9/11: A Boeing 757 Struck the Pentagon

Originally posted by ANOK So telling me and others here what you assume I think doesn't help your argument one bit, just makes you look desperate to discredit the poster. Pls learn to take us all as individuals with our own thoughts and ideas, we're not the ones following a government written script. [edit on 21/10/2006 by ANOK]

Then you would accept that my opinion and ideas are that it isn't going to matter what we can provide as evidence, especially at this point. I honestly feel that way. I am sorry if you don't like it. I feel that many people will not be satisfied even if more pics of the plane debris were provided. I don't think that some will be satisfied if they did it exactly as I suggested above. You are assuming that because there are not pictures for everyone to see that something is being hidden because it wasn't flight 77. I have read a lot of your posts. Yes, I am assuming based on all the information that you and others have provided. Just as you are assuming that flight 77 didn't hit the pentagon based on the information that has been provided to you. I am thinking that doesn't help your argument either. That is what this whole website is....assuming. Everyone here is assuming based on the information provided. I am sorry I should have said in my post, "while I can't begin to know what everyone here thinks, I "FEEL" that to some of you, it wouldn't matter what evidence is provided" Better?

Jab, honestly, you could have high speed film captures of the flight hitting the pentagon with close ups that showed the passengers themselves in the windows and it would not matter. The would have to have ended up intact in one complete peice with the victoms there signing autographs for ti to be believable. Hence the hypocracy in evidence. All the plane parts in the world and all the witnesses and DNA teasts are all easily dismissed for a missle which has no evidence left what so ever.

Originally posted by mcfunthomas Yo, HowardRoark. As we've focused a bit on debris, I'd like you comment on the link below and its sublinks. 77debris.batcave.net...

I will help out Howard with this question, and post to this thread again for a change. I can discredit the entire page very simply. This is a page in which certain speculations are made inaccurately because the person has no experience around aircraft. Right here is a major problem with his page:

Another Inaccurate “BS Movement” Page The rivet holes are uniform throughout the fuselage it appears. Though i can not confirm this. In the photo (below)

Aircraft rivets are NOT uniform throughout a fuselage. This is speculation on the part of the author and shows lack of knowledge about the subject at hand. This is the exact kind of thing that I have often talked about, where something that seems logical is in fact not true. As a matter of fact the rivets follow the airframe of the aircraft to hold the skin to the skeleton. That frame is more densely spaced near doors and on the bottom half of the fuselage. The area under the tail of the aircraft, as an example, has an entirely different pattern to the rivet layout then anywhere else on the aircraft as it is in danger of having contact with the runway or debris during rotation. Its also where all the frame spares taper to meet together in the back, thus making them more dense. This is part of what makes the tail of an aircraft one of the stronger areas of the whole. Similarly when an aircraft has had frame damage or a puncture, there is a very specific mathematic formula as to how many rivets have to be placed in the skin over that area, and its normally much denser then the rivets in surrounding areas. Using the bit of red paint on that piece of metal to try and line it up from a picture is an exercise in futility. There are lots of little red stripes that may not be readily visible on most aircraft photos. One such location is directly on top of the wing. Then there is the “do not exceed tow” line on the gear door, lots of little “no step” markings and so on. Besides this there are some pressure seals and there is a type of silicon lubricant that are used on aircraft that also are red in color. Personally my first inclination when I see this photo is that he has it upside down and it is it’s the lower area of the emergency escape door over the wing. The red line is part of a no step line from the wing near were it meets up with the fuselage. The point is that this type of analysis using photographs is pointless. Without the part in hand, and considering that it has been all twisted and maimed, there is no way to accurately match up exactly were that chunk of skin belongs and my speculation is about the same as his; speculation. Though if I were a betting man I would stake my knowledge of aircraft over this persons apparent lack of knowledge on the subject every time. Edit to add quote for clarification [edit on 10/21/2006 by defcon5]

As long as I am at it, let me re-answer this bit of non-sense:

Another Inaccurate “BS Movement” Page The rivet holes also seem not to be ripped through. Such a violent force pulling this part away from the craft, and just these little holes?

The reason that some of the rivets are torn and some are punched through: The heads on aircraft rivets are not very large in diameter. Aircraft Aluminum is flexible to allow the fuselage to torque some in flight. Therefore, if a piece of aircraft aluminum is struck with enough force from behind, the aluminum will flex and allow the heads of the rivets to pass through the holes, thereby allowing the skin to separate from the frame. This is your areas were the holes do not seem disturbed in anyway. The areas where the aluminum is ripped is where the metal was torqued enough to cause it to be ripped from the frame. This would be from pulling or twisting it. Also areas near the edges of the metal could be ripped by an explosive force from behind if it took less energy to tear the thinner edge off then to pop the rivets out. Same as electricity, energy is going to use the path of least resistance, and if the part was going to come off, then it was a matter of what bit gave out first, the thin edge tearing or the rivet heads popping through the steel. Not exactly rocket science here, yet I see it come up all the time on these sites.

I will soon be here to comment the above replies as got little time now.

This new flightpath proposal from the NTSB : www.gwu.edu... and inside you find the map with the latest flightpath proposal : And then we have this one from the last 5 years already :

Here is at last a satellite photo of the Pentagon area, with the North direction in it. Note now, that if you stand on the south corner of the Pentagon westwall, near where the plane hit, and look along that wall toward the heliport, that whole westwall is only a few degrees off to the right from the exact North direction. Remember this for the coming 9/11 Pentagon-hit discussions. Since the compass points are used often by witnesses and others. Here is the one with the North direction in it. : This is another spiral-down trajectory proposed by a few new theoretical flightpathes I found online lately. It proposes an up-river flightpath, where the plane is coming from the south, the sea side direction. And is in direct contradiction to the wellknown map which was floating around the Internet from nearly the first day after 9/11, proposed by a pilot and former Air Force navigator from California, Steve Koeppel from Palm Springs, CA, and posted in this thread numerous times already, also copied then while questioning the right direction of the last mile, by myself : www.thepowerhour.com... Below is the map from Steve Koeppel with his proposed flightpath, which is about 45° wrong to the north at its last mile. We know now that the plane followed for more than a mile the "Columbia Pike", the thin green road running parallel to the thick green "2ndSt.S.", and which connects to "(244)" at the "Exit to State Hwy 244". It runs down the hill crest overlooking the Pentagon area, which lays in this "Koeppel map" along the "Four Mile Run Creek" lightgreen longstretched area. The last piece of the arrowed flightpath should have overlayed Columbia Pike, and then the plane would have hit the Pentagon westwall under an angle of about 50°, on this map however, it hit head on, at 90° : This one was constructed according to mr Koeppel, based on the Dulles Airport report, that flight 77 entered Washington airspace from the east-southeast of Dulles . And also based on the radar flightpath with that questionable dotted line, coming from the west, publicized by so many newspapers directly after 9/11.

What's surprising is how many news sources got the information wrong. For example, look at this graphic from Reuters, which has the attack on the wrong side of the Pentagon:

I based my map of the attack path on a description of the attack ( see Pentagon Attack ) which said the plane was initially picked up on radar east-southeast of Dulles ( see WashMap 2 ) heading at high speed toward Washington.

It is in line with the FAA Reagan Airport south-east inbound approach flight path regulation, which orders to follow the River Approach path to Reagan Airport, when a plane is coming in from a northwest approach path. But then in the opposite direction, coming up the Potomac river, to Reagan Airport from the sea side, going north and then turning with the river bend to the northwest. Don't pay attention to the Global Hawk remark, concentrate on the approach or takeoff flightpath from runway 15, Reagan Airport. Just a slow turn to the left would have enabled flight 77, coming from the south-east, to dive into the north-east Pentagon main entrance, also under a sharp angle, just as happened on the west wall. This flightpath of a plane coming from the south and then making a westward spiral over Arlington Cemetary seems to not compare with most of the eyewitnesses reports online. But we have a few who said it crossed over the cemetary very low, and one who said it came in over the river, heading to the north. This picture is only shown to make clear how near Reagan Airport's runway 15 is to the Pentagon.

Possible Flight 77 flightpathes. It would be quite interesting to be able to visualize the last 20 miles of radar coverage of flight 77. The White House security bunker personnel must have that in their logs, since we know of the secretary of Transport,Mineta witness statement in the 9/11 Report, who overheard that Cheney is been told that the plane is at 50, 30, 20, 10 miles from the White House, and asked if the orders still stand, and he answers the messenger : "ofcourse they still stand." etc. And that female air controller at Dulles Airport ATC, Danielle O'Brien, who thought it was a military pilot in that plane who performed that smooth 270° spiral down, must also have logged that flightpath. Where are their -real- radar trackings, are they somewhere online? And ofcourse the flight controllers at Reagan Airport must have logged it too. Their 9/11 reports we do hear or see nothing from online, isn't that peculiar? Let us try to construct the most reliable possible flightpath of the last 20 miles from Flight 77 ending in the Pentagon west wall based on placing eyewitnesses of that path on maps and aerial photographs of the Pentagon area. I propose to use the following websites, which have the most reliable and extensive lists of flight 77 eyewitnesses : 911research.wtc7.net... (the most reliable sources) eric.bart.free.fr... (the original site where above first link copied from.) thewebfairy.com... www.geocities.com... (has good data confirmations) mouv4x8.club.fr... We can place the witness numbers on the map, and the directions they themselfs, and/or the plane, were moving (they : black arrow - plane : red arrow). For example : W 1xx --- Cleveland, Allen

Soon after the crash(Within 30 seconds of the crash) I witnessed a military cargo plane (Possibly a C130) fly over the crash site and circle the mushroom cloud. My brother inlaw also witnessed the same plane following the jet while he was on the HOV lanes in Springfield. He said that he saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary RD in Springfield, VA. and soon afterwards a military plane was seen flying right behind it.

W 2xx --- Patterson, Steve .

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 (x 2.6 m/floor = 36.4 meter / 120 feet high) apartment in Pentagon City. The plane was about 150 yards (x 0,9144 = 137.2 meters) away, approaching from the west about 20 feet (x 0.3048 = 6.1 meter) off the ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetery 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 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. "It looked like a normal landing, as if someone knew exactly what they were doing," said Patterson, a graphics artist who works at home. "This looked intentional.".

You can see where Pentagon City is located on the above map.

W 3xx --- Peterson, Christine

I was at a complete stop on the road in front of the helipad at the Pentagon; what I had thought would be a shortcut was as slow as the other routes I had taken that morning. 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. (...) A few minutes later a second, much smaller explosion got the attention of the police arriving on the scene.

W 4xx --- Plaisted, Linda This is where she lived, the Douglas Park community in New Arlington, in a triangle formed by Columbia Pike, South Four Mile Run Drive and South Walter Reed Drive : www.arlingtonva.us... Why do I know this? Because her story was also reported in this page, arlingtondpca.homestead.com... and I took the following story from this page, www.wherewereyou.org... contribution # 1148 (paste 1148 in their search facility) :

#1148 | Tuesday, April 2nd 2002 I live in Arlington, Virginia, less than one mile from the Pentagon. On September 11th, I was sitting at my desk in my home office/studio working on a new piece of artwork when I heard the sound of a very loud aircraft. Since we are not far from Reagan National Airport, at first I just chalked it up to that and voiced my annoyance aloud for my work being disrupted. But as the sound of the plane grew louder and louder, I thought to myself- that plane is in trouble. I jumped up from my chair as the screeching and whining of the engine got even louder and I looked out the window to the West just in time to see the belly of that aircraft and the tail section fly directly over my house at treetop height. It was utterly sickening to see, knowing that this plane was going to crash. The sound was so incredibly piercing and shrill- the engines were straining to keep the plane aloft. It is a sound I will never stop hearing- and I now imagine the screams of the innocent passengers were commingled with the sounds of the engines and I am haunted. I was unaware at this time that the World Trade center had been attacked so I thought this was "just" a troubled plane en route to the airport. I started to run toward my front door but the plane was going so fast at this point that it only took 4 or 5 seconds before I heard a tremendously loud crash and books on my shelves started tumbling to the floor. (LT/: Again we can make a rough gamble on the speed of the airplane, based on the distance and the 4-5 sec. Another remark: I do not believe that there were no seismic effects measureable from that impact. If her books fell from their bookshelfs, their must have been a seismic reading of the impact. There is a clear signal at 09:39 in one of the LDEO graphs, but they explained that away as some electrical problem, since they were given already the outcome of their research. The plane had to have impacted before that time, at 09:31. Several witnesses heard a second explosion, after the impact, and that one was the 09:39 one I assume. The one to make sure the Naval Command room was totally destructed. See witness Peterson, Christine.) I ran out into the street in terror and my neighbor across the street ran out of his house and we both knew that the plane had crashed. We saw a tall column of black smoke arising to the East- quite close, so we knew the plane had crashed somewhere very nearby. We ran into my house and turned on CNN, only to find out that the country was under attack by terrorists. We were horrified and feared for our lives. Soon after, we heard and saw entire squadrons of fighter jets flying over so low that the windows rattled and pictures fell from the walls. Sirens wailed and the streets became clogged with unmoving traffic. We were trapped in our neighborhood and we couldn't get away. We heard that another plane was on its way and was heading for the capitol and that it would be shot down if necessary. We feared that we would not be able to run away far enough or fast enough to save our lives if the plane came down in our small quiet neighborhood, a peaceful suburb of our nations' capitol. This day brought our entire neighborhood closer together in a time of crisis since we had to rely on each other as family. Linda Plaisted | 34 | Virginia

W 5xx --- Wheelhouse, Keith

Her brother, [Keith Wheelhouse], of Virginia Beach, spotted the planes first. The second plane looked similar to a C- 130 transport plane, he said. He believes it flew directly above the American Airlines jet, as if to prevent two planes from appearing on radar while at the same time guiding the jet toward the Pentagon.

W 6xx --- Wright, Don

Don Wright from the 12th floor, 1600 Wilson Boulevard, in Rosslyn: " .. I watched this ...it looked like a commuter plane, two engined ... come down from the south real low ... " (Real Audio)

W 7xx --- Yeingst, William

...they had just pulled the foam truck out of the firehouse and were standing there when they looked up and saw the plane coming over the Navy Annex building. They turned and ran, and at the point of impact were partially shielded by their fire truck from the flying debris of shrapnel and flames. ...

W 8xx --- Zakhem, Madelyn

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 theground.... 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,"

These are 2 pictures from www.oilempire.us... . Another view of the I-395 / VA 27 interchange, with the west wing of the Pentagon on the left side of this photo. A viewer from this location would have seen Flight 77 almost until the moment of impact (the location the plane hit on the first and second floors is obscured by the highway overpass in the foreground. Sheraton Hotel and further down the 8 Navy Annex buildings. In the middle right side, the renovating Pentagon west wall. DO OBSERVE the downhill trajectory followed by a plane flying here already at treetop level, according to multiple witnesses.

Observe the Columbia Pike road going downhill from the left to the right in the picture's bottom. It is very difficult to dive down that hill and then manage to level the plane again on the last 500 meters. All that, while supposedly flying 350 and then up to 500 MILES per hour in the endspurt. And then dive in the first floor's ceiling. That's aiming and managing to impact the nose cone just one foot above the row of bottom windows of the west wall, if you did not realize this before. When you make a dive down after you passed over that hill crest, the airspeed increases, thus also the lift (up). Several witnesses heard the planes engines being put on full throttle just before it hit the westwall of the Pentagon. This must have been a pilot with a lot of extreme low-flight experience, an unexperienced pilot would have ended up overshooting the Pentagon, caused by the extra lift from the dive down the hill at treetop level. Have a good look at those trees up there. And how high they stand. The following comment comes from this site : the-movement.com...

NEX camera captures Pentagon crash Security cameras at a NEXCOM-operated gas station recorded the Sept. 11 crash of a hijacked passenger airliner into the Pentagon, Navy sources have said. The security tape, which sources said clearly shows the American Airlines jet ploughing into the building and exploding, was turned over to the FBI. The gas station is located on a hill south of the Pentagon. Its security camera is aimed to record cars coming and going from the gas pumps. The angle of the camera gives a clear view of the side of the Pentagon where the 757 jet hit, sources said. The tape’s existence has not been discussed publicly by military officials or federal investigators.

This is a very vague comment, the real link has been changed, deleted, altered, whatever. However, if this is true, it seems that it is not the CITGO gasstation at the west of the Pentagon, which is not located on a hill, and is only accessible by Pentagon personnel. And that NAVY personnel have first seen the tape, and they perhaps advized to turn it in to the FBI. This one is located to the south, and states that it handed over tapes to the FBI, not that the FBI came and took them within minutes, like at the CITGO station. The poster at the time thought however it was the CITGO gas station, since he also included the story from another source which is still accessible, about mr. Velasquez from the CITGO station explaining the FBI came within minutes to confiscate his tapes. Can any ATS member from the Washington area confirm that there was/is a NEXCOM gasstation at that spot?

You still believe the Pentagon has no footage of the last 100 meters of the attacking plane? With the plane clearly in it ! Have a look at this Heliport security camera, aimed exactly at the point of impact, equipped for sure with a wide angle lens. This was one of the most important Pentagon security video camera's, which recorded the spot where the president and all other state sponsored Traders in Fear entered the Pentagon, when brought in by helicopter. Why the term Traders in Fear? Because they clearly proved during the last 6 decennia that no effort is avoided, to bring maximum fear to the masses they rule, with the minimum possible input. Let's assume that this camera was not from the same crappy brand as those 2 entrance boot traffic controll camera's, wich delivered those 2 vague video's, handed over to the public at last after 5 long years, with that amazing smoke trailing "something" in it, on it's way to the westwall. Which "something" was miraculously absent in both video's, either covered by the other camera boot, or just plain absent. What an unbelievable coincidence. This camera has sent the last seconds of the incoming plane to the video room near the Pentagon main entrance, where a certain colonel ran in to, after the plane had hit. And rewinded the tapes and harddisks from the westwall side, and watched in shock and aww what flew in the westwall. He never slept the same again.

This is not online, so I typed it out : F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93 By William B. Scott/Aviation Week & Space Technology September 9, 2002

Editor's Note: This is Part 3 of an ongoing special report on how the military responded to terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Earlier articles appeared in the June 3 and June 10 issues. For this segment, one D.C. Air National Guard F-16 pilot chose not to have her name used, so is identified only by her call-sign. ANDREWS AFB, MD. -- With Pentagon in flames and hijacked aircraft threatening Washington, White House scrambled fighters with little or no armament. Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Air National Guard F-16s took off from here in response to a plea from the White House to "Get in the air now!" Those fighters were flown by three pilots who had decided, on their own, to ram a hijacked airliner and force it to crash, if necessary. Such action almost certainly would have been fatal for them, but could have prevented another terrorism catastrophe in Washington. One of those F-16s launched with no armament--no missiles and no usable ammunition in its 20-mm. gun. The other two "Vipers" only had a full load of 20-mm. "ball" or training rounds, not the high-explosive incendiary (HEI) bullets required for combat, and no air-to-air missiles. The Andrews-based 121st Fighter Sqdn. was not standing alert on Sept. 11, because the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) unit was not assigned to the North American Aerospace Defense Command air defense force. Norad had already scrambled three F-16s from their alert base at Langley AFB, Va., but they were about 12 min. from Washington when the Pentagon was struck at 9:37 a.m. (AW&ST June 3, p. 48). The 121st squadron's day had started normally. Three F-16s were flying an air-to-ground training mission on a range in North Carolina, 180 naut. mi. away. At Andrews, several officers were in a scheduling meeting when they received word that the World Trade Center had been hit by an aircraft. Minutes later, after United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the second WTC tower, a squadron pilot called a friend in the Secret Service "to see what was going on. He was told some bad things were happening. At that time, we weren't thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system," said Lt. Col. Marc H. (Sass) Sasseville, the current 121st FS commander. On Sept. 11, he was the director of operations and air operations officer--the acting operations group commander under the 113th Wing.

Soon thereafter, the Secret Service called back, asking whether the squadron could get fighters airborne. The unit's maintenance section was notified to get several F-16s armed and ready to fly. Anticipating such an order, Col. Don C. Mozley, the 113th Logistics Group commander, had already ordered his weapons officer to "break out the AIM-9s and start building them up." The missiles had to be transported from a bunker on the other side of the base, which would take a while. "After the Pentagon was hit, we were told there were more [airliners] coming. Not 'might be'; they were coming," Mozley recalled. Sasseville grabbed three F-16 pilots and gave them a curt briefing: "I have no idea what's going on, but we're flying. Here's our frequency. We'll split up the area as we have to. Just defend as required. We'll talk about the rest in the air." All four grabbed their helmets, g-suits and parachute harnesses, and headed for the operations desk to get aircraft assignments. Another call from the Secret Service commanded, "Get in the air now!" Almost simultaneously, a call from someone else in the White House declared the Washington area "a free-fire zone. That meant we were given authority to use force, if the situation required it, in defense of the nation's capital, its property and people," Sasseville said. He and his wingman, Lucky, sprinted to the flight line and climbed into waiting F-16s armed only with "hot" guns and 511 rounds of "TP"--nonexplosive training rounds. "They had two airplanes ready to go, and were putting missiles on Nos. 3 and 4. Maintenance wanted us to take the ones with missiles, but we didn't have time to wait on those," Sasseville said. Maj. Dan (Raisin) Caine and Capt. Brandon (Igor) Rasmussen climbed into the jets being armed with AIM-9s, knowing they would take off about 10 min. behind Sasseville and Lucky. "We had two air-to-air birds on the ramp . . . that already had ammo in them. We launched those first two with only hot guns," said CMSgt. Roy Dale (Crank) Belknap, the 113th Wing production superintendent. "By then, we had missiles rolling up, so we loaded those other two airplanes while the pilots were sitting in the cockpit." Inside, at the operations desk, Lt. Cols. Phil (Dog) Thompson and Steve (Festus) Chase were fielding a flood of calls from the Secret Service and the FAA's two area air traffic control facilities--Washington Center and Washington Approach Control. Thompson is (now) chief of safety for the 113th Wing, and Chase is now commander of the new Air Sovereignty Detachment here. By then, Brig. Gen. David F. Wherley, Jr., the (then) 113th Wing commander, was on-site, trying to determine whether the unit had authorization to launch fighters.

"By this time, [commercial] airplanes were landing, but there were still several unidentified ones flying. One was in the northwest [area], basically coming down the [Potomac] River," Thompson said. Later, they would learn that the FAA and Norad's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) were tracking the hijacked United Flight 93, and feared it was coming toward Washington. Thanks to intervention by passengers, the aircraft ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania. Maj. Billy Hutchison and his wingmen had just landed after being recalled from a training mission in North Carolina. When Hutchison checked in via radio, Thompson told him to take off immediately. "Billy had about 2,400 lb. of gas; the other two [F-16s] were too light," Thompson said. "I told Billy to take off, but don't use afterburner to save gas. He took off with nothing--no weapons. I told him to 'do exactly what ATC asks you to do.' Primarily, he was to go ID [identify] that unknown [aircraft] that everybody was so excited about. He blasted off and flew a standard departure route, which took him over the Pentagon." According to now-official accounts, an armed Norad-alert F-16 from Langley AFB, flown by Maj. Dean Eckmann of the 119th Fighter Wing Alert Detachment 1, was the first defender to overfly the Pentagon. At the time, Hutchison and his fellow "Capital Guardians"--as the 121st FS is known--were unaware that three other fighters were over the city. MINUTES LATER, Sasseville and Lucky were in the air, roughly 6 min. after they had reached their F-16s. "I was still turning things on after I got airborne. By that time, the [Norad alert] F-16s from Langley were overhead--but I didn't know they were there," Sasseville recalled. "We all realized we were looking for an airliner--a big airplane. That was [United] Flight 93; the track looked like it was headed toward D.C. at that time." The DCANG was not in the Norad or NEADS communication and command loops, so its pilots weren't on the same frequencies as Norad air defense fighters. The Andrews-based F-16s were launched by the Secret Service and someone in the White House command center, not Norad. At the time, there was no standing agreement between the Secret Service and the 113th Wing for the latter to provide fighters in response to an attack on Washington.

Hutchison made two loops up the Potomac, reversing course near Georgetown and the Pentagon, flying at 500-1,000 ft. AGL. Sasseville and Lucky were at 5,000-6,000 ft., "because I didn't want to get too low for a good radar angle, and not too high, so we could get somewhere fast," Sasseville said. He later conceded he was "making things up on the fly." Obviously, there was no precedent to draw upon. All the pilots were relying on their training and ability to think under pressure. Hutchison was probably airborne shortly after the alert F-16s from Langley arrived over Washington, although 121st FS pilots admit their timeline-recall "is fuzzy." But it's clear that Hutchison, Sasseville and Lucky knew their options were limited for bringing down a hijacked airliner headed for an undetermined target in the capital city. Although reluctant to talk about it, all three acknowledge they were prepared to ram a terrorist-flown aircraft, if necessary. Indeed, Hutchison--who might have been the first to encounter Flight 93 if it had, indeed, been flying low and fast down the Potomac--had no other choice. Sasseville and Lucky each had 511 rounds of ammo, but that only provided roughly a 5-sec. burst of the 20-mm. gun. And where should they shoot to ensure a hijacked aircraft would be stopped? Sasseville planned to fire from behind and "try to saw off one wing. I needed to disable it as soon as possible--immediately interrupt its aerodynamics and bring it down."

He admits there was no assurance that a 5-sec. burst of lead slugs could slice an air transport's wing off, though. His alternative was "to hit it--cut the wing off with my wing. If I played it right, I'd be able to bail out. One hand on the stick and one hand on the ejection handle, trying to ram my airplane into the aft side of the [airliner's] wing," he said. "And do it skillfully enough to save the pink body . . . but understanding that it might not go as planned. It was a tough nut; we had no other ordnance." Still unaware that the 119th FW alert F-16s were overhead, patrolling at a higher altitude, Sasseville initially split the airspace into four sectors. He swept the northwest area of Washington--where the hijacked United Flight 93 was expected to be--and had Lucky guard the northeast area. Approximately 10 min. after Sasseville and Lucky took off, Caine and Rasmussen launched, the first Andrews-based F-16s to carry both hot guns and live AIM-9 missiles. They worked the city's southern sectors. Soon, F-16s from Richmond, Va., and Atlantic City, N.J., as well as F-15s from Langley AFB, were arriving. The air picture was confused, at best, and radio frequencies were alive with chatter. "The FAA controllers were doing their best to get us information [about unidentified aircraft], but we were used to working with AWACS and their weapons directors and controllers," Rasmussen said. Eventually, Washington Reagan National Airport was designated "Bullseye," and fighters were given range and bearing to targets from there. Possibly the highest ranking pilot in the area, Sasseville "essentially declared myself the CAP [combat air patrol] commander and set up deconfliction altitudes so we didn't run into each other. There really wasn't time for niceties." For the rest of the day, a dozen or so fighters rotated in and out of the region, running intercepts on myriad helicopters and light aircraft.

"THEY WERE SNAPPING to targets everywhere," Thompson said. "A lot of light aircraft fly under the [controlled] airspace here, and they had no idea what was going on. What really scared us was Washington Approach broadcasting, 'Anyone flying within 25 mi. of the Washington Tacan is authorized to be shot down.' We kind of winced at that, because there are plenty of hard reasons to not shoot somebody down. We were really in an ID posture--and trying to really be careful." A miracle of the post-attack hours on Sept. 11 was that no aircraft was shot down accidentally, a credit to the training and discipline of U.S. fighter crews. That fact is even more impressive when one considers many of those pilots had little or no experience with air defense techniques and protocols. "We really didn't know the intricacies of Norad's mission--how it works," Thompson explained. "We've never been an air defense unit. We practice scrambles, we know how to do intercepts and other things, but there's a lot of protocol in the air defense business. We obviously didn't have that expertise, but it worked out fine. For the first three days, everybody seemed to be reasonably happy with our orchestrating the D.C. CAP. By day-four, we'd pretty much turned into a national asset" as Norad assumed control of CAPs nationwide. On that first day, many of the pilots flying CAP over Washington, New York and other U.S. cities were faced with the very real possibility of having to shoot down or ram their fighter into an air transport filled with innocent passengers. "I was asking myself, 'Is this when I have to make the million-dollar decision on my own?' But with smoke billowing out of the Pentagon . . . ," Rasmussen said. "That's what we get paid to do, though. When young guys sign up, they may not see that the 'guts and glory' of fighter-flying may cost you your life. That day brought everything into focus."

In the afternoon, Sasseville and Lucky were flying their second mission of the day--armed with AIM-9 missiles now--when they were told to contact an AWACS aircraft in the area and "expect special tasking." They were directed to fly a 280-deg. heading for 140 naut. mi.--almost due west of Washington. Unable to communicate by secure or encrypted means, the AWACS controller lowered his voice and told Sasseville via radio they were going to "escort Air Force One," President Bush's aircraft. Two Langley F-15s offered to go along, and Sasseville concurred. Soon, an AWACS controller reported a fast-moving, unidentified aircraft southwest of Air Force One, approximately 60 naut. mi. away, but on a "cutoff vector" to the President's Boeing 747. It was above 40,000 ft. and the 747 was "in the 20,000-ft. range," but Sasseville sent the F-15s to intercept the unknown aircraft. It was a Learjet that hadn't yet landed after aircraft nationwide had been ordered out of the air.