A sad and strange day... Questions.

[utabintarbo]

I still as "Why?", where's the benefit to anyone in perpetuating this alleged "hoax"?

Bob

[Can O' Beans]

I have a friend that works in the big library down there, and when he came up to visit he described basically a police state & security everywhere, etc..

I wouldn't be surprised if they restricted media from the Pentagon site.

But I agree that something is kinda fishy. But then again, I think the reason you only see the towers is because the media is trying to milk the whole situation for all they can. Most people care more about the towers due to they actually getting completely destroyed and the quite larger loss of life.

[godsdice]

I find it understandable that you would feel leery about the lack of information from the governement, since media coverage was virtually impossible. However, I think it's absurd and a little appalling that you would somehow come to the conclusion that Flight 77 and the hundred-or-so people on that plane must have been a ploy for something dreamt up from crappy photos and half-baked information or lack thereof?

So, some other 'smaller' plane must have crashed into that building to make that hole that you can so accurately measure in stills (or copied from other websites). Why was it reported that AA 77 crash into the Pentagon? I know people who work in the Pentagon, FBI, DoJ. The government isn't a caniving sneak, it's a bumbling beaurocratic idiot. Especially in terms of the military, the government keeps information to itself regardless of whether it's important or trivial simply because it's big, fat, and stupid. That's the way our country works.

This reminds me of the various websites which try to deconstruct stills from the very poor color resolution moon landing broadcast, and somehow come to the conclusion that everything was staged and recorded in a studio in Nevada.

The Internet is great... sometimes.

[gmat]

Originally posted by godsdice
I think it's absurd and a little appalling that you would somehow come to the conclusion that Flight 77 and the hundred-or-so people on that plane must have been a ploy for something dreamt up from crappy photos and half-baked information or lack thereof?

Huh ? Where did i say that ? I just wanted facts.

So, some other 'smaller' plane must have crashed into that building to make that hole that you can so accurately measure in stills (or copied from other websites).

Well, photos are not made up, to say the least. They come from the US Army itself (.mil sites...) and are in very high resolution - so basically yes, one can measure up things quite precisely. If the military had never released these very good pictures, the debate wouldnt have even existed - ppl would have sticken to the official blah blah.

This reminds me of the various websites which try to deconstruct stills from the very poor color resolution moon landing broadcast, and somehow come to the conclusion that everything was staged and recorded in a studio in Nevada.

The difference here however is, anyone can *prove* those sites are wrong. First their analysis of the photos is either misguided (i've seen one pointing at a light reflected on Armstrong's helmet as a stage light, though it was the flag...) or plain wrong (edited photos, or "look those crosshairs ! they show it's a made up photo"). Second one can easily check NASA archives, people who actually got there, people who worked for the NASA then, or even pick up a (good) telescope and scan the landing site for the hardware they left there.
So it's quite opposed. For NASA photos prove the facts. For pentagon, they don't, actually they show a total lack of evidence... And since yet no-one has shown any piece of evidence, even the officials who keep a total silence on the topic.

The Internet is great... sometimes.

Note thats a convenient way for the general media to keep their business. "Internet is a place where you cannot get any good information" is something i heard so many times on TV. How convenient for them.
30 years ago we couldnt have had this kind of debate. Now we can, but for how long ? (if you answer mark the post 'OT' plz)

As for the topic at hand, i've yet to see any technical evidence supporting either version of the facts.
(and for the "why"... there are so many possibilities, including non-conspirationist, good-will-from-the-govt schemes that we'll never really know before 2031 or 2041)

[bigben2k]

Originally posted by gmat

That doesnt explain the lack of structural damage at 2nd and 3rd floors (just after impact). How did the plane get "flatter" ?

[/b]
How convenient... That would be an historical first. Boeing will be very interested when the archives fo public, indeed... And they burned in mid air, without slamming the wall or touching the grass... Instant disintegration ! Wow.

[/b]
Prove it. I want facts, not "these people talk bullshit" or "they are commies, liars and terrorists"... Just facts.
The oddity is that, an oddity. The 'intact' SUV, the standing barrels.. Weird.

[/b]
Exactly. That doesnt make the structure stronger... Blast absorbent materials are quite 'plastic', and very resilient... but not structurally superior to concrete + steel.

My ideas are:
- a small jet (like the Learjet), hijacked, stolen or rented by terrorists.
- a fighter plane (sounds fishy though)
- a drone (lots of ppl in the US stick to that idea)

I think the small jet is more likely...

Also there's this general silence from the media. Disturbing.
Ak, we'll know in 30y (or is it 40 ?) when archives go public... In the meatime Oliver Stone will make a movie out of it [/b]

If the foundation is heavily damaged, there would be a collapse of the above floors. It's perfectly reasonable to me. I pointed out one of the safety feature about the flying glass so that you could see how far the effort went, into making this building "bomb resistant".

The NTSB report should become public in a couple of years, that's all. The details of the FBI investigation, which may or may not contain crash specifics, and probably will never be public. If the Army has a report, you can bet that it'll never be public. It's not a historical first, by any means. Look back at JFK, where the records have been sealed for 75 years in the government archives.

Considering the heat involved with burning 20 tons of kerosene, I'm not surprised that there would be nothing left. There may have been some molten metal left, but who really wants a picture of that?

By "propaganda", I meant that the building may have been built stronger than what the released details state. Call it propaganda, or counter-intelligence, your choice. Either way, it's a smart move, don't you think?

The intact SUV thing is really fuzzy, and I don't see how anyone can draw conclusions from it. The pictures may or may not be out of sequence, and aren't detailed enough to confirm that it's the same vehicle. In fact, the pictures aren't detailed enough to establish a sequence of events.

I don't get the barrel thing at all.


All in all, I think that it's clear that there isn't enough information to reconstruct the accident, but to come to the conclusion that there's a conspiracy behind it all, is really a stretch. One would need to associate this alleged conspiracy with some kind of motive, and I just don't see it. Who's interest would it be in, to make it all look like the plane wasn't swapped for a smaller one, and crash it into a newly rebuilt section of the Pentagon?

There are also many, many more details that haven't been analyzed at all, that could easily prove that the plane was in fact a Boeing 757. The size of the ball of flame should give us a fair idea of how much fuel ignited, and if you look at the cam shots, that's a pretty large ball of flame. I doubt that any smaller aircraft would carry enough fuel to produce a ball of fire that large.

The few witnesses that saw the plane should have been able to recognize the model, as the Boeing 757 has a much different engine configuration than smaller planes.

If you look at the video, you can see some kind of smoke trailing the plane, which would correspond to the jet blast of the engines blowing off something from the ground. A small plane wouldn't do this.

There's also a color/paint scheme to the airliner that is unique to the airline, and easily recognizable. It's hard to tell from the photos though.

[gmat]

Originally posted by bigben2k

Look back at JFK, where the records have been sealed for 75 years in the government archives.

Watergate archives has gone public this year, and they shed some light on JFK affair (along with a lot of interesting points). That was not 75 years indeed. Can this duration vary according to the "explosiveness" of contents ?

Considering the heat involved with burning 20 tons of kerosene, I'm not surprised that there would be nothing left. There may have been some molten metal left, but who really wants a picture of that?

But what about titanium engine parts which *should* identify the plane without a doubt ? IIRC titanium doesnt melt at burning kerosene temps. And *NOTHING* out of a 80t aircraft ?

In fact, the pictures aren't detailed enough to establish a sequence of events.

You have high-res versions on the DoD site. All pictures are timed...

Who's interest would it be in, to make it all look like the plane wasn't swapped for a smaller one, and crash it into a newly rebuilt section of the Pentagon?

Who ? Either the governement, or FBI, or both. Why ? One cannot know for sure. This was not my question here (i'm just exploring the "what") but you can get a good sample of ideas by browing links from the aforementioned sites. (many ppl here liked the 'witness protection program' idea)

The size of the ball of flame should give us a fair idea of how much fuel ignited, and if you look at the cam shots, that's a pretty large ball of flame. I doubt that any smaller aircraft would carry enough fuel to produce a ball of fire that large.

Now that is interesting. Since we know the impact location, one can estimate rather precisely the volume of the ball of flames. Give me figures

The few witnesses that saw the plane should have been able to recognize the model, as the Boeing 757 has a much different engine configuration than smaller planes.

Unfortunately, that's a sore point. The same day (1st-hand accounts, the ones that are important...) are all pointing to a "small plane" of the 8-10 passenger category, passing by "very low" in a "strange noise, not unlike a fighter aircraft". Oddly, absolutely *no one* mentioned a boeing.
Since it passed by at quite a high speed, i'll understand they didnt identify the model precisely. But still, a boeing has quite a characteristic shape, and again there's a scale problem. A 757 doesnt quite fit into the "small airplane" or "8-10 passenger" category...

which would correspond to the jet blast of the engines blowing off something from the ground. A small plane wouldn't do this.

Oops. Even smaller jet engines do this, and to great extents. Sorry but you wont get that one.

There's also a color/paint scheme to the airliner that is unique to the airline, and easily recognizable. It's hard to tell from the photos though.

Indeed. But consider it passed by at very low altitude, and very fast. People couldnt identify the plane model exactly, let alone the company. What came out from the witnesses wasn't even close to a boeing though...
As for the ground camera, it did show a white object. Let's put that on poor video quality, sun reflections and so on - since AA jets are metallic grey....

Ah and at no time i did mention a "conspiracy". That's maybe a bit strong. Lets say "choice of information displayed to the public'", or "[government/FBI] odd silences".
(cynical mode on)But of course, FBI never hides any information to the public, and US presidents always tell the truth...(cynical mode off)

(edit) as you bring the building solidity again, i'll make the following point:
- WTC was less "sturdy" so it "swallowed" the aircrafts. Yet, the ensuing blast projected airplane parts all around.
- Pentagon was built with top-secret ultra-resistant materials, if we follow you. So a plane hitting such a hard surface wouldnt have been "swallowed" entirely. Yet, the blast failed to project plane parts around although the plane hadnt entered the building... And my mechanics courses leftovers tell me at least some parts should have bounced off, ya know kinetic energy distribution etc.

[bigben2k]

Pictures are dated, not timed (not that I could see).

All I know about the archives is that once the order has been made, it can't be changed. So if it was ordered that the JFK files (only some of them apparently) were to be sealed for 75 years, then that's what's going to happen.

From these links:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...200109153.html

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...200109146.html

You can find out a little bit more about how the building was reinforced. You have to admit, the Kevlar on E ring is not exactly a common type of protection.

It seems clear though that the plane did go through the E, D and C rings, and stopped outside of B ring.

From this one:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...109139f_hr.jpg

It's clear that the fuel spread quite a distance behind the point of impact. It was obviously worse past the point of impact.

Here's some testimony, from an insider point of view:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...200109132.html

The black boxes were recovered 3 days later:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...200109142.html

Civilians (family of victims) visited the crash site, only 5 days after impact:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2...200109165.html

I'm no "plane crash reconstruction" engineer, so I'm not going to even try to measure the flameball, but I'll point this out: The 757 can carry many times more fuel than any "small airplane".

Titanium doesn't melt indeed, but a running engine coming to a sudden stop will come apart, and given the fan speed, will come apart quite explosively, fuel not withstanding. I wouldn't be surprised if they found more engine parts imbedded in the building, 20 years from now.

A 757 strangely enough can look like a small plane. With 2 engines under the wings, it is unique from small planes, which usually have 2 engines on the tail. It certainly cannot be compared to a 747 though, as it has 4 engines under the wings, and would, by far, have created much, much more damage.

Having seen planes close up (Embraer RJ140 class, CL-65, DC-9, A319, A320, A330, A340, B767, B747), I can tell you that the bigger airliners are actually much bigger than they appear. The height of the tail fin on the 747 is particularly impressive. The jet blast from those bigger airliners is much more poweful than what a measly 8-10 plane can do: A 757 engine will sit about 4 feet off the ground, and has a rated power at least four times that of a small jet. A small jet's engines sit at about 8 feet above ground.

AA jets are not painted (metallic) grey, they are polished to a mirror.

So if the plane did penetrate three rings, what caused the entry hole to be so small, is what the question should be.

It seems that the reinforcement worked, in that the plane got crammed in a hole smaller than its original size. If it hadn't, it would have flown right through all 5 rings, and hit the backside of the Pentagon building. The exterior skin and supporting structure excluded, the plane is just a heavy platform, narrower than the exterior body. If the plane got squished to the base platform, it would explain the collateral damage that comes with an entry points of a heavy structure. In other words, the base platform (which is about the size of the hole) entered the building, causing the hole to be the size that it is. The skin exterior was not a factor in creating the hole.

I don't believe that a small plane (engines included) could be made to crash through 3 rings.


Well, that's my "devil's advocate" bit for the day...

[gmat]

Hmmm now, this is better
It's still unlikely, but it's coherent with pictures.
I'll be very curious when (and if) they actually find actual bits of the plane. (the black boxes did not tell anything, they were too damaged, you gonna take the FBI word for it)
I'm still puzzled by silences from the officials, incoherent claims from the media... Hiding the facts usually doesn't inspire public trust. Something is definitely fishy in that affair.

I hope you enjoyed the thread, which was undoubtedly "geek stuff" and had a good lot of "random nonsense"

[Cardinal Fang]

Have you guys seen the rocket sled test where they shot an F-4 into a concrete wall? And there was nothing left that even resembled metal, much less engines and seats and landing gear?

Sorry if the "truck bomb" theories here fail to sway me, but I haven't been wearing my tin-foil hat for quite a while now.

[gmat]

a F-4 is by no means as big as a 757... And in a way you are supporting the "smaller airplane" theory

No one here mentioned a "truck bomb". The cut lamp poles, witnesses and video cam all point to a flying object.

[Cardinal Fang]

1. The Pentagon is the center of the most powerful military on earth. Of course there won't be loads of pictures taken by ordinary citizens of the type you saw from NYC.

2. Pictures of the Pentagon can't give you an idea of the scale. Until you have been there and walked around, it doesn't seem anywhere near the size it really is. It's easy to look at a few snapshots taken from 2 miles away and say "Well, that's a tiny little hole! No way that could have been a commercial aircraft, those things are huge!"

3. Those who doubt the "official story" don't understand how the Pentagon is built. Kevlar in the walls, for one small example. I'm amazed the airplane penetrated the building at all.


So those who doubt the story - what happened to Flight 77 and the people onboard if it was something else that actually hit the Pentagon? Bermuda Triangle? Aliens? The passengers and crew were exterminated by covert agents and the airplane was secretly recycled into soda cans without anyone from the outside finding out about it? Please.

The theory at ifrance is so easily debunked it's laughable.

He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet...

Well, how often do you suspect a 757 ends up in the hands of a relatively inexperienced pilot, a pilot with no regard for aircraft longevity or passenger comfort or FAA regulations? How often is a 757 flown balls-to-the-wall bonzai wide open throttle at 50 feet off the deck? How would an ordinary citizen that witnessed this scenario know how that aircraft should sound in those conditions?

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...

Can't read the writing, but can instantly tell how many people are onboard. Uh huh.

The lamp pole clipped by the plane, its location used to figure the plane's trajectory... Yeah, it was hit by an airplane going 600 MPH and just flopped right over on the ground inches from where it originally stood. Uh huh.

The pic they stuck "golfers welcome" on: What the hell? Who ever claimed the plane was on the fricking ground all the way from the road to the building?? Next please...

The next to the last page, the one with red lines drawn over everything? Jeezus. That's an awful lot of work expended on flawed thinking - that being that various pictures taken from different cameras can somehow magically be scaled to match and be accurate. Flawed. It just doesn't work like that.

And the last page, the one that shows the flight tracking and goes nowhere near the Pentagon? The hijackers turned off the transponders. Rmember that? No? Didn't think so. But they did.

[io331]

The difference here however is, anyone can *prove* those sites are wrong. First their analysis of the photos is either misguided (i've seen one pointing at a light reflected on Armstrong's helmet as a stage light, though it was the flag...) or plain wrong (edited photos, or "look those crosshairs ! they show it's a made up photo"). Second one can easily check NASA archives, people who actually got there, people who worked for the NASA then, or even pick up a (good) telescope and scan the landing site for the hardware they left there.

Telescopes
You'd think that telescopes were the surest way of proving we went to the moon. Right? Er, wrong.

The Trouble With Hubble
Why don't we just point Hubble or some other big telescope at the moon to show the moon landing sites? Wouldn't that settle the argument once and for all?

If only it was that easy! The biggest problem with this is that they simply are not powerful enough. The lunar landers are very,very,very small in astronomical terms and they're pretty far away as well. There isn't a telescope in existence that could take a picture of one.

The're lots of mathematics we could show to demonstrate this, but's it's very complicated and we don't fully understand it anway. But here's our abridged dumbed-down version.

Size of Lunar Module. Let's be really generous and say 10m square.
Distance between Hubble and Moon. About 350, 000km.
This works out as an visual angle of (10m)/(3.5 x 10^8m) * (180/PI) = 1.6 x 10^-6 degrees = 6 milliarcseconds.
The WFPC2 'telescope' on Hubble has the following resolution: 800x800 pixels of a 35 arcseconds field of view with a pixel scale of 46 milliarcseconds. Actually resolution in practice is a little below this.
So what does this all mean? Well, roughly speaking, it means that the LM would have to be 15 times larger before it would even cause a dot on a Hubble picture.

(We have to thank Terry Hancock for helping us out with this info. You didn't think we worked it out ourselves, did you? If there's any errors in it, they almost certainly lie with our interpretation of his explanation.)

Or, to look at it another way....
We stole the following off a NASA discussion board. We would usually just link to it, but discussion messages have a habit of expiring and this was too good to lose. Ed Cheng explains there's a law of physics that would prevent Hubble seeing the Lunar Module, and it's to do with the size of its light collecting mirror.

The wavelength of visible light is around 550x10^-9m (i.e. very very small).
The diameter of Hubble's mirror is 2.4m.
Highest ever physically possible resolution = 1.4 x 550 x 10^-9 /2.4 m = 3.2 x 10^-7 radians
At a distance of 350,000km this works out as about 124 metres. As Ed says, roughly the size of a football field.
So even if Hubble's camera had a greater resolution, it still couldn't see the Lunar Module.

But doesn't this same Hubble take photos of things billions of light years away? Yup. Makes you feel very very very small, doesn't it?

Spies
But doesn't the military have spy satellites that can see a pimple on your nose from orbit? Why can't we use those?

The military may well have satellites that do that, but they are in low orbit a whole lot closer to Earth than they are to the moon. They swoop down to just above the atmosphere over the desired target, take the photos, then return to a safer, more stable orbit. They are nowhere near as close to the moon and don't have the power to get out there even if we wanted them to.


http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/

[godsdice]

I think the fact that the Pentagon stood up very well is perfectly understandable, here's why I think so:

-Pentagon firefighters were able to get to the scene faster than WTC and the fire, as opposed to the twin towers, was fightable and controllable because it was at or near ground-level.

-The Pentagon's structure is composed of steel-reinforced concrete. Concrete is an incredibly fire-resistant material, therefore the steel structure did not bend or melt. This was one of the faults of the WTC design (recognized by the fire marshal of New York long before the construction began in the late 60s/early 70s), as the steel girders were coated with a fire resistant insulation rather than fully sheathed in concrete.

-The concrete further lent itself to protecting against bombing, since the building was in fact created during war-time. I've also heard that the Pentagon was designed or is purported to be able to remain intact after a nuclear strike, although that's obviously not an absolute statement.

-For the past several years each branch of the Pentagon had been undergoing structural strengthening. The side that got hit on 9/11 had just finished additions of vertical steel beams bolted together on each floor. Many of these stiffening structures remained in place 30 minutes after the collision.

I remember distinctly NOT seeing any part of the airplane sticking out of the WTC or the Pentagon. It really shouldn't be surprising that there aren't many remains of the aircraft; you've got a relatively thin structure of aluminum hurtling into steel and concrete at maximum speed and then a day or so of very high temperatures. Look at 'normal' airline crashes and you might not see a recognizable airplane...and they usually have a relatively soft ground to land on and slower speeds.

What makes you think that the plane flew straight into the building? If I were flying a plane into something on the ground of a low-lying building I would point the nose of the plane directly at the target. These things aren't fighter jets you can't expect to have control tring to fly a huge airliner less than 100 feet above ground (in which case at 100ft you would fly over the Pentagon). I think it's more likely that the plane came in hitting the first or second floor at an angle.

Given the fact that two of the tallest buildings in the world collapsed I'm not surprised that the media last September couldn't stop hiring engineers to explain why it happened. Still it sure would be nice they more attention to the Pentagon.

[io331]

Well the one thing I seem to remeber also from Sept 11th 2001 was that they kept saying the plane stalled out because they were trying to turn to hard and that it also hit a concrete pad next to the Pentagon... If my memory is not failing they said a hellipad, and from personal experience those tend to be rather large...

[gmat]

Ah a troll Everyone says 'Hello, Mr Troll' !

(anti-troll axe +10, flameproof mode ON)

Originally posted by Cardinal Fang
1. The Pentagon is the center of the most powerful military on earth.

Good start. I wonder what the Chinese would think about that. Or, north Vietnamese... Or, Israelites... Really, nice flamebait.

Of course there won't be loads of pictures taken by ordinary citizens of the type you saw from NYC.

Lucky us ! The US Marine corps were there, and most fortunately, they have rather good photographers. So instead of "ordinary" low quality amateur snapshots, we have very high quality, high resolution, steady and professional shots of the scene.

2. Pictures of the Pentagon can't give you an idea of the scale. (blah blah)

Please excuse everyone for being totally stupid. Of course no-one knows the real height of the external Pentagon buildings. Again please excuse our ignorance.
Ah and no one knows about trigonometry, and no one knows how to match satellite pictures with terrain shots to triangulate positions. Thats a top-secret, high-level military knowledge.

3. Those who doubt the "official story" don't understand how the Pentagon is built. Kevlar in the walls, for one small example. I'm amazed the airplane penetrated the building at all.

No, we do not understand. Kevlar is a plane-disintegrant, ultimate construction material. Kevlar never deforms to absorb shocks or even rip under huge constraints.

what happened to Flight 77

That was not the topic here. About this question several "good" answers exist, that doesnt even hint of a "conspiration". I'll let you find them.

Can't read the writing, but can instantly tell how many people are onboard. Uh huh.

It was only an estimation of the size of the airplane. Like in, "this one could carry 500 persons" opposed to "this one can carry about 5 persons". Rough, but it gives an idea of the scale.

Yeah, it was hit by an airplane going 600 MPH and just flopped right over on the ground inches from where it originally stood. Uh huh.

Actually 5 poles were cut, giving a good hint of the path taken by the aircraft. And all 'disintegration' theories rely on a rather fast, not stalling airplane

The pic they stuck "golfers welcome" on: What the hell? Who ever claimed the plane was on the fricking ground all the way from the road to the building??

The officials, the media, and the newspapers of the day. Not all the way from the road, but it was claimed it "smashed the ground before hitting the building".

various pictures taken from different cameras can somehow magically be scaled to match and be accurate. Flawed. It just doesn't work like that.

See point above. We all are too stupid to bring elements to scale, and we do not know the size of a 757 (surely another top secret thing), not we know how to use 3D software. Oh and many ground pictures were taken by Cpl jason Ingersoll, Marine Corps. To confuse ppl he voluntary switched cameras between each shot. Unfortunately he forgot to tune down the resolution, because his pictures show details down to the centimeter.

And the last page, the one that shows the flight tracking and goes nowhere near the Pentagon? The hijackers turned off the transponders. Rmember that? No? Didn't think so. But they did.

Yep, i remember perfectly, about 35mn before the 'crash' IIRC. Please read the posts in the thread before trolling.. Besides, did the terrorists shut down *every* radar in the country ? Can't american radars track a freakin 757 ? Look at *who* published the information first...

(anti-troll axe +10, flameproof mode OFF)

Thx for the other ppl here for posting constructive - and sometimes informed - arguments..

[gmat]

Godslice: how did it cut the lamp poles then ?

Io: this is way OT, but i recall they were tracked by earth-based observatories. And they left (on the surface of the Moon) instruments meant to be seen from earth, such as a mirror on which lasers are shot regularly.

[Cardinal Fang]

Well since you already know all the ****ing answers why did you start the thread in the first place?

My (uninformed, ignorant, backward-assed Americanized I-have-fewer-posts-than-you-so-I-must-be-wrong) critique was of the page you linked to, not you.

[gmat]

I didnt know them. I got them while the thread was going on.
There are yet many fuzzy points, and i'm not convinced by either version of the facts, each one has its flaws. That's why i asked for more facts... But if you had read the 1st post in this thread you should know this already.

(btw i couldnt care less about post count)

[CYberDruid]

Truly bizarre--and I thought I was paranoid...

[Etacovda]

you realise this thread is 3 years old, right?

[unreal]

dude, thats old!

[maxSaleen]

I hate to brake down this thread but I remember seeing video of the plane hit the Pentagon. It was from a security camera near the building. It showed over the course of three blurry frames a huge object slam into the pentagon. I remember its flight path being nearly 45 degrees to the ground which explains why the grass wasn't affected. Any parts of the plane slamming into the ground at such a speed would probably go straight down. I also thought that I'd mention that AA was missing a plane and that some people were missing their relatives/loved ones when all was said and done. Interesting point, though, about the small hole in the building.

[maxSaleen]

I thought that I'd add that an internal explosion can be ruled out as the dispersal pattern of the debris does NOT indicate an explosion from within. Most of the debris are contained within the point of impact.