Everything about American Airlines Flight 77 totally explained
American Airlines Flight 77 was a morning flight that routinely flew from
Washington Dulles International Airport (IAD), near
Washington, D.C., to
Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). On
September 11,
2001, Flight 77 was
hijacked sometime between 08:51 and 08:54
EDT and deliberately crashed into
The Pentagon at 09:37 EDT as part of the
September 11, 2001 attacks. All 64 people on board and 125 on the ground were killed. It was the third airliner to be deliberately crashed that morning, thirty minutes after
the second airliner crashed into the
World Trade Center.
The
American Airlines Boeing 757-223 used for the flight that day (
tail number N644AA) was being piloted by
Captain Charles Burlingame and
First Officer Dave Charlebois.
Hijackers
The hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 included
Hani Hanjour, the man believed to have piloted the aircraft into The Pentagon. Hanjour trained at the CRM Airline Training Center in
Scottsdale, Arizona, earning his
private pilot's license in 1997 and then his
FAA commercial pilot's certificate in April 1999. He had wanted to be a commercial pilot for the
Saudi national airline, but was rejected when he applied to the civil aviation school in
Jeddah in 1999. Hanjour's brother later explained that, frustrated at not finding a job, Hani "spent hours online at a family-owned Internet cafe. He read voraciously about piloting, and increasingly turned his attention toward religious texts and cassette tapes of militant Islamic preachers." Hanjour left Saudi Arabia in late 1999, telling his family that he was going to the
United Arab Emirates to work for an airline. Instead, he travelled to the alleged
Al-Qaeda Al Farouq training camp in
Afghanistan, where, as he was already trained as a pilot, he was selected to take part in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In December 2000, Hanjour arrived in
San Diego, joining
Nawaf al-Hazmi and
Khalid al-Mihdhar who had been there since November 1999. Soon after arriving, Hanjour and al-Hamzi left for
Mesa, Arizona, where Hanjour began refresher training at Arizona Aviation. By April 2001, they'd relocated to
Falls Church, Virginia, where they awaited the arrival of the "muscle" hijackers (the hijackers meant to intimidate those on board the hijacked plane). These men,
Majed Moqed and
Ahmed al-Ghamdi arrived together from
Dubai at
Dulles International Airport on
May 2, 2001 and moved into an apartment with al-Hazmi and Hanjour.
On
May 21,
2001, Hanjour rented a room in
Paterson, New Jersey, where the hijackers stayed through the end of August.
Salem al-Hazmi was the younger brother of Nawaf al-Hazmi. Salem went to Afghanistan in early 2000, while Nawaf had trained earlier at the al-Faruq camp in
Kandahar. Salem al-Hazmi arrived, along with
Abdul Aziz al-Omari, on
June 29,
2001 at
John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, on a flight from Dubai. The passenger security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport was operated by
Argenbright Security, under contract with
United Airlines. On the flight, Hani Hanjour was seated up front in 1B, while Salem and Nawaf al-Hazmi were seated further back in first class in 5E and 5F. Majed Moqed and Khalid al-Mihdhar were seated further back in 12A and 12B.
The flight
At 7:18 a.m., the five men, carrying
knives and
box cutters, made it through the airport security checkpoint and boarded Flight 77 to Los Angeles. The flight was scheduled to depart at 08:10
EDT, but actually departed at 08:20
EDT from Gate D26 at Dulles. The
9/11 Commission estimated that the flight was hijacked between 08:51 EDT and 08:54 EDT, just minutes after
the first hijacked plane had struck the
World Trade Center in
Manhattan at 08:46 EDT. The last normal radio communications from the aircraft to
air traffic control occurred at 08:50:51 EDT.
The hijacking
At 08:54
EDT, American Airlines Flight 77 began to deviate from its normal, assigned flight path and turned south. The Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center, as well as American Airlines dispatchers, made several failed attempts to contact the aircraft. After learning of this second hijacking involving American Airlines aircraft and the hijacking involving
United Airlines, American Airlines Executive Vice President Gerard Arpey ordered a nationwide ground stop for the airline. By 08:56 EDT, the flight was turned around, and the
transponder had been disabled. The
FAA was aware at this point that there was an emergency aboard the plane. By this time,
American Airlines Flight 11 had already crashed into the
World Trade Center, and
United Airlines Flight 175 was known to have been hijacked.
A plane was detected again by Dulles controllers on radar screens as it approached Washington, turning and descending rapidly. Controllers initially thought this was a fighter plane, due to its high speed and maneuverability. Reagan Airport controllers then asked a passing Air National Guard C-130H plane to identify and follow the aircraft. The pilot, Lt. Col.
Steven O'Brien, told them it was a Boeing 757 or 767, and its silver fuselage meant it was probably an American Airlines jet. He had difficulty picking out the plane in the "East Coast haze", but then saw a "huge" fireball, and initially assumed it had hit the ground. Approaching the Pentagon, he saw the west side and reported to Reagan control, "Looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon sir". (Later in his flight, O'Brien saw the smoke from the crash of
UAL 93 in western
Pennsylvania.)
Phone calls
Two people on American Airlines Flight 77 made phone calls to contacts on the ground. At 09:12 EDT, flight attendant Renee May called her mother, Nancy May, in Las Vegas. During the call, which lasted nearly two minutes, and tried unsuccessfully to contact
Attorney General John Ashcroft. Olson called her husband back, and asked him "What should I tell the pilot?"
Crash
Flight 77 crashed into the western side of
the Pentagon in
Arlington County, Virginia, just south of
Washington, D.C. at 09:37:44
EDT, killing all of its 53 regular passengers, 5 hijackers, and 6 crew. As the aircraft hurtled towards the Pentagon at 530 miles per hour,) as it passed over
Washington Boulevard, approximately 20 feet off the ground. Its right wing hit a portable
generator that provided backup power for the Pentagon and the left engine hit an external steam vault before it slammed into the Pentagon. As it crashed, the plane was rolled slightly to the left, with the right wing elevated. When the plane impacted, the front part of the
fuselage disintegrated, while the mid and tail-sections moved for another fraction of a second, with tail section debris pieces ending furthest into the building.
At the time of the attacks, approximately 18,000 people worked in the Pentagon, which was 4,000 less than before renovations began in 1998. The section of the Pentagon, which
had recently been renovated at a cost of $250 million, housed the Naval Command Center and other Pentagon offices, as well as some unoccupied offices. The crash and subsequent fire penetrated three outer ring sections of the western side. The outermost ring section was largely destroyed, and a large section collapsed. 125 people in the Pentagon died from the attack.
Witnesses
The Pentagon is bordered by
Interstate 395 and Washington Boulevard, on the side where the impact occurred. Steve Riskus witnessed the plane crash into the Pentagon, as he was driving along Washington Boulevard and stopped to take photographs moments after the impact.
Mary Lyman, who was on I-395, saw the airplane pass over at a "
steep angle toward the ground and going fast" and then saw the cloud of smoke from the Pentagon.
Jim Sutherland, also on I-395, witnessed the plane pass 50 feet overhead, heading in a straight line into the Pentagon.
Mary Ann Owens, of
Gannett News Service, was stuck in traffic near the Pentagon when she saw the airplane pass 50 to 75 feet overhead and crash into the Pentagon. Another witness, Daryl Donley, saw the crash as he was driving on Washington Boulevard. Among debris that was scattered as the plane crashed, he found a "scorched green
oxygen tank marked 'Cabin air. Airline use'" on the road.
USA Today reporter Mike Walter, while driving on Washington Boulevard, also witnessed the crash. He recounted to CNN, "...looked out my window. I saw this plane, the jet, American Airlines jet coming. And I thought, this doesn't add up. It's really low. And I saw it. It just went—I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings, it went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon. Huge explosion." Terry Morin, who worked at the nearby
Navy Annex, saw the airliner pass 100 feet overhead, moments before it crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers aboard a
Washington Metro train heading to
Ronald Reagan National Airport also saw the crash and explosion, including Allen Cleveland who explained [he] "looked out the window to see a jet heading down toward the Pentagon."
AP reporter Dave Winslow recounted, "I saw the tail of a large airliner. ... It plowed right into the Pentagon." Tim Timmerman, who is a pilot himself, noticed American Airlines markings on the aircraft as he saw it hit the Pentagon. Commander Mike Dobbs, who worked at the Pentagon, was on an upper level of the outer ring, looking out the window when he saw the crash. and an explosion following. The images were made public in response to a December 2004
Freedom of Information Act request by
Judicial Watch. Some still images from the video had previously been released and publicly circulated, but this was the first official release of the full video of the crash. Judicial Watch hoped that the Pentagon security video would dispel
conspiracy theories, though David Yancey, whose wife died on the flight, expressed concerns that the video didn't show enough detail to "end the talk of a conspiracy".
A nearby
Citgo gas station also had security cameras, but this video released on
September 15,
2006 didn't show the crash because it was pointed away. The
Doubletree hotel, located nearby in
Crystal City, Virginia, also had a security camera video, and on
December 4,
2006 the FBI released the video in response to a freedom of information lawsuit filed by Scott Bingham. "The video is grainy and the focus is soft, but a rapidly-growing tower of smoke is visible in the distance on the upper edge of the frame as the plane crashes into the building." No plane can be clearly seen entering the Pentagon since the camera was mounted on a lower point on the Doubletree Hotel and an elevated highway obstructs the view of the Pentagon. However, a shape or group of shapes can be seen above the highway, moving from left to right and ending at the explosion point. At 10:15 a.m., the upper floors of the damaged area of the Pentagon collapsed. This amount of time between impact and collapse allowed everyone on the fourth and fifth levels to evacuate safely before the structure collapsed.
Rescue and recovery
The
United States Pentagon Police led the rescue and recovery efforts at the Pentagon, with involvement from the
Arlington County Police Department and Fire,
Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority,
Fort Myer, and others. Other area jurisdictions, including the
Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue team, were able to assist the rescue and recovery efforts, working through the National Interagency Incident Management System (NIIMS). The
FBI's Washington Field Office, National Capital Response Squad (NCRS), and the
Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) led the
crime scene investigation at the Pentagon.
On 9/11, the
National Military Command Center continued to operate at the Pentagon, even with smoke getting into the facility. Though, the Department of Defense also had contingencies that would allow them to move command operations to
Site R.
Notable victims
Non-hijacking passengers included:
