So are you saying a misslie cruiser (I assume you mean cruise missile) hit the Pentagon or a plane?
The Pentagon Attack
At around 9:39 AM, after both towers had been
hit but before either had
exploded, a 757 thought to be
Flight 77 approached the Pentagon. Having flown over the capital from the north, it ultimately approached the west block of the Pentagon from the southwest, after making a 270-degree turn while descending 7000 feet.
The jetliner was less than 100 feet overhead as it swooped over stalled traffic on the highway adjacent to the large lawn and heliport on the west side of the sprawling building. Some
eyewitnesses said that the plane banked left and its left wing hit the heliport. Witnesses variously describe the plane crashing into the facade, hitting the ground in front of the facade it and exploding, disappearing into the building, and being swallowed by rings of smoke. They agree that there was a huge explosion and fireball, and torrents of smoke in the wake of the strike. Some describe small fragments of aircraft raining down.
Some onlookers were surprised at the lack of apparent aircraft debris in front of the Pentagon, and some remarked that the impact hole seemed small given the size of the jetliner. Similar observations based on photographs of the crash zone shortly after the attack have fueled controversy over the attack, and
theories that something other than a 757 hit the Pentagon that day.
[SIZE=-1]A section of the building above the heavily damaged first and second floors collapsed about 20 minutes after the initial attack. [/SIZE]
No Impact Photos
In the minutes following the attack, the FBI confiscated from nearby businesses video recordings that might have captured the attack. In contrast to the well-documented tower crashes and collapses in Manhattan, the story of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon had no corroborating pictures, only eyewitness accounts and photos of the building's damaged facade. And those post-collapse photos convinced many researchers that
no Boeing 757 crashed into the building. In early 2002, the Pentagon released a series of five images from a security camera, supposedly showing the moments of impact. However, the images were
clearly fabricated.
Pentagon Attack Errors
There are numerous pieces of evidence that point to the attack on the Pentagon being an inside job. These include:
- The location of the attack: The portion of the Pentagon that was struck was nearly empty due to a renovation program.
- The aircraft approach maneuver: The attack plane executed an extreme spiral dive maneuver to strike said portion of the building from the southwest, opposite the direction from which it approached the capital.
- The incompetence of the alleged pilot: Flight 77 was supposedly piloted by Hani Hanjour, about whom a flight instructor said: "He couldn't fly at all".
- Signs of a cover-up: Numerous actions by officials indicate an ongoing cover-up of the facts concerning the attack.
These and other undisputed facts, constituting highly incriminating evidence of involvement of officials in the attack and coverup, have been largely eclipsed by an ongoing controversy over whether the Pentagon was hit by a jetliner at all. From early 2002, some skeptics of the official story have maintained that the Pentagon was attacked, not by a jetliner, but one of or a combination of a truck bomb, a missile or cruise missile, an attack drone aircraft or commuter jet, a flyover by a 757, and internal demolition charges.
9-11 Research provides a history of
Pentagon strike theories.
The debate over what hit the Pentagon has thrived due to the apparent contradiction between the eyewitness and physical evidence. Whereas a large body of reports of eyewitness accounts strongly supports that a twin-enginer jetliner swooped in at a very low altitude and exploded at or in front of the Pentagon; photographs of the damaged facade and lawn show an apparent near-absence of aircraft debris and a pattern of damage to the Pentagon's facade showing unbroken windows in the paths of the outer wings and the vertical tail section.
Numerous points based on the physical evidence of the crash site seem to make an overwhelming cumulative case against a 757 having crashed there, provided one ignores the
eyewitness evidence. However, most of these points involve some error in evaluating the evidence. Those errors include the following.
