What did hit the Pentagon?

What a load of old rubbish. You can ignore the truth and make up any old excuse to fit a story

[BBKing]

Given that there are lots of amateur cameramen around these days, it would be a very brave conspirator who fired a missile at the Pentagon in broad daylight without considering that someone might be around with a camcorder, filming footage would be on the TV within minutes, 24-hour news being what it is. As for CCTV, where do CCTV cameras normally point? The ones round here generally point at the ground, where there are things to monitor, not up in the air.

There was one CCTV camera pointing vaguely in the direction of impact, but the speed the thing was going meant that it arrived and exploded in the space of one frame, so you don't see a hell of a lot. It's on the net somewhere.

There are bits of aircraft metal visible on photos taken after the impact. Very small bits, as you'd expect.

As far as NY was concerned, the second plane hit the tower well after the TV networks were broadcasting the full thing live. Amateur cameramen or not, there was no way that was going to be concealed.

[Russ]

So what happened to the wings of the plane? Why no damage to the building which would point to it being them? I'll accept that they would fold back on themselves but still, that much of metal and fuel would surely leave tell-tale damage to the Pentagon over a wider distance?

Why would a plane that size leave a 'tunnel' of damage through the building which is clearly smaller that the diameter of the aircraft?

How did all those tonnes of burning fuel not cause those few windows to disintegrate?

I'm not saying it was anything other than a terrorist attack by plane but there are still a lot of odd unanswered questions.

Originally Posted by Russ D

So what happened to the wings of the plane? Why no damage to the building which would point to it being them? I'll accept that they would fold back on themselves but still, that much of metal and fuel would surely leave tell-tale damage to the Pentagon over a wider distance?

If the plane hit at virtually ground level, the wings, being mostly light and not designed for that sort of stress, would have left comparitively little "inward" damage, although the wide "bloom" of smoke from the fuel can be clearly seen.

Why would a plane that size leave a 'tunnel' of damage through the building which is clearly smaller that the diameter of the aircraft?

It is the conspiracy theorists who claim that "tunnel" was left by the fuselage, but it's more likely that it was actually an engine (a very solid lump of metal) that actually caused it.

How did all those tonnes of burning fuel not cause those few windows to disintegrate?

The windows are designed to be bomb proof.

I'm not saying it was anything other than a terrorist attack by plane but there are still a lot of odd unanswered questions.

I think most of them are entirely answerable.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Graham

If the plane hit at virtually ground level, the wings, being mostly light and not designed for that sort of stress, would have left comparitively little "inward" damage, although the wide "bloom" of smoke from the fuel can be clearly seen.

With my limited imagination on this, I'd have expected the wings (even in 'fold-back' mode) to have created a larger impact hole than what it did.

Originally Posted by Graham

It is the conspiracy theorists who claim that "tunnel" was left by the fuselage, but it's more likely that it was actually an engine (a very solid lump of metal) that actually caused it.

What makes you think that?

Originally Posted by Graham

The windows are designed to be bomb proof.

Granted.

Originally Posted by Graham

I think most of them are entirely answerable.

Given your apparent stance on this subject I can see why you'd say that but taking the side of someone who is situated on the opposite end of the 'was it a conspiracy' spectrum could easily say they are not so easily solved.

I guess it comes down to what you believe and how you view the other side's "evidence".

[BBKing]

Um - the wings of a fully-laden airliner would have snapped off *forwards*, the inertia of the heavy fuel smashing them to pieces from the inside, then vapourising and exploding. There's a clear wide burn mark on the front of the building. Why would they create an impact hole? They would present a narrow front to the building, since the aircraft was nearly horizontal, having bounced *up* off the ground into the building. It was at an angle to it, though.

The plane hit between the first and second floors. The building didn't collapse with the impact (it's stronger than the plane, as I said) but with the fire, which will bring most things down eventually if allowed to burn.

The fuselage of an airliner is an air-filled tube of thin aluminium that will concertina and disintegrate in an head-on impact and, if exposed to fire, burn. The engines are solid, heavy lumps of dense metal which don't burn (pretty useless if they did) and at that speed have considerable energy and can smash through things. Hence why at least one of them ended up a good distance inside the building. Once the wall is penetrated, the fire can enter too, and working from the inside, eventually cause collapse. The evidence is precisely what you'd expect if you fly a fully-fueled airliner head-on into a steel reinforced masonry structure.

Broken windows - this photo shows broken windows across most of the frontage.
http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Se...-8006R-002.jpg

There are also other photographs showing broken windows on the *inside* walls of the building.

Spot the errors in this article - another chap who's spent a lot of time plotting angles and things without actually considering how aircraft are constructed and how they behave in a crash. The bit about the engines 'exploding' is particularly funny.

[Russ]

There may be a 'wide burn mark' at the front of the building but you surely cannot be serious in saying it would be wide enough to represent where the wings would have hit!?

No, I'm not sure it was anything other than a plane hitting it but I guess we'll all have to accept that something happened which we weren't told about.

there is a program on channel 4 thursday at 9 about this stuff

What else would have hit it?

What happened to the plane then, there was 4 hijacked planes. People where killed in all 4 planes. Familys have lost members on the plane that hit the pentagon so if a plane didnt crash into it, where did it go.

[etccarmageddon]

Originally Posted by BBKing

...Apart from anything else, the conspiracy theorists have to come up with an explanation of where Boeing 757-223 N644AA and 68 people are. Not easy to hide.

they were transported into the future.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097883

[TigaSefi]

See there already a big argument to where the holes for the wings are and where are the actual debris of the plane ?

I'll shall be watching the 9/11 program on National Geographic Channel and Channel 4 intently.

correct me if i am wrong but when a planes crashs into a building it doesnt just plummet though, it explodes so the wings may have fallen off.

Anyway i am sure i saw parts of a plane when it happened on news 24/sky

[SOSAGES]

im sure i read all about this before just after the 9/11 strike seemed to be a truck as no one could spot the plane - but we just dunno

[darkangel]

Originally Posted by SOSAGES

im sure i read all about this before just after the 9/11 strike seemed to be a truck as no one could spot the plane - but we just dunno

this was not damage from a car/truck bomb, missile or the result of demolition charges the only explanation is the it was hit by a plane

[BBKing]

Not just fallen off, but vapourised.

There may be a 'wide burn mark' at the front of the building but you surely cannot be serious in saying it would be wide enough to represent where the wings would have hit!?

Well, it's very wide indeed, remember the Pentagon is an *enormous* building - 77 feet tall with faces 921 feet long, which gives the length of the burnt area, estimated from photos, as about 5 or 6 building heights, or 350 to 500 feet, approximately. This is three or four times the wingspan of a 757-200, which is 125 feet, near as dammit. Even at an angle (looking at the side of the building the plane hit, it came from the right-hand side at an angle of 45-55 degrees) that's still smaller than the burnt area.

Most of the damage is caused by post-impact fire, of course, but to provide enough fuel and energy to set fire to that much building must have taken something pretty large.

There is a photo of the remains of a jet engine on the net - it's on a conspiracy site and is used to try and claim that a much smaller jet hit the building - however this claim ignores the difference between a high-bypass turbofan like the RB211-535E4-B and a turbojet. The difference being that the turbofan has a big fan on the front and a much smaller diameter jet core towards the back - you don't see this on pictures, of course, unless the casing is open.

http://physics911.org/net/modules/ne....php?storyid=3

Cutaway of an RB211
http://www.eng.uct.ac.za/~victor/ele...rbine4_256.gif

Note the comparative size of the front fan and the first section of the compressor, and that this compressor looks very like the first photo on the physics911 site, minus blades.

[Escapee]

All this speculation and different views make me laugh!

If it was written in the bible it would of been accepted without any argument.

Sorry guys but it does make me smile, no offence intended.