Pentagon 9/11 Video Released . . . Finally

As a disclaimer up front, friends’ of friends were killed in the Pentagon attack. And I knew one of the NYC firefighters buried in the collapse of the Towers. My question here is why did it take so long to release this tape? Instead we have fake documentaries out of France questioning the attacks.

The Pentagon on Tuesday released the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the military headquarters building and killing 189 people in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The images, recorded by Pentagon security cameras outside the building, were made public in response to a December 2004 Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a public interest group. Some still images from the video had previously been leaked and publicly circulated, but this was the first official release.

Repeat, why the delay? Afraid to show off the (lack of) Pentagon security measures? Instead, it was considered acceptable to allow a cottage industry of conspiracy mongers to flourish.

The airplane is a thin white blur on the video as it slams into the Pentagon at ground level. Almost instantly a white flash and a huge orange fireball appear on the video, followed by a tower of gray-black smoke. One of the videos shows a Pentagon police car driving in the direction of the impact point shortly after the plane hit.

Traveling at an estimated 350 mph, the hijacked American Airlines plane plowed into the southwest side of the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m. EDT, shortly after two other hijacked airlines were flown into the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York. The attack set off fires in a portion of the Pentagon and killed 125 people inside, in addition to the 59 passengers and crew and the five men who hijacked the plane at Dulles International Airport.

The Pentagon had previously refused to release the videos, saying they had been provided to the Justice Department as evidence in any criminal proceedings.

I call BS on that. This is a terrible PR job.

Update James Joyner: YouTube has the videos.

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Richard Gardner
About Richard Gardner
Richard Gardner is a “retired” Navy Submarine Officer with military policy, arms control, and budgeting experience. He contributed over 100 pieces to OTB between January 2004 and August 2008, covering special events. He has a BS in Engineering from the University of California, Irvine.

Comments

  1. bryan says:

    That plane looks really small compared to the building. It also looks like it hit the ground first.

  2. McGehee says:

    Bryan, the Pentagon is a lot bigger than it looks in these pictures.

  3. bryan says:

    McGehee,

    yeah. It looks a lot bigger when you drive by it on the highway, too. Unfortunately, the only conception most of us have is an aerial view, because that’s really the only way you can tell it’s a “pentagon.”

    Still, I suppose there’s room for the conspiracy theorists even within these frames. The airplane is hardly visible, and one could argue that it was a missile instead.

  4. McGehee says:

    …one could argue that it was a missile instead.

    True — if all one knew about the event was what one saw in this video.

  5. yoan says:

    this is there video discrediting the conspiracy theory??doesn’t look like an airline plane too me.they want us to believe that and they think were gonna fall for that?this is how dumb they think we are.