New Study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing 757 Hit the Pentagon

by James Fetzer
OpEdNews
June 21, 2007 at 06:12:39

A study of the black box data provided by the government to Pilots for 9/11 Truth has confirmed the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. "We have had four lines of proof that no Boeing 757 hit the building," said James Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. "This new study by Pilots drives another nail into a coffin of lies told the American people by The 9/11 Commission".

The new society, an international organization of pilots and aviation professionals, petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained its 2002 report on American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that, according to the official account, hit the ground floor of the Pentagon after it skimmed over the lawn at 500 mph plus, taking out a series of lamp posts in the process. The pilots not only obtained the flight data but created a computer animation to demonstrate what it told them.

According to the report issued by Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org/), there are major differences between the official account and the flight data:

a. The NTSB Flight Path Animation approach path and altitude does not support official events.

b. All altitude data shows the aircraft at least 300 feet too high to have struck the light poles.

c. The rate of descent data is in direct conflict with the aircraft being able to impact the light poles and be captured in the Dept of Defense "5 Frames" video of an object traveling nearly parallel with the Pentagon lawn.

d. The record of data stops at least one second prior to official impact time.

e. If data trends are continued, the aircraft altitude would have been at least 100 feet too high to have hit the Pentagon.

As Robert Balsamo, co-founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, observes, "The information in the NSTB documents does not support, and in some instances factually contradicts, the official government position that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001." The study was signed by fifteen professional pilots with extensive military and commercial carrier experience. They have made their animation, "Pandora's Box: Chapter 2," available to the public at http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=Pandora's+Black+Box%3A+Chapter+2 .

According to James H. Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (http://911scholars.org), this result fits into the broader picture of what happened at the Pentagon that day. "We have developed four lines of argument that prove--conclusively, in my judgment--that no Boeing 757 hit the building. The most important evidence to the contrary has been the numerous eyewitness reports of a large commercial carrier coming toward the building. If the NTSB data is correct, then the Pilot's study shows that a large aircraft headed toward the building but did not impact with it. It swerved off and flew above the Pentagon."

Fetzer, who retired last June after 35 years of teaching courses in logic, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning, expressed pleasure over the Pilot's results, which, he said, has neatly resolved the most pressing issue that remained about the Pentagon. He added, "We have previously developed several lines of argument, each of which proves that no Boeing 757 hit the building," including these four:

(1) The hit point at the Pentagon was too small to accommodate a 100-ton airliner with a 125-foot wingspan and a tail that stands 44 feet above the ground; the kind and quantity of debris was wrong for a Boeing 757: there were no wings, no fuselage, no seats, no bodies, no luggage, no tail! Not even the engines were recovered, and they are practically indestructible.

(2) Of an estimate 84 videotapes of the crash, the three that have been released by the Pentagon do not show a Boeing 757 hitting the building, as even Bill O'Reilly admitted when one was shown on "The Factor". At 155 feet, the plane was more than twice as long as the 77-foot Pentagon is high and should have been visible. There are indications of a much smaller plane, but not a Boeing 757.

(3) Indeed, the aerodynamics of flight would have made the official trajectory--flying more than 500 mph barely above ground level--physically impossible, because of the accumulation of a massive pocket of compressed gas (air) beneath the fuselage; and if it had come it at an angle instead, it would have created a massive crater; but there is no crater and the official trajectory is impossible.

(4) Flying low enough to impact with the ground floor would have meant that the enormous engines were plowing the ground and creating massive furrows; but there are no massive furrows. The smooth, unblemished surface of the Pentagon lawn thus stands as a "smoking gun" proving the official trajectory cannot be sustained.

Members of Scholars have contributed to a new book that analyses the government's official account, according to which 19 Islamic fundamentalists hijacked four commercial airliners, outfoxed the most sophisticated air-defense system in the world, and committed these atrocities under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan. Entitled, THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (2007), it includes photographs of the hit point before and after the upper floors collapsed, the crucial frame from the released videos, and views of the clear, smooth, and unblemished lawn.

"Don't be taken in by photos showing damage to the second floor or those taken after the upper floors collapsed, which happened 20-30 minutes later," Fetzer said. "In fact, debris begins to show up on the completely clean lawn in short order, which might have been dropped from a C-130 that was circling above the Pentagon or placed there by men in suits who were photographed carrying debris with them." The most striking is a piece from the fuselage of a commercial airliner, which is frequently adduced as evidence.

James Hanson, a newspaper reporter who earned his law degree from the University of Michigan College of Law, has traced that debris to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in a rain forest above Cali, Columbia in 1995. "It was the kind of slow-speed crash that would have torn off paneling in this fashion, with no fires, leaving them largely intact." Fetzer has been so impressed with his research he has invited Hanson to submit his study to Scholars for consideration for publication on its web site, 911scholars.org.

"The Pentagon has become a kind of litmus test for rationality in the study of 9/11," Fetzer said. "Those who persist in maintaining that a Boeing 757 hit the building are either unfamiliar with the evidence or cognitively impaired. Unless," he added, "they want to mislead the American people. The evidence is beyond clear and compelling. It places this issue 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon."