PENTAGON RESEARCH

The main source of testimony published in this case are the large number of eyewitness accounts. Watch the video above to get an idea of what the close-up witnesses would have seen. This video was originally of a 757 landing at approximately 115 mph. It has been accelerated by 3x to reflect an aircraft moving 345 mph - the speed recorded by the recovered black boxes.

Obviously the witnesses that were further back would have had a larger viewpoint but less visible detail. One of the impressions this left on me was the extreme force that would have hit the building if you picture a wall right at the end of the runway. Another thing that struck me was the tremendous energy with which the light poles would have been impacted. Imagine the right engine hooking a 39,500 pound generator trailer.

The most consistent themes in the eyewitness accounts were the double "A's" on the tail, a large silver plane, the hitting of the light poles, the engines going to full-throttle after hitting the poles, and then the fireball. These were reported most commonly.

On this page I have highlighted the anomalous witness reports. I am not going to critique them individually (there is a great site at the bottom of the page for more info). The main observation in regards to all of the witness accounts is that very few of them were taken at the scene or even in direct proximity to the event. Most of them had a chance to hear or see the news which told them it was a 757 that hit the Pentagon prior to giving their statements.

What we'll do here is simply observe the variety of opinions just to make the point that different people see different things.

Meseidy Rodriguez - "it was a mid-sized plane" Washington Post

Steve Patterson - "Steve Patterson, 43, said he was watching television reports of the World Trade Center being hit when he saw a silver commuter jet fly past the window of his 14th-floor apartment in Pentagon City. The plane was about 150 yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetery so low that he thought it was going to land on I-395. He said it was flying so fast that he couldn't read any writing on the side. The plane, which appeared to hold about eight to 12 people, headed straight for the Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent runway, Patterson said." Washington Post

Scott P. Cook - "I cannot fathom why neither myself nor Ray, a former Air Force officer, missed a big 757, going 400 miles an hour, as it crossed in front of our window in its last 10 seconds of flight." Statement

Ken Ford - "We were watching the airport through binoculars, he said, referring to Reagan National Airport, a short distance away. The plane was a two-engine turbo prop that flew up the river from National. Then it turned back toward the Pentagon. We thought it had been waved off and then it hit the building."
Article

Sergeant Maurice L. Bease - "Turning around expecting to see a fighter jet fly over, he saw only a split-second glimpse of a white commercial airliner streaking low toward the building, and him! He did not even have time to duck before it plowed into the side of the Pentagon around the corner and about 200 yards from where he stood." Article

Mike Dobbs - "was standing on one of the upper levels of the outer ring of the Pentagon looking out the window when he saw an American Airlines 737 two-engine airliner strike the building." Article

James S. Robbins - "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, but at the time, I did not immediately comprehend what I was witnessing. There was a silvery flash, an explosion, and a dark, mushroom shaped cloud rose over the building. I froze, gaping for a second until the sound of the detonation, a sharp pop at that distance, shook me out of it." Editorial

Levi Stephens - "Two explosions were heard. According to one witness, "what looked like a 747" plowed into the south side of the Pentagon, possibly skipping through a heliport before it hit the building." Article

Firefighter Alan Wallace - "was standing outside his fire station when he looked across the nearby interstate and saw a white airplane with orange and blue trim heading almost straight at him. It slammed into the building just a couple hundred feet from him. "When I felt the fire, I hit the ground," he said." Article Local copy- original removed.

David Marra - “It was 50 ft. off the deck when he came in. It sounded like the pilot had the throttle completely floored. The plane rolled left and then rolled right. Then he caught an edge of his wing on the ground.” There is a helicopter pad right in front of the side of the Pentagon. The wing touched there, then the plane cart wheeled into the building.”
time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,174655,00.html (copy and paste this one)

Noel Sepulveda - "It seemed like the pilot was scrambling to keep control, and I watched as he dropped lower and lower," Sepulveda said. "Then he dropped his landing gear and started coming down even faster and lower. As it came down, the plane was hitting light poles, the sergeant said. "Then the right wheel hit a light pole and the plane popped into a 45-degree angle" Article

Phillip Thompson - "cruising at a shallow angle, wings level, very steady. But, strangely, the landing gear was up and the flaps weren’t down." Article

CONCLUSION: We have several types of planes mentioned, different color schemes, wheels up, wheels down, steep dive, level flight, cartwheeling, hitting the helicopter pad and much more I didn't cover. There are even accounts of people seeing the faces of the passengers and one where they saw it hit a helicopter on the pad. At a speed of 506 feet per second very few people had a chance to see the plane up close for more than a fraction of a second as you can observe in the video.