What really hit the Pentagon?

[Bokken]

For all the conspiracy theory ballyhooed about in this video, it raises a number of interesting questions that I can't seem to find answers to. Implications aside, does anyone know what happened to the plane wreckage?

http://www.freedomunderground.org/me...tagon.php#Main

[esskreemr]

Sir, you have been told the official truth. Please discard any remaining facts and questions that you may have.

Remember: "[i]No one could have imagined" planes would be used as weapons.[i]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemb...2001_War_Games

[Zilverzmurfen]

Is this for real?
I've never heard of the incident and the pictures look like Photoshop jobs.

Sounds like a good plot for a film though.

[esskreemr]

Is this for real?
I've never heard of the incident and the pictures look like Photoshop jobs.

Sounds like a good plot for a film though.

It's real. The Pentagon was the supposed secondary target of the hijackers. Many speculate that they were really going for the White House but didn't make it.

[Zilverzmurfen]

It's real. The Pentagon was the supposed secondary target of the hijackers. Many speculate that they were really going for the White House but didn't make it.

Ah. I thought this was an entirely different incident. (I have heard that the Pentagon was hit during 01.09.11.)

[esskreemr]

Ah. I thought this was an entirely different incident. (I have heard that the Pentagon was hit during 01.09.11.)

Yep. The 747 just happened to smack into a closed section.

[ThatReallyHurt]

If true, that's very interesting... I'd like to know how the FBI knew where all the tapes were, and why they went and grabbed them all... there was all kinds of footage from New York, and I don't recall any stories of the police trying to confiscate it...

[Have At You]

Ah. I thought this was an entirely different incident. (I have heard that the Pentagon was hit during 01.09.11.)

You have been misinformed. The Pentagon was not yet built on January 9, 1911. I think it was built in the 1940s.

1911 was, indeed, a year of islamic terrorism against Americans. But the violence occurred pretty much in the Philippine islands and China.

[Larrison]

You know, I'm somewhat appalled and a bit well.. upset by this. I had an acquaintance on the plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. I'd been at a business dinner with him and a couple of other people about 2 weeks prior and spent part of the evening talking to him and socializing, including about his wife and 2 kids.

I also had a friend in an office building across the street from the pentagon hear the plane come in low over their building and heard the crash into the Pentagon.

It was a Boeing 757 aircraft with passengers on it that was hijacked and crashed into the building. There are lots of pictures of the wreckage -- a hollow lightweight metal tube crashed into the side of a concrete multi-story building does not survive in big pieces. In my opinion the folks who expouse these conspiracy theories are unmitigated idiots and fools.

http://www.snopes2.com/rumors/pentagon.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/..._evidence.html

Regarding the pieces of the aircraft fuselage: (From snopes)

"You'll recall from the discussions above that the hijacked airliner did not "only hit the ground floor of the Pentagon's first ring" — it struck the Pentagon between the first and second floors and blasted all the way through to the third ring. Because the plane disappeared into the building's interior after penetrating the outer ring, it was not visible in photographs taken from outside the Pentagon. Moreover, since the airliner was full of jet fuel and was flown into thick, reinforced concrete walls at high speed, exploding in a fireball, any pieces of wreckage large enough to be identifiable in after-the-fact photographs taken from a few hundred feet away burned up in the intense fire that followed the crash (just as the planes flown into the World Trade Center towers burned up, and the intensity of their jet-fuel fires caused both towers to collapse).

Small pieces of airplane debris were plainly visible on the Pentagon lawn in other photographs, however, such as the one below: (see snopes website for this)

The fire, fueled by nearly a full load of 300,000 lbs of jet fuel burned until 1 pm, before the firefighters were able to get into those offices. Jet fuel burns at a high enough temperature it will melt aluminum and soften steel (which is why the towers fell after a short period of time). Some of the parts of the airplane, such as the engines penetrated into the 3rd ring of buildings in the Pentagon, leaving huge (12' diameter) holes through the structure.

Enough said?

[esskreemr]

You have been misinformed. The Pentagon was not yet built on January 9, 1911. I think it was built in the 1940s.

1911 was, indeed, a year of islamic terrorism against Americans. But the violence occurred pretty much in the Philippine islands and China.

Drool, very drool. You'll have to forgive her, those Europeans are well known for their date dyslexia.

[Have At You]

I was about to link to the excellent Snopes piece. This very nasty bit of conspiracy-theory has been soundly debunked from all sides.

It's just irresponsible to try to spread stuff like that without checking it out first. (Not necessarily on this site, though, since most folks here are smart and critical enough to check into things themselves.)

[ThatReallyHurt]

The Snopes article is quite good... it's amazing how someone interpreting something slightly different can change the entire meaning of a statement:

The fire chief wasn't asked "where the aircraft was"; he was asked "Is there anything left of the aircraft at all?" He did indeed provide an answer to the question he was asked: There were no large sections of the plane left by the time he was asked (the day after the attack) because they had been smashed into smaller pieces by the impact and then burned up; all that remained were smaller pieces visible only from the interior of the Pentagon.

Subtle difference between those two statements, but a mile of difference in the meaning of the answer...

[Zilverzmurfen]

You have been misinformed. The Pentagon was not yet built on January 9, 1911. I think it was built in the 1940s.

Ha ha ha...

(Americans mixing dates and years...pfft! )

[Epee_Pox]

Ahem. Americans write the date the same way it's spoken: March 8, 1970 reads exactly the way it is said. Nobody here says "1970 March 8" or "8 March 1970," so it would be stupid to write that way.

It's becoming weird how some people refer to months as numbers, though. You occasionally hear someone say "three-eight" when they mean "March 8." Understandable from a data-entry perspective, but weird in conversation.

[Army Fencer]

Ahem. Americans write the date the same way it's spoken: March 8, 1970 reads exactly the way it is said. Nobody here says "1970 March 8" or "8 March 1970," so it would be stupid to write that way.

Unless you're in the military. Then is 22 September 2005 all the way!

[Epee_Pox]

Yeah, but military people also say stupid things like "2200 hours" when everyone knows there's only 24 of them in a day.

[Zilverzmurfen]

Ahem. Americans write the date the same way it's spoken: March 8, 1970 reads exactly the way it is said. Nobody here says "1970 March 8" or "8 March 1970," so it would be stupid to write that way.

Well, where I live we say "8 March 1970" but when writing dates you always start with the highest 'unit' of numbers; ie. YY.MM.DD.


I'm glad I could bring a little confusion to your minds, heh!

[BrianH]

.... Nobody here says "1970 March 8" or "8 March 1970," so it would be stupid to write that way.

Many scientists do in their field notes; I know I have for over thirty years, since beginning in archaeology 25 June 1974, and I've always taught my students to record the date that way.

[keith]

so aside from the military and the educated no one in america writes the date in the manner of deviant europeans?

[pigeonmeister]

You know, I'm somewhat appalled and a bit well.. upset by this. I had an acquaintance on the plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon. I'd been at a business dinner with him and a couple of other people about 2 weeks prior and spent part of the evening talking to him and socializing, including about his wife and 2 kids.

I also had a friend in an office building across the street from the pentagon hear the plane come in low over their building and heard the crash into the Pentagon.

It was a Boeing 757 aircraft with passengers on it that was hijacked and crashed into the building. There are lots of pictures of the wreckage -- a hollow lightweight metal tube crashed into the side of a concrete multi-story building does not survive in big pieces. In my opinion the folks who expouse these conspiracy theories are unmitigated idiots and fools.

Enough said?

Indeed, and it was said very well.

That snope can certainly recognise aircraft parts when they look like mangled wreckage.