Mystery Jetliner

Clueless Hijacker Targets Near-Empty Wing of Pentagon

After the explosion, there were few signs of the 60 tons of metal comprising the 757, leading many to speculate that the Pentagon was struck by something entirely different than a jetliner. The photograph is a cropped version of one from Geoff Metcalf's collection.

On 9/11/01 the Pentagon was attacked by a jetliner which was supposedly Flight 77. A controversy among 9-11 skeptics about the identity and nature of the attack plane has effectively concealed several very peculiar facts about the attack:

• The attack was at 9:40, about one and a half hours after the attack first started to unfold. Yet the Pentagon was left undefended, despite its close proximity to Andrews Air Force Base, which had two combat-ready fighter wings on duty on 9/11/01.
• The attack plane approached Washington DC from the northwest, but instead of diving into the portions of the Pentagon housing the top brass like Donald Rumsfeld, the plane executed a 270-degree spiral dive to approach the vast building from the southwest side and strike a portion of Wedge One that was undergoing renovations. While crashing into other portions of the Pentagon would likely have killed thousands, the precision maneuver limited fatalities in the building to under 200.
• The final approach of the attack plane was so low and fast that the wings clipped lamp-posts on the adjacent highway and damaged objects in the construction yard in front of the building. The crash embedded the plane almost entirely in the first floor, wiping out most of the personnel in the Office of Naval Intelligence, that had recently been moved into the newly renovated section. Pilots doubt that event the most skilled fighter pilots could have executed such a precise surgical strike, particularly with such a large plane.
• Physical evidence of the attack was systematically suppressed by the authorities. Instead of releasing video seized by the FBI from adjacent businesses, authorities leaked five frames of video from a Pentagon CCTV camera, which show clear signs of forgery.

Why did Hani Hanjour undertake a nearly impossible maneuver to strike the portion of the Pentagon that was nearly empty? How could he have executed such an extreme maneuver when he "couldn't fly at all" according to one of his flight instructors?

Why did authorities seize and suppress evidence that could show exactly what happened? The answer that occurs to most skeptics is that the government is trying to hide that the crash involved an entirely different kind of aircraft than a Boeing 757. However, the overwhelming support among eyewitness reports for the idea that a twin-engine jetliner crashed into the Pentagon suggests a different answer: perhaps the perpetrators suppressed the evidence to feed the no-Boeing theory in order to divide and discredit the skeptics.