Editor’s Note: This paper is the latest in a discussion thread that started in June 2024 with the publication of Mehmet Inan’s paper arguing that a Boeing 737, rather than a 757, struck the Pentagon. All of the papers in this thread can be found on the Debated Topic Forum homepage under the header “Impact Damage to Wall of Pentagon — Identification of Plane Model.”
Mehmet Inan’s most recent response begins by mischaracterizing the basis of my previous argument, which he is responding to, and ends by claiming all of the relevant evidence was faked.
He says, “The main argument of David Chandler’s paper against my identification of the plane is the banner image of his paper.” He then reduces this assertion to a reference to the distance from the notch in the tree to the missing rung and scar on the camera pole, which he concedes is more consistent with a 757-200 than a 737-400. This leads to claims of faked evidence. He compounds his mischaracterization of my argument with the claim that, “The exact position of the plane is not known with high precision.”
This framing of the discussion does not address my actual argument, which is this:
Three points of contact taken together provide the basis for identifying the plane as a 757.
- The vertical shaft of the second light pole was bent about 90° and knocked over, but did not break. It is thus clear that the pole was grazed by the left wingtip. Had the impact occurred elsewhere along the wing, the wing would have passed through the pole, breaking it. For comparison, the other poles that were directly impacted were broken, not bent. Thus, “the exact position of the plane is
notknown with high precision.” - There is a scar and a missing rung on a VDOT camera pole located where the right wingtip would be expected to pass. The lateral spacing from the second light pole to the scar on the camera pole is 125 ft, which happens to be the wingspan of a Boeing 757.
- The circular notch taken out of the tree on the overpass matches the location of the right engine of a 757, on this scale. This is strong evidence for the identity of the plane. Photographs show the tips of the twigs in the cutout area to be stripped, consistent with being gouged out by a dull “blade” such as the edge of the engine casing. Jon Cole has established that the tips of the blades of his tractor mower move at about 175 mi/hr and that they can cut brush even when dull[1]. This plane’s engine casing served as a “dull blade” moving at ~550 mi/hr, so it could easily produce the observed effects.
These three points of contact, as I showed before, establish that the plane had to have dimensions matching a 757. On the other hand, as I showed before, if the plane were a 737, as Inan claims, and if the left wingtip touched the second light pole, which would be required for it to produce the observed damage to that pole, neither engine would have reached the notch in the tree and the right wingtip would not have reached the camera pole. Inan accounts for this discrepancy by arguing that the photographs showing the camera pole were all faked. He does not return to the issue of the notch in the tree, but since it is clear that the engines of a 737 could not have reached from the second light pole to the notch, he leaves us with the unstated implication that the notch was faked as well. Thus, in his scenario, only one of the three points of contact was real, even though he ironically never mentions that one point (the second light pole) at all, which is apparently why he believes “the exact position of the plane is not known with high precision.”
Inan’s discussion of the camera pole scar and missing rung centers on the photographic evidence. So let us turn to that evidence. Inan shows a number of views of the camera pole covering the area of the missing rung. One image from an unknown source, shows the “missing” rung intact. As I established in my previous rebuttal, that image is identical, pixel for pixel, with another image from a well-documented source, except the undocumented image shows the rung to be intact. This is the only image of the whole collection that shows the rung intact. Clearly, one of the two images was faked. The undocumented copy of the documented original clearly was altered to show the rung in place. I don’t think it has been pointed out elsewhere, but the rung in the doctored image has its base in the scar, which is still shown(!) so clearly the impact that made the scar would have removed the rung at the same time. Therefore, the image is not only doctored but self-contradictory.
What does Inan do with this information? He claims that the plane did not touch the camera pole and the rung stayed in place the whole time. He claims that all of the other images were doctored to remove the rung. Confronted with the fact that the rung is missing to this day, as seen on Google Street View images, he speculates about a scenario in which a worker, sometime since 9/11, physically altered the pole to fabricate evidence that the plane had actually grazed it.
Compare Inan’s speculative scenario for the “faked” photographs and silence on the notch in the tree with the perfect match of all three points to a 757, in light of Occam’s Razor.
Inan attempts to show that even if the right wingtip hit the camera pole it would not be able to tear off a rung. The rung is slightly beyond the “horizon” of curvature of the pole. How far beyond the horizon can be judged by how far the opposite column of rungs is in front of the horizon on the right. Comparing this offset with the elliptical area of the scar, which also wraps around the pole, the base of the rung is within the scar. This can happen because the sheet aluminum of the wingtip would deform as it impacts the steel pole at 550 mi/hr. Inan tries to equate the behavior of the heavy gauge steel pole, designed for climbing by a highway worker, with the behavior of the aluminum light poles, that are designed to give way to minimize damage to an impacting car. There is no reasonable basis to extrapolate the mechanical behavior of the light poles to the camera pole.
One other attempt to render the rung removal impossible is Inan’s assertion that when the wing first contacts the pole, the pole would be pushed to the side, so that as the wing passes the pole there would be a gap and it would miss the rung. What he fails to appreciate is that at 550 mi/hr the time for the wing to move 10 inches is 1/1000 sec, one millisecond. The pole would have no time to respond. His claim seems to raise a scientific objection, but he has not done even a basic plausibility calculation.
Inan’s argument does not respect the evidence. A claim that a physical artifact at a crime scene was faked carries a high burden of proof. It requires a motive for that particular piece of deception, a plausible mechanism to produce the fakery, and actual evidence of the fakery that rules out other possible scenarios.
I just want to make a brief mention of the leading wing slat from the right wing of the plane found on the lawn. Given that the plane was a 757, as the evidence shows, the right wing would have sustained two major hits just outside the right engine from the first and third light poles. Various people have argued that the plane could not have damaged the light poles without sustaining significant damage itself. What we are looking at here is the significant damage.
Inan says, “…this leading slat laying alone on the lawn does not come from the plane itself, it was brought several days after and put there probably for the purpose of creating evidence for the presence of a 757-200 aircraft.” He provides no evidence that the part is not from the plane itself and no evidence that it was brought onto the site or when that presumably occurred. What is quite possible is that it was moved to a location that would be out of the way for the recovery operation.
The fact that a long line of Pentagon employees was seen “sweeping” the lawn for plane debris has been assumed by some in the 9/11 Truth Movement to have some surreptitious purpose, but there is actually a very straightforward explanation. Capt. Thomas Panther, the Acting Deputy Chief of Police for the Operations Division of the Arlington Police Department was interviewed by M. Sgt. Donna Majors and Capt. George Dover of the 46th Military History Detachment on 28 May 2002[2]. He said, “We had made a decision very early on that we needed to sweep the lawn and the landing pad there around the heliport for any evidence that could be located quickly, knowing that the rescue and recovery response that was coming would eventually obliterate any evidence that might be found on the outside of the building. So we got together really quickly and organized teams of FBI agents, ATF [Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms] agents, and Arlington Police to sweep the lawn on the heliport side of the building. . . . Everyone was literally lined up shoulder-to-shoulder. I observed it. I did not take part in it. Everyone was given a . . . paper bag, and they were instructed if they found anything that looked like it may be related to the aircraft or anything having to do with the crash, to pick it up. Aircraft parts and human remains were located during that sweep.”
The “scouring party” was picking up items that would fit in their bags for further examination. There is photographic evidence of other larger pieces that were simply moved out of the way. The wing slat was either left alone and marked with traffic cones and caution tape to be protected for further examination or it may have been moved out of the way of the recovery operation. There is no reason to assume otherwise and no evidence that would support that view. Inan has provided none. You can’t simply claim fakery for every piece of inconvenient evidence.
There is only one piece of evidence discussed here that was clearly faked: the photograph with the rung shown as intact. We can make this claim confidently having proved it using both documentary evidence and the internal inconsistency of the doctored image.
Inan has failed to be responsive to my actual arguments from the previous rebuttal, has failed to provide a reasonable treatment of the evidence, and has failed to abide by the basic principles of logic.
