I saw the report you put together about the
Pentagon American Airlines crash. A relative
of mine is an American Airlines Captain with
a background as a Navy F-18 pilot. His wife
is a retired Navy Commander. They both have
close friends still working in the Pentagon.
I forwarded the internet feature to
them for comment. Here is their last reply
along with my questions to them. Will you do
as large a feature on this reply as you did
on the questions you raised?
Doug Cornwell
Doug,
Here are a few
of the differences of this crash verses what
you typically observe in a commercial
accident. 80 percent of crashes occur
in the take off or landing phase of flight.
1) Gear down, flaps down, speed in the 140
mph range.2) If the
aircraft is in an extreme situation and
heading downward, the pilot will be
pulling throttle to idle and making an
attempt to pull the nose of the aircraft up
to minimize impact.
Basic
construction of the aircraft is to minimize
weight. The airplane is a pressurized
coke can and designed to flex. The cabin,
cargo, wings and tail are essentially air
surrounded by metal that is thinner than the
hood of your car. High speed impacts
with birds result in holes in the aircraft,
an example was an AA flight from Paris to
Miami resulting in 4 holes including a bird
that went through the radome and pressure
bulkhead into the cockpit.
In this
particular crash the pilot was accelerating
in a dive to impact a well constructed
building with speeds in the 400 mph
range. Using the equation (Force= 1/2
mass times Velocity squared). It is
velocity that is the big factor. The
impact energy of this crash is in the region
of 8 times that of the typical crash. That
is why there is so little left. I suggest
you look at the United Airlines crash in
Pennsylvania. That crash was a
accelerated aircraft straight down. Once
again, there is nothing left.
The pilot was
not flying flat into the building but was in
a dive, so the impact vector was down into
the ground. The crash area is not just the
entry point but also the length beyond the
outside wall.
After the crash
the NTSB, the company and my union sent
accident investigation teams to the site and
yes there are pieces just very small ones.
XXXXX
XXXX,
I am not questioning whether American
lost a plane. As the writer said, where is
it? If the plane went into the building
and the wings and rudder snapped off,
where are they? The early pictures (before
the wall collapse) do not show holes large
enough in the side of the building for an
entire 757 to have passed through. Since
there are no apparent holes in the side or
top of the building large enough for the
plane to have gone through, where are the
pieces that would have broken off when the
plane struck the building? There are no
skid marks on the ground along side the
building. In fact, the construction
material is still visible laying on the
ground apparently undisturbed. The plane
couldn't have hit the ground and bounced
into the building. It had to have hit
entirely above the ground level of the
building. At the height of the Pentagon
and the height of the tail of a 757, the
tail assembly would have cleared the roof
of the building. It should have continued
across the top of the building. There are
no signs of it anywhere.
This is only one set of photos circulating
about this crash. Another series shows an
explosion and fire with no airplane in any
pictures. You mentioned personal friends
that are witnesses to the crash. Can they
provide any information about what
happened to the plane? I'm not trying to either
make light of the situation or cast
aspersions upon anyone but there are some
large questions coming out about all four
of the plane crashes from that day. I'm
only interested from an academic
standpoint. When I see reports like this
one and consider the questions that are
surrounding the WTC collapse, together
with the reports from the plane in
Pennsylvania, I am curious. I have been
accused of not having good sources for information
that I have used in the past. I am simply
looking for answers.
Doug
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