You're just reinforcing the fact that if you ran an airplane into the side of the pentagon, or any large building, everyone on board would be killed.

1. If you cannot see middlebelt is a two lane road.
   
2. The plane had to go through the pilings to get that far down the road.
   
3. The pilings are still in place, being made or REINFORCED concrete, and did not collapse like the 2 foot thick at the most wall on a building.
   
4. The Pilings split through the plane like a knife through butter.
   
5. Then we can of course mention that a plane is Just a hair wider then an underpass made to allow two cars to drive down, each way.
   
6. The ground tends to upslope on the sides of the underpass.
   
7. The ground is a wee bit harder then the two-foot thick, or less side of a building.

I especially like the fact that the image you showed was the only clump of real wreckage left of the plane, the tail. It's also worth a mention that if you note down the path after going under the obstacles there is about as much left of the plane as in the pictures of the Pentagon. The only reason for the big clump at wick, if I recall correctly, is that the tail fell off the plane after impact.

How fast does an MD-82 go at takeoff with flaps down? Well, lets look at an online POH

The speed is going to adjust some with load, and weather conditions. It is not set in stone. Even still the plane was going at least 141 to 155 knots.

Oh but since you want to point out things about this aircraft lets look two lines above on the Pilot handbook.

Vat 133-140 knots Landing @ Runway Threshold Speed @ MLW full flap/Gear down
DO NOT Exceed 250kts @ or Below 10,000ft Altitude.*

Now considering that they where having to manuver to line up, they where most likely going slower then the operating speed of 340 kts, and most likely going closer to the landing speed, especially the one that hit the pentigon to do that low approach.

Now I would never profess to be an airline pilot, or an FAA expert, or an NTSB crash expert, but I learned today that this plane would have been going ~200mph or slower when it crashed

I am neither an FAA expert or a pilot, although I have take VFR instruction, but I did spend 5 years as a Ramp supervisor, and spent just a bit of time around those planes and one thing I can tell you they don’t manuver like fighter jets.


[edit on 9/12/2004 by defcon5]
Edit to correct grammer, and rest of post that got lost

[edit on 9/12/2004 by defcon5]
forgot an end quote

[edit on 9/12/2004 by defcon5]

CatHerder
Ok, I am not trying to argue with you either, but after my first post, I got like attacked by two people, and felt like I was being pushed onto the defensive.

Actually, it's a 4-lane highway

Yes, I know I lived about a mile from it. Its 2 lanes EACH way.

That to me says each side of the underpass is about a 70-80 foot opening

I believe that a lane is 13 feet across, I can tell you that the road there seems narrower then most places, I don’t know the distance but I can’t see it being more then 60 feet across. Either way an MD 80 has about a 110 feet wingspan.

All the websites I've found that describe the crash none of them say what you've said about the plane hitting a piling head-on

I don’t think I ever said it hit it head on or even straight on. The runway has an angle towards the road, and it is possible that the piling would have hit the plane anywhere from the nose back to the leading edge of the wing. Its difficult to say through the plane had already lost its tail prior to getting to the bridge, so telling what pieces hit where would be impossible without film footage, or and eyewitness account.

Actually the body of an MD-82 is similar to that of a 757 (which is 12 feet 6 inches wide - the MD-82 is about 13 feet wide), the MD-82 is shorter from wheels-down to top of tail (29ft 7in while a 757 is 44 feet tall) and the MD-82 body is also similar to the height of a 757 body (about 13 feet). It's not some massive 40-foot wide 40-foot high steel tube - it's a 13-foot tube with wings attached

I know the difference in size, I used to tow both of these types of planes when I worked for the airlines. The body of a 757 is at least a few feet bigger in diameter, its longer, but it seems huge on the ground because of its immense landing gear that provide for the huge engine that sucker has, and its longer wingspan. Now a 767 is even a bit bigger yet, and actually falls into the widebody class, but is not wide enough to load two full size baggage containers side-by-side into.

some say it was a DC-9 and not an MD-82

this is an easy mistake to make, an MD-80 is actually a DC-9 800. Its nothing but a long version of the DC-9, with an extra cargo hold in the middle, some have extra AUX tanks for gas, newer engines, stuff like that, just a newer version of the DC-9.

you are comparing apples to oranges but still supporting the fact that if a plane runs into the side of a reinforced concrete building it's going to sustain more damage than one that hits flat ground and bounces off objects

I am not an architect, but the towers where mostly glass on the outside, weren’t they? Now I am sure that there where pilings inside the building like the ones under this bridge, but by the time the pieces of the plane got to them it was already inside the building and out of sight of the cameras filming it, correct. Now once the plane starts hitting those pilings, it’s going to start breaking into little pieces just like this NW plane did. Look at the first picture, this was Pre-Piling, look at the debris size in the second picture that is Post-Piling, not much left in the second picture bigger than a sheet of paper.

And 757's can pull heavier G's and do much sharper turns and maneuvers than people think - they're just regulated by the FAA to operate within certain standards when flown by airline pilots. 757 cargo planes (FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc) coming in to land perform way sharper turns, banks, etc than passenger planes (go watch them at a major airport). It's not the aircraft that can't handle the maneuvers - it's the safety and comfort of the paying customer for the most part.

True, but there is also the fact that these things turn like pigs in the air and on the ground, and the turn ratio is going to increase with speed. This would allow much less time to make last minute course corrections to hit your target.

go watch them at a major airport

As I said, which I am guessing you must not believe, I was a Ramp Supervisor for a major airline for a little over five years. I spent everyday for five years standing a few hundred feet away from a runway, and am aware how planes maneuver.

Anyway, I do think that there is a conspiracy that went on with this whole situation on 911. Almost immediately after the incident, something did not smell right to me. At the time we had the thing with the spy plane in china going on, the thing with Enron, both of which pretty much dropped right out of the news. There was the fact that these planes where allowed to wander around the country without an official intercept by any fighters.
I have looked at some of these sites with the Pod and the Rod and the Missiles and so on and just don’t see it. Granted, I still smell something rotten in the pool, but WHY bother with shooting a missile into something your about to slam into with a plane anyway, I just don’t get the logic behind some of these theories. Why use a different type of plane, its not like if someone in the government was behind it they could not get the EXACT piece of equipment that they wanted, or even the actual airline owned aircraft. They used to use commercial airliners for covert stuff in Vietnam, all they have to do is request it from the airlines. So why make up something if they can make it happen just like they said it did. For that matter if they did want to use a missile on the Pentagon, why not just let the towers go down like they did and say that ground based terror groups shot a missile into the pentagon, it would have still been taken the same way and the evidence would have fit the crime scene.

I guess that the point I was making is if a crook where going to kill someone and frame someone else, and he could get access to that persons gun, with fingerprints on it, he would use it then dispose of the gun where it would be recovered. He certainly wouldn’t use a gun of a different caliber and shoot the person with that instead.




left out a "wingspan"


[edit on 9/12/2004 by defcon5]
About 500 spelling errors- 501

[edit on 9/12/2004 by defcon5]

I am too lazy to read all the posts but i dont think it was a plane oh yeah and a 757 is taller from belly to top of body then 13 feet...

Originally posted by defcon5
Ok, I am not trying to argue with you either, but after my first post, I got like attacked by two people, and felt like I was being pushed onto the defensive.

Easy to do around here, some people don't know how to carry on rational conversations it seems.

Actually, it's a 4-lane highway

Yes, I know I lived about a mile from it. Its 2 lanes EACH way.

Were you around there in 87 when this happened? (Just curious)

That to me says each side of the underpass is about a 70-80 foot opening

I believe that a lane is 13 feet across, I can tell you that the road there seems narrower then most places, I don’t know the distance but I can’t see it being more then 60 feet across. Either way an MD 80 has about a 110 feet wingspan.

Yeah, 107' 10", but the body isn't 40 feet high/wide (some people can't seem to grasp that - but I realise you certainly do). Was the only points I was making in relation to this aircraft - it would fit between the pillars and under the overpass (the body, not the wings).

All the websites I've found that describe the crash none of them say what you've said about the plane hitting a piling head-on

I don’t think I ever said it hit it head on or even straight on. The runway has an angle towards the road, and it is possible that the piling would have hit the plane anywhere from the nose back to the leading edge of the wing. Its difficult to say through the plane had already lost its tail prior to getting to the bridge, so telling what pieces hit where would be impossible without film footage, or and eyewitness account.

I know the difference in size, I used to tow both of these types of planes when I worked for the airlines. The body of a 757 is at least a few feet bigger in diameter, it longer, but it seems huge on the ground because of its immense landing gear that provide for the huge engine that sucker has, and it longer wingspan.

I think the 757 just seems a lot bigger because of the wings/gear (the gear makes it stand 44 feet high). The body is pretty close to the same width (about 2 feet narrower - I was wrong in my original post when I said it was about 13 feet: I did a typical ATS poster mistake I "guesstimated it" by judging how high it was in comparison to the wheels-down to tail measurement without going finding an actual source first, sorry), but the height of the cabin is about 2 and 1/2 feet shorter. Interesting that you work/worked around them, so you know how big (or small) they actually are. (The people who think a 757 should have punched a 40 foot round hole in the side of the Pentagon don't seem to understand that).

some say it was a DC-9 and not an MD-82

this is an easy mistake to make, an MD-80 is actually a DC-9 800. Its nothing but a long version of the DC-9, with an extra cargo hold in the middle, some have extra AUX tanks for gas, newer engines, stuff like that, just a newer version of the DC-9.

Yep.

I am not an architect, but the towers where mostly glass on the outside, weren’t they? Now I am sure that there where piling inside the building like the ones under this bridge, but by the time the pieces of the plane got to them it was already inside the building and out of sight of the cameras filming it, correct. Now once the plane starts hitting those pilings, it’s going to start breaking into little pieces just like this NW plane did. Look at the first picture, this was Pre-Piling, look at the debris size in the second picture that is Post-Piling, not much left in the second picture bigger the a sheet of paper.

Well yeah, that's what I've been saying all along. The planes that hit the WTC and the Pentagon were ripped to shreds.

...there is also the fact that these things turn like pigs in the air and on the ground, and the turn radios is going to increase with speed. This would allow much less time to make last minute course corrections to hit your target.

Very true - but none of these aircraft that hit the WTC or Pentagon did any remarkable maneuvers.

As I said, which I am guessing you must not believe, I was a Ramp Supervisor for a major airline for a little over five years. I sent everyday for five years standing a few hundred feet away from a runway, and am aware how planes maneuver.

I don't think you said you were up until now. I have no reason to doubt you. I see a pattern forming here...

Anyway, I do think that there is a conspiracy that went on with this whole situation on 911. Almost immediately after the incident, something did not smell right to me. At the time we had the thing with the spy plane in china doing on, the thing with Enron, both of which pretty much dropped right out of the news. There was the fact that these planes where allowed to wander around the country without an official intercept by any fighters.
I have looked at some of these sites with the Pod and the Rod and the Missiles and so on and just don’t see it. Granted, I still smell something rotten in the pool, but WHY bother with shooting a missile into something your about to slam into with a plane anyway, I just don’t get the logic behind some of these theories. Why use a different type of plane, its not like if someone in the government was behind it they could not get the EXACT piece of equipment that they wanted, or even the actual airline owned aircraft. They used to use commercial airliners for covert stuff in Vietnam, all they have to do is request it from the airlines. So why make up something if they can make it happen just like they said it did. For that matter if they did want to use a missile on the Pentagon, why not just let the towers go down like they did and say that ground based terror groups shot a missile into the pentagon, it would have still been taken the same way and the evidence would have fit the crime scene.

I guess that the point I was making is if a crook where going to kill someone and frame someone else, and he could get access to that persons gun, with fingerprints on it, he would use it then dispose of the gun where it would be recovered. He certainly wouldn’t use a gun of a different caliber and shoot the person with that instead.

Hehe, we're both saying pretty much the same thing.

I can't imagine why anyone would do anything but actually fly that 757 into the Pentagon - there is no logical reason to use something else in place of it. If there was any conspiracy behind 911, it would be in aiding and abetting the terrorists in accomplishing their goal of crashing into the Pentagon and the WTC towers. Only a fool would try to pull this off by first snatching the planes from the sky (in 4 different locations), and then use missiles or different planes to hit those buildings AND then somehow shove the remains (which they'd have to predamage to appear like they were in a plane crash) of all those (hundreds) of people into the wreckage after the fact and hope you don't get discovered while doing so.

[edit on 12-9-2004 by CatHerder]

Originally posted by ilovehaters
I am too lazy to read all the posts but i dont think it was a plane oh yeah and a 757 is taller from belly to top of body then 13 feet...

Wrong. Show us your source - I've already shown you schematics, and informaiton directly from Boeing with the exact dimensions of a 757. Why state something as if it were a fact if you have no clue what you are talking about? What purpose does that serve?

[edit on 12-9-2004 by CatHerder]

Originally posted by SMR I have not fully investigated the passengers yet.I first want to know what hit the petagon and go from there.If it is found to be another aircraft,we then need to find out where the bodies and plane are.

Hundreds of eye witnesses (including my brother) saw the passenger jet fly low and fast over the busiest highway in Washington, DC on its way to the Pentagon just 400+/- yards from the thruway. The speculation about it being "something else" is based on people looking for attention, and not doing any real research.

I'm waiting for the "these 100's of witnesses are suffering from mass hysteria" or "with the spped of the plane noone could tell what it really was" remarks. The event could have been televised live on tv and I get the feeling that some here would still choose not to believe it.

Were you around there in 87 when this happened? (Just curious)

Yep, I lived in Detroit until 1988, this was right before the rest of my family moved to FL. At the time one of my relatives was actually a nurse and though she had already quit the hospital to move, they called her in to help when the plane crashed. Obviously the only patients they saw where firefighters that got overcome by the fumes from the fire.

Yeah, 107' 10", but the body isn't 40 feet high/wide (some people can't seem to grasp that - but I realize you certainly do). Was the only point I was making in relation to this aircraft - it would fit between the pillars and under the overpass (the body, not the wings).

I am about 6’ 3” tall and could reach up and just barely place my hand flat against the body of one of these when it was unloaded. Of course they sink down on their hydraulics some when they get a load on them and get a few inches lower. I have a good picture that shows exactly how small the fuselage on one is which was taken while I was flagging one in and standing directly in front of the aircraft nose (don’t have it with me though, I’m at work). You can see that it’s really not much taller then I am with my arms raised over my head. Now the tail on those things is immense and is where they are most likely getting the 40-foot tall thing.

I mean think about it, if I recall correctly they seat either two rows of 3 or four people sitting side by side with a two-foot walkway down the middle. Now we used to sleep on the seats when we’d get a break, and they’re just about 6 foot long, so we are talking about an almost exactly 14 foot diameter, without me even looking it up. That would more then fit through the first floor of a commercial building with the gear folded and the engines collapsed. The wing is maybe 4 foot thick in the middle, not even a foot and a half at the leading edge, and razor sharp at the rear.

The metal these things are made out of is designed to be tough, flexible, and light. It is tough stuff, but on the outside you can make it bend in by pushing hard enough with your thumb. The area right outside the doorway where the passengers get on and off has more frame behind it and is reinforced because 5000 people a day feel that they have to touch the exterior of the door as they board the plane, beside doors are going to be weak spots in the structure and need more reinforcement. Anyway I have seen belt loaders punch through that stuff just by bumping it too hard, I cannot even imagine how it would disintegrate when it came in contact with anything hard like cement at any speed. It would be like a hurricane full of razorblades.

This tape where they show it slamming into the building and it is low to the ground, yet they say it’s too small to be a 757, is crap. It looks just like a 757 to me. They show it next to a picture with the engines in place and the gear down, and yes it looks bigger. However, those engines most likely disintegrated as that thing skidded in which would drop it down to its actual 14-foot height. The Casing on the engine is usually a type of fiberglass or plastic, a lot of the non-pressurized areas are made out of the same stuff, and would fall apart to nothing in an impact.

Another thing that I noted is the argument over the burning metal. There was another accident in Detroit with a DC-9, it was on one of the links you sent me. I flew in to visit friends the day that one happened, and man my family freaked out until I called and told them I was safe. But the point is look up the pics on that plane, and the way the metal melted. That was not even a direct hit, a 727 taking off dragged its wing fuel vents along the top of that plane, and the spark ignited it, melted right down to the windows.

If you want to see what the shape and size of a hole punched in a building would be look around for a picture form the early 90’s. It was a Continental 737, went right through the wall of a terminal while maintenance was running an engine check. Of course the gear where down and the 737 is a bit less circular and more fish shaped, so the hole may be a bit less round, but it about the same diameter again.

Very true - but none of these aircraft that hit the WTC or Pentagon did any remarkable maneuvers.

Again I think that just steering one of these in to a target that size, and in the case of the pentagon that low, at that speed is a pretty dicey maneuver all by itself.

Anyway I gotta head home. Get some sleep, and wait to see what this hurricane does, since it seems that we are saying the same thing anyway, feel free to U2U me if you need any more info on this stuff.

Oh one more thing I would like to add before taking off, in regards to the film. When I worked there, I used to carry a camera all the time, took some really neat pictures of stuff. The one thing that always teed me off though was that using a regular 35mm camera without a zoom, when I would take pictures of anything on the runway, no matter how close I was, ALWAYS looked small on the picture when I got it developed. I would take a picture of a 747-400 taking off, it would look HUGE in person, and we of course could get fairly close to the runway which made it look even bigger, but when the film came out it always looked a million miles away.

Originally posted by defcon5
Oh one more thing I would like to add before taking off, in regards to the film. When I worked there, I used to carry a camera all the time, took some really neat pictures of stuff. The one thing that always teed me off though was that using a regular 35mm camera without a zoom, when I would take pictures of anything on the runway, no matter how close I was, ALWAYS looked small on the picture when I got it developed. I would take a picture of a 747-400 taking off, it would look HUGE in person, and we of course could get fairly close to the runway which made it look even bigger, but when the film came out it always looked a million miles away.

I hear ya. 35mm cameras (even digital ones) always look closer in the view finder than the final image actually is. (I only take photos with my digital camera while looking at the back LCD now). I film/video rocket launches (I'm talking smaller personal rockets that 'only' use G to J engines - stuff that's about 5 to 10 feet high and 4 to 12 inches in diameter) that we do and it took a lot of trial and error to learn how to get good pictures. Some of the coolest footage I've shot with an 8mm is by digging a hole under the launch pad, placing the camera aiming straight up, putting a sheet of Lexan over it and then filming the lanch from underneath - even have a nice explosion/engine failure from that view (hehe). I'm going to be filming "Cape Kindersley" coming up in their bid to win the XPrize in early October too (that's actually a big 3 man rocket). Excuse me while I spin the propellor on my hat...


One thing that I would really enjoy, and appreciate, is if you can bring a digital camera (or a 35mm and scan the photos) with you the next time you're on the apron and get some photos of different 757 rims from various angles!

if theres no missile then it has to be a drone. the terrorist pilot who, according to his flight instructer, couldnt a fly a CESSNA , would have never been able to fly a 757 at 500+ mph a few feet off the ground!!! im sry but its impossible...

prospective pilots who to hear instructor comment, didn't have a clue and wouldn't make it as pilots,

FLEW BIG JETS THE VERY FIRST TIME OUT OF THE BOX AND THREE OF THE FOUR HIT THEIR TARGETS PERFECTLY and the 4 plane was diverted [shotdown, crashed].

At the pentagon SKIMMING SEVEN FEET ABOVE THE GROUND AT 530 MPH,
At the WTC South tower making a sharp angle high G force scoop to slam [not nick] directily into the building.

To believe that you would have to be stupid.

Believe what you want. I would never trust some of you with anything of importance to me.
.

This has been a long, slow, agonizing death indeed. It should be put to rest. AA77 hit the Pentagon. There is no evidence to the contrary. The bodes of the passengers are all the proof anyone needs to come to this conclusion. The remains of the aircraft were found in the building. Everything else is claptrap, amateur speculation based on insufficient evidence and gullibility. Put it to rest.

[edit on 04/9/12 by GradyPhilpott]