US Releasing 9/11 Flight 77 Pentagon Crash Tape

Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks. The government had previously withheld the tape due to 'ongoing investigations' into al-Qaeda's Zacarias Moussaoui. A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"

Comments

The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope you realize that the story about 20 or so Arab men conspiring to hijack planes and fly them into various landmarks is a conspiracy theory, as well.

Many people who rant on and on about 'conspiracy theorists' follow beliefs that are just as questionable. Their position may be supported by certain governments or the mass media in various nations. But on the basis of evidence alone, their stance is often far weaker than that of even the so-called 'conspiracy theorists'.

Talk negatively about conspiracy theories all you want. Just realize that the story you hold dear is just that: a conspiracy theory.

Re:The official story is a conspiracy theory.

[Yvanhoe]

Note that even the official theory has all sort of bizarre aspects (James Bond-style mastermind villian in his secret underground bunker, for example).

* Intact hijacker passport found in the WTC ruins

* Corpse identification thanks to fingerprints in the pentagon

* Rumsfled making a lapsus about "these terrorists who pilot a plane into the WTC and a missile into this very building" while at the Pentagon

* Tapes that would really show the pentagon plane never disclosed (3 more to go with more than one blurry frame)

* half of the presumed "hijackers" still alive in Saudi Arabia or Qatar

Re:It certainly does tell something

[TomorrowPlusX]

I work in DC, and lived -- at the time -- in Old Town Alexandria. On Sept 11, given the general state of confusion, I opted not to take the metro home that day, and instead walked home along the GW parkway ( it was such a beautiful day, actually -- and the ten mile walk allowed me to really think about the situation, and how this was pretty much the end of freedom in the US for a while at least, but that's another story ).

Anyway -- here's the thing. I was upwind of the pentagon, maybe a mile away, and I smelled ( what smelled to me like ) burning kerosene. LOTS of burning kerosene. As in, I personally stank of kerosene smoke after walking past.

Frankly, that's enough for me. I understand that jet fuel is more or less like kerosene, and I would expect a crashed airplane to burn up whatever's in its tanks. Hence, the stench of lots of burning kerosene.

Now, regarding the "another story"... as I was approaching National airport ( I will never call it "Reagan National" ), I came across a bunch of toddlers and little kids, surrounded by military personnel. There was another civilian ( like me ) walking past, she had a camera, and took a photo of the pentagon smoke, and another of the military types and the children. The officials immediately stormed her, confiscated her camera and tore out the film. Very rudely, I might add. I saw all this, and after the lady left, I walked up and said to one of the friendlier looking guards "What was that all about?". She said the kids were pentagon employee children from the daycare facilities and they wanted to respect their privacy -- which is commendable, so in principle I understand. But the way they went about it was unnacceptable.

I saw one of the opening acts of our descent into a police state, right there.

Re:You can't stop the paranoia.

[rossifer]

An airplane hit the Pentagon on 9/11, not a missile.

The alternate conspiracy theory I heard on the Pentagon crash was centered around who flew the airliner into the Pentagon, not whether or not an airliner flew into the Pentagon.

It's not all that hard to believe that an airliner flew into WTC2, since just about everyone on the planet has seen footage from a dozen cameras which show a 767/757 hitting the tower. Four planes didn't reach their destinations, four impacts are noted.

As for the alternate conspiracy theory, there are only a few remotely relevant facts. They are centered around the lack of credible identification for the 19 passengers labelled as the terrorists.

• First fact: the Dulles airport video tapes purported to show part of the Flight 77 check-in lack the camera id and time data that should be present on any airport surveillance capture.
• Second fact: the tapes would have to be taken 30 minutes after sunrise, but appear to show bright sunlight and short shadows for people and cars outside the terminal.
• Third fact: the sounds that appear to be the terrorists on the radio are extremely short and badly distorted, leaving little chance for actual identification.
• Fourth fact: people made several phone calls from the first three aircraft before they crashed, but there has been no public release of information that they physically described the terrorists (as middle-eastern or arabic).
• Fifth fact: flight 77 hit the Pentagon in the most heavily reinforced and least populated part of the building, a side that was not on a direct track from takeoff to the Pentagon.

Personally, I find these facts insufficient to dispute the government's conclusions

• There's no compelling reason to doubt the motive or the opportunity of radical islamist hijackers on 9/11. The presented story of the hijackers successful in seizing the aircraft is less astonishing than any alternative explanation.
• All of the cases where the hijackers were supposedly spotted after 9/11 have been resolved as cases of confused identity (similar/same name) or simply bad original reporting.
• Flight 77 was hijacked well into the flight (unlike Flights 11 and 175). Even though the side of the Pentagon hit was not on a direct track from Dulles to the Pentagon, it is very close to a direct track from where the transponders were disabled to the Pentagon.

As for how the WTC buildings collapsed: I agree, it sounds strange that 1) all three of the collapsed buildings would fall mostly down into their foundations 2) at rates consistent with an unimpeded collapse and 3) the heavily reinforced WTC7 fell while WTC6 remained standing (WTC6 was between WTC7 and WTC1/2).

I don't have an explanation for what happened, but then, I'm not a structural engineer. According to the engineers I've read, however, there simply isn't enough information about the collapse of well-engineered steel structures to accurately predict how they should behave during collapse. I do recall, however, that during the collapse, the bottom of each tower looked normal (windows intact, etc.) until engulfed in the debris cloud. The bottom of the tower did not look anything like the "simultaneous collapse" that deliberate building demolition almost always resembles.

Further, I do know that a puddle of kerosene burning will burn at a much lower temperature than a properly aerated and driven kerosene torch (as in, I know from personal experience that you can run a steel forge on kerosene with a correctly sized blower to supply air to the flame) and so I find it highly credible that a kerosene fire could reach well past steel annealing temperatures and get to steel melting temperatures, depending on the specifics of fuel and air flow in the fire.

Ultimately, though, there's no reason to waste your time wondering if the government actually did the atrocities of 9/11 or if several decades of destructive US foreign po