[C] Confirmed date witness gave his/her testimony
[A] Date testimony appeared in article or other medium
Name Date Location Testimony Source
Steve Anderson 10/02/01 [C] his office on the 19th floor of the USA TODAY building in Arlington, with a view of Arlington Cemetery, Crystal City, the Pentagon, National Airport and the Potomac River.
Shortly after watching the second tragedy, I heard jet engines pass our building, which, being so close to the airport is very common. But I thought the airport was closed. I figured it was a plane coming in for landing. A few moments later, as I was looking down at my desk, the plane caught my eye. It didn't register at first. I thought to myself that I couldn't believe the pilot was flying so low. Then it dawned on me what was about to happen. I watched in horror as the plane flew at treetop level, banked slightly to the left, drug it's wing along the ground and slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon exploding into a giant orange fireball. Then black smoke. Then white smoke.
James Madison University website
Deb Anlauf 9/12/01 [A] 14th-floor room in the Sheraton National Hotel in Arlington Anlauf was watching TV coverage of the Trade Center burning shortly before 9:30 a.m. when she decided to return to her 14th-floor room from another part of the hotel. Once in her room, she heard a "loud roar" and looked out the window to see what was going on. "Suddenly I saw this plane right outside my window," Anlauf said during a telephone interview from her hotel room this morning. "You felt like you could touch it; it was that close. It was just incredible. "Then it shot straight across from where we are and flew right into the Pentagon. It was just this huge fireball that crashed into the wall (of the Pentagon). When it hit, the whole hotel shook."
Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, WI)
Also see AP wire 9/12 & 9/13
Stuart Artman
Lt. Col.
9/15/01 [A] walking near the Washington Monument "I saw the plane that hit the Pentagon. It went behind some trees." The Ledger (Lakeland, FL) (Lexis-Nexis - Joy Murphy)
Ralph Banton 9/11/01 [C] on a house porch a little more than a mile away from the Pentagon "It sounded like it was jetting instead of slowing down." The Topeka Capital-Journal
David Battle 9/12/01 [A] standing outside the Pentagon just about to enter "It was coming down head first," he said. "And when the impact hit, the cars and everything were just shaking." Albuquerque Tribune Online
Gary Bauer 11/01 [C] driving into Washington DC
“I was in a massive traffic jam, hadn’t moved more than a hundred yards in twenty minutes. My office called to tell me about the first plane in New York, the reaction was ‘horrible accident.’ And then they called about the second plane, and clearly that meant something much worse was going on. It was only then that I really noticed where I was in that traffic jam. I was going past the Pentagon, really inching a yard or so every couple of minutes. I had just passed the closest place the Pentagon is to the exit on 395 . . . when all of a sudden I heard the roar of a jet engine. I looked at the woman sitting in the car next to me. She had this startled look on her face. We were all thinking the same thing. We looked out the front of our windows to try to see the plane, and it wasn’t until a few seconds later that we realized the jet was coming up behind us on that major highway. And it veered to the right into the Pentagon. The blast literally rocked all of our cars. It was an incredible moment.
Massachusetts News
Also see Bauer's interview with The Charlotte World
Richard Benedetto
USA TODAY reporter
9/12/01 [A] "Then the plane flew right over my head. I said to myself, boy, that plane is going awfully fast. That plane is going to crash .... The noise was like an artillery shell, not an explosion like a bomb" The Hartford Courant (Lexis-Nexis)
Richard Benedetto
5/22/02 [C] driving to work northbound on the highway that runs parallel to the Pentagon
"I heard an airplane. A very loud airplane. ... I heard the airplane coming from behind me. ... So I looked up, and I saw this airplane coming, heading straight down toward the ground. It was an American Airlines airplane, I could see it very clearly. ... The plane went down and for a split second it was out of my line of vision because there was a bridge there and a hill. ... I didn't actually see the impact... I didn't see any flaps, it looked like the plane was just in a normal flying mode but heading straight down, sharply down. It was straight. No flopping. It was going pretty straight. ... The only thing we saw on the ground outside there was a piece of a - the tail of a lamp post."
Digipresse interview
Sean Boger
ATC and Pentagon tower chief
11/16/01 [A] in the Pentagon control tower "I just looked up and I saw the big nose and the wings of the aircraft coming right at us and I just watched it hit the building. It exploded. I fell to the ground and covered my head. I could actually hear the metal going through the building." The Pentagram
Donald R. Bouchoux 9/20/01 [A] driving west sfrom Tysons Corner on Washington Boulevard (Route 27) "At 9:40 a.m. I was driving down Washington Boulevard (Route 27) along the side of the Pentagon when the aircraft crossed about 200 yards in front of me and impacted the side of the building. There was an enormous fireball, followed about two seconds later by debris raining down. The car moved about a foot to the right when the shock wave hit. I had what must have been an emergency oxygen bottle from the airplane go flying down across the front of my Explorer and then a second piece of jagged metal come down on the right side of the car." The Washington Post (Lexis-Nexis)
Pam Bradley 9/13/01 [A] on a bridge in a car on the way to work in DC I work in Washington DC area, and was on my way to work, in my car, sitting on a bridge, and saw the plane hit the Pentagon. I am in a complete state of shock. BBC News
Mark Bright
Defense Protective Service officer
9/28/01 [A] manning the guard booth at the Mall Entrance to the building "I saw the plane at the Navy Annex area," he said. "I knew it was going to strike the building because it was very, very low -- at the height of the street lights. It knocked a couple down." The plane would have been seconds from impact -- the annex is only a few hundred yards from the Pentagon. He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the Pentagon. "As soon as it struck the building I just called in an attack, because I knew it couldn't be accidental," Bright said. He jumped into his police cruiser and headed to the area. Henderson Hall News
Lisa Burgess
Reporter for the newspaper Stars and Stripes
9/12/01 [A] in the Pentagon courtyard "I heard two loud booms - one large, one small." The Sydney Morning Herald
Lisa Burgess 9/12/01 [A] "I heard two loud booms - one large, one smaller, and the shock wave threw me against the wall." Stars and Stripes
Omar Campo 9/12/01 [A] cutting the grass on the other side of the road "It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane," Mr Campo said. "I was cutting the grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt the impact. The whole ground shook and the whole area was full of fire." The Guardian
Joseph Candelario
Captain
outside, across the river He was first alerted that the day was drastically changing when one of the medics told him that a plane hit the World Trade Center. While watching the tower burn, another plane hit the second tower. “Thinking that this was a very serious terrorist attack, I went outside to the river to take a break. As I was looking across the river towards the direction of the Pentagon, I noticed a large aircraft flying low towards the White House. This aircraft then made a sharp turn and flew towards the Pentagon and seconds later crashed into it. Uniformed Services University website
Susan Carroll 9/11/02 [A] platform high above Reagan waiting for a Metro "I was standing on the platform high above the [Washington Reagan] airport awaiting a Metro subway train to my office in the heart of the district, on Constitution Avenue, admiring the lovely blue skies when I saw the plane hit and the fireball and explosion at the Pentagon. Jacksonville.com
James R. Cissell 9/12/01 [A] listening to his car radio and the news of the planes slamming into the World Trade Center while sitting in traffic on Interstate 110 by the Pentagon ''Out of my peripheral vision, I saw this plane coming in and it was low - and getting lower. ''If you couldn't touch it from standing on the highway, you could by standing on your car.'' ''I thought, 'This isn't really happening. That is a big plane.' Then I saw the faces of some of the passengers on board,'' Cissell said. ''I remember thinking, 'The World Trade Center was just the beginning, there's going to be more.' '' He remembers the helipad the plane flew over before smacking into the Pentagon was close enough to him that ''I could have thrown a baseball at it and hit it.'' While he remembers seeing the crash, Cissell remembers none of the sounds. ''It came in in a perfectly straight line,'' he said. ''It didn't slow down. I want to say it accelerated. It just shot straight in.'' The Cincinnati Post
Dennis Clem "There was a commercial airliner that said American Airliners over the side of it flying at just above treetop height at full speed headed for the Pentagon."
Allen Cleveland 9/11/01 [C] on a Metro train just pulling into the National Airport Station
"I was just pulling in on the subway station just at National Airport. I just happened to look over - actually my back was facing in the direction of the Pentagon - I looked to the right of the train as we were coming into the station, and noticed a jet flying in real low, about a mid-sized passenger jet flying in. I know it was silver, that's the only thing I know."
The Washington Post (video)
Allen Cleveland 10/28/01 [C] Soon after the crash(Within 30 seconds of the crash) I witnessed a military cargo plane(Possibly a C130) fly over the crash site and circle the mushroom cloud. My brother inlaw also witnessed the same plane following the jet while he was on the HOV lanes in Springfield. He said that he saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary RD in Springfield, VA. and soon afterwards a military plane was seen flying right behind it. I think this was also a reason for the false threat of another plane about to crash which caused rescuers to have to evacuate for a short time after the initial crash. Review for Spooky 8: The Final Mission (Search for cleveland)
Scott P. Cook fifth floor of the Portals building, at 1280 Maryland Avenue SW, Washington DC, the southernmost building at the end of 14th Street, right at the Tidal Basin and Maine Avenue "We didn’t know what kind of plane had hit the Pentagon, or where it had hit. Later, we were told that it was a 757 out of Dulles, which had come up the river in back of our building, turned sharply over the Capitol, ran past the White House and the Washington Monument, up the river to Rosslyn, then dropped to treetop level and ran down Washington Boulevard to the Pentagon. I cannot fathom why neither myself nor Ray, a former Air Force officer, missed a big 757, going 400 miles an hour, as it crossed in front of our window in its last 10 seconds of flight. ... As we watched the black plume gather strength, less than a minute after the explosion, we saw an odd sight that no one else has yet commented on. Directly in back of the plume, which would place it almost due west from our office, a four-engine propeller plane, which Ray later said resembled a C-130, started a steep decent towards the Pentagon. It was coming from an odd direction (planes don’t go east-west in the area), and it was descending at a much steeper angle than most aircraft. Trailing a thin, diffuse black trail from its engines, the plane reached the Pentagon at a low altitude and made a sharp left turn, passing just north of the plume, and headed straight for the White House. All the while, I was sort of talking at it: "Who the hell are you? Where are you going? You’re not headed for downtown!" Ray and Verle watched it with me, and I was convinced it was another attack. But right over the tidal basin, at an altitude of less than 1000 feet, it made another sharp left turn to the north and climbed rapidly. Soon it was gone, leaving only the thin black trail. Witness account at Clothmonkey.com
Dan Creed 9/06/02 [A] stopped in a car next to the Navy Annex "It was no more than 30 feet off the ground, and it was screaming. It was just screaming. It was nothing more than a guided missile at that point. I can still see the plane. I can still see it right now. It's just the most frightening thing in the world, going full speed, going full throttle, its wheels up." Ahwatukee Foothills News
Steve DeChiaro 8/01/02 [A] "But when I looked at the site, my brain could not resolve the fact that it was a plane because it only seemed like a small hole in the building," he said. "No tail. No wings. No nothing." Scripps Howard News Service
Kim Dent 9/11/01 [C] looking out of the window of an office in the Navy Annex "We saw the shadow of a plane. We heard the engine. We all said, 'That plane is flying kind of close.' " USA TODAY
Michael DiPaula 9/08/02 [A] walking outside to a construction trailer "It sounded like a missile," DiPaula recalls. "There were three loud thump, thump, thumps. You could hear the metal cracking and crinkling, and the explosion." The Baltimore Sun
Mike Dobbs
Marine Cmdr.
9/11/01 [C] standing on one of the upper levels of the outer ring of the Pentagon looking out the window "It was an American airlines airliner. I was looking out the window and saw it come right over the Navy annex at a slow angle. It looked to me to be on a zero-to-zero course. It seemed to be almost coming in in slow motion. I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started running." Scripps Howard News Service
Mike Dobbs 9/13/01 [A] "... we saw a plane coming toward us, for about 10 seconds ... It was like watching a train wreck. I was mesmerized. ... At first I thought it was trying to crash land, but it was coming in so deliberately, so level... Everyone said there was a deafening explosion, but with the adrenaline, we didn't hear it." St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Lexis-Nexis - Philip Dine)
Daryl Donley 9/12/01 [A] presumably on road in front of Pentagon "It just was amazingly precise," Daryl Donley, another commuter, said of the plane's impact. "It completely disappeared into the Pentagon." The News Journal
Daryl Donley 9/08/02 [A] "I could see the windows. I saw the entire plane and then saw it fly right into the Pentagon." CNN News (Lexis-Nexis - Transcript #090803CN.V46)
Bob Dubill 9/19/02 [A] driving past the Pentagon on his way to work at USA Today Every morning for years Bob Dubill drove past the Pentagon on his way to work at USA Today. He was passing the building the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when he saw a jetliner fly over the roadway. It filled his field of vision. The jet was 40-feet off the ground speeding toward the Pentagon. “The wheels were up and I knew that this plane was not heading for National Airport,” he said. “This plane was going to slam into the Pentagon. I steeled myself for the explosion.” The Times Herald (Olean, NY)
Bobby Eberle
9/12/01 [C]
on the road in front of the Pentagon
We set out in the car and immediately turned on the news radio to follow what was happening in New York City. After fifteen minutes into our trip, a new report came over the radio stating that a second aircraft (another passenger airliner) had struck the World Trade Center. ... As we slowly crept along in traffic at about 9:30 am, we rounded a bend and had the Pentagon in our sites -- right in front of us. ... Riding in a convertable with the top down, I then heard a tremendously loud noise from behind me and to my left. I looked back and saw a jet airliner flying very low and very fast. It's amazing what can run through your mind in just a matter of seconds. As a pilot, I can't help but look at an airplane and think about airplane topics. What I saw sent a shiver down my spine as I realized something was not right. The aircraft was so very low -- as an aircraft would be on its final approach to an airport. However, if you have watched any aircraft come in for a landing, even though the aircraft is descending, it is angled up slightly. This aircraft was angled downward. In addition, landing gear would also be visible on a aircraft so low and so near landing. This aircraft had its landing gear retracted. Finally, an aircraft on final approach is traveling rather slowly. This aircraft sped by very loudly an very quickly. All of this flashed in my mind as the aircraft passed from behind my left shoulder to in front of me. It was then that the other events of the morning crystallized in the realization that tragedy was about to occur. With all of these images spinning in my head, the only words that came out of my mouth were "Oh no!" With that, the airliner crashed into the Pentagon and exploded.
GOPUSA.com
Steve Eiden 2001 driving on the Highway 95 loop in the area of the Pentagon Steve Eiden, a truck driver, had picked up his cargo that Tuesday morning in Williamsburg, Va., and was en route to New York City and witnessed the aftermath. While on the road, he heard radio reports that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He was quoted in The Baxter Bulletin a few days later: "I thought, this sounds like an Orson Welles kind of deal." He took the Highway 95 loop in the area of the Pentagon and thought it odd to see a plane in restricted airspace, thinking to himself it was odd that it was flying so low. "You could almost see the people in the windows," he said as he watched the plane disappear behind a line of trees, followed by a tall plume of black smoke. Then he saw the Pentagon on fire, and an announcement came over the radio that the Pentagon had been hit. The Baxter Bulletin (Arkansas)
Penny Elgas north on I-395 to DC, "stuck in late morning rush hour traffic -- almost in front of the Pentagon" "For most of my drive I had been totally focused on my radio and was extremely aware of the events that were unfolding in New York. Even though the radio reporters were cautious, I was already convinced from the first strike that it was not just an unfortunate pilot error." "Traffic was at a standstill. I heard a rumble, looked out my driver's side window and realized that I was looking at the nose of an airplane coming straight at us from over the road (Columbia Pike) that runs perpendicular to the road I was on. The plane just appeared there- very low in the air, to the side of (and not much above) the CITGO gas station that I never knew was there. My first thought was 'Oh My God, this must be World War III!' "In that split second, my brain flooded with adrenaline and I watched everything play out in ultra slow motion, I saw the plane coming in slow motion toward my car and then it banked in the slightest turn in front of me, toward the heliport. In the nano-second that the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car, the plane seemed to be not more than 80 feet off the ground and about 4-5 car lengths in front of me. It was far enough in front of me that I saw the end of the wing closest to me and the underside of the other wing as that other wing rocked slightly toward the ground. I remember recognizing it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the color stripes. And I remember thinking that it was just like planes in which I had flown many times but at that point it never occurred to me that this might be a plane with passengers." National Museum of American History website
Bruce Elliott
Colonel
9/12/01 [C] about to board a shuttle van in a south parking lot "I looked to my left and saw the plane coming in," said Elliott, who watched it for several seconds. "It was banking and garnering speed. I felt it was headed for the Pentagon." The Hawk Eye
Kim Flyler 9/08/02 [A] trying to park her car "At that moment I heard a plane and then a loud cracking noise.... Right before the plane hit the building, you could see the silhouettes of people in the back two rows. You couldn't see if they were male or female, but you could tell there was a human being in there." The Guardian
Ken Ford 9/11/01 [C] 15th floor of the State Department Annex, just across the Potomac from the Pentagon We were watching the airport through binoculars, he said, referring to Reagan National Airport, a short distance away. The plane was a two-engine turbo prop that flew up the river from National. Then it turned back toward the Pentagon. We thought it had been waved off and then it hit the building. The News Journal (Delaware)
Kat Gaines 2/19/02 [A] on her way to a part-time job at Reagan National Airport heading south on Route 110, in front of the Pentagon parking lots
Her commute to the airport took her south on Route 110, in front of the parking lots of the Pentagon. As she approached the parking lots, she saw a low-flying jetliner strike the top of nearby telephone poles. She then heard the plane power up and plunge into the Pentagon.
Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce website
Fred Gaskins 9/11/01 [C] driving to his job at USA TODAY "(The plane) was flying fast and low and the Pentagon was the obvious target," said Fred Gaskins, who was driving to his job as a national editor at USA TODAY near the Pentagon when the plane passed about 150 feet overhead. "It was flying very smoothly and calmly, without any hint that anything was wrong." USA TODAY
Steven Gerard 9/11/01 [C] at work at the Justice Department "Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this plane coming down. I was talking on my cell phone to my wife about how close I was to the airport and then I saw the fireball." Scripps Howard News Service
Mike Gerson 9/11/02 [A] driving on I-395 "I got on Interstate 395 and saw the plane come in. I didn't see the actual impact, but 395 curves around the Pentagon, and I saw that plane coming in and said to myself, 'That plane is too low; it's going to crash.' " Los Angeles Times (Lexis-Nexis - Ronald Brownstein)
Afework Hagos 9/12/01 [A] stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon "There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in." The Guardian
Afework Hagos 9/11/01 [C] driving on Columbia Pike on his way to work as a consultant for Nextel He saw a plane flying very low and close to nearby buildings. "I thought something was coming down on me. I know this plane is going to crash. I've never seen a plane like this so low." He said he looked at it and saw American Airline insignia The Washington Post
Cheryl Hammond 9/14/01 [A] presumably the Pentagon's south parking lot Cheryl Hammond was the person who called Harrington and his crew out into the parking lot. "I thought they'd put out an alert or something," Hammond said. "We saw the big American Airlines plane and started running." The Pentagram
Joe Harrington
9/14/01 [A] was working on the installation of new furniture in Wedge One, when he was called out to the parking lot to talk about security with his customer moments before the crash "About two minutes later one of my guys pointed to an American Airlines airplane 20 feet high over Washington Blvd.," Harrington said. "It seemed like it made impact just before the wedge. It was like a Hollywood movie or something." The Pentagram
Albert Hemphill 9/11/01 [C] office in the Navy Annex overlooking the Pentagon
"Having just witnessed the CNN coverage of New York" "with a head full of the horror in New York, I walked in the office and stood peering out of the window looking at the Pentagon. ... As I stood there, I instinctively ducked at the extremely loud roar and whine of a jet engine spooling up. Immediately, the large silver cylinder of an aircraft appeared in my window, coming over my right shoulder as I faced the Westside of the Pentagon directly towards the heliport. The aircraft, looking to be either a 757 or Airbus, seemed to come directly over the annex, as if it had been following Columbia Pike - an Arlington road leading to Pentagon. The aircraft was moving fast, at what I could only be estimate as between 250 to 300 knots. All in all, I probably only had the aircraft in my field of view for approximately 3 seconds. The aircraft was at a sharp downward angle of attack, on a direct course for the Pentagon. It was "clean", in as much as, there were no flaps applied and no apparent landing gear deployed. He was slightly left wing down as he appeared in my line of sight, as if he'd just "jinked" to avoid something. As he crossed Route 110 he appeared to level his wings, making a slight right wing slow adjustment as he impacted low on the Westside of the building to the right of the helo, tower and fire vehicle around corridor 5. What instantly followed was a large yellow fireball accompanied by an extremely bass sounding, deep thunderous boom. The yellow fireball rose quickly as black smoke engulfed the entire Westside of the Pentagon, obscuring the whole of the heliport. I could feel the concussion and felt the shockwave of the blast impact the window of the Annex, knocking me against the desk.
Ournetfamily.com
Eugenio Hernandez 9/02 [A] driving northbound on I-395 "I was in my Jeep Cherokee, driving on Route 395 toward DC and listening to NPR. I saw the plane coming down." The Washingtonian (Lexis-Nexis)
Fred Hey 9/17/01 [A] driving on Route 50 Congressional staff attorney Fred Hey was driving by on Route 50 at that moment. "I can't believe it! This plane is going down into the Pentagon!" he shouted into his cellphone. On the other end of the line was his boss, Rep. Bob Ney (R) of Ohio. Representative Ney immediately phoned the news to House Sergeant-At-Arms Bill Livingood, who ordered an immediate evacuation of the Capitol itself. The Christian Science Monitor
Joe Hurst 9/21/01 [A] Oval Room restaurant at Lafayette Square? "I saw it go overhead, the plane." Boston Globe (Lexis Nexis - Brian McGrory)
Michael James 9/12/01 [A] in a car "The plane came over the top of us and brushed the trees. Then it looked like it hit the helicopter pad and skipped up and went right into the first and second floors." Rocky Mountain News (Lexis-Nexis - M. E. Sprengelmeyer)
Will Jarvis 2002 [A] “There was just nothing left. It was incinerated. We couldn’t see a tail or a wing or anything,” he says. “Just a big black hole in the building with smoke pouring out of it.” University of Toronto Magazine
Andrea Kaiser 10/29/01 [C] Arlington County Fire Department Fire Truck 101 "As I was driving down 95 heading towards the Pentagon, one of my members, teammates, said, 'What is that plane doing?' And by the time I looked up, the plane was moving so fast all I saw was an explosion." ABC Good Morning America (Lexis-Nexis)
Terrance Kean 9/12/01 [A] watched from a 14-story residence building nearby "I saw this very, very large passenger jet," said the architect, who had been packing for a move. "It just plowed right into the side of the Pentagon. The nose penetrated into the portico. And then it sort of disappeared, and there was fire and smoke everywhere. . . . It was very sort of surreal." The Washington Post
James Keglovich 9/15/01 [A] across the street from the Pentagon "They began exclaiming, "Where's he going? What's he doing?" when suddenly they saw the plane clip a taxi cab on the nearby bridge. The crash was exceptionally loud, he said. It shook the building and knocked people down who were closer to the point of impact." The Tampa Tribune (Lexis-Nexis - Panky Snow)
Lesley Kelly
Cmdr. U.S. Navy (Ret.)
9/11/02 [A] in an office in downtown D.C. On Sept. 11, I was standing in a break room of an office . . . in downtown D.C., when I looked out the window to see an airplane descend into the side of the Pentagon The Oregonian
D.S. Khavkin 9/13/01 [A] "We live in Arlington, VA just outside of Washington, DC in a high-rise building on the eight floor. Our balcony faces the city, with a panoramic view of the Pentagon, National Airport, and the entire downtown area of Washington, DC."
"We were watching the events unfolding on TV in New York. Then, at about 9:40 am Eastern Daylight Time, my husband and I heard an aircraft directly overhead. At first, we thought it was the jets that sometimes fly overhead. However, it appeared to be a small commercial aircraft. The engine was at full throttle.
First, the plane knocked down a number of street lamp poles, then headed directly for the Pentagon and crashed on the lawn near the west side the Pentagon. A huge fireball exploded with thick black smoke."
BBC News
Aydan Kizildrgli 9/11/01 [C] Aydan Kizildrgli, an English language student who is a native of Turkey, saw the jetliner bank slightly then strike a western wall of the huge five-sided building that is the headquarters of the nation's military. "There was a big boom," he said. "Everybody was in shock. I turned around to the car behind me and yelled ‘Did you see that?' Nobody could believe it." USA TODAY
Ann Krug 11/15/01 [A] Hoffman-Boston Elementary School Ann Krug's kindergarten class saw the plane crash outside the classroom's window. "I actually pointed it out and said: 'Look at this plane; look at how low it's flying,' " Krug recalled. "And then we all saw it come down." The Washington Post
William Lagasse
Defense Protective Service
9/11/02 [A] somewhere outside the Pentagon "It was close enough that I could see the windows and the blinds had been pulled down. I read American Airlines on it." "I didn't hear anything, but I saw the aircraft above my head about 80 feet above the ground, 400 miles an hour. The reason, I have some experience as a pilot and I looked at the plane. Didn't see any landing gear. Didn't see any flaps down. I realized it wasn't going to land. I realized what it was doing." ABC News
Robert A. Leonard 9/20/01 [A] driving northbound in the HOV lanes on I-395; "His car passed the crest of the hill, at the point where Washington comes fully into view and the Pentagon is on the left" "I looked in the rearview mirror to check the traffic and saw only a plane, flying very low. I followed it in my left outside mirror. I braked, looked out my left window and saw a large commercial aircraft aiming for the Pentagon." "The aircraft, so close to the ground, was banked skillfully to the right, leveled off perpendicular to the Pentagon's southwest side, then went full throttle directly toward the building. The plane vanished, absorbed by the building, and there was a slight pause. Then a huge fireball rose into the sky." The Washington Post (Lexis-Nexis)
Lincoln Leibner
Army Major
9/12/01 [A] parking lot "I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and low," said Army Captain Lincoln Liebner. "My first thought was I've never seen one that high. Before it hit I realised what was happening," he said. Captain Liebner says the aircraft struck a helicopter on the helipad, setting fire to a fire truck. "We got one guy out of the [fire truck] cab," he said, adding he could hear people crying inside the wreckage. Captain Liebner, who had cuts on his hands from the debris, says he has been parking his car in the car park when the crash occurred. ABC News Online (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Lincoln Leibner
5/02 [A] Maj. Leibner drove in and made it as far as the south parking lot, where he got out on foot. "I heard the plane first," he said. "I thought it was a flyover Arlington cemetery." From his vantage point, Maj. Leibner looked up and saw the plane come in. "I was about 100 yards away," he said. "You could see through the windows of the aircraft. I saw it hit."
U.S. Medicine
Lincoln Leibner 8/29/02 [A] running to an entrance of the Pentagon After the second plane hit the World Trade Center, Major Lincoln Leibner jumped in his pickup truck and raced to the Pentagon. As he ran to an entrance, he heard jet engines and turned in time to see the American Airlines plane diving toward the building. "I was close enough that I could see through the windows of the airplane, and watch as it as it hit," he said. "There was no doubt in my mind what I was watching. Not for a second. It was accelerating," he said. "It was wheels up, flaps up, engines full throttle. " The OSU Observer
Mary Lyman 9/12/01 [A] driving northbound on I-395 "'I saw a plane coming what I thought was toward National Airport, which is very close. You see that all the time. But this one looked different. It was at a very steep angle, and going very fast. I had been hearing about the World Trade Center before I left, and wondered, is this part of that? Then the plane disappeared, smoke started coming up, and traffic came to a complete stop," Lyman said. "We all got out of our cars. We heard another couple of explosions, and I ran and got back in my car." The Boston Globe
Mary Lyman 9/16/01 [A] driving northbound on I-395 "I was driving northbound to work in the District on I-395 when the Pentagon was hit. I actually saw the plane in front of me, coming in at a very steep angle toward the ground and going fast -- I think I actually heard it accelerate -- and then it disappeared and a cloud of smoke started billowing." The Washington Post
David Marra 9/12/01 [A] had just turned off an I-395 exit to the highway just west of the Pentagon he saw an American Airlines jet swooping in, its wings wobbly, looking like it was going to slam right into the Pentagon: "It was 50 ft. off the deck when he came in. It sounded like the pilot had the throttle completely floored. The plane rolled left and then rolled right. Then he caught an edge of his wing on the ground." There is a helicopter pad right in front of the side of the Pentagon. The wing touched there, then the plane cartwheeled into the building. TIME Online Edition
Oscar Martinez 9/11/01 [C] "I saw a big jet flying close to the building coming at full speed. There was a big noise when it hit the building." Associated Press
Kenneth McClellan 10/17/01 [A] A C-130 cargo plane had departed Andrews Air Force Base en route to Minnesota that morning and reported seeing an airliner heading into Washington "at an unusual angle," said Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman. Air-traffic control officials instructed the propeller-powered cargo plane "to let us know where it's going," McClellan said. But, he said, there was no attempt to intercept the hijacked airliner. "A C-130 obviously goes slower than a jet," McClellan said. "There was no way he was going to intercept anything." The C-130 pilot "followed the aircraft and reported it was heading into the Pentagon," he said. "He saw it crash into the building. He saw the fireball." ... In the days immediately following the Sept. 11 hijackings, the Pentagon had no knowledge of the C-130's encounter, because all reports were classified by the Air National Guard, the Pentagon spokesman said. "It was very hard to get any information out," McClellan said. Daily Press
Elaine McCusker 10/04/01 [A] about to cross the 14th Street bridge heading into D.C. "I was heading to a 10 a.m. meeting. It was a beautiful day and I had the car windows down. My radio was on and they broke in to report the second plane hitting the World Trade Center. I felt behind the curve because I hadn’t known about the first plane. I hadn’t watched TV that morning and had no idea about the level of destruction. Then the President came on the air saying that we had been the subject of an apparent terrorist attack. Traffic is normally slow right around the Pentagon as the road winds and we line up to cross the 14th Street bridge heading into the District of Columbia. I don’t know what made me look up, but I did and I saw a very low-flying American Airlines plane that seemed to be accelerating. My first thought was just ‘No, no, no, no,’ because it was obvious the plane was not heading to nearby Reagan National Airport. It was going to crash." University Week (U. of Washington)
Stephen McGraw 9/28/01 [A] stuck in standstill traffic in the left lane of northbound Washington Boulevard "The traffic was very slow moving, and at one point just about at a standstill." "I was in the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars." McGraw estimates that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the left hand lane of the road, on the side closest to the Pentagon. "The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car. I saw it crash into the building," he said. "My only memories really were that it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression," he said. "I hadn't heard about the World Trade Center at that point, and so I was thinking this was an accident. I figured it was just an accident. There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows (of the Pentagon). I saw an explosion of fire billowing through those two windows." The Pentagram
Stephen McGraw 9/5/02 [A] I had no awareness of the incoming plane until it was above our cars, having knocked over the street lamp at the edge of the road. After seeing the plane crash a split-second later, I assumed that it was a terrible accident, and, with my holy oil and stole and manual of care for the sick, I left my car, crossed over the other lanes of traffic, which remained at a standstill, and onto the lawn of the Pentagon. Arlington Catholic Herald
William Middleton Sr. 12/20/01 [A] running his street sweeper through Arlington National Cemetery One day last week, Lapic ventured to Arlington National Cemetery to interview a groundskeeper who watched in horror as the plane crashed into the Pentagon. The worker, William Middleton Sr., was running his street sweeper through the cemetery when he heard a harsh whistling sound overhead. Middleton looked up and spotted a commercial jet whose pilot seemed to be fighting with his own craft. Middleton said the plane was no higher than the tops of telephone poles as it lurched toward the Pentagon. The jet accelerated in the final few hundred yards before it tore into the building. "My sweeper has three wheels. I almost tipped it over as I watched," Middleton said. SouthCoast Today (Massachusetts)
Kirk Milburn 9/11/01 [C] on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of Interstate 395 "I was right underneath the plane." "I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying. I guess it was hitting light poles," said Milburn. "It was like a WHOOOSH whoosh, then there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second explosion." The Washington Post
Mitch Mitchell
Ret. Army Col.
9/13/01 [C] coming from National Airport on I-395 towards the Pentagon "Just as we got even with the Pentagon, I looked out to the front and saw, coming straight down the road at us, a huge jet plane clearly with American Airlines written on it, and it looked like it was coming in to hit us. I told my wife, 'It's going to hit the Pentagon.' It crossed about 100 feet in front of us and at about 20 feet altitude and we watched it go in. It struck the Pentagon, and there was no indication whatever that it was doing anything other than performing a direct attack on that building. The landing gear was up. There were no flaps down and it looked like a deadly missile on the final phase of its mission into the building."
"We saw what I estimate to be about the last seven seconds of the flight. It was a straight-in flight, angled slightly down, and there was--there was no intent to turn or to maneuver in any way. It was headed straight for its target and we were helpless to do anything about it but watch." CBS The Early Show (Lexis-Nexis)
Terry Morin
Former USMC aviator
9/01 [C] outside the Navy Annex I had just reached the elevator in the 5th Wing of BMDO/Federal Office Building (FOB) #2 – call it approximately 9:36 AM. I was already trying to make some sense out of the World Trade Tower attacks having heard about them on the radio. The news was sketchy, but the fact that it was a terrorist attack was already known. I then realized that I was wearing sunglasses and needed to go back to Lot 3 to retrieve my clear lenses. Since it was by no means a short walk to my car, I was upset with myself for being so distracted. Approximately 10 steps out from between Wings 4 and 5, I was making a gentle right turn towards the security check-in building just above Wing 4 when I became aware of something unusual. I can’t remember exactly what I was thinking about at that moment, but I started to hear an increasingly loud rumbling behind me and to my left. As I turned to my left, I immediately realized the noise was bouncing off the 4-story structure that was Wing 5. One to two seconds later the airliner came into my field of view. By that time the noise was absolutely deafening. I instantly had a very bad feeling about this but things were happening very quickly. The aircraft was essentially right over the top of me and the outer portion of the FOB (flight path parallel the outer edge of the FOB). Everything was shaking and vibrating, including the ground. I estimate that the aircraft was no more than 100 feet above me (30 to 50 feet above the FOB) in a slight nose down attitude. The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I couldn’t be sure. It looked like a 737 and I so reported to authorities. Within seconds the plane cleared the 8th Wing of BMDO and was heading directly towards the Pentagon. Engines were at a steady high-pitched whine, indicating to me that the throttles were steady and full. I estimated the aircraft speed at between 350 and 400 knots. The flight path appeared to be deliberate, smooth, and controlled. As the aircraft approached the Pentagon, I saw a minor flash (later found out that the aircraft had sheared off a portion of a highway light pole down on Hwy 110). As the aircraft flew ever lower I started to lose sight of the actual airframe as a row of trees to the Northeast of the FOB blocked my view. I could now only see the tail of the aircraft. I believe I saw the tail dip slightly to the right indicating a minor turn in that direction. The tail was barely visible when I saw the flash and subsequent fireball rise approximately 200 feet above the Pentagon. There was a large explosion noise and the low frequency sound echo that comes with this type of sound. Associated with that was the increase in air pressure, momentarily, like a small gust of wind. For those formerly in the military, it sounded like a 2000lb bomb going off roughly 1/2 mile in front of you. At once there was a huge cloud of black smoke that rose several hundred feet up. Elapsed time from hearing the initial noise to when I saw the impact flash was between 12 and 15 seconds. Coping.org
James Mosley
9/11/02? four stories up on a scaffold outside the Navy Annex building "The building starting shaking, and I looked over and saw this big silver plane run into the side of the Pentagon. It almost knocked me off." UCLA website
Christopher Munsey
Navy Times reporter
9/11/01 [C] driving south on I-395 Already dumbfounded by the first, sketchy radio reports of the catastrophic attack on the World Trade Center towers in New York, I couldn’t believe what I was now seeing to my right: A silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon, just hundreds of yards away. ... The plane, with red and blue markings, hurtled by and within moments exploded in a ground-shaking "whoomp," as it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon. A huge flash of orange flame and black smoke poured into the sky. Smoke seemed to change from black to white, forming a billowing column in the sky. Navy Times
Vin Narayanan
USA TODAY.com reporter
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