The plane approached the Pentagon about six
feet off the ground, clipping a light pole, a car antenna, a construction
trailer and an emergency generator before
slicing into the building, said Lee Evey, the manager of the Pentagon's ongoing
billion-dollar renovation. The plane penetrated three of the Pentagon's five
rings, but was probably stopped from going farther by hundreds of concrete
columns. The plane peeled back as it entered, leaving pieces
of the front of the plane near the outside of the building and pieces from the
rear of the aircraft farther inside, Evey said. The floors just above the
impact remained intact for about 35 minutes after the crash, allowing many
people in those offices to escape, Evey said
http://detnews.com/2001/nation/0110/06/nation-312016.htm
Internally, the Wedge One project included: complete demolition of existing
facilities; significant abatement of hazardous materials (most notably, 28
million lbs. of asbestos-contaminated material was removed); installation of all
new electrical, mechanical, plumbing and telecommunication systems within the
existing floorplan; structural steel reinforcement; and replacement of all 1,282
windows in the section, including 386 blast-resistant units on the outermost "E
Ring" and innermost "A Ring" of the building. All-new office space was created
with an open space plan aimed at enhancing flexibility (...) Amazingly, the
plane pushed through the outermost "E Ring", and drove deep into the interior, its
nose coming to rest just inside the "C Ring."
http://www.designbuildmag.com/oct2001/pentagon1001.asp
We've learned -- this is wedge one, okay, the newly-renovated area. The path of
the airplane seems to have taken it along this route, so it entered the building
slightly, on this photo, slightly to the left of what we call corridor four.
There are 10 radial corridors in the building that extend from A ring out
through E ring, and this is the fourth of those radial corridors. So it impacted
the building in an area that had been renovated, but its path was at a -- it
appears to be at a diagonal, so that it entered in wedge one but passed through
into areas of wedge two, an unrenovated portion of the building. And, of course,
you all know it's got rings A through E, five stories tall, et cetera. QUESTION:
That seems to indicate that it came to rest in ring C, the nose cone. EVEY: Let
me talk to that, because you've asked a number of questions already about the
extent of penetration, et cetera. This is an overhead of the building. The point
of penetration was right here, and we blocked that out to show that's the area
of collapse. The plane actually penetrated through the E ring, C ring -- excuse
me -- E ring, D ring, C ring. This area right here is what we call A-E Drive.
And unlike other rings in the building, it's actually a driveway that circles
the building inside, between the B and the C ring. The nose of the plane just
barely broke through the inside of the C ring, so it was extending into A-E
Drive a little bit. So that's the extent of penetration of the aircraft. The
rings are E, D, C, B and A. Between B and C is a driveway that goes around the
Pentagon. It's called A-E Drive. The airplane traveled in a path about like
this, and the nose of the aircraft
broke through this innermost wall of C ring into A-E Drive. QUESTION: One
thing that's confusing -- if it came in the way you described, at an angle, why
then are not the wings outside? I mean, the wings would have shorn off. The tail
would have shorn off. And yet there's apparently no evidence of the aircraft
outside the E ring. EVEY: Actually, there's considerable evidence of the
aircraft outside the E ring. It's just not very visible. When you get up close
-- actually, one of my people happened to be walking on this sidewalk and was
right about here as the aircraft approached. It came in. It clipped a couple of
light poles on the way in. He happened to hear this terrible noise behind him,
looked back, and he actually -- he's a Vietnam veteran -- jumped prone onto the
ground so the aircraft would not actually -- he thinks it (would have) hit him;
it was that low. On its way in, the wing clipped. Our
guess is an engine clipped a generator. We had an emergency temporary generator
to provide life-safety emergency electrical power, should the power go off in
the building. The wing actually clipped that generator, and portions of it broke
off. There are other parts of the plane that are scattered about outside the
building. None of those parts are very large, however. You
don't see big pieces of the airplane sitting there extending up into the air.
But there are many small pieces. And the few larger pieces there look like
they are veins out of the aircraft engine. They're circular. QUESTION: Would you
say that the plane, since it had a lot of fuel on it at the impact, and the fact
that there are very small pieces, virtually exploded in flames when it tore into
the building? I mean, since there are not large pieces of the wings laying
outside, did it virtually explode? EVEY: I didn't see it. My people who did see
it enter the building describe it as entering
the building and then there being flames coming out immediately afterwards.
Whether you describe it as an explosion or not, people I talk to who were there,
some called it an explosion. Others called it a large fire. I'm not sure. I
wasn't there, sir. It's just a guess on my part.
http://www.patriotresource.com/wtc/federal/0915/DoD.html
Walker Lee Evey, program manager of the Pentagon restoration project : The fire was so hot, Evey said, that it turned window glass to liquid and sent it spilling down walls into puddles on the ground. The impact cracked massive concrete columns far beyond the impact site, destabilizing a broader section of the building than contractors had originally thought. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/03/07/attack/main503257.shtml
On Sept. 11, Flight 77 sliced
through the outermost three of the Pentagon's five concentric rings. Fires from
the plane's 20,000 gallons of fuel melted
windows into pools of liquid glass. The impact of the crash fractured
concrete pillars well beyond the incisions in the three outer rings.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/2821782.htm