Sunday, January 15, 2006

What hit the Pentagon.

What hit the Pentagon.

AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 77.

8:20 am : Flight 77 departs from Dulles Airport. Some 20 miles from the Pentagon.
8:50 : Last radio communication with flight 77. Now some 280 miles from the Pentagon.
8:56 : Transponder contact lost. Now some 335 miles from the Pentagon.
9:00 : Flight 77 turns and heads for the Pentagon
(Washington DC). Now some 370 miles away from the Pentagon.

The hijackers finally make their move (and about time, all the time they are getting further and further away from where they started, and of course, further and further away from where they are headed). To give the Air National Guard/USAF a fighting chance the intrepid hijackers wait till they are about 400 miles away from their target before turning back.

But even though the hijackers are more than sporting about the whole affair (after all they have given the USAF over 40 minutes to get aircraft up to investigate, and if necessary, shoot them down) the totally incompetent (read corrupt) USAF isn't quite up to the job.

9:37 : AA77 crashes into the southwest side of the Pentagon. Now, precisely 0 miles from the Pentagon.

The question that you must ask yourself, is :
Why didn't the hijackers, hijack flight 77 when it was only, say, 30 miles from the Pentagon?

Well, lets have look at the evidence from another angle.

Flight 77 leaves Dulles International Airport at 8:20 am.
Flight 77's transponder is turned off at 8:56 am.

The fact that flight 77's transponder was turned off means only that the aircraft stopped transmitting its name and altitude, etc, but it was still very visible to radar.
(Cheney watched how close they were)

Flight 77 disappears from all radar screens a couple of minutes later, somewhere near the Ohio border.

An aircraft appears on radar south of Washington DC, close to the city.

This aircraft eventually crashes into the Pentagon. So the aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon could not possibly have been flight 77. This is simply because, if it had flown from the Ohio border back to Washington DC it would have been visible to radar for the entire trip. And, we are told that it was not.
So given this, why do most people believe that flight 77 hit the Pentagon? Because the media told them so (and this is the one and only reason that most believe flight 77 hit the Pentagon).

But the evidence (without even examining the Pentagon scene itself) already says that this is impossible.

The next question that you must ask yourself, is :

How did flight 77 sneak all the way from the Ohio border to Washington DC without being spotted by any of the multitude of radar stations in the area? The Russians are keen to know.

The purported flight path of flight 77 is shown in the following graphic : which was copied from here.

DID A BOEING 757 HIT THE PENTAGON?

The official line regarding flight 77 (a Boeing 757) is that terrorists hijacked it, flew it about the countryside for 40 minutes (during which time, not one of the fighter jets from any of the numerous nearby US Air Force and Air National Guard bases were sent up to investigate) and then crashed it into the Pentagon.

Recently, there has been some speculation that flight 77 never existed and that the damage to the Pentagon had some other cause. The main statements supporting this idea are:

1. The hole created by the crash, is too small.

2. The overall damage to the Pentagon was not as extensive as one would expect.

3. That there is no evidence of Boeing 757 debris having been recovered from the site.

We wish to investigate the plausibility of these arguments. In doing this, we mention that the paucity of information from the Bush administration, has certainly not helped (for example, the Bush administration has refused to release the black boxes, the voice recorders, or even pictures of any wreckage). However, the military did release a number of high resolution photos on the websites:

Defense Link Photos.
Joint Combat Camera Center - Pentagon Attack.

So, first, we investigate exactly how big the hole in the Pentagon was.

The main problem in estimating its size, is the fact that the section of the building that was struck collapsed about 30 minutes after the impact. I have been able to find three pre-collapse photos. They are presented below, each immediately followed by a graphic displaying in red, the area of the Pentagon wall visibly NOT demolished by the impact.

(see images in Blog link)

To complete the scene we need to know the areas still not demolished after the collapse.

Nearly there, however the wings still do not fit the (maximum) impact hole size. Even just a wing tip, traveling at speed, would do considerable damage to the Pentagon wall. The explanation for this, is (probably) that when the nose hit the wall, the wings would have continued on, pivoting momentarily about the wing base, until they snapped off. This momentary pivoting of the wings (like extended hands coming together in prayer) may be enough to explain why the last 12 (or so) feet of the wings did not impact the wall.

Well, I wrote the last paragraph when I believed that the plane must have hit the Pentagon nearly square on. However, a couple of photos (shown below) made it crystal clear that the aircraft hit the Pentagon at about 45 degrees to the wall. This changes everything, as the apparent wing span increases hugely, as illustrated here.

The exit wound is visible within the red boxes. Many thanks to Geoff Metcalf for providing these photos. Larger, higher resolution versions of these photos can be found at Geoff's website: http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/images/16.jpg

http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/images/17.jpg

The above puzzle is solved by noticing that only three rows of windows are visible in the photo of the alcove (Have a look. Also look at the photo immediately above. Notice that, five floors are visible between the B and C-rings, but that only three floors are visible between the C and D-rings). Since the Pentagon has five floors, what we are seeing in the alcove, is not the ground, but the roof of two floors of offices which span the gap between the E and D-ring. Since the aircraft first hit the concrete slab that formed the ceiling of the ground floor, it would have smashed its way through the building at ground level until it came to a stop. Since all the damage would have been at ground level, it would have been well below the second floor roof, and we would not expect the damage to be seen in the above photo of the alcove.

By the way, here is the official Pentagon view. Note the wording : Wedge 1 E-ring to Wedge 2 C-ring. This is referring to the structural damage. Note also, that this very different from the media view.

It is also claimed that the Pentagon walls were specially reinforced. However, the outer Pentagon wall comprised a framework (grid) of 10 inch reinforced concrete members with the intervening space filed with 8 inch thick brickwork. Over this was placed about 6 inches of decorative limestone. So, the (outer) wall was at most, 16 inches thick, and was not particularly strong (contrary to media reports). The photos on this site (web page link) show this to be the case.

The strange insistence by the media, that the damage is minimal, is very puzzling, and one would have to guess that the media is just spreading disinformation to muddy the waters, so that the correct questions and answers get lost in the confusion.

Overall, though, the damage to the Pentagon is about as extensive as one would expect from the crash of a large aircraft, that was a bit smaller than a Boeing 757.

So, on to the third statement : No Boeing 757 debris has been recovered from the site. Well, what has been released to the public so far.

We do not know if the FAA or military has any Boeing 757 wreckage stored away.

If this is the case, then the Bush administration must allow independent investigators access to it.

Until then, we must assume that no such wreckage exists.
It is clear that, the Bush administration, could remove all speculation by releasing the wreckage of flight 77 to independent investigators.

The fact that it has not done so, is very puzzling and also, very suspicious. Overall though, I feel that there is considerable evidence that :

An aircraft caused the damage at the Pentagon.

That the aircraft was not a Boeing 757. The evidence that an aircraft hit the Pentagon, includes among other things :

The considerable number of eye-witness reports.
The entry wound (which has the correct --O-- shape).
The exit wound (which has the correct O shape).
The damage done as the plane clipped lights while crossing the freeway.
The damage caused by the right wing tip as it hit the concrete floor slab between the first (ground) and second floors.
The evidence that this aircraft was not a Boeing 757, includes among other things :

The width of the impact wound is nowhere near wide enough.
The Bush administration has refused to release the black boxes, the voice recorders or even pictures of any wreckage of flight 77.

The Bush administration has refused access, by independent investigators, to any wreckage it, or the FAA, may have.

The media is blitzing the public with disinformation, which suggests that an extensive cover-up is underway. Of course, the big question is :

If flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, then where is it, and its passengers? The most likely answer is: At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The article The Flight of the Bumble Planes also deals with this question.

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