The Daily Record Sept 12
Record reporter Anna Adams was in Washington yesterday when the plane hit the Pentagon.

She said: "Nothing prepared me for what I saw this morning.

"As I took a walk through American history, in the seat of government of the most powerful nation on earth, the vulnerability of the nation was laid before my astonished eyes.

"I was just five blocks away as Armageddon came to America.

"A passenger jet screamed into the Pentagon and was followed by a ball of fire which erupted skywards. A thick pall of smoke quickly covered the area.

"The ear-splitting explosions ripped through the area, the smell of burning filled the air, panic spread throughout the streets.

"People ran in all directions - they didn't know where or why.

"I was among them - out of breath and out of my mind - I walked in circles.

"At first, no one knew or could believe what they had actually seen, what had happened.

"We thought we did but it was impossible to take in.

"Although I was only a few hundred yards away, I had to return to my nearby hotel and turn on the TV in my room to find out the enormity of the calamity.

"Then I went back on the streets. The mayhem was growing by the minute.

She was five blocks away. She could not have seen the impact directly, unless she was in a significantly elevated area. Perhaps she was, but she doesn't say this. Did she actually see a passenger jet hit the Pentagon? On close reading she doesn't say anything about seeing anything except general mayhem and panic. The description of the plane hitting the Pentagon is certainly not an eyewitness account, but a rather poetically written summary of the event which Adams assumes to have taken place.

And she admits that she didn't even go to the scene, to check anything directly.

"Although I was only a few hundred yards away, I had to return to my nearby hotel and turn on the TV in my room to find out the enormity of the calamity."

Why? Were reporters barred from getting close enough to see what was really happening? If so, why? If she could only find out "the enormity of the calamity" by watching TV, then it's certain that she did not witness with her own eyes, a passenger jet fly into the wall of the building.

An exhaustive search revealed no other matches for Anna Adams.

The Sydney Morning Herald Sept 12 reported that

A woman eyewitness told CNN of the plane crashing into the Pentagon: "A commercial plane came in. It was coming too fast, too low and then I saw the fire that came up after that.''

So where did the SMH pick this quote up from? Directly from CNN? It doesn't seem so. It's lifted directly from a story by the press association dated Sept 11. How directly? This is the press association report.

A woman eyewitness told CNN of the plane crashing into the Pentagon: "A commercial plane came in. It was coming too fast, too low and then I saw the fire that came up after that.''

This was also picked up word for word on Sept 12 by the Grimsby Evening Telegraph. I wonder if they copied it from SMH ? The appropriately named "Liverpool echo" also published the anonymous quote on Sept 12, but dropped the reference to CNN.

I couldn't find a transcript for it, but I did find the CNN audio at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/day.video.09.html

The quote is accurate in essence, although the wording has been changed. But she didn't say anything about seeing a plane crash into the pentagon. She says saw a saw a commercial plane (Size and type unspecified) coming in too fast and too low - and then the fire. Check the audio for yourself.

St Louis Post- Dispatch Sept 13. quoted Mike Dobbs as saying

"We were looking out the window, and we saw a plane coming toward us, for about 10 seconds," he said. "It was like watching a train wreck. I was mesmerized. It took me a couple of seconds to understand what we were seeing, and to process it.

"At first I thought it was trying to crash land, but it was coming in so deliberately, so level, that I realized this is probably part of what had happened in New York -- part of a coordinated attack.

"It hit, but by that time we had started running. Everyone said there was a deafening explosion, but with the adrenaline, we didn't hear it."

It's not clear whether the St Louis Post- Dispatch conducted it's own interview with Dobbs, or whether it copied and embellished it from "The Plain Dealer" which quoted Dobbs, thus on Sept 12.

"I saw it come right over the Navy annex at a slow angle," he told Scripps Howard News Service. "It seemed to be almost coming in slow motion. I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it, and then we all started running."

The quotes are different enough that it's possible that it could be the same man relating the same experience in two different interviews. Except that my search showed that Dobbs did not say what the "The "Plain Dealer" attributed to him. To the "Plain Dealers" credit, it has at least told us where it sourced and embellished the quote from. So here is how Mike Dobbs was actually quoted by the Scripps Howard news service, on Sept 11.

"It seemed to be almost coming in in slow motion," he said later. "I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started running. They evacuated everybody around us."

This is certainly not a clear description of seeing a large passenger jet actually hit the Pentagon. But, in the case of the "Plain Dealer" it is a clear description of the media policy of never letting accuracy get in the way of a juicy quote.

The missing piece of information here, is whether the St Louis Post -Dispatch conducted a fresh interview with Dobbs for Sept 13, or whether it further embellished the Plain Dealer embellishment. Either way, by Sept 13 the Dobbs story had grown considerably from it's humble beginnings on Sept 11. It's understandable that if Dobbs did give a fresh interview, that he may have been more coherent on Sept 12 than he was on Sept 11. (presumably he would have had to have given the St Louis interview, if it took place, on Sept 12) The Sept 11 quote tells us almost nothing. The Sept 13 quote is a little more explicit. It at least mentions a plane, but gives no other clues. If the Sept 13 quote is genuine, a closer examination shows that it only further confuses the question. What kind of plane was it? Was it actually the plane that Dobbs saw, that caused the explosion, or did it veer away at the last moment and something else cause the explosion? The Sept 13 quote says that he was running away by the time it hit, so he certainly couldn't have seen anything that might answer this question. Perhaps common sense tells us that it must have been. The problem is that he also says that he didn't hear the explosion. This is puzzling because he also mentions nothing about feeling it. If he didn't see it, didn't hear it and didn't feel it, how does he know that it hit ? And in combination with the Sept 11 report he completes the trifecta by specifically stating that he didn't feel it either. In The Sept 11 report, he says he saw it, and then started running, but it's not clear whether this means that he didn't start running until after it hit, or whether he started running after he saw it coming towards the building. This is very confusing, which is not to impugn Dobbs. It's easy to
sympathize with the difficulty of being clear about such an experience, but that doesn't change the fact that this is not an eyewitness report of a large jet hitting the pentagon. A crash of an unspecified kind of plane, that the witness didn't feel, didn't hear, and (perhaps) didn't see.

No other matches were found for Mike Dobbs.

The Express Sept 12
Sarah Newsome saw the plane crash into the Pentagon as she was on her way to work.

"I couldn't believe my eyes - this jet appeared to be heading straight for the building.

"As it headed towards it the plane began to accelerate and I was thinking 'This can't really be happening - I can't be seeing this'.

"It plunged into the side in a ball of orange and yellow flame and there was a massive explosion and the sound of crumbling brick and metal.

For this report, we do at least have the names of the writers, but the quote is unsourced, in the sense of who interviewed Newsome and when and where, and is not repeated by any other media. There are no other reports of any kind that refer to Sarah Newsome as a witness. It (just) meets acceptable standards of verification and clarity to warrant further investigation. Note that while she explicitly says that a jet hit the side of the Pentagon, she does not say whether it was large or small, civilian or military, and does not say how long she had to identify it. I have a question about how somebody can tell that a plane has accelerated. If it's travelling at 400 mph, and you see it travel 1/2 mile, and it accelerates to 500 mph in the last 250 yards, then the witness will see it travel at 400mph for about 3 seconds, increasing to 500mph over the last second. Is this discernable? Probably not, but there is a good explanation as to why a witness might truthfully describe a genuine impression of seeing a plane accelerating. If the witness has seen it
approaching for a considerable distance, then the changing perspective might make it appear to be travelling faster as it came closer. A witness who reports an acceleration in this context is likely to be telling the truth. But a witness who sees it come unexpectedly out of nowhere for only a few hundred yards of viewing (less than 2 seconds) and claims that it accelerated in the last 100 yards before impact is likely to be either embellishing or fabricating. Since Newsome doesn't mention how long she saw it for, there is no indication either way. This certainly qualifies as an eyewitness account, although the strength of the verification leaves much to be desired. It does not provide any evidence for F77 hitting the Pentagon. She could just as easily have been describing a 757, a DC10, an F16 or a cruise missile.

Christopher Munsey wrote this first hand account of what he claims to have personally witnessed. The Navy Times Sept 11. http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-467181.php

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.

Does this have the style of an account being written by an eyewitness? I don't think so. It's too poetic and detached. This posting date of this is acceptably early, although we don't know the time of posting. In this case, that's an important factor, because bearing in mind that it's a military publication, it's relevant to ask how well established the official story was by the time he wrote it. The lesson of the Leibner account is that such questions are legitimate. So did Munsey really see this, or is he simply writing the military spin? We can't know for sure, but the  fact that no other matches turned up for Munsey as a witness does not help his cause. What also doesn't help is an article at

http://www.multipull.com/twacasefile/may.html

It concerns the issue of TWA 800, another plane disaster which has aroused some highly controversial suspicions of government and military evil against it's own citizens. Not having researched TWA 800, I won't offer an opinion, but simply observe that there are allegations of govt. wrongdoing in relation to it. The article, highly technical in nature, and very even and factual in it's tone accuses Munsey of writing misleading spin (not it's actual words) in an article he wrote in July 1996, in relation to the evidence surrounding TWA 800. Unfortunately it does not cite an author's name.

It's from the website of TWA 800 case files, which introduces itself thus at it's homepage http://www.multipull.com/twacasefile/bf.html

TWA 800 Case Files came into existence in January, 1997. Its intention then was and now is to critically examine the quality of information made available to the public concerning TWA Flight 800, and to serve as a collection and access point for media artifacts of the disaster. TWA 800 Case Files is not the representative of a particular organization.
Articles represent the point of view of their authors alone, and are presented in an attempt to increase the resolution of what is and what is not factually known about TWA Flight 800.

And another article by Munsey at

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2001/Feb/15/215localnews16.html

puts the navy's case on yet another contentious military issue, the collision between the US submarine and the Japanese Boat, which resulted in the deaths of Japanese civilians. Given that he writes for the Navy times, it's not suspicious in itself that Munsey should be writing on these issues, and hardly surprising that he should be putting the official point of view, but it is a little much to swallow that he just happens to be the only person we can find who clearly and unambiguously saw an American Airlines passenger jet in full flight, and then saw it crash into the side of the building, especially considering the romantic, detached style of the account. If other independent witnesses eventuate which strongly corroborate Munsey, then this may need to be reviewed, but for now, caution should be exercised about the credibility of this account. I do also have a big problem with the idea that a 757, just a few hundred yards away would be described as "gliding almost noiselessly" as it" hurtled by".

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/11_APdc.html
I saw a big jet flying close to the building coming at full speed. There was a big noise when it hit the building,'' said Oscar Martinez, who witnessed the attack.

This is from Ron Fournier of the AP, in the same article as the infamous Dave Winslow account. Since I found no other references to Martinez's alleged account, and extensive searches turned up no verification, or any other reference to Martinez, I'm not to prepared to consider a completely uncorroborated account from an article which has already so spectacularly impugned it's own credibility.

http://www.dcmilitary.com/marines/hendersonhall/6_39/local_news/10797-1.html

Defense Protective Service officers were the first on the scene of the terrorist attack. One, Mark Bright, actually saw the plane hit the building. He had been 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.

According to calculations deduced from maps, relating to the Timmerman account, the Navy Annex is about 400 -500 yards from the pentagon. I'm well aware that the method of this calculation was crude but it gives us a general idea. The description here indicates that it may be a closer. This article agrees that the plane was only seconds from impact. If we assume 500 yards, then it was about 2 1/2 seconds away. So would this really have been discernable?

He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the Pentagon.

We can only assume that he had a maximum of 1 second to pick the difference in the sound, before this was erased by the sound of the explosion, and the visual shock. I concede that as a military officer, who is always working near the sound of planes, that he would have a better chance of noticing these things than the average person. But I still have a big question mark over whether such a precise dissection really would have been possible, in the context of a total experience which lasted 2 1/2 seconds maximum, followed by such a shocking and dramatic aftermath. It doesn't help that the account was posted on Sept 24 or 28, depending on which date you believe on the page. Too late to have credibility unless other redeeming features emerge. It hasn't demonstrated any and it just happens to be from a military publication. The article is entitled "The Pentagon's first heroes in a day of heroes." and opens with this.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 24, 2001) -- What sort of person hears an explosion -- and runs toward it? Ask the people alive today because some Defense Protective Service officers did exactly that after the hijacked jetliner hit the Pentagon Sept. 11.

This is not to deny that many people acted heroically during this event. But it's clear that the focus of this article is to not present objective, critical analysis of what happened, but to present patriotic spin. Combined with the late posting, it doesn't meet verifiable standards to the degree which justifies uncritical acceptance of the doubtful statement above. Anyway, it gives no indication of what sort of plane it was.

This is the last account I found that offered any hope of a clear witness

¡°The plane approached from my left and struck the building in front of me to my right. It was a large American Airlines jetliner with turbine engines on the wings.¡± http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0203/S00134.htm  This doesn't come from a major mainstream media outlet but from a website named Scoop. The quote is attributed to Steve Riskus who also supplied some photos which he said were taken immediately after the crash. At it's homepage http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/about/ Scoop describes itself thus.

Scoop is a Wellington based Internet news agency accredited to the New Zealand Parliament Press Gallery. (A Yahoo search confirmed this as correct) It specializes in providing news and commentary **raw and fast** and is made up largely of what Scoop likes to call "disintermediated" news - that is news without a spin put on it by a journalist.

What I am interested in here is how the quote was sourced. Scoop is based in New Zealand, so the witness Steve Riskus has obviously submitted his information by email. Or did he? The page which posts his account quote goes on to say.

Asked if he finds the controversy over the crash annoying Steve replied, ¡°sure.... I do find the controversy annoying... especially when people ask me questions when they have no intention of changing there opinion that no plane crashed... but alas... there is no controversy for me.¡±

This takes on the appearance of some kind of interview. But Scoop does not tell us whether this exchange took place by email or voice. It also doesn't ask any important questions. Exactly where did the plane come in, with reference to what's in the photos, and where he was at the time of the impact? This is important because the Riskus account is dated March 19 2002 - way too late to be worth anything at all, if it were not for the fact that he also provided photos.
So I went searching for other references to Riskus to see if there was anything else which might better authenticate his account. I found nothing except the same account with minor variations and the photos posted on other web sites. He claims that the photos were taken immediately after the crash On one site he says less than a minute and on another site he says "seconds". The photos are therefore the key to determining whether this highly retrospective account can provide any evidence that a large passenger jet crashed into the Pentagon. Lets have a look at them.

CONTINUE