ERROR: 'Eyewitnesses Saw a Small Plane'
Literature of the no-757-crash theorists is full of suggestions
that eyewitness saw something other than a 757 fly into the Pentagon,
such as a commuter jet or cruise missile.
In fact only a few eyewitness recalled seeing a plane smaller than a jetliner,
and none reported seeing a missile.
In contrast there is an abundance of accounts describing
a large twin-engine jetliner like a 757.
9-11 Research extracted from
Eric Bart's Pentagon eyewitness compilation
those accounts that described the appearance of the airplane.
It found 11 witnesses describing a large jetliner
compared to only two describing a small jet.
It's easy to imagine that the two witnesses who described a small-plane
mistook a 757-like jetliner for one because:
- The two small-plane witnesses were both considerable
distances from the plane.
- The plane was going very fast -- over 400 mph -- which is about
twice as fast as jetliners normally fly at low altitudes
on takeoffs and landings.
One of the cues that people use to judge the size of an aircraft
in flight is its apparent speed:
a small plane traveling at 200 mph will traverse the length
of its fuselage much more quickly than a large plane.
Thus a large plane flying uncharacteristically fast can
easily be mistaken for a much smaller plane.
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e x c e r p t
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Large Jetliner
| Alan Wallace -- firefighter with safety crew at Pentagon's heliport
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We have had a commercial carrier crash into the west side of the Pentagon
at the heliport, Washington Boulevard side.
The crew is OK. The airplane was a 757 Boeing or a 320 Airbus.
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www.gosanangelo.com...
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| Albert Hemphill -- from inside the Naval Annex
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Immediately, the large silver cylinder of an aircraft
appeared in my window, coming over my right shoulder
as I faced the Westside of the Pentagon directly towards the heliport.
The aircraft, looking to be either a 757 or Airbus,
seemed to come directly over the annex
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lists.travellercentral.com/pipermail/tml/2001-September/013153.html
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| James S. Robbins -- Robbins, a national-security analyst and 'nationalreviewonline' contributor, watched from his 6th story office window in Arlington
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The Pentagon is about a mile and half distant in
the center of the tableau. I was looking directly at it when the aircraft
struck. The sight of the 757 diving in at an unrecoverable angle is
frozen in my memory, ...
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www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins040902.asp
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| Terry Morin -- watched from 5th wing of BMDO offices at the old Navy Annex
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The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage.
I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I
couldn't be sure. It looked like a 737 and I so reported to authorities.
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www.coping.org/911/survivor/pentagon.htm
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| Madelyn Zakhem --
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... she heard what she thought was a jet fighter
directly overhead. It wasn't. It was an airliner coming straight up
Columbia Pike at tree-top level. It was huge! It was silver. It was
low -- unbelievable! I could see the cockpit.
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www.roadstothefuture.com/VA_Sept21.txt
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| Joel Sucherman --
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Do you know how many engines? - I did not see the engines, I saw the
body and the tail; it was a silver jet with the markings along the windows
that spoke to me as an American Airlines jet, it was not a commercial,
excuse me, a business jet, it was not a Lear jet, ... it was a bigger
plane than that.
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play.rbn.com/?url=usat/usat/g2demand/010911_joel.rm&proto=rtsp
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Small Jet
| Don Wright -- watched from the 12th floor, 1600 Wilson Boulevard, in Rosslyn
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I watched this ...it looked like a commuter plane, two engined
... come down from the south real low ...
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www.sun-sentinel.com...
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Most no-757-crash literature ignores the body of eyewitness evidence
indicating the presence of a twin-engine jetliner,
and in many cases cherry-picks certain eyewitness accounts that seem
to support the presence of a small plane.
A common tactic is to present one part of Mike Walter's account:
I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings.
It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon.
while leaving out the earlier part of his account:
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.'
In the context of his full account, it is clear that Walter
was using "cruise missile with wings" to describe the way
the plane was being flown, not the kind of plane he saw.
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page last modified: 2006-08-18
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