The Official Account
The 911 Commission Report holds that American Flight 77, a Boeing 757, was flown by al-Qaeda pilot Hani Hanjour into the Pentagon. [1] After disengaging the autopilot, he executed a 330-degree downward spiral through 7000 feet in about three minutes, then flew into Wedge 1 of the Pentagon between the first and second floors at 530 mph.
The Best Evidence
Several former airliner pilots have stated that Hanjour could not possibly have maneuvered a large airliner through the trajectory allegedly taken by Flight 77 and then hit the Pentagon between the first and second floors without touching the lawn. [2]
Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving in Vietnam as a fighter pilot, says it would have been “totally impossible for an amateur who couldn’t even fly a Cessna” to have flown that downward spiral and then “crash into the Pentagon’s first floor wall without touching the lawn.” [3]
Ralph Omholt, a former 757 pilot, said: “The idea that an unskilled pilot could have flown this trajectory is simply too ridiculous to consider.”
References for Pentagon Point 3
- The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), pp. 225, 334 (pdf: 242, 351).
National Transportation Safety Board, “Flight Path Study – American Airlines Flight 77” (February 19, 2002). The NTSB video is available on YouTube as “American 77 Final Maneuver”. - See statements by Cmdr. Ted Muga and Cmdr. Ralph Kolstad at Patriots Question 9/11, where Pilots and Aviation Professionals and “Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials Question the The 9/11 Commission Report”
- “Former Vietnam Combat and Commercial Pilot Firm Believer 9/11 Was Inside Government Job,” Lewis News, January 8, 2006.
