Date: 9/11/01

Time: Before 9:44

Photographer: Steve Riskus

DESCRIPTION: PFPA Officer Mark Bright was the first emergency responder on scene.

KEY NOTES: You can see that the Jeep Grand Cherokee is not involved in fire and that the Mitsubishi 3000GT has a fire starting in the left front wheel area. You can see fires up on the wall that are presumably from fuel and the involvement where the construction trailer(s) were. There is some concentrated fire at the impact hole as well. One thing you don't see are signficant aircraft debris. See Mark's statement below.

....Mark Bright, actually saw the plane hit the building. He had been manning the guard booth at the Mall Entrance to the building. "I saw the plane at the Navy Annex area," he said. "I knew it was going to strike the building because it was very, very low -- at the height of the street lights. It knocked a couple down." The plane would have been seconds from impact -- the annex is only a few hundred yards from the Pentagon.

He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the Pentagon. "As soon as it struck the building I just called in an attack, because I knew it couldn't be accidental," Bright said. He jumped into his police cruiser and headed to the area.

As he drove to the site, he reported what he was seeing to the DPS command post. He saw people streaming from the building and stopped to help. "One lady was burned and I brought her to the cruiser and helped her," he said.

But Bright's responsibility as the first officer on the scene was to report what was going on. He also had to assess the damage, check to see if chemicals were part of the attack and check the perimeter to ensure the plane was not merely the opening move in an attack on the nation's military headquarters.

He directed people stopping on nearby Highway 27, which parallels the damaged wall, how they could help. Pentagon workers also pitched in to help the injured.

"I have great thanks for those people, because most people would have been in shock," he said. He also called for ambulances and fire trucks. All the while, he also kept his eye on the sky, because by that time the command post had received reports of a possible second plane. (Source)