage on the Pentagon lawn isn't the exact same color blue from another American Airlines jet, which has been photographed under different light conditions and might have a much older or younger layer of paint. I don't care about those "Pentalawn 2000" theories if 97% of the witnesses state that the plane didn't touch it. The 3% that did, said it was only a couple of feet before the wall that the nose touched the ground, which means the lawn has never been touched. (By the way, a lot of small debris has been photographed towards the left of the impact hole, maybe because the plane came in at a 50 degree angle) I don't care about things that can easily be explained away by conventional theories, like why so little of the plane has been recovered, why a hole has been punched out in one of the interior walls, or basically anything else brought forward by the conspiracy community on the Pentagon. That is, until someone can disprove the above 6 issues to me. And if you cannot do that and you are not willing to acknowledge them, don't even bother sending me an email asking me to explain this week's hip theory.

People are send to the gas chamber based on witnes testimonies. It's very obvious that eye witness accounts, when taken as a whole, are considered to be extremely reliable. Even the 9/11 research community acknowledges this, judging from their generous quotations from witnesses who claimed to have seen explosives at the WTC; or a missile at the Pentagon; or a missile hitting TWA800; or an explosion before flight 587 started to come down; etc. On the other hand, the moment the 9/11 skeptics community is confronted with a majority of the statements made about the Pentagon, they suddenly begin claiming that witness testimonies don't mean anything and that people are always imagining things. And on top of that, most of the 9/11 skeptics ignore the fact that the physical damage on the Pentagon does indeed correspond with a 757. And these are the people that call the rest of the world a bunch of sheep. Go figure that out.

Additional

9/11 researchers I support

Author: J.R.
Written: January 29, 2005
Last update: February 12, 2007