American Airlines Flight 77
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American Airlines Flight 77 was a morning flight that routinely flew from Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles International Airport (IAD-LAX). On September 11, 2001, while being piloted by Charles Burlingame, the Boeing 757-223, |) | }} }}, was hijacked as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Over an hour into the flight, it was crashed into the Pentagon, killing 64 on the plane and 125 in the buildings. It was the third airliner to crash that morning, 50 minutes after the first, and another half hour later than the second explosion.
Hijacking
The flight was scheduled to depart at 8:10 AM EDT, but actually departed at 8:20. [9/11 Investigation (PENTTBOM)], FBI, national Press Release, September 2001 It was later determined that three of the hijackers had been stopped before boarding the flight because they failed the metal detector test, but were nonetheless allowed to enter the plane.
It has been estimated that the flight was probably hijacked between 8:51 and 8:54, minutes after the first hijacked plane had struck the World Trade Center in Manhattan (8:46 a.m.). The hijackers were reported to have been:
- * Hani Hanjour (Saudi Arabian) - pilot
- * Khalid al-Mihdhar (Saudi Arabian)
- * Majed Moqed (Saudi Arabian)
- * Nawaf al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian)
- * Salem al-Hazmi (Saudi Arabian)
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, two passengers made phone calls to contacts on the ground. At 9:12, passenger Renee May was reported to have called her mother, Nancy May, in Las Vegas. She said her flight was being hijacked by six individuals and they had been moved to the rear of the plane. Barbara K. Olson, another passenger, called her husband, United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson at the Justice Department twice to tell him about the hijacking and to report that the passengers and pilots were held in the back of the plane. After the call was cut off, Theodore Olson tried unsuccessfully to contact Attorney General John Ashcroft.
A plane was detected again by Dulles controllers on radar screens as it approached Washington, turning and descending rapidly. Controllers initially and mistakenly thought this was a fighter plane, due to its high speed and maneuverability.
Crash
Flight 77 crashed into the western side of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just south of Washington, D.C. at 9:37 AM EDT, killing all of its 53 regular passengers, 5 hijackers, and 6 crew. As the airplane hurtled towards the Pentagon at 400 miles per hour , it clipped several street lampposts (one of which fell onto a taxi cab, injuring the driver see photo ) as it was about 20 feet off the ground . Its right wing hit a portable generator that provided backup power for the Pentagon, and the left engine hit an external steam vault, before it slammed into the Pentagon. The section of the Pentagon hit consisted mainly of recently renovated, unoccupied offices, and was damaged by the crash and the ensuing violent fire. 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. 125 people in the Pentagon died from the attack.
About 19 minutes after impact, upper floors of the damaged area of the Pentagon collapsed. Although most of the plane was destroyed in the massive explosion and subsequent fire, some wreckage was found from the airliner within the impact zone and inside the building. The collapse caused the burial of airliner wreckage inside the Pentagon, with some aircraft parts not located until days later. Pieces of fuselage were found some 30 metres (90 feet) away from the crash site. As opposed to the extremely tall World Trade Center, the Pentagon is merely five stories tall, and thus the flight was forced to dive low enough, according to multiple eyewitness accounts, to glance off the concrete helipad before hitting the Pentagon, which absorbed much of the impact of the crash. The Pentagon is composed of five concentric rings. Due to the thick limestone walls and the sturdiness of building materials being used in the renovations at the time, Flight 77 fully penetrated only the outer three rings, although it caused damage to all five rings. The wings were broken off and pushed into the fuselage, where they were destroyed in the explosion, fire and collapse, although blackening of sections of the building, visible in photographs, seems to have been caused by the burning wings.
After the crash, the flight route designation for future flights on the same route was renumbered to Flight 149.
Security camera video
On May 16, 2006, the Department of Defense released filmed footage that were recorded by security cameras of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. The images were made public in response to a December 2004 Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch. Some still images from the video had previously been released and publicly circulated, but this was the first official release of the full video of the crash.
Victims
Among the 53 non-hijacking passengers were:- Barbara Olson, American television commentator (b. 1955)
- Three 11-year-old schoolchildren (Bernard Brown, Asia Cottom, and Rodney Dickens) embarking on an educational trip to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary near Santa Barbara, California, as part of a program funded by the National Geographic Society.
- Their chaperones and NGS staff members Sarah Clark, 65, James Debeuneure, 58, Ann Judge, 45, Hilda Taylor and Joe Ferguson.
- Two more children, sisters aged 8 and 3.
Memorial
A memorial is being constructed at The Pentagon in memory of those who lost their lives at The Pentagon and on American Airlines Flight 77.
See also
References
External links
- [sep11]
- [[sep11:American Airlines flight 77|Memorial wiki tribute to those killed in this flight]] (with flight manifest)
- [Joint Staff FOIA Requester Service Center]- Pentagon site for two videos released by same on 16 May 2006
- [GPOAccess.gov] - 'The 9-11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Official Government Edition' 2005)
- [Full series of images]
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