Damage
How many people were killed when the plan hit the pentagon?
September 11 attacks
The Pentagon American Airlines Flight 77 Casualties of the September 11 attacks 9/11 conspiracy theories Newbern, Tennessee
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On September 11, 2001, the 60th anniversary of The Pentagon's groundbreaking, a team of five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, "en route" from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed the Boeing 757 airliner into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. All 64 people on the airliner were killed as were 125 people who were in the building. The impact of the plane severely damaged the structure of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and many offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore the area hit, on the side of the Heliport façade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed. It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches thick and 2,500 pounds each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out. Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project", and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by September 11, 2002. When the damaged section of the Pentagon was repaired, a small indoor memorial and chapel were included, located at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, a memorial of 184 beams of light shone up from the center courtyard of the Pentagon, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, an American flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and the side of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After the attacks, plans were developed for an outdoor memorial, with construction underway in 2006. This Pentagon Memorial consists of a park on of land, containing 184 benches, one dedicated to each victim. The benches are aligned along the line of Flight 77 according to the victims' ages, from 3 to 71. The park opened to the public on September 11, 2008. 
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, as Flight 77 was west-southwest of the Pentagon, it made a 330-degree turn. At the end of the turn, it was descending through , pointed toward the Pentagon and downtown Washington. Hani Hanjour advanced the throttles to maximum power and dived toward the Pentagon. While level above the ground and seconds from the crash, the wings knocked over five street lampposts and the right wing struck a portable generator, creating a smoke trail seconds before smashing into the Pentagon. Flight 77, flying at 530 mph (853 km/h, 237 m/s, or 460 knots) over the Navy Annex Building adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, crashed into the western side of the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C., at 09:37:46, killing all 64 people on board; 53 passengers, five hijackers, and six crew. The plane hit the Pentagon at the first-floor level, and at the moment of impact, the airplane was rolled slightly to the left, with the right wing elevated. The front part of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, while the mid and tail sections moved for another fraction of a second, with tail section debris penetrating furthest into the building. In all, the airplane took eight-tenths of a second to fully penetrate into the three outermost of the building's five rings and unleashed a fireball that rose above the building. At the time of the attacks, approximately 18,000 people worked in the Pentagon, which was 4,000 fewer than before renovations began in 1998. The section of the Pentagon, which had recently been renovated at a cost of $250 million, housed the Naval Command Center and other Pentagon offices, as well as some unoccupied offices. The crash and subsequent fire penetrated three outer ring sections of the western side. The outermost ring section was largely destroyed, and a large section collapsed. One hundred and twenty-five people in the Pentagon died in the attack. In all, there were 189 deaths at the Pentagon site, including the 125 in the Pentagon building in addition to the 64 on board the aircraft. Passenger Barbara Olson was en route to a taping of "Politically Incorrect". A group of children, their chaperones, and National Geographic Society staff members were also on board, embarking on an educational trip west to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary near Santa Barbara, California. The fatalities at the Pentagon included 55 military personnel and 70 civilians. Of those 125 killed, 92 were on the first floor, 31 were on the second floor, and two were on the third. The Army suffered 75 fatalities—far more than any other branch. Another 106 injured were treated at area hospitals. Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, an Army Deputy Chief of Staff, was the highest-ranking military officer killed at the Pentagon; also killed was retired Rear Admiral Wilson Flagg, a passenger on the plane. LT Mari-Rae Sopper, JAGC, USNR, was also on board the flight, and was the first Navy Judge Advocate ever killed in action. On the side where the plane hit, the Pentagon is bordered by Interstate 395 and Washington Boulevard. Motorist Mary Lyman, who was on I-395, saw the airplane pass over at a "steep angle toward the ground and going fast" and then saw the cloud of smoke from the Pentagon. Omar Campo, another witness, was cutting the grass on the other side of the road when the airplane flew over his head. "I was cutting the grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt the impact. The whole ground shook and the whole area was full of fire. I could never imagine I would see anything like that here". Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work and stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon when the airplane flew over. "There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in." Daryl Donley witnessed the crash and took some of the first photographs of the site. "USA Today" reporter Mike Walter was driving on Washington Boulevard when he witnessed the crash, which he recounted,"I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.' And I saw it. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon". Terrance Kean, who lived in a nearby apartment building, heard the noise of loud jet engines, glanced out his window, and saw a "very, very large passenger jet". He watched "it just plow right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere." Tim Timmerman, who is a pilot himself, noticed American Airlines markings on the aircraft as he saw it hit the Pentagon. Other drivers on Washington Boulevard, Interstate 395, and Columbia Pike witnessed the crash, as did people in Pentagon City, Crystal City, and other nearby locations. Former Georgetown University basketball coach John Thompson had originally booked a ticket on Flight 77. As he would tell the story many times in the following years, including a September 12, 2011 interview on Jim Rome's radio show, he had been scheduled to appear on that show on September 12, 2001. Thompson was planning to be in Las Vegas for a friend's birthday on September 13, and initially insisted on traveling to Rome's Los Angeles studio on the 11th. However, this did not work for the show, which wanted him to travel on the day of the show. After a Rome staffer personally assured Thompson that he would be able to travel from Los Angeles to Las Vegas immediately after the show, Thompson changed his travel plans. He felt the impact from the crash at his home near the Pentagon. 
Of the 125 victims in the Pentagon, 70 were civilians and 55 were military personnel. Lieutenant General Timothy Maude was the highest-ranking military official killed at the Pentagon. 
According to some conspiracy theories, the U.S. administration deliberately chose not to shoot down a plane that was heading for the Pentagon, while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon at all. Others reject claims that anything other than Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, but do believe that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed by controlled demolition, such as Jim Hoffman, whose website, 911review.com, cites key errors of the "no Boeing" claims. Political activist Thierry Meyssan and filmmaker Dylan Avery claim that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls were 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 60 ft. across?" Meyssan’s book, "L’Effroyable Imposture" (published in English as "9/11: The Big Lie") became an instant bestseller in France and is available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by both the mainstream French and American press, and later, from within the 9/11 Truth movement by researchers such as Hoffman and websites such as oilempire.us. The French newspaper "Liberation" called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation. "In response to the conspiracy theorists claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon, Mete Sozen, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University argues that: "A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns." According to "ArchitectureWeek", the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated. (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the 1980s, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated. )Evidence contradicting some conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile's hitting the Pentagon have been described by researchers within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman, in his essay "The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows", and by others broadly refuting the role of other conspiracies in the attacks. The evidence refuting missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, and an intact cockpit seat were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis. Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters. Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon. The public interest group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004 to force the government to release video recordings from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. On May 16, 2006, the government released the Pentagon security camera videos to Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch reports that the video shows American Airlines flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. The image of American Airlines Flight 77 which appears in the videos has been described as " white blob" and "a white streak" (by the BBC), "a thin white blur" (by The Associated Press), and "a silver speck low to the ground" (in "The Washington Post"). A sequence of five frames from one of the videos already appeared in the media in 2002. Some conspiracy theorists believe the new video does not answer their questions. 
Sixteen people were killed in Newbern when its surrounding communities were directly hit by an F3 tornado April 2, 2006. The areas around Millsfield (Harness Rd) and Maxey (Enochs Rd) were hardest hit. 