A B757 hit the Pentagon, reported by GOFER06

My main issue with the interpretations is that the Nose of the plane hit a perfect 45 degree angle on the building.

Have you ever seen, I don't know, ANY PLANE EVER, try to land? The compensation the nose needs to stay off the ground near the end is immense, and this is the part of the flight where you have the least time to react, if ANYTHING does need to be adjusted manually.



The idea the nose hit the building at an angle the whole plane could enter blows my mind, without it hitting the lawn prematurely or smashing against the face of the building in general.

What an amazing pilot, to exactly measure the angle from the height he was at to continue a straight path into the building.

originally posted by: pale5218

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: MotherMayEye

911review.com...

An ATS member made a video and audio recordings of the two E-4s that departed Andrews that morning.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

WORD31 departed about 0930, and VENUS77 which was seen over the Pentagon, departed around 0945.

Your right Zaphod, WORD31 departed at 09:27 and is about 18 miles west of IAD at the time of impact.

You wrote this in your OP about the radar:

There is suspicion that an aircraft was in the vicinity of the Pentagon, possibly an aircraft used for surveillance or control. This data doesn't show any unknown aircraft and I would even say it's proof that there was no flight in this immediate area except the C130 GOFER06

So, you no longer think it was the C130 (GOFER06) that was spotted over the Pentagon two minutes after impact?

a reply to: MacK80

He wasn't trying to land though, so there was no reason to have the nose pulled up.

originally posted by: MotherMayEye

originally posted by: pale5218

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: MotherMayEye

911review.com...

An ATS member made a video and audio recordings of the two E-4s that departed Andrews that morning.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

WORD31 departed about 0930, and VENUS77 which was seen over the Pentagon, departed around 0945.

Your right Zaphod, WORD31 departed at 09:27 and is about 18 miles west of IAD at the time of impact.

You wrote this in your OP about the radar:

There is suspicion that an aircraft was in the vicinity of the Pentagon, possibly an aircraft used for surveillance or control. This data doesn't show any unknown aircraft and I would even say it's proof that there was no flight in this immediate area except the C130 GOFER06

So, you no longer think it was the C130 (GOFER06) that was spotted over the Pentagon two minutes after impact?

No..What I was trying to say was the reports and/or pictures of a high flying aircraft at the time of impact or shortly after is something that I believe is answered by the radar replay. I see no target that can be an aircraft not identified or could possibly be suspected of being this aircraft. This leaves me to believe that it was the C130, at least up until 1-2 minutes after impact.

Zaphod58 has provided information about VENUS77 and I have to say that I have heard about this flight before but I have not researched it. I have not seen any empirical evidence, one way or another.

I do have another video like I said and from the display so far, I do think it will take me well beyond the posted video. This ScreenCam does not allow you to fast forward or backwards, only play pause or stop. I'm about half way through and it's at the point of the overhead 360 turn.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: MacK80

He wasn't trying to land though, so there was no reason to have the nose pulled up.

I think he was pretending to be a porpoise.

a reply to: pale5218

The audio tapes record his take off. Originally it was going to go to, I think, wright patterson but then took up a holding pattern near Richmond.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yeah, and in that case, how convenient he didn't under-aim, or he would have hit the ground. The point is flying at low altitude is difficult to adjust, and so if he needed to pull up to not hit the ground, he's lucky he didn't lose control and over correct at any point.

a reply to: MacK80

There was a lot of luck involved. There usually is though. If there had been a tailwind, or even a slight down draft he could have hit early, etc.

originally posted by: roadgravel
a reply to: pale5218

The audio tapes record his take off. Originally it was going to go to, I think, wright patterson but then took up a holding pattern near Richmond.

Is that the VENUS77 flight ? I did watch this flight go out. I'm reviewing the last part of a video of radar replay which went beyond the other video and it shows the VEN77.

originally posted by: MacK80
My main issue with the interpretations is that the Nose of the plane hit a perfect 45 degree angle on the building.

What makes hitting a flat object at an angle of 45* 'perfect'? Wouldn't you want to hit it flush which would be 90*? Seems kind of silly to hit something at an oblique angle instead of head on if 'perfection' was your goal.

a reply to: pale5218

I think WORD31 was heading west, and VENUS77 was going to stay over the East Coast area for the exercise.

Again we need to look at expert opinions because most of the people here on ATS are ignorant to flying a commercial jet, including myself.

So let's look at what pilots said about the claims of the 757 moments before the impact, and the official story, and why it a load of BS in their eyes.

Pilots for Truth

So, lets go on what we have. The last known altitude reported for AA77 was 7000 feet. And travelled 33 miles in 5 minutes. Thats 6.6 miles per minute or 396 knots (Update: FDR data shows 325 knots average airspeed. 9/11 Commission Report is inaccurate).

Then the aircraft began a 330 degree spiraling dive, leveling at 2200 feet to accelerate to the Pentagon while continuing descent. He started the maneuver at 7000 feet, 396 knots, dove almost 5000 feet within a 330 degree turn and covered 5 miles in about 3 minutes.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the final impact speed was 530 mph. Update: FDR is now available and the 9/11 report is inaccurate in terms of impact speed. So lets take an avg speed throughout the dive of 430 knots (7 miles/min). We know a standard rate turn is 2 mins for 360 degrees. So lets say he completed the turn in just under 2 minutes.

Since we dont know bank angles or speed. That means he was descending at better than 2500 fpm dropping almost 5000 feet only gaining 30 knots. No problem for guys like you and me, but for Hani? We'll get to him later...

Once this maneuver was completed, without going into a graveyard spiral, he started to pull out of the descent at 2200 feet and accelerated only 30 knots more at full power to 460 knots in a descent from 2200 feet to the pentagon in about a minute (Whats Vmo at sea level for a 757? Flap speed?

Since it looks like he may have found the flap handle only accelerating 60 knots from 7000 feet, the from 2200 feet at full power). AA77 crossed the highways, knocking down light poles, entered ground effect, didnt touch the lawn and got a 44 foot high target (Tail height of 757) into a 77 foot target completely, without overshooting or bouncing off the lawn, or spreading any wreckage at 460 knots. With a 33 foot margin for error. Wow, impressive.

Takes a real steady hand to pull that off. I know it would take me a few tries to get it so precise, especially entering ground effect at those speeds. Any slight movement will put you off 50 feet very quickly. Im sure we all would agree.

a reply to: MotherMayEye

The new replay goes beyond the video in the OP so let me transcribe what happens. There isn't any coordinated audio with it but I did listen to some other positions.

All seem routine until a very distinct moment when all the tapes reveal that something obviously occurred but no mention of what has occurred. The controllers all stop arrivals from entering the airspace, enter a holding posture and all departures have already been stopped since 09:27 when the ground stops were implemented.

Radar replay:

The C130 does continue coming up behind the B757s track. After being told to leave the area the flight does turn to the northwest and continues a climb to 11,000 ft. The flight path of the C130 makes it to about 1 mile west of the pentagon before turning so I would have to say the aircraft in the video is the C130. What I could tell when I saw the aircraft it was consistent with the position and altitude of where the C130 was.

The VEN77 flight did depart at 09:45, made slight NW heading, staying north of the Prohibited areas and then made a sweeping right turn to the SSW and climbed to Flight Levels (above 18,000 ft). This type craft is also consistent with the pics out there of the E-4B, a large white airplane which for the laymen, a military version of a B747.

There was one or two other targets about 10 minutes after the crash, very low and slow moving, about 200-300 ft and about 70 kts. I have no doubt that these were helicopters. If we have any reports of medivac or police helicopters on the lawn, they were probably them. They had to be helicopters.

Lastly the fighters came in from the ENE flight of three, type wasn't displayed in data block, I believe them to be F16s. They came in from the east, stayed well south of the pentagon and then turn up over the area when they were southwest of DCA. This is when this video replay ended, about 10:00 Eastern Time 1400Z.

The only flight that could have been over the Pentagon was the C130. The E-4B stayed north and east, only getting as close as 4 miles but the aircraft was low (2,500 3,000 ft) at this time. But this was also 7-8 minutes after the crash report.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: MacK80
My main issue with the interpretations is that the Nose of the plane hit a perfect 45 degree angle on the building.

What makes hitting a flat object at an angle of 45* 'perfect'? Wouldn't you want to hit it flush which would be 90*? Seems kind of silly to hit something at an oblique angle instead of head on if 'perfection' was your goal.

The angle would have been 45 degrees from the sky. That adjustment on the way down was preformed rather easily. Perfection or not though, it didn't hit the building at a 'perfect' angle, but it did achieve an angle with no correction needed to strike the Pentagon at exactly ground level altitude.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: pale5218

I think WORD31 was heading west, and VENUS77 was going to stay over the East Coast area for the exercise.

Yes WORD31 was westbound. VEN77 might have been planning an East Coast exercise but when he departed, it was not to join the exercise. He had a purpose ! He wouldn't even tell the Andrews Controllers.

originally posted by: MacK80
The angle would have been 45 degrees from the sky.

45* from any direction is not a 'perfect' angle. 90* is.

a reply to: Realtruth

Hani Hanjour was more experienced than people realized. He was a certified commercial pilot, which is at a minimum 250 hours, with 40-50 of instrument time, including tight turns. After receiving his commercial rating, he went to Arizona, I believe it was, where he was working on his 737 type rating, flying the simulator, including tight turns.

He was no expert pilot by any means, and it shows during his descent when you watch the animation. He was all over the place with the controls, and the nose was wandering a lot. It wasn't coordinated by any means. But he also wasn't some guy that jumped in a plane for the first time that day and pulled off an incredible maneuver perfectly.

a reply to: pale5218

The exercise was cancelled after the second tower was hit. NAOC have preplanned orbit points over the US in case of a real attack. They're going to launch and head to them, and hold there. And they're under their own navigation once they go live.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: pale5218

The exercise was cancelled after the second tower was hit. NAOC have preplanned orbit points over the US in case of a real attack. They're going to launch and head to them, and hold there. And they're under their own navigation once they go live.

That's what it sounded like to me when he was talking with the ADW controller. He just wanted to bug out !

a reply to: pale5218

They're designed as airborne command posts, and are capable of launching a nuclear strike if our ground based command posts are knocked out. They don't want to be anywhere close to where things are blowing up.