The 9-11 “Truth” Movement claims that Flight 77 could not have gone through three separate rings of the Pentagon (source).

This quote from 911myths.com shows the “truther” argument:

And as for the inside of the Pentagon, there’s another hole, approximately six feet in diameter…Found on the other side of the C Ring, three rings from the impact. For that hole to have been caused by Flight 77, the Boeing would have had to smash through nine feet of steel reinforced concrete.

However, this isn’t quite true and, as 911myths.com points out, most people don’t bother to analyze this mathematically.

An ASCE Building Performance report on the Pentagon tells us that the aircraft frame was definitely destroyed before it had travelled the length of the plane (Hint: Destroyed does NOT mean vaporized; it can mean torn to shreds). The report further states that the debris that went the farthest travelled twice the length of the aircraft, which is about 310 ft ( the length of a Boeing 757 is between 155 and 178 feet, depending on whether it’s a 757-200 or 757-300, according to this source). That means the debris experienced a deceleration of 30 g’s in order to come to rest where it did at an impact speed of 780 ft/second, or about 532 MPH. (reference).

911myths.com also provides this quote comparing the crash of Flight 77 with another purposely crashed airliner:

In 1984, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted a controlled impact demonstration (Department of Transportation 1987) to evaluate the burn potential of antimisting kerosene fuel. In that test, the FAA landed a Boeing 720 aircraft (weighing approximately 175,000 lb) without landing gear on a gravel runway at Edwards Air Force Base. The aircraft in that test was flying at approximately 250 ft/s* when it made first contact, but it slid approximately 1,200 ft before it stopped. Although the test aircraft was traveling at approximately one-third the speed of the aircraft that struck the Pentagon, its sliding distance was approximately 3.9 times that of the Pentagon attack aircraft. Clearly, the short stopping distance for the aircraft striking the Pentagon derived from the energy dissipated through the destruction of the aircraft and building components; the acceleration of building contents; the loss of lift when the wings were severed from the aircraft; and effective frictional and impact forces on the first-floor slab, the underside of the second-floor slab, and interior columns and walls. [*250ft/second is about 170 MPH.]

As for the alleged “9 feet of reinforced concrete”, take a close look at the picture at the top of this article, which was obtained here.

As you can see, the ring at the far left side of the picture is four windows deep, the next ring is 3 windows deep, and the ground floor, where the plane travelled through, is internal walls only (source).

911myths.com provides this quote from ASCE regarding the construction of the walls away from the reinforced front side of the Pentagon:

The perimeter exterior walls of Ring E are faced in limestone and backed with unreinforced brick infilled in the concrete frame. Nearly all remaining exterior walls are 10 in. concrete. The first story at AE Drive is brick infilled in the concrete frame, with no windows. The concrete walls have 5 by 7 ft openings for windows and include columns built in as pilasters, corresponding to column locations below, and girders reinforced within the wall.

About three-quarters of the way down the page, 911myths.com provides two close-up images of the exit hole- as you can see, that’s an awfully short 18 inches.

In short, there is only one known reinforced wall, at the front, and one wall consisting of two layers of unreinforced brick at the rear, with interior walls in between. (source).

As usual, the “truthers” are lying through their teeth and hoping nobody will check their statements.

Close this WindowBookmark and Share This Page

Save to Browser Favorites

Ask backflip blinklist BlogBookmark Bloglines BlogMarks Blogsvine BUMPzee! CiteULike co.mments Connotea del.icio.us

DotNetKicks Digg diigo dropjack.com dzone Facebook Fark Faves Feed Me Links Friendsite folkd.com Furl

Google Hugg Jeqq Kaboodle kirtsy linkaGoGo LinksMarker Ma.gnolia Mister Wong Mixx MySpace MyWeb

Netvouz Newsvine PlugIM popcurrent Propeller Reddit Rojo Segnalo Shoutwire Simpy Slashdot Sphere

Sphinn Spurl.net Squidoo StumbleUpon Technorati ThisNext Webride Windows Live Yahoo!

Email This to a Friend

Copy HTML: 

If you like this then please subscribe to the RSS Feed.

Powered by Bookmarkify™

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™