Big Plane, Small Holes
CLAIM: Two holes were visible in the Pentagon immediately after the
attack: a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building's exterior wall, and a
16-ft.-wide hole in Ring C, the Pentagon's middle ring. Conspiracy theorists
claim both holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757. "How
does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16
ft. across?" asks reopen911.org, a Web site "dedicated to discovering the
bottom line truth to what really occurred on September 11, 2001."
The truth is of even less importance to French author Thierry Meyssan,
whose baseless assertions are fodder for even mainstream European and Middle
Eastern media. In his book The Big Lie, Meyssan concludes that the Pentagon
was struck by a satellite-guided missile--part of an elaborate U.S. military
coup. "This attack," he writes, "could only be committed by United States
military personnel against other U.S. military personnel."
FACT: When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon's exterior
wall, Ring E, it created a hole approximately 75 ft. wide, according to the
ASCE Pentagon Building Performance Report. The exterior facade collapsed
about 20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the
original hole on the number of first-floor support columns that were
destroyed or damaged. Computer simulations confirmed the findings.
Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 757's 124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A
crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a
reinforced concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor
of structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit
the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the
Pentagon's load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the
behavior of concrete buildings. What was left of the plane flowed into the
structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. "If you expected
the entire wing to cut into the building," Sozen tells PM, "it didn't
happen."
The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft. wide--not 16 ft. ASCE concludes it
was made by the jet's landing gear, not by the fuselage.
Intact Windows
CLAIM: Many Pentagon windows remained in one piece--even those just
above the point of impact from the Boeing 757 passenger plane.
Pentagonstrike.co.uk, an online animation widely circulated in the United
States and Europe, claims that photographs showing "intact windows" directly
above the crash site prove "a missile" or "a craft much smaller than a 757"
struck the Pentagon.
FACT: Some windows near the impact area did indeed survive the crash.
But that's what the windows were supposed to do--they're blast-resistant.
"A blast-resistant window must be designed to resist a force
significantly higher than a hurricane that's hitting instantaneously," says
Ken Hays, executive vice president of Masonry Arts, the Bessemer, Ala.,
company that designed, manufactured and installed the Pentagon windows. Some
were knocked out of the walls by the crash and the outer ring's later
collapse. "They were not designed to receive wracking seismic force," Hays
notes. "They were designed to take in inward pressure from a blast event,
which apparently they did: [Before the collapse] the blinds were still
stacked neatly behind the window glass."
Flight 77 Debris
CLAIM: Conspiracy theorists insist there was no plane wreckage at the
Pentagon. "In reality, a Boeing 757 was never found," claims
pentagonstrike.co.uk, which asks the question, "What hit the Pentagon on
9/11?"
FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer was the first structural
engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the
emergency response. "It was absolutely a plane, and I'll tell you why," says
Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. "I saw the
marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of
the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail
section of the plane, and I found the black box." Kilsheimer's eyewitness
account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the
building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my
hands, including body parts. Okay?"
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