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9/11 Pentagon
Eyewitness Accounts
9/11 BBC TV news broadcast showing a passenger jet approaching Pentagon:

Animation showing the plane's approach and impact into the Pentagon:

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A comparison of the fuel explosions of the WTC 2 hit (image reversed) and the Pentagon hit:

UPDATE: Images from a second camera at the Pentagon, pried loose in a FOIA lawsuit, shows
the plane approaching the Pentagon

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An example showing what happened to the plane when it hit the newly reinforced section of the Pentagon:

Photo showing the Pentagon shortly after the impact:

Note the fires where the engines hit.

A clip recording the conversation between the TYSON sector ATC and the C-130 pilot who
saw Flight 77 shortly before it hit the Pentagon. (The original recording isn't clearly time coded,
so please regard these times as approximate only.)
Download file - 821kB mp3
9:36:41 - ATC: GOFER zero 6, traffic is 11 o'clock and five miles northbound fast moving, type
and altitude unknown.

9:36:49 - GOFER06: GOFER zero 6 we have the traffic in sight >unintelligible<

9:36:52 - ATC: Ah, you have the traffic, do you know what kind it is, can you see?

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9:36:54 - GOFER06: Looks like a 757 sir.

9:36:59 - ATC: A 757. Can you estimate his altitude?

9:36:59 - GOFER06: Ah, looks like he's at low altitude right now sir.

9:37:04 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, thank you.

>crosstalk<

>pause<

9:37:17 - GOFER06: That, ah, traffic from GOFER zero 6 is still in a descent now, and, uh,
looks like he's strolled [?] out north east [?]

9:37:24 - ATC: All right. Thank you.

>crosstalk<

9:37:30 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, climb and maintain, uh,

9:37:32 - ATC background: You getting the military?

9:37:33 - ATC: Yeah. Stand by. GOFER eight [sic] six,

9:37:35 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, turn right and follow the traffic, please.

9:37:40 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, turn right heading zero eight zero, we're going to vector
you for the traffic.

9:37:44 - GOFER06: Okay, zero eight zero, GOFER zero six it's...

9:37:47 - ATC: Dulles, I'm keeping GOFER eight six, uh, zero six with me for a while.

>crosstalk<

>ATC interacts with another flight<

>pause<

9:38:23 - GOFER06: Washington, this is GOFER zero six.

9:38:25 - ATC: GOFER zero six, go ahead.

9:38:26 - GOFER06: [?] ... aircraft is down, he's in our [a?] twelve o'clock position, looks like
it's just a, uh, north, west of the airfield at this time sir.

9:38:36 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, thank you, descend and maintain two thousand

9:38:39 - GOFER06: Okay, we're down to two thousand

9:38:53 - GOFER06: And uh, this is GOFER zero six, it looks like that aircraft crashed into the
Pentagon, sir.
9:38:59 - ATC: GOFER eight [sic] six, GOFER zero six, thank you.

Barry Faust (mp3 dowmload):

Officer Barry Faust: Delta three-fifty-two. Delta three-fifty-two.

Dispatcher Kyra Pulliam: Yes three-fifty-two.

Faust: I think we've just had an airplane crash, east of here, it must be in the District

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 area.

Pulliam: OK.

Officer Richard Cox: Four-ten. It's an American Airlines plane, headed east down
over the Pike, possibly toward the Pentagon.

Below are excerpts from Pentagon eyewitness accounts. The highlighted accounts include a link to a
page which contains an unsolicited phone call from Jeffrey Hill to the eyewitness in which he asks
what they saw on 9/11. These people do not talk about hypotheticals based on the size of the hole in
the Pentagon or the lack of aircraft debris, they relate what they saw on 9/11.
Listen to what they have to say, and take note of how racked off some of them are about cooked up
hypothetical scenarios.

Steve Anderson:
Shortly after watching the second tragedy, I heard jet engines pass our building, which, being so close
to the airport is very common. But I thought the airport was closed. I figured it was a plane coming in
for landing. A few moments later, as I was looking down at my desk, the plane caught my eye. It didn't
register at first. I thought to myself that I couldn't believe the pilot was flying so low. Then it dawned on
me what was about to happen. I watched in horror as the plane flew at treetop level, banked
slightly to the left, drug it's wing along the ground and slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon
exploding into a giant orange fireball. Then black smoke. Then white smoke.
Deb Anlauf:
Anlauf was watching TV coverage of the Trade Center burning shortly before 9:30 a.m. when she
decided to return to her 14th-floor room from another part of the hotel. Once in her room, she heard a
"loud roar" and looked out the window to see what was going on. "Suddenly I saw this plane right
outside my window," Anlauf said during a telephone interview from her hotel room this morning. "You
felt like you could touch it; it was that close. It was just incredible. "Then it shot straight across
from where we are and flew right into the Pentagon. It was just this huge fireball that crashed
into the wall (of the Pentagon). When it hit, the whole hotel shook."
Arlington police transmission:
Motor 11: There is visible smoke coming from that area...high, visible smoke.
Dispatcher: Motor 11 direct.
Motor 14: Motor 14, it was an American Airlines plane, uh, headed eastbound over the Pike
(Columbia Pike highway), possibly toward the Pentagon.
Dispatcher: 10-4. Cruiser 50 direct.
David Battle:
Earlier Tuesday, Battle, an office worker at the Pentagon, was standing outside the building and just
about to enter when the aircraft struck. "It was coming down head first," he said. "And when the
impact hit, the cars and everything were just shaking."
Gary Bauer:
I had just passed the closest place the Pentagon is to the exit on 395 . . . when all of a sudden I heard
the roar of a jet engine. I looked at the woman sitting in the car next to me. She had this startled look
on her face. We were all thinking the same thing. We looked out the front of our windows to try to see
the plane, and it wasnt until a few seconds later that we realized the jet was coming up behind us on
that major highway. And it veered to the right into the Pentagon. The blast literally rocked all of our
cars. It was an incredible moment.
Maurice Bease:
Sergeant Maurice L. Bease had worked around Marine aviation long enough to know what a fly-by
was, and it sounded like one as he stood outside his office near the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Turning
around expecting to see a fighter jet fly over, he saw only a split-second glimpse of a white commercial
airliner streaking low toward the building, and him! He did not even have time to duck before it
plowed into the side of the Pentagon around the corner and about 200 yards from where he stood.

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Immediately, a ball of flame shot up the side of the building, followed by smoke, lots of it.
Paul Begala:
Paul Begala, a Democratic consultant, said he witnessed an explosion near the Pentagon. "It was a
huge fireball, a huge, orange fireball," he said in an interview on his mobile phone.
Mickey Bell:
Bell, who had been less than 100 feet from the initial impact of the plane, was nearly struck
by one of the planes wings as it sped by him. In shock, he got into his truck, which had been
parked in the trailer compound, and sped away. He wandered around Arlington in his truck and tried
to make wireless phone calls. He ended up back at Singletons headquarters in Gaithersburg two
hours later, according to President Singleton, not remembering much. The full impact of the
closeness of the crash wasnt realized until coworkers noticed damage to Bells work vehicle.
He had plastic and rivets from an airplane imbedded in its sheet metal, but Bell had no idea
what had happened.
Susan Bergen:
Susan Bergen was sitting in a hotel room near the Pentagon on Tuesday morning, glued to TV news
coverage of the World Trade Center attack. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a plane outside the
window of her 11th floor room. She turned just in time to see a big jetliner skim the treetops
and slam into the side of the Pentagon, less than a half mile from her hotel room. It looked like the
plane sped up just before hitting the building, she said.
Brian Birdwell:
LTC Brian Birdwell. He was just heading back down the hall to his office when the building exploded
in front of him. ... Once they stabilized Brian, they transferred him to George Washington Hospital
where...the best, cutting edge burn doctor in the U.S. The doctor told him that had he not gone to
Georgetown first, he probably would not have survived because of the jet fuel in his lungs.
Ed Blunt:
Engine 101 actually saw the jetliner plow into the northwest side of the Pentagon. The radio crackled,
Engine 101emergency traffic, a plane has gone down into the Pentagon."
Sean Boger:
Sean Boger, Air Traffic Controller and Pentagon tower chief - "I just looked up and I saw the big
nose and the wings of the aircraft coming right at us and I just watched it hit the building." "It
exploded. I fell to the ground and covered my head. I could actually hear the metal going through the
building."

Donald Bouchoux:
Donald R. Bouchoux, 53, a retired Naval officer, a Great Falls resident, a Vietnam veteran and
former commanding officer of a Navy fighter squadron, was driving west from Tysons Corner to
the Pentagon for a 10am meeting. He wrote: At 9:40 a.m. I was driving down Washington
Boulevard (Route 27) along the side of the Pentagon when the aircraft crossed about
200 yards (should be more than 150 yards from the impact) in front of me and impacted
the side of the building. There was an enormous fireball, followed about two seconds
later by debris raining down. The car moved about a foot to the right when the shock wave hit.
[Telephone interview]

Pam Bradley:
I work in Washington DC area, and was on my way to work, in my car, sitting on a bridge, and saw
the plane hit the Pentagon. I am in a complete state of shock.
Chris Braman:
The lawn was littered with twisted pieces of aluminum. He saw one chunk painted with the letter "A,"
another with a "C." It didn't occur to Braman what the letters signified until a man in the crowd stooped
to pick up one of the smaller metal shards. He examined it for a moment, then announced: "This was a
jet."

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Mark Bright:
"I saw the plane at the Navy Annex area," he said. "I knew it was going to strike the building
because it was very, very low -- at the height of the street lights. It knocked a couple down."
The plane would have been seconds from impact -- the annex is only a few hundred yards from the
Pentagon. He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the Pentagon. "

Omar Campo:
It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane, Mr Campo said. "I was cutting
the grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt the impact. The whole ground shook and the
whole area was full of fire."
Joseph Candelario:
As I was looking across the river towards the direction of the Pentagon, I noticed a large aircraft
flying low towards the White House. This aircraft then made a sharp turn and flew towards
the Pentagon and seconds later crashed into it.
Susan Carroll:
I was standing on the platform high above the [Washington Reagan] airport awaiting a Metro subway
train to my office in the heart of the district, on Constitution Avenue, admiring the lovely blue skies
when I saw the plane hit and the fireball and explosion at the Pentagon.
James R. Cissell:
''Out of my peripheral vision, I saw this plane coming in and it was low - and getting lower. ''If
you couldn't touch it from standing on the highway, you could by standing on your car.'' ''I thought,
'This isn't really happening. That is a big plane.' Then I saw the faces of some of the passengers on
board,'' Cissell said. ''I remember thinking, 'The World Trade Center was just the beginning, there's
going to be more.' '' He remembers the helipad the plane flew over before smacking into the Pentagon
was close enough to him that ''I could have thrown a baseball at it and hit it.''

Allen Cleveland:
Allen Cleveland of Woodbridge Virginia looked out from a Metro train going to National
Airport, to see a jet heading down toward the Pentagon. "I thought, 'There's no landing strip on
that side of the subway tracks,' " Before he could process that thought, he saw "a huge
mushroom cloud. The lady next to me was in absolute hysterics."" . . a silver pasenger jet, mid
sized"

Telephone interview:
I had a French guy ... he was emailing me and trying to get me to basically say that ...
basically he was trying to support the conspiracy theories and all that other stuff.

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Richard Cox:
The hijacked jetliner, traveling at 350 miles an hour, was only about 100 feet from the ground when it
cruised over Arlington police officer Richard Cox's head, just a quarter mile from the Pentagon. "It
was low enough for me to see the reflection of cars and trees and buildings on its underside as it
passed by," he says. "It was low enough for my heart to stop."
Dan Creed:
He and two colleagues from Oracle software were stopped in a car near the Naval Annex, next to the
Pentagon, when they saw the plane dive down and level off. "It was no more than 30 feet off the
ground, and it was screaming. It was just screaming. It was nothing more than a guided missile at that
point," Creed said. "I can still see the plane. I can still see it right now. It's just the most
frightening thing in the world, going full speed, going full throttle, its wheels up," Creed recalls.

John Damoose:
John Damoose, a Travis City, Mich. native who was in a meeting said "everybody got nervous. ...
We didn't know whether to stay inside or go outside. The thing with terrorist attacks is that you don't
know what is the next thing that will happen." Damoose said the worst part was leaving the Pentagon
and walking along Fort Meyer Drive, a bike trail, "you could see pieces of the plane."
Wayne Day:
"We had one guy who was standing, looking out the window and saw the plane when it was coming in.
He was in front of one of the blast-resistant windows," says Kirlin President Wayne T. Day, who
believes the window structure saved the man's life. According to Matt Hahr, Kirlin's senior project
manager at the Pentagon, the employee "was thrown about 80 ft down the hall through the air. As he
was traveling through the air, he says the ceiling was coming down from the concussion. He got thrown
into a closet, the door slammed shut and the fireball went past him," recounts Hahr. "Jet fuel was on
him and it irritated his eyes, but he didn't get burned."
Michael Defina:
"The only way you could tell that an aircraft was inside was that we saw pieces of the nose gear.
The devastation was horrific. It was obvious that some of the victims we found had no time to react."
Michael DiPaula:
"Suddenly, an airplane roared into view, nearly shearing the roof off the trailer before slamming into the

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E ring. 'It sounded like a missile,' DiPaula recalls . . . Buried in debris and covered with airplane
fuel, he was briefly listed by authorities as missing, but eventually crawled from the flaming debris and
the shroud of black smoke unscathed.
Mike Dobbs:
"It was an American airlines airliner. I was looking out the window and saw it come right over the
Navy annex at a slow angle. It looked to me to be on a zero-to-zero course. It seemed to be almost
coming in in slow motion. I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started running."

Daryl Donley:
"It just was amazingly precise," Daryl Donley, another commuter, said of the plane's impact. "It
completely disappeared into the Pentagon."

Telephone interview:
I saw the plane fly into the Pentagon and turn into a huge fireball two and a half times
the size of the Pentagon heightwise. I looked out of my passenger window and the plane
was next to me, at level, about probably 100 feet or so away, and then I followed it and
saw it fly into the Pentagon.

Bob Dubill:
Every morning for years Bob Dubill drove past the Pentagon on his way to work at USA Today. He
was passing the building the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he saw a jetliner fly over the roadway. It
filled his field of vision. The jet was 40-feet off the ground speeding toward the Pentagon. The
wheels were up and I knew that this plane was not heading for National Airport, he said. This plane
was going to slam into the Pentagon. I steeled myself for the explosion.The blast froze traffic on the
highway.
Bobby Eberle:
I looked back and saw a jet airliner flying very low and very fast. ... The aircraft was so very
low -- as an aircraft would be on its final approach to an airport. However, if you have watched any
aircraft come in for a landing, even though the aircraft is descending, it is angled up slightly. This aircraft
was angled downward. In addition, landing gear would also be visible on a aircraft so low and so near
landing. This aircraft had its landing gear retracted. Finally, an aircraft on final approach is traveling
rather slowly. This aircraft sped by very loudly an very quickly. All of this flashed in my mind as
the aircraft passed from behind my left shoulder to in front of me. It was then that the other events of
the morning crystallized in the realization that tragedy was about to occur. With all of these images
spinning in my head, the only words that came out of my mouth were "Oh no!" With that, the airliner
crashed into the Pentagon and exploded.
Steve Eiden:
Steve Eiden, a truck driver, had picked up his cargo that Tuesday morning in Williamsburg, Va., and
was en route to New York City and witnessed the aftermath. He took the Highway 95 loop in the
area of the Pentagon and thought it odd to see a plane in restricted airspace, thinking to himself
it was odd that it was flying so low. "You could almost see the people in the windows," he said
as he watched the plane disappear behind a line of trees, followed by a tall plume of black smoke.
Then he saw the Pentagon on fire, and an announcement came over the radio that the Pentagon had
been hit.

Penny Elgas:
The plane seemed to be floating as if it were a paper glider and I watched in horror as it gently
rocked and slowly glided straight into the Pentagon. At the point where the fuselage hit the
wall, it seemed to simply melt into the building. I saw a smoke ring surround the fuselage as
it made contact with the wall. It appeared as a smoke ring that encircled the fuselage at the point
of contact and it seemed to be several feet thick. I later realized that it was probably the rubble of
churning bits of the plane and concrete. The churning smoke ring started at the top of the fuselage
and simultaneously wrapped down both the right and left sides of the fuselage to the underside,
where the coiling rings crossed over each other and then coiled back up to the top. Then it
started over again -- only this next time, I also saw fire, glowing fire in the smoke ring. At that
point, the wings disappeared into the Pentagon. And then I saw an explosion and

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 watched the tail of the plane slip into the building.

Telephone interview:
I saw [the plane] over the gas station, I saw it over the grass, I saw it right in front of
me, I saw it hit the building.

Bruce Elliott:
Elliott, in a phone interview Wednesday, said he had just left the Pentagon and was about to board a
shuttle van in a south parking lot when he saw the plane approach and slam into the west side of the
structure. I looked to my left and saw the plane coming in, said Elliott, who watched it for
several seconds. It was banking and garnering speed. I felt it was headed for the Pentagon. () It
was like a kamikaze pilot. I felt it was going to ram the Pentagon, he said. He said the craft clipped
a utility pole guide wire, which may have slowed it down a bit before it crashed into the building and
burst into flames.
Walker Lee Evey:
The plane approached the Pentagon about six feet off the ground, clipping a light pole, a car antenna, a
construction trailer and an emergency generator before slicing into the building, said Lee Evey, the
manager of the Pentagon's ongoing billion-dollar renovation. The plane penetrated three of the
Pentagon's five rings, but was probably stopped from going farther by hundreds of concrete columns.
The plane peeled back as it entered, leaving pieces of the front of the plane near the outside
of the building and pieces from the rear of the aircraft farther inside, Evey said.

Mark Faram:
As I stepped onto the highway next to the triage area, I knelt down to tie my shoe and all over the
highway were small pieces of aircraft skin, none bigger than a half-dollar. Anyone familiar with aircraft
has seen the greenish primer paint that covers many interior metal surfaces - that is what these shards
were covered with.
Kim Flyler:
"At that moment I heard a plane and then a loud cracking noise.... Right before the plane hit the
building, you could see the silhouettes of people in the back two rows. You couldn't see if they
were male or female, but you could tell there was a human being in there."
Don Fortunato:
"Traffic was at a standstill, so I parked on the shoulder, not far from the scene and ran to the site. Next
to me was a cab from D.C., its windshield smashed out by pieces of lampposts. There were pieces of
the plane all over the highway, pieces of wing, I think."

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Kat Gaines:
Her commute to the airport took her south on Route 110, in front of the parking lots of the Pentagon.
As she approached the parking lots, she saw a low-flying jetliner strike the top of nearby
telephone poles. She then heard the plane power up and plunge into the Pentagon.
Fred Gaskins:
"'(The plane) was flying fast and low and the Pentagon was the obvious target,' said Fred Gaskins,
who was driving to his job as a national editor at USA Today near the Pentagon when the plane
passed about 150 feet overhead. 'It was flying very smoothly and calmly, without any hint that anything
was wrong.'"
Mike Gerson:
I didn't see the actual impact, but 395 curves around the Pentagon, and I saw that plane coming in and
said to myself, 'That plane is too low; it's going to crash.'

Matt Hahr:
According to Matt Hahr, Kirlin's senior project manager at the Pentagon, the employee "was thrown
about 80 ft down the hall through the air. As he was traveling through the air, he says the ceiling was
coming down from the concussion. He got thrown into a closet, the door slammed shut and the fireball
went past him," recounts Hahr. "Jet fuel was on him and it irritated his eyes, but he didn't get burned."
Afework Hagos:
Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work but stuck in a traffic jam near the
Pentagon when the plane flew over. "There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car
as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings
up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in."
Cheryl Hammond:
"I thought they'd put out an alert or something," Hammond said. "We saw the big American
Airlines plane and started running."
Joe Harrington:
Harrington was working on the installation of new furniture in Wedge One, when he was called out to
the parking lot to talk about security with his customer moments before the crash. About two minutes
later one of my guys pointed to an American airlines airplane 20 feet high over Washington
Blvd., Harrington said. It seemed like it made impact just before the wedge. It was like a
Hollywood movie or something.
Albert Hemphill:

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All in all, I probably only had the aircraft in my field of view for approximately 3 seconds. The
aircraft was at a sharp downward angle of attack, on a direct course for the Pentagon. It was
"clean", in as much as, there were no flaps applied and no apparent landing gear deployed. He was
slightly left wing down as he appeared in my line of sight, as if he'd just "jinked" to avoid something.
As he crossed Route 110 he appeared to level his wings, making a slight right wing slow adjustment
as he impacted low on the Westside of the building to the right of the helo, tower and fire vehicle
around corridor 5.
Fred Hey:
Congressional staff attorney Fred Hey was driving by on Route 50 at that moment. "I can't believe it!
This plane is going down into the Pentagon!" he shouted into his cellphone. On the other end of the
line was his boss, Rep. Bob Ney (R) of Ohio. Representative Ney immediately phoned the news to
House Sergeant-At-Arms Bill Livingood, who ordered an immediate evacuation of the Capitol itself.
Nicholas Holland:
Nicholas Holland, an engineer with AMEC Construction Management of Bethesda, Md., had spent
the last two years working to reinforce the walls. Two summers ago, a blast wall of reinforced steel
and concrete was installed right where the plane hit.
Tom Hovis:
The plane came up I-395 also known as Shirley Hwy. (most likely used as a reference point.) The
plane had been seen making a lazy pattern in the no fly zone over the White House and US Cap.
Why the plane did not hit incoming traffic coming down the river from the north to Reagan
Nat'l. is beyond me . Strangely, no one at the Reagan Tower noticed the aircraft. Andrews AFB
radar should have also picked up the aircraft I would think. Nevertheless, the aircarft went southwest
near Springfield and then veered left over Arlington and then put the nose down coming over Ft Myer
picking off trees and light poles near the helicopter pad next to building. It was as if he
leveled out at the last minute and put it square into the building. The wings came off as if it
went through an arch way leaving a hole in the side of the building it seems a little larger
than the wide body of the aircraft. The entry point was so clean that the roof (shown in news
photo) fell in on the wreckage.
Will Jarvis:
From time spent on military aircraft as part of his job at the Pentagon, Will Jarvis ... knows what
aviation fuel smells like. That smell was his only clue that a plane had crashed into the
Pentagon, where he works as an operations research analyst for the Office of the Secretary of
Defense. Jarvis, who was around the corner from the disaster, tried but failed to see the plane when
he left the building. "There was just nothing left. It was incinerated. We couldn't see a tail or a
wing or anything," he says. "Just a big black hole in the building with smoke pouring out of it."
Andrea Kaiser:
Fire Truck 101 from the Arlington County Fire Department was one of the first on the scene Tuesday
morning. The truck was coming back from a training exercise, and one firefighter on board
noticed a plane flying too low as they drove past the Pentagon. "Suddenly, we saw the huge
explosion of the crash," said firefighter Andrea Kaiser.
Terrence Kean:
Terrance Kean, 35, who lives in a 14-story building nearby, heard the loud jet engines and glanced
out his window. "I saw this very, very large passenger jet," said the architect, who had been packing
for a move. "It just plowed right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the
portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere. . . . It
was very sort of surreal."
Lesley Kelly:
On Sept. 11, I was standing in a break room of an office . . . in downtown D.C., when I looked out
the window to see an airplane descend into the side of the Pentagon, where the Navy offices where
five friends and colleagues of mine were located.
D. S. Khavkin:
Then, at about 9:40 am Eastern Daylight Time, my husband and I heard an aircraft directly overhead.

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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. A huge fireball exploded with thick black smoke.
Aydan Kizildrgli:
Aydan Kizildrgli, an English language student who is a native of Turkey, saw the jetliner bank slightly
then strike a western wall of the huge five-sided building that is the headquarters of the nation's
military. "There was a big boom," he said. "Everybody was in shock. I turned around to the car
behind me and yelled Did you see that?' Nobody could believe it."
K.M.:
I live in Pentagon City (part of Arlington) and can see the Pentagon when I look out my window. ... It
was so shocking, I was listening to the news on what had happened in New York, and just happened
to look out the window because I heard a low flying plane and then I saw it hit the Pentagon. It
happened so fast... it was in the air one moment and in the building the next...

Peter Kopf:
Peter Kopf, director of information technology at USA TODAY, was stalled in traffic about 9:30
a.m. when the jet hit the Pentagon, creating a "huge fireball." "People (on the highway) were
freaking out," he said. "People were turning around and driving the opposite way getting out of
their cars, talking on cell phones, crying."

Telephone interview:
Everybody loves a good yarn I guess, but I saw what I saw. It was definitely an airplane.

Charles H Krohn:
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.
Ann Krug:
Ann Krug's kindergarten class saw the plane crash outside the classroom's window. "I actually
pointed it out and said: 'Look at this plane; look at how low it's flying,' " Krug recalled. "And then we
all saw it come down."

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William Lagasse:
Sgt. William Lagasse, a Pentagon police dog handler, the son of an aviation instructor, was filling up his
patrol car at a gas station near the Pentagon when he noticed a jet fly in low. He watched as the plane
plowed into the Pentagon. Initially, he thought the plane was about to drop on top of him -- it was that
close. Lagasse knew something was wrong. The 757's flaps were not deployed and the landing
gear was retracted.

Robert Leonard
"I looked in the rearview mirror to check the traffic and saw only a plane, flying very low. I
followed it in my left outside mirror. I braked, looked out my left window and saw a large
commercial aircraft aiming for the Pentagon. ... The aircraft, so close to the ground, was banked
skillfully to the right, leveled off perpendicular to the Pentagon's southwest side, then went full
throttle directly toward the building. The plane vanished, absorbed by the building, and there was
a slight pause. Then a huge fireball rose into the sky."

Telephone interview:
These conspiracy theories about the Navy sent missiles and other stuff ... first they don't
make logical sense, and where did the plane go after that, and why are the people dead?

Lincoln Liebner:
As he ran to an entrance, he heard jet engines and turned in time to see the American Airlines
plane diving toward the building. "I was close enough that I could see through the windows of the
airplane, and watch as it as it hit," he said. "There was no doubt in my mind what I was watching.
Not for a second. It was accelerating," he said. "It was wheels up, flaps up, engines full
throttle."

Telephone interview:
Let me ask you another question. What happened to all the passengers on that plane? ...
Where did all those human beings go? Their families, the pilots, where did they go?
What do you think the government did with all those people? The children on the plane,
what do you think the government did with all those people? The airplane itself, where
did it go? ... Just go back on the internet and ask all the hard questions.

Mary Lyman:

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"'I saw a plane coming what I thought was toward National Airport, which is very close. You see
that all the time. But this one looked different. It was at a very steep angle, and going very fast. I
had been hearing about the World Trade Center before I left, and wondered, is this part of that? Then
the plane disappeared, smoke started coming up, and traffic came to a complete stop," Lyman said.
"We all got out of our cars. We heard another couple of explosions, and I ran and got back in my car."
David Marra:
David Marra, 23, an information-technology specialist, had turned his BMW off an I-395 exit to the
highway just west of the Pentagon when he saw an American Airlines jet swooping in, its wings
wobbly, looking like it was going to slam right into the Pentagon: "It was 50 ft. off the deck
when he came in. It sounded like the pilot had the throttle completely floored. The plane rolled left and
then rolled right. Then he caught an edge of his wing on the ground."
Oscar Martinez:
"I saw a big jet flying close to the building coming at full speed. There was a big noise when it hit the
building."
Dr. Thom Mayer:
At one point, he went into the charred opening, to check on the safety of workers there There was jet
fuel all over the place. It was very smoky, and it was difficult to breathe, even with a respirator, he
said.
Tom McClain:
I saw the remains of the engines in the North parking lot of the Pentagon as well as melted aluminum
and other debris left from the aircraft.

Elaine McCusker:
Traffic is normally slow right around the Pentagon as the road winds and we line up to cross the 14th
Street bridge heading into the District of Columbia. I don't know what made me look up, but I did and
I saw a very low-flying American Airlines plane that seemed to be accelerating. My first
thought was just 'No, no, no, no,' because it was obvious the plane was not heading to nearby Reagan
National Airport. It was going to crash.

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 Stephen McGraw:
"I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars." McGraw
estimates that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the left hand lane of the
road, on the side closest to the Pentagon. "The plane clipped the top of a light pole just
before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car. I
saw it crash into the building," he said. "My only memories really were that it looked like a
plane coming in for a landing. ... There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I
remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows (of the Pentagon). I saw an explosion of
fire billowing through those two windows."

Telephone interview:
I have a clear recollection of the plane coming in kind of controlled and straight, as if it
was coming in for a landing basically.

William Middleton Sr:

The worker, William Middleton Sr., was running his street sweeper through the cemetery when he
heard a harsh whistling sound overhead. Middleton looked up and spotted a commercial jet whose
pilot seemed to be fighting with his own craft. Middleton said the plane was no higher than
the tops of telephone poles as it lurched toward the Pentagon. The jet accelerated in the final few
hundred yards before it tore into the building.
Kirk Milburn:
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."

Terry Morin:
I cant remember exactly what I was thinking about at that moment, but I started to hear an
increasingly loud rumbling behind me and to my left. As I turned to my left, I immediately realized the
noise was bouncing off the 4-story structure that was Wing 5. One to two seconds later the airliner
came into my field of view. By that time the noise was absolutely deafening. ... I estimate that the
aircraft was no more than 100 feet above me (30 to 50 feet above the FOB) in a slight nose down
attitude. The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at
the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I couldnt be sure. It looked like a 737 and I
so reported to authorities. Within seconds the plane cleared the 8th Wing of BMDO and was heading
directly towards the Pentagon. Engines were at a steady high-pitched whine, indicating to me that the
throttles were steady and full. I estimated the aircraft speed at between 350 and 400 knots. The flight
path appeared to be deliberate, smooth, and controlled. As the aircraft approached the Pentagon,
I saw a minor flash (later found out that the aircraft had sheared off a portion of a highway
light pole down on Hwy 110). As the aircraft flew ever lower I started to lose sight of the actual
airframe as a row of trees to the Northeast of the FOB blocked my view. I could now only see the tail
of the aircraft. I believe I saw the tail dip slightly to the right indicating a minor turn in that direction.

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The tail was barely visible when I saw the flash and subsequent fireball rise approximately 200 feet
above the Pentagon.
James Mosley:
"The building starting shaking, and I looked over and saw this big silver plane run into the side of
the Pentagon. It almost knocked me off."
Christopher Munsey:
A silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast,
low and straight toward the Pentagon, just hundreds of yards away. It was a nightmare coming to life.
The plane, with red and blue markings, hurtled by and within moments exploded in a ground-
shaking "whoomp" as it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon. A huge flash of orange flame and
black smoke poured into the sky. Smoke seemed to change from black to white, forming a billowing
column in the sky.

Vin Narayanan:
Then I looked up to my left and saw an American Airlines jet flying right at me. The jet roared
over my head, clearing my car by about 25 feet. The tail of the plane clipped the overhanging exit
sign above me as it headed straight at the Pentagon. The windows were dark on American
Airlines Flight 77 as it streaked toward its target, only 50 yards away. The hijacked jet
slammed into the Pentagon at a ferocious speed. But the Pentagon's wall held up like a
champ. It barely budged as the nose of the plane curled upwards and crumpled before
exploding into a massive fireball. The people who built that wall should be proud. Its
ability to withstand the initial impact of the jet probably saved thousands of lives.

Telephone interview:
I know what I saw, I was there when it happened, the plane hit the Pentagon, that's all
there is to it.

John O'Keefe:
I dont know whether I saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an
American Airlines jet, said the 25-year-old OKeefe, managing editor of Influence, an American
Lawyer Media publication about lobbying. It came swooping in over the highway, over my left
shoulder, straight across where my car was heading. Id just heard them saying on the radio that
National Airport was closing, and I thought, Thats not going to make it to National Airport. And
then I realized where I was, and that it was going to hit the Pentagon. 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.
Mare Ann Owens
Looking up didn't tell me what type of plane it was because it was so close I could only see the
bottom. Realising the Pentagon was its target, I didn't think the careering, full-throttled craft would get
that far. Its downward angle was too sharp, its elevation of maybe 50 feet, too low. Street lights
toppled as the plane barely cleared the Interstate 395 overpass. The thought that I was about to die
was immediate and certain. This plane was going to hit me along with all the other commuters trapped
on Washington Boulevard. Gripping the steering wheel of my vibrating car, I involuntarily ducked as
the wobbling plane thundered over my head. Once it passed, I raised slightly and grimaced as the left
wing dipped and scraped the helicopter area just before the nose crashed into the southwest wall of
the Pentagon.
Steve Patterson:
Steve Patterson, 43, said he was watching television reports of the World Trade Center being hit when
he saw a silver commuter jet fly past the window of his 14th-floor apartment in Pentagon City.
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 cemetary 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, Patterson said. "At first I thought 'Oh my God, there's a plane truly misrouted

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from National,'" Patterson said. "Then this thing just became part of the Pentagon ... I was watching
the World Trade Center go and then this. It was like Oh my God, what's next?" He said the plane,
which approached the Pentagon below treetop level, seemed to be flying normally for a plane
coming in for a landing other than going very fast for being so low. Then, he said, he saw the
Pentagon "envelope" the plane and bright orange flames shoot out the back of the building.
Scott Perry:
Scott Perry of Spotsylvania County heard a plane's engines rumbling above the Navy Annex building
where he works, so he looked out his window, which faces the Pentagon. "[The plane] was coming
straight into the wedge," Perry said. "I saw it crash. There was about five seconds of disbelief, and the
next thing I heard was, down the hallway, a friend of mine screaming."
Christine Peterson:
I looked idly out my window to the left -- and saw a plane flying so low I said, "holy cow, that plane is
going to hit my car" (not my actual words). The car shook as the plane flew over. It was so close that I
could read the numbers under the wing. And then the plane crashed. My mind could not comprehend
what had happened. Where did the plane go? For some reason I expected it to bounce off the
Pentagon wall in pieces. But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents
of fire.
Frank Probst:
"I was standing on the sidewalk (parallel to the site of impact)...and I saw this plane coming right at me
at what seemed like 300 miles an hour. I dove towards the ground and watched this great big
engine from this beautiful airplane just vaporize," said Frank Probst, a member of the Pentagon
renovations crew commented. "It looked like a huge fireball, pieces were flying out everywhere."
Wanda Ramey:
While Rosati couldn't see the cause of the explosion, Wanda Ramey, a DPS master patrol officer, had
had a bird's eye view. Ramey stood at the Mall plaza booth when she saw a low-flying airplane.
"I saw the wing of the plane clip the light post, and it made the plane slant. Then the engine
revved up and crashed into the west side of the building," she said. "It happened so fast. One
second I saw the plane and next it was gone." Recalling those moments again, Ramey said it
appeared the building sucked the plane up inside. "A few seconds later, I heard a loud boom and
I saw a huge fireball and lots of smoke," she said.

Alfred S. Regnery:
As I approached the Pentagon, which was still not quite in view, listening on the radio to the first
reports about the World Trade Center disaster in New York, a jetliner, apparently at full throttle
and not more than a couple of hundred yards above the ground, screamed overhead. Although

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airplanes regularly fly over the Pentagon on their way to Reagan National Airport, just a mile or two
south, this plane was too low and going too fast. As I watched it disappear behind bridges and
concrete barriers I knew it was about to crash.
Rick Renzi:
"The plane came in at an incredibly steep angle with incredibly high speed," said Rick Renzi, a law
student who was driving by the Pentagon at the time of the crash about 9:40 a.m. The impact created a
huge yellow and orange fireball, he added.
James S. Robbins:
I was looking directly at it when the aircraft struck. The sight of the 757 diving in at an unrecoverable
angle is frozen in my memory, but at the time, I did not immediately comprehend what I was
witnessing. There was a silvery flash, an explosion, and a dark, mushroom shaped cloud rose over the
building.
Arthur Rosati:
Rosati was in a meeting when the plane hit. "I ran down the hallway and there was smoke everywhere.
You could smell the jet fuel, it was unbearable," he said. "I was overcome with smoke, but managed to
get a lieutenant colonel out. I went back in to the hallway. The smoke was so dense I couldn't stay. I
was ordered out."
John Sayer:
Lt. Commander John Sayer, a Navy reservist, was riding on a bus when he heard a thud. "It sounded
like a very loud clap," he said. "At first I thought an airplane had hit in front of the Pentagon, but when I
got closer I saw that it had struck the Pentagon."
Rob Schickler:
"A plane flew over my house," Rob Schickler, a 2001 graduate and Arlington, Va. resident, said. "It
was loud, but not unusual because the [Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport] is by my house,
on the other side of the Pentagon. Occasionally planes that miss the landing fly over my house."
Schickler lives one mile away from the Pentagon. ... "A few seconds later, there was this sonic boom,"
he said. "The house shook, the windows were vibrating. Obviously something had happened. ... There
was a hole in the building, and you could smell it in the air. It's a beautiful day, but you can smell the
burning concrete and burning jet fuel."

Noel Sepulveda:
The plane dipped its nose and crashed into the southwest side of the Pentagon. "The
right engine hit high, the left engine hit low," Sepulveda said. "For a brief moment, you could
see the body of the plane sticking out from the side of the building. Then a ball of fire came from
behind it."

Telephone interview:
I was a medic in the military, and shortly after I ran into the building and started pulling
people out. I spent the next two weeks pulling out bodies, out of the Pentagon ... Some
of the bodies that we pulled out were still strapped into their ... airline seats.

Philip Sheuerman:
On the morning of the attack, he was exiting the freeway, turning into the parking lot of the Pentagon,
when he noticed a passenger plane American Airlines Flight 77 descend at increasing speed
with its wheels up. Sheuerman, who had just heard about the attacks on the World Trade Center
minutes before, realized that it was perfectly obvious what (the plane) was going to do. He saw the
plane slam into the Pentagon.
Jack Singleton:
"Where the plane came in was really at the construction entrance," says Jack Singleton, president of
Singleton Electric Co. Inc., Gaithersburg MD, the Wedge One electrical subcontractor. "The plane's
left wing actually came in near the ground and the right wing was tilted up in the air. That right
wing went directly over our trailer, so if that wing had not tilted up, it would have hit the trailer. My

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foreman, Mickey Bell, had just walked out of the trailer and was walking toward the construction
entrance."

Skarlet:
As I came up along the Pentagon I saw helicopters. (...) it was headed straight for the building. It
made no sense. (...) A huge jet. Then it was gone. A massive hole in the side of the Pentagon
gushed smoke. The noise was beyond description. The smell seemed to singe the inside of my nose.
The earth seemed to stop shaking for a second, but then sirens began and the ground seemed to shake
again - this time from the incoming barrage of firetrucks, police cars. military vehicles. (...) I called my
boss. I had no memory of how to work my cellphone. I hit redial and his number came up. "Something
hit the Pentagon. It must have been a helicopter." I knew that wasn't true, but I heard myself say it. I
heard myself believe it, if only for a minute. "Buildings don't eat planes. That plane, it just
vanished. There should have been parts on the ground. It should have rained parts on my
car. The airplane didn't crash. Where are the parts?"
Mark Skipper:
[W]e were about 300 feet from the impact site from the collapsed building side. Me, myself and Al
Wallace (ph) were standing outside when we saw the plane, not too far from where we are sitting right
now, and as soon as we saw it, we started running toward the north side of the building, and that's
when we heard the explosion and the incredible crash.
Dennis Smith:
Dennis Smith, a building inspector and former Marine, was smoking a cigarette in the center courtyard
when he heard the roar of engines and looked up in time to see the tail of a plane seconds before it
exploded into the building.
Steve Snaman:
Steve Snaman, manager of the datacom division for Walker Seals, watched in horror from Fort
McNair (across the river) as the jetliner came in low at full throttle, banked left and smashed into the
wall of the Pentagon. "We saw the plane hit the Pentagon," Snaman said. "My first reaction was to
get on the Nextel to reach my men, but I couldnt get a signal. They were in Wedge One."
Dewey Snavely:
SGT Dewey Snavely was driving along Arlington's Quaker Lane when the radio blasted the morning's
first harrowing reports, then warned that a third plane was heading his way. Minutes later, jet engines
rumbled overhead. "The guy I was with looked up and said: 'What the hell is that plane doing?' Then
we heard an explosion and the truck rocked back and forth."
Levi Stephens:
"I was driving away from the Pentagon in the South Pentagon lot when I hear this huge rumble, the
ground started shaking I saw this [plane] come flying over the Navy Annex. It flew over the
van and I looked back and I saw this huge explosion, black smoke everywhere."
"Steve":

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I saw the jet just before it crashed. Something big and silver, nose down going aimed like a
dart straight into it. The fireball was huge, 10 stories high and our building shook hard.

Steve Storti:
Then he caught the glint of silver out of the corner of his eye. He looked up to see a passenger
plane with the trademark stainless-steel fuselage and stripes of American Airlines. It
was way off the normal flight pattern for Reagan National, said Storti, who had been living in the
Crystal City section of Arlington for about two years. The plane was also alarmingly low, passing
behind nearby apartment buildings that were only several stories high. ... Time seemed to slip into
slow motion as he watched the plane cross over Route 395, tip its left wing as it passed the Navy
annex, veer sharply and then slice into the Pentagon. "I remember thinking that whoever is flying
this knows what they're doing," Storti said. "The plane traveled straight as an arrow. It
didn't waver and it didn't flip from side to side." Storti watched the plane slide silently
into the Pentagon "like a car entering a garage." When it had plunged in as far as its tail fin,
there was huge explosion -- a "pumpkin circle" of deep orange fire and oily black smoke that
obscured the entire building. Moments later, Storti said, "there was huge bang, then a roar and a
rumble."

Telephone interview:
I heard it bank. I heard the engines rev. I saw it hit. I felt, smelt, and tasted the
explosion, and lived with the aftermath for months afterwards. I promise you it was a
fucking plane and not a cruise missile or anything else.

Jim Sutherland:
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.
Joel Sucherman:
"My first thought was he's not going to make it across the river to [Reagan] National Airport. But
whoever was flying the plane made no attempt to change direction," Sucherman said. "It was coming in
at a high rate of speed, but not at a steep angle--almost like a heat-seeking missile was locked onto its
target and staying dead on course."
Shari Taylor:
"I looked over my shoulder and you can hear the plane coming in, it was just so loud. Normally
you don't see planes on that side of the Pentagon, and that was my first thought. I thought, 'What is he
doing on that side of the Pentagon, it's so strange.' And then you could just see him descend and just
keep descending lower and lower, until he was almost on top of Route 27 that runs alongside the
Pentagon. And then he just slammed into the Pentagon, you just knew he was going to hit the
Pentagon, I mean there was no way he could not have hit it."
Tony Terronez:
Pulling away from the Pentagon there was tons of stuff on the ground, big pieces of metal, concrete,
everything. We got up to a certain point and there was this huge piece of something - I mean it was
big, it looked like a piece of an engine or something - in the road.
Carla Thompson:
"'I glanced up just at the point where the plane was going into the building,' said Carla Thompson,
who works in an Arlington, Va., office building about 1,000 yards from the crash. 'I saw an
indentation in the building and then it was just blown-up upred, everything red,' she said.
'Everybody was just starting to go crazy. I was petrified.'"
Phillip Thompson:
I could see the roof of the Pentagon and, in the distance, the Washington Monument. I heard the
scream of a jet engine and, turning to look, saw my drivers side window filled with the fuselage
of the doomed airliner. It was flying only a couple of hundred feet off the ground I could see the
passenger windows glide by. The plane looked as if it were coming in for a landing cruising at a

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shallow angle, wings level, very steady. But, strangely, the landing gear was up and the flaps werent
down. I knew what was about to happen, but my brain couldnt quite process the information. Like
the other commuters on the road, I was stunned into disbelief. The fireball that erupted upon impact
blossomed skyward, and the blast hit us in a wave.

Henry Ticknor
Henry Ticknor, intern minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Virginia, was
driving to church that Tuesday morning when American Airlines Flight 77 came in fast and low
over his car and struck the Pentagon. "There was a puff of white smoke and then a huge billowing
black cloud," he said.

Telephone interview:
That plane was twice as low, going twice as fast, and as soon as it went below the tree
line smoke went up.

Tim Timmerman:
A pilot who saw the impact, Tim Timmerman, said it had been an American Airways 757. "It added
power on its way in," he said. "The nose hit, and the wings came forward and it went up in a
fireball." Smoke and flames poured out of a large hole punched into the side of the Pentagon.
Darlene Tortorici:
I opened the curtains and saw the plane hit the Pentagon, she said. At first it was just black smoke
and then it was fire. It's like you are watching something and you don't really believe it.
Thomas Trapasso:
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."
Clyde Vaughn:
Brig. Gen. Clyde Vaughn of the U.S. Army, director of military support, told reporters he was in his
car on nearby Interstate 395 when the plane hit the Pentagon on Tuesday morning. Vaughn said "I was
scanning the air" as he was sitting in his car. "There wasn't anything in the air, except for one
airplane, and it looked like it was loitering over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank," he
said. "That may have been the plane. I have never seen one on that (flight) pattern." ... A few minutes
later, Vaughn witnessed the craft's impact.
Jose Velasquez:
"It was like an earthquake" , "By the time I got outside all I could see was a giant cloud of smoke, first
white then black, coming from the Pentagon," he said. Velasquez says the gas station's security
cameras are close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact. "I've never
seen what the pictures looked like," he said. "The FBI was here within minutes and took the film."

Alan Wallace:
About 9:40, Alan Wallace had finished fixing the foam metering valve on the back of his fire truck
parked in the Pentagon fire station and walked to the front of the station. He looked up and saw
a jetliner coming straight at him. It was about 25 feet off the ground, no landing wheels visible,
a few hundred yards away and closing fast. "Runnnnn!" he yelled to a pal. There was no time to
look back, barely time to scramble. He made it about 30 feet, heard a terrible roar, felt the heat,
and dove underneath a van, skinning his stomach as he slid along the blacktop, sailing under it as
though he were riding a luge. ... The ground was on fire. Trees were on fire. Hot slices of
aluminum were everywhere.

Telephone interview:

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 The boys that came down on the first engine from Fort Myer, so many of 'em said
"where's the airplane?" and I said "it's disintegrated", somebody else would say
"where's the airplane?" and I'd say "it's in the building", and somebody else would say
"where's the airplane?" and I would say "you're standing on it". There was nothing
outside the building like an engine or a tyre that I saw early on that you would know
there was an airplane crash.

Aircraft debris on Pentagon lawn shortly after attack - click image for full size

Mike Walter:
"...it turned and came around in front of the vehicle and it clipped one of these light poles ... and
slammed right into the Pentagon right there." "Now there are some people who say that it skipped and
went into the Pentagon and it may have gone that way, but thats not what I saw. What I saw was the
jet went very low into the Pentagon and it went straight." "It seemed like it was a slow, graceful bank
and then once it straightened out, that's when it sped up." "...you could see chunks of the wreckage on
the ground, pieces of the plane.... It literally disintegrated on impact. It hit, and as it went into
the side of the building it sheared off the wings."

Dave Winslow:
AP reporter Dave Winslow also saw the crash. He said, "I saw the tail of a large airliner ... It
ploughed right into the Pentagon." [Telephone interview]

Ian Wyatt:
Ian Wyatt glanced into the sky just as a commercial airplane roared by about 100 yards off the
ground. ... "It was going so fast and it was so low," he said, standing on Army-Navy Drive. "The
only intelligent thought that came into my head was, 'Oh my God, they hit the Pentagon.' I could then
hear cars squealing all around and people were just stunned."
Madelyn Zakhem:
Madelyn Zakhem, executive secretary at the STC (VDOT Smart Traffic Center), had just stepped
outside for a break and was seated on a bench when she heard what she thought was a jet fighter
directly overhead. It wasn't. It was an airliner coming straight up Columbia Pike at tree-top
level. "It was huge! It was silver. It was low -- unbelievable! I could see the cockpit. I fell to the
ground.... I was crying and scared". "If I had been on top of our building, I would have been close
enough to reach up and catch it,"

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 Pentagon eyewitness accounts compiled by individuals from press reports and correspondence:
An extensive collection compiled by French researcher Eric Bart
A smaller collection found on a website devoted to 'debunking alternative Pentagon crash theories'

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 Photos Of Flt 77 Wreckage Inside The Pentagon
& Witness Accounts of Wreckage Inside the Building

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 The Pentagon was hit by a plane, end of story.

See also: Flight 77 Hijacker Hani Hanjour: 9/11 Pilot Extraordinaire

What Really Happened

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