Here's a larger collection of quotes from witnesses who claim to have seen the plane hitting the pentagon. I'm sorry if this seems excessive or redundant, but I obviously haven't been driving my point home.
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.
www.s-t.com/daily/12-01/12-20-01/a02wn018.htm
"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. At first, I didn't believe what I saw. At about the same time, the train approached the platform, and I remember turning to a fellow passenger and asking, 'What should we do?'
-- Susan Carroll
www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/0...2/neR_10395718.shtml
Rodney Washington, a systems engineer for a Pentagon contractor, was stuck in stand-still traffic a few hundred yards from the Pentagon when the American Airlines jet roared overhead from the southwest.
''It was extremely loud, as you can imagine, a plane that size, it was deafening,'' Washington said.
The plane was flying low and rapidly descended, Washington said, knocking over light poles before hitting the ground on a helicopter pad just in front of the Pentagon and essentially bouncing into it.
It ''landed there and the momentum took it into the Pentagon,'' Washington said. ''There was a very, very brief delay and then it exploded.''
www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack...erly_response+.shtml
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. Fire and rescue vehicles arrived soon thereafter and begin to attempt to put out the fire and rescue victims. Since then, the West side of the Pentagon has collapsed and is still smouldering. The city of Washington, DC and Northern Virginia where the Pentagon and many other defence-related facilities are located is under a state of emergency and high alert, with helicopters and F-16s flying overheard. The enormity of what we witnessed and what has happened has just begun to sink in. We just thank God we are okay and that it happened in Washington, DC where we are prepared to handle situations such as this.
D. S. Khavkin, Arlington, VA, USA
www.geocities.com/someguyyoudontknow33/m...ness_d-s-khavkin.htm
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.
-Albert Hemphill
web.archive.org/web/20020320012729/http:...pentagonwitness.html
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, where the Navy offices where five friends and colleagues of mine were located. Twenty-four hours earlier, I had been in the Pentagon visiting those friends and others in the building.
As I watched the fireball and during the evacuation of Washington that followed, I can remember being overwhelmed by two things -- what can I do to help, and how never again would I leave a friend or loved one without telling them how much I cared for them.
-- Lesley Kelly, Cmdr. U.S. Navy (Ret.), Gresham
web.archive.org/web/20021218082116/http:...1031572536213280.xml
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.
'Nobody could believe it'
"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."
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/attack-usat.htm
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."
www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rjhymel.htm
"The plane exploded after it hit, the tail came off and it began burning immediately. Within five minutes, police and emergency vehicles began arriving," said Vin Narayanan, a reporter at USA TODAY.com, who was driving near the Pentagon when the plane hit.
www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/washscene.htm
Scott Perry of Spotsylvania County heard a plane's engines rumbling above the Navy Annex building where he works, so he looked out his window, which faces the Pentagon.
www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2001/092...193/printer_friendly
"[The plane] was coming straight into the wedge," Perry said. "I saw it crash. There was about five seconds of disbelief, and the next thing I heard was, down the hallway, a friend of mine screaming."
www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2001/092...193/printer_friendly
I was at a complete stop on the road in front of the helipad at the Pentagon; what I had thought would be a shortcut was as slow as the other routes I had taken that morning. I looked idly out my window to the left -- and saw a plane flying so low I said, “holy cow, that plane is going to hit my car” (not my actual words). The car shook as the plane flew over. It was so close that I could read the numbers under the wing.
And then the plane crashed. My mind could not comprehend what had happened. Where did the plane go? For some reason I expected it to bounce off the Pentagon wall in pieces. But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents of fire. Now I wanted to get as far away as I could, but that was impossible. The people around me had gotten out of their cars. At least half had cameras and the others were on their cell phones. I experienced a moment of irrelevant amazement that so many people had cameras in their cars.
-Christine Peterson
www.naualumni.com/site/apps/s/content.as...317233&ct=489385
Dennis Smith, a building inspector and former Marine, was smoking a cigarette in the center courtyard when he heard the roar of engines and looked up in time to see the tail of a plane seconds before it exploded into the building. He took off toward the crash to help get people out of the building. "I looked up to the third floor - there were people banging on the windows. The smoke was filling up, and then they were just gone."
www.govexec.com/features/1001/1001spec1.htm
FRANKEN: You are a pilot. Tell us what you saw.
TIMMERMAN: I was looking out the window; I live on the 16th floor, overlooking the Pentagon, in a corner apartment, so I have quite a panorama. And being next to National Airport, I hear jets all the time, but this jet engine was way too loud. I looked out to the southwest, and it came right down 395, right over Colombia Pike, and as is went by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added power to the engines. I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then I lost it behind a building.
And then it came out, and I saw it hit right in front of -- it didn't appear to crash into the building; most of the energy was dissipated in hitting the ground, but I saw the nose break up, I saw the wings fly forward, and then the conflagration engulfed everything in flames. It was horrible.
FRANKEN: What can you tell us about the plane itself?
TIMMERMAN: It was a Boeing 757, American Airlines, no question.
FRANKEN: You say that it was a Boeing, and you say it was a 757 or 767?
TIMMERMAN: 7-5-7.
FRANKEN: 757, which, of course...
TIMMERMAN: American Airlines.
FRANKEN: American Airlines, one of the new generation of jets.
TIMMERMAN: Right. It was so close to me it was like looking out my window and looking at a helicopter. It was just right there.
www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.32.html
I was in the Pentagon east parking lot, heading to a meeting in the wing, where the jet crashed into the building. I had been in meetings since 7:30 AM at U.S. Treasury and headed directly to another set of meetings at the Pentagon set for 10 AM. My group (4 of us) was unaware of the happenings in New York but knew something was wrong when we saw the jet coming down the freeway, and watched it crash.
-M.J.
clos.net/ptemails02.htm
"I was sitting in the northbound on 27 and the traffic was, you know, typical rush-hour -- it had ground to a standstill. I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.'
"And I saw it. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon.
-Mike Walter
www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/witnesses/index.html
"I watched this - it looked like a commuter plane, two-engined come down from the south real low proceed right on and crash right into the Pentagon. I watched it come in very low over the trees and it just dipped down and came down right over 395 right into the Pentagon."
-Don Wright
www.sunspot.net/news/custom/attack/sns-w...witness-ra.realaudio
I live in Pentagon City (part of Arlington) and can see the Pentagon when I look out my window. ... It was so shocking, I was listening to the news on what had happened in New York, and just happened to look out the window because I heard a low flying plane and then I saw it hit the Pentagon. It happened so fast... it was in the air one moment and in the building the next...
-K.M., Pentagon City, USA
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1537530.stm
I am alive and feel lucky, I was about 1/2 mile away. Everyone was on edge
because of the WTC crashes, some were talking of leaving. I saw the jet
just before it crashed. Something big and silver, nose down going aimed
like a dart straight into it. The fireball was huge, 10 stories high and
our building shook hard.
-Steve (cyclesail@yahoo.com)
groups.google.com/groups?selm=tq5fj2u34i...-8&output=gplain
>did you see the plane there?? or parts of it?
No, but I saw the plane hit the building on 9/11. It was a plan. it
was big it was flying low, and it hit the pentagon. I saw it from the
front seat of my car on the highway that passes that side of the
pentagon. There are parts all over the place, they are all smaller
than a US nickle because of the force of the crash.
-"Whisper2i" (whisper2i@aol.com)
groups.google.com/groups?selm=0cnhgucfci...om&output=gplain
I am originally from Hitchin, Herts, UK. 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.
Pam Bradley, USA
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1540586.stm
"I saw the tail of a large airliner ... It ploughed right into the Pentagon."
-Dave Winslow
www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,600839,00.html
Frank Probst was one of them. A Pentagon renovation worker and retired Army officer, he was inspecting newly installed telecommunications wiring inside the five-story, 6.5-million-square-foot building.
The tall, soft-spoken Probst had a 10 a.m. meeting. About 9:25 a.m., he stopped by the renovation workers' trailer just south of the Pentagon heliport. Someone had a television turned on in the trailer's break room that showed smoke pouring out of the twin towers in New York.
"The Pentagon would make a pretty good target," someone in the break room commented.
The thought stuck with Probst as he picked up his notebook and walked to the North Parking Lot to attend his meeting.
Probst took a sidewalk alongside Route 27, which runs near the Pentagon's western face. Traffic was at a standstill because of a road accident. Then, at about 9:35 a.m., he saw the airliner in the cloudless September sky.
American Airlines Flight 77 approached from the west, coming in low over the nearby five-story Navy Annex on a hill overlooking the Pentagon.
"He has lights off, wheels up, nose down," Probst recalled. The plane seemed to be accelerating directly toward him. He froze.
"I knew I was dead," he said later. "The only thing I thought was, 'Damn, my wife has to go to another funeral, and I'm not going to see my two boys again.'."
He dove to his right. He recalls the engine passing on one side of him, about six feet away.
The plane's right wing went through a generator trailer "like butter," Probst said. The starboard engine hit a low cement wall and blew apart.
He still can't remember the sound of the explosion. Sometimes the memory starts to come back when he hears a particularly low-flying airliner heading into nearby Reagan National Airport, or when military jets fly over a burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
Most of the time, though, his memory is silent.
"It was pretty horrible," he said of the noiseless images he carries inside him, of the jet vanishing in a cloud of smoke and dust, and bits of metal and concrete drifting down like confetti.
www.militarycity.com/sept11/fortress1.html
In the 10th video down on this site:
www.911blogger.com/node/7227 a witness states explicitly that she saw the plane hit the pentagon. When asked for clarification "you actually saw the plane hit the building?" (paraphrase--can't remember the exact quote) she confirms that she did.
In the 8th video down the witness saw the plane hit the pentagon. Additionally he claims a piece of the plane hit his car, breaking his windshield. He brought into the news studio with him.
In the 3rd and 4th videos down witnesses saw parts of the plane.
Here pilot Steve O'Brien recounts a view of the crash from above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9ag6brfWro
Now let's ask ourselves where is all the eyewitness testimony of the plane flying over the pentagon at the last minute? Are we honestly to believe that none of these witnesses would have noticed something like that?
As for the north/south of citgo thing, there is a good analysis here:
www.911myths.com/index.php/NoC
Case over, two police officers saw the poles either knocked down or down NoC. The SoC poles were staged. We must show the evidence to the whole world!
