A
Anders
Guest
In Alleged Pentagon Strike Witnesses Introduction
The web archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010919102542/http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20010917/aw48.htm
The quote from the following text that appears on WhatReallyHappened is underlined.
Pentagon Attack
Hits Navy Hard
DAVID A. FULGHUM/WASHINGTON
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 loaded with enough fuel for a transcontinental journey, cleared the crest of a small ridge in Arlington, Va., by a few hundred feet with its engines wailing. It slightly lowered its nose, clipped trees and parking lot light poles, and then hit the Pentagon like a torpedo--at ground level and almost perpendicular to the outside wall.
The large aircraft struck the outermost corridor (E-ring) of the five-ring building at ground level (the second floor) at 9:43 a.m. EDT and continued smashing its way through the D and C rings. Navy survivors on the B-ring looked out their interior windows and saw flames and falling debris. They credit newly installed shatterproof windows in the just-renovated area with preventing hundreds of additional casualties from flying glass. Blast damage was also limited by new Kevlar panels, but they didn't protect those nearby from fires from exploding fuel tanks, estimated to have produced the equivalent of 200-400 tons of TNT.
Thomas D. Trapasso, a political appointee in the Clinton Administration who is now looking for work, was making telephone calls from his deck in Arlington Village, about 1 mi. south of the Pentagon and just west of the Interstate 395 (I-395) highway. He was startled by the large American Airlines aircraft flying about 300 ft. overhead. "The engines were just screaming, and the wheels were up," Trapasso said. "It disappeared over the trees, and I heard a boom. I knew something awful had happened--that an airplane had crashed somewhere in Washington, D.C. Then the cell phone went dead. I was scared."
Vice Adm. Darb Ryan, chief of naval personnel, was in his office at the Navy Annex about halfway between Trapasso's home and the Pentagon. Having learned that New York had been attacked, he was on the telephone recommending the evacuation of the Pentagon "when out of the corner of my eye I saw the airplane" a split second before it struck.
Ryan was overheard reporting some of the initial damage assessment, which included spaces belonging to the chief of naval operations (CNO), the Navy's tactical command center on the D-ring, an operations cell and a Navy intelligence command center. These included up to four special, highly classified, electronically secure areas. Many of the enlisted sailors involved were communications technicians with cryptology training who are key personnel in intelligence gathering and analysis. Some personnel were known to be trapped alive in the wreckage.
OTHER NAVY PERSONNEL confirmed the admiral's initial assessment and said the dead numbered around 190, 64 on the aircraft. Among them was Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude, who was in the Army support and logistics section. Many others were Navy captains, commanders and lieutenant commanders with offices between the fourth and fifth corridors (the western wedge of the Pentagon). The Navy's special operations office, which oversees classified programs, had moved out of the spaces only a few days before. All but one of the senior Navy flag officers were out of the building. Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, deputy CNO for warfare requirements and programs, was near the impact area but escaped without injury.
One of the aircraft's engines somehow ricocheted out of the building and arched into the Pentagon's mall parking area between the main building and the new loading dock facility, said Charles H. Krohn, the Army's deputy chief of public affairs. Those fleeing the building heard a loud secondary explosion about 10 min. after the initial impact.
The E-ring floors above the tunnel dug by the aircraft collapsed, leaving a gap in the Pentagon's outer wall perhaps 150 ft. wide. Fuel triggered an intense fire that caused the roof of the damaged E-ring section to give way at 10:10 a.m. It was still burning 18 hr. later. Fire fighting was hampered by reports that twice sent personnel fleeing the area. First, at around 11:28 a.m., a warning that "an aircraft is in the air" sent police, FBI and other security personnel to passages under I-395 that lead away from the Pentagon. They quickly returned, but at 11:34, shouted and radioed warnings of another possible explosion sent people running again. However, by 11:40 FBI teams had returned with brown paper bags and gloves to scour the Pentagon grounds for debris in an area bordered by Pentagon City, Arlington Cemetery and the Potomac River.
F-16s from the District of Columbia Air National Guard periodically circled the Pentagon at altitudes low enough to frighten grade school teachers and students in nearby Alexandria. Later, the patrols were shifted to a higher altitude and continued through the night.
Confusion about what had happened, among the 20,000-24,000 employees leaving the Pentagon on foot in long lines, largely reflected where they were in the building when the aircraft struck. The Navy and Army spaces absorbed the damage. Navy officers not in the aircraft's direct path reported heavy safes being flung across rooms and people thrown from their chairs. They variously identified major damage between the fourth and fifth or third and fourth corridors. No one knew the full extent of the damage. Air Force officers on the opposite side of the building heard or felt nothing until alarms went off. Even then, they thought it was a false fire alarm until orders were passed to evacuate the building.
Everyone was told to go to their rally points in the parking lots. Those involved said the evacuation was well-organized and orderly and far less emotional than at the nearby Capitol. There, a number of evacuees were said to have become emotionally distraught. Once outside, Pentagon employees were told to go home. This complicated the casualty assessment for the Navy and Army because no one knew precisely who had gone home and who was still in the building.
Original link to Charles H. Krohn http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20010917/aw48.htm was blankLaura said:
The web archive:
http://web.archive.org/web/20010919102542/http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20010917/aw48.htm
The quote from the following text that appears on WhatReallyHappened is underlined.
Pentagon Attack
Hits Navy Hard
DAVID A. FULGHUM/WASHINGTON
American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 loaded with enough fuel for a transcontinental journey, cleared the crest of a small ridge in Arlington, Va., by a few hundred feet with its engines wailing. It slightly lowered its nose, clipped trees and parking lot light poles, and then hit the Pentagon like a torpedo--at ground level and almost perpendicular to the outside wall.
The large aircraft struck the outermost corridor (E-ring) of the five-ring building at ground level (the second floor) at 9:43 a.m. EDT and continued smashing its way through the D and C rings. Navy survivors on the B-ring looked out their interior windows and saw flames and falling debris. They credit newly installed shatterproof windows in the just-renovated area with preventing hundreds of additional casualties from flying glass. Blast damage was also limited by new Kevlar panels, but they didn't protect those nearby from fires from exploding fuel tanks, estimated to have produced the equivalent of 200-400 tons of TNT.
Thomas D. Trapasso, a political appointee in the Clinton Administration who is now looking for work, was making telephone calls from his deck in Arlington Village, about 1 mi. south of the Pentagon and just west of the Interstate 395 (I-395) highway. He was startled by the large American Airlines aircraft flying about 300 ft. overhead. "The engines were just screaming, and the wheels were up," Trapasso said. "It disappeared over the trees, and I heard a boom. I knew something awful had happened--that an airplane had crashed somewhere in Washington, D.C. Then the cell phone went dead. I was scared."
Vice Adm. Darb Ryan, chief of naval personnel, was in his office at the Navy Annex about halfway between Trapasso's home and the Pentagon. Having learned that New York had been attacked, he was on the telephone recommending the evacuation of the Pentagon "when out of the corner of my eye I saw the airplane" a split second before it struck.
Ryan was overheard reporting some of the initial damage assessment, which included spaces belonging to the chief of naval operations (CNO), the Navy's tactical command center on the D-ring, an operations cell and a Navy intelligence command center. These included up to four special, highly classified, electronically secure areas. Many of the enlisted sailors involved were communications technicians with cryptology training who are key personnel in intelligence gathering and analysis. Some personnel were known to be trapped alive in the wreckage.
OTHER NAVY PERSONNEL confirmed the admiral's initial assessment and said the dead numbered around 190, 64 on the aircraft. Among them was Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude, who was in the Army support and logistics section. Many others were Navy captains, commanders and lieutenant commanders with offices between the fourth and fifth corridors (the western wedge of the Pentagon). The Navy's special operations office, which oversees classified programs, had moved out of the spaces only a few days before. All but one of the senior Navy flag officers were out of the building. Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, deputy CNO for warfare requirements and programs, was near the impact area but escaped without injury.
One of the aircraft's engines somehow ricocheted out of the building and arched into the Pentagon's mall parking area between the main building and the new loading dock facility, said Charles H. Krohn, the Army's deputy chief of public affairs. Those fleeing the building heard a loud secondary explosion about 10 min. after the initial impact.
The E-ring floors above the tunnel dug by the aircraft collapsed, leaving a gap in the Pentagon's outer wall perhaps 150 ft. wide. Fuel triggered an intense fire that caused the roof of the damaged E-ring section to give way at 10:10 a.m. It was still burning 18 hr. later. Fire fighting was hampered by reports that twice sent personnel fleeing the area. First, at around 11:28 a.m., a warning that "an aircraft is in the air" sent police, FBI and other security personnel to passages under I-395 that lead away from the Pentagon. They quickly returned, but at 11:34, shouted and radioed warnings of another possible explosion sent people running again. However, by 11:40 FBI teams had returned with brown paper bags and gloves to scour the Pentagon grounds for debris in an area bordered by Pentagon City, Arlington Cemetery and the Potomac River.
F-16s from the District of Columbia Air National Guard periodically circled the Pentagon at altitudes low enough to frighten grade school teachers and students in nearby Alexandria. Later, the patrols were shifted to a higher altitude and continued through the night.
Confusion about what had happened, among the 20,000-24,000 employees leaving the Pentagon on foot in long lines, largely reflected where they were in the building when the aircraft struck. The Navy and Army spaces absorbed the damage. Navy officers not in the aircraft's direct path reported heavy safes being flung across rooms and people thrown from their chairs. They variously identified major damage between the fourth and fifth or third and fourth corridors. No one knew the full extent of the damage. Air Force officers on the opposite side of the building heard or felt nothing until alarms went off. Even then, they thought it was a false fire alarm until orders were passed to evacuate the building.
Everyone was told to go to their rally points in the parking lots. Those involved said the evacuation was well-organized and orderly and far less emotional than at the nearby Capitol. There, a number of evacuees were said to have become emotionally distraught. Once outside, Pentagon employees were told to go home. This complicated the casualty assessment for the Navy and Army because no one knew precisely who had gone home and who was still in the building.