Eyewitnesses confirm having seen something fly into the
Pentagon. However, their accounts differ largely when
it comes to describing the nature of the aircraft in more
detail.
| « We
heard what sounded like a missile » |
Several eyewitnesses testify to having seen a large airliner.
An anonymous woman interviewed by CNN
on September 11 confirms having seen "a commercial
plane". Army Captain Lincoln Liebner told the AFP:
"I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet
coming in fast and low." Since our article: Pentagon:
Hunt the Boeing! And test your perceptions! went on-line,
many other eyewitnesses have come forward on the internet.
However, other accounts reported in the American press,
immediately after the event, speak of a smaller aircraft
that, in flight, was very unlike a commercial airliner,
and even resembled a winged missile.
The aircraft "appeared to hold about 8
to 12 people" and "sounded like the high-pitched
squeal of a fighter", explained Steve Patterson to
the Washington
Post, on September 11.
| «That may
have been the plane. I have never seen one on that
(flight) pattern» |
Tom Seibert, a network engineer at the Pentagon,
told the Washington
Post: "We heard what sounded like a missile,
then we heard a loud boom."
«There wasn't anything in the air, except
for one airplane, and it looked like it was loitering
over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank", explained
U.S. Army Brigadier General Clyde Vaughn, director of
military support, to CNN.
"That may have been the plane. I have never seen
one on that (flight) pattern.»
| « It
was like a cruise missile with wings » |
Just after the attack, Mike Walter, journalist
at USA Today, explained to the Washington
Post and CNN
that "it was like a cruise missile with wings".
Danielle O'Brien, air controller at Washington's
Dulles airport, from where American Airways flight 77
took off, explained that the craft that hit the Pentagon
had the speed and maneuverability of a "military
plane". Her account was published on the ABCnews
site and used on the National
Air Traffic Controllers Association site. We reproduce
an extract of it here:
|
« I noticed the aircraft. It was an
unidentified plane to the southwest of Dulles, moving
at a very high rate of speed … I had literally
a blip and nothing more. »
O'Brien asked the controller sitting next to her,
Tom Howell, if he saw it too.
« I said, 'Oh my God, it looks like
he's headed to the White House', »
recalls Howell. « I was yelling …
'We've got a target headed right for the White
House!' At a speed of about 500 miles an hour,
the plane was headed straight for what is known
as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the
White House and the Capitol.»
« The speed, the maneuverability, the
way that he turned, we all thought in
the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic
controllers, that that was
a military plane » says O'Brien. « You
don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe. »
« The
speed, the maneuverability, the way that he
turned, we all thought in
the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic
controllers, that that was
a military plane » |
« The plane was between 12 and 14 miles
away » says O'Brien, « and
it was just a countdown. Ten miles west. Nine miles
west … Our supervisor picked up our line to
the White House and started relaying to them the
information, [that] we have an unidentified very
fast-moving aircraft inbound toward your vicinity,
8 miles west. »
Vice President Cheney was rushed to a special basement
bunker. White House staff members were told to run
away from the building
« And it went 'six, five, four',
And I had it in my mouth to say, three, and all
of a sudden the plane turned away. In the room,
it was almost a sense of relief. This must be a
fighter. This must be one of our guys sent in, scrambled
to patrol our capital, and to protect our president,
and we sat back in our chairs and breathed for just
a second », says O'Brien.
But the plane continued to turn right until it
had made a 360-degree maneuver.
« We lost radar contact with that aircraft.
And we waited. And we waited. And your heart is
just beating out of your chest waiting to hear what's
happened, », says O'Brien. « nd
then the Washington National [Airport] controllers
came over our speakers in our room and said,'Dulles,
hold all of our inbound traffic. The Pentagon's
been hit.' »
|
On September 11, the State Department for Defense confirmed
that a Boeing 757 had crashed on the Pentagon. Eyewitnesses
indeed talk of a flying craft. But there is no absolute
consensus that this craft was an airliner. Maybe the official
version of events subsequently influenced eyewitness accounts.
Two French newspapers, Le
Monde and Libération,
have both published counter-arguments to our own. Both
cite Steve Patterson and Mike Walter to prove how wrong
we were to doubt the Boeing 757 hypothesis. Such accounts,
those first reported in the American press, should, however,
open up new lines of enquiry. The first said that the
aircraft «appeared to hold about 8 to 12 people»and
«sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter.».
The second said that it «was like a cruise missile
with wings.»...
This begs the question: What evidence is available to
determine the nature of the craft ? Please read the article
that follows: The evidence: One
hole, 2 ½ yards in diameter
1 - Eyewitness accounts: Boeing
757 or military craft ?
2 - The evidence: One hole, 2 ½
yards in diameter
3 - Possible theories: Aircraft
nose or warhead ?
PS - Coquille : En jargon journalistique,
faute typographique (no translation yet)
