THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE {masterlist}

THE PHYSICAL EVIDENCE {masterlist}
The Frustrating Fraud
Last updated January 2 2008

This post is to organize the sub-posts dealing with the analysis of the physical evidence at the Pentagon attack scene. I am not a structural engineer, forensic scientist, or airplane mechanic. I'm a janitor, but have enough common sense, basic scientific knowledge, and ability to visualize spatial dynamics and physical processes to give my analysis some worth. Some of this is just conjecture, some backed by some research. And most importantly, I’m driven by a desire to actually figure out what makes the most sense, and not be ruled by mystery and speculation. Initially my research was to decide how far off-track Pentagon Strike and 911 In Plane Site really was, but since then I have put together a plausible explanation for what physically happened there that morning centered around the impact of a plane rougly the size and shape of a Boeing 757 and seemingly painted with the American Airlines standards. It's not the only possibility, but as I'll demonstrate it's probable, likely, or at at least as plausible as any other theory, putting the lie to the myriad claims it could not be so.

Just as I was posting this starting late in 2006, the new paradigm of no-757 hoaxing was emerging – Citizen Investigative Team and the witnesses whose geometry logically rules out an impact by a missile, drone, 757, anything, with all the points of evidence addressed below fabricated independently, some in real-time, to indicate a plane strike on the official path. To demonstrate how remarkably convoluted that would be all I need do is keep plugging away at the details like I have been and take as leads the points they think they can twist into making their silly case seem to make sense. To address the witness verification, logic, geometry, and honesty aspects of CIT, I’ve gone out on several limbs listed in a separate masterlist.

In piecing this together I’ve drawn on official and governmental sources, FOIA released documents shared by others, published personal accounts, and mostly on many hundreds of photographs and the published opinions of various theorists. I'm indebted in tiny part to 911 IPS/Loose Change/Hufschmid et al for getting me started and wondering, but indebted massively to the groundbreaking works of John Judge, Mark Robinowitz, Jim Hoffman, Russell Pickering, Joel van der Reijden, Scott Bingham, and various others for showing and addressing in a sane manner ALL the evidence available and thus allowing me closer to the reality of the situation. So in drawing on the works of others, there are only so many new ideas here. What I do is try to understand a point at the basic level, verify it by what I know or can learn, and then simplify and convey the core ideas in my own way. There are no math or science prerequisites for understanding the evidence of this crime scene as I've boiled it down.

In fact, as some have pointed out, the Pentagon may have become such a focus of flawed theories because of the simplicity of the crime scene. The WTC was almost volcanically destroyed and buried, but the Pentagon was basically a five-story office building left almost totally intact. The impacted section was primarily on a single floor of the building and of course inside the plane. Identification of plane parts and bodies would be easier by orders of magnitude than the New York crime scene. And if no such evidence existed, many reasoned, this would become the “weakest link” in the official story. The scant evidence available does not bear them out – this is someone’s weakest link, but not the government’s.

> ATTACK PATH DAMAGE AND QUESTIONS
- Precision Low-Rider: The remarkably anomolous final attack altitude - admittedly quite a feat for a hulking 757. And yet...
- The widely-cited unmarked lawn: A plane so low and yet not quite THAT low. Again suspicious but ultimately a red herring IMO. It seems that however unlikely, it flew that razor's edge of altitude, pushing the envelope to the maximum.
- From the Blind Spot to the Empty Side: The lack of radar coverage over the attack route and the stroke of "luck" that had the plane hit the just-renovated and partly empty side of the building.
- The "undamaged" light poles: Testifying the 'official' flight path and altitude, were these clipped by the plane, popped with FX, or planted in advance?
- Analysis: Poles 1 and 2 proportions, shear height, clues to final plane bank, just a hint of getting into the Lloyd issue...
- Map of the crime Scene and the "obstacle Dodge." The heliport, attack path, generator, etc. mapped out and explained. Excellent resource to be updated soon to reflect the below.
- Vent Structure Damage: If the plane could be said to have hit the ground before impact, this is where it did so.
- Twisted Orange Trailers: Analysis of scrap metal at the scene with some angles and stuff. Pretty cool.
- Cookie Identification Team: The damage points that line up so well they're called 'cookie-cutter,' or too perfect, by critics. Generator trailer, fencem vent retaining wall, tree damage, general impact hole.
- Like Two Bulldozers: A new view highlights the consistency of the damage path with a 757 strike or some damn good fakery.

> IMPACT DAMAGE

- The Entry Wounds: Analyzing the tiny "16-foot hole" so many insist could not have allowed a 757. It's actually 90 feet wide.
- The "16-foot hole challenge." coming soon.
- The outer wall: how many inches of what?: External Wall construction notes - 18" of steel-reinforced concrete? 13" of brick reinforced limestone? Or what?
- Support columns Masterlist: The "intact support columns" thought to preclude a 757 - anlysis with thee linked sub-posts demonstrating incorrect official reports, questioning the status of columns 15-17aa, and the PentaCon guys' analysis of "intact" column 14aa on the second floor.
- Pentagon Foundation Damage?
- Right Wing Damage Continuity

> DEPTH OF PENETRATION
- Early revisionist accounts decided only one ring was damaged. I run rings around their deeply flawed analyses (from 2001 and 2002) for no big plane at the Pentagon. They should have learned by now, but it doesn't seem they have.
- Nine feet of Steel Reinforced Idiocy: Plane penetrates 300 feet, fraud logic penetrates nothing.
- Punch-Out Page - intro on the punch-out hole at the end of the plane's alleged penetration, masterlist of more posts on the hole.

> FIRE:
- No fires? "A Stool Sample of IPS Evidence."
- Impact fireball: Fireball Fakery: Challenge to CIT

> THE PLANE PARTS:

- Part I: The Engines: Parts that could be from almost any engine - including a 757's.
- Part II: Landing Gear: a wheel and a landing gear that look like those from a 757.
- Part III: the Scrap Over the Scraps: Fuselage segments from an American Airlines jet.
- The Flight Data Recorder {masterlist}: Found intact, with altitude, speed, etc details programmed in, and coming out weird. A lot to cover... especially the animation.

>THE BODIES:
- Faces of Death, the Moussaoui Edition: The government's release of new evidence in mid-2006 as the Moussaoui case closes - are we seeing the Flight 77 victims here?
- also covered at the end of the nine feet of idiocy piece.

COOKIE IDENTIFICATION TEAM

COOKIE IDENTIFICATION TEAM
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
May 13 2008
updates/edits 5/14 1am

Semantical note: To avoid any misunderstanding as has happened in the past, over interpretations of the ‘normal’ meaning of various key terms, I am taking ‘cookie-cutter’ as meaning an unnaturally similar shape between the damage and the damager and ‘cartoonish’ as similarly meaning unrealistic, in defiance of normal principles and dynamics of the alleged event. Examples: Ranke dismissing my “sarcastic little list of cookie cutter yet anomalous damage” that “means nothing” in the face of their growing list of “evidence” against the impact. Ranke again: “Now we know why the physical damage is so anomalous and questionable yet cookie cutter in many ways.” [source] Proceed.
---
The image below has been offered about lately by Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) for the ‘anomalous’ impact damage at the Pentagon’s façade. This useful and pretty accurate resource, based on a montage by Pier Paulo Murru (who also did their famous flyover animation), clears the smoke and debris to let us see the structural situation. CIT has improved on it with their red outline that seems to denote the intact structure, but ignoring the first floor columns and non-columns entirely.
CIT’s Craig Ranke noted beneath it at one post ”Just looking at the initial anomalous and admittedly "counter-intuitive" damage to the building (and lack there of) and it becomes clear that it was not caused by a missile or a plane.” CIT, at least, feel the evidence is counter-intuitive because it’s absolutely wrong for a 757 impact and a better fit for on-site (or in-site) explosives. In the past they’ve argued it doesn’t match a plane impact at all in key ways, like with the lack of tailfin damage, or foundation damage, which they assert. When others point out how the traces of what happened in fact line up quite well with such an impact, CIT do admit that was the intent of the operation and that it was somewhat successful. Aldo and Craig will not tell you about the 16-foot hole, and they do admit to some plane parts inside (pre-planted). In fact in some cases, which we’ll look at here briefly, the problem with the evidence seems to be that it matches the impact story too well. There’s always something wrong.

The damage shown above is what CIT ally Avenger meant when he said “the plane supposedly flew into the Pentagon wall diagonally, but that cleanly cut impact hole is NOT diagonal.” [emph. mine] I’m guessing by ‘diagonal’ he meant with a wing bank, but indeed, the damage seems all horizontal – almost like weak panels removed from a building with a strong horizontal frame. Craig praised him anyway: “Leave it to Avenger to cut to the chase with pure, basic, factual knowledge! This is the most simple and brilliant point that virtually everyone ignores. Particularly the 757 impact "scientists" who say that all the physical damage "lines up perfectly". It does NOT. Sure it's in a straight line but it is ridiculously cookie cutter and anomalous.” [emph. mine - source] I still can't fully understand what this statement means, but it does appear surreal, or rather fragmented and cubist, almost like something was breaking the realistic damage up into rectangular areas of varying destruction – extremely low Atari bit-rate in the op planning blueprints? Or steel-reinforced columns and beams?

The best part is when we get to talking about the faked or so-called engine damage, thee manifestations of which were compiled by Ranke as seen at left (with engine face and words added by me). He has focused most intently on the famous spot where the left engine chipped the retaining wall of the ground-level vent structure just before impact (top photo). “If you accept the notion that this damage was caused by an RB-211 you open up a whole host of other problems with the physical evidence. First consider the cartoon like curvature of the damage as if it was perfectly punched out by the bottom of the engine” [emph. mine] I’m not exactly sure what sort of realistic shape he’d expect here where a heavy, fast-moving, round object is said to have impacted a weak concrete wall. A jagged triangle with spirals of rebar? Are we sure it wasn't just the very edge of the engine, and the shape of the damage was even larger, determined by the concrete itself? What more does Ranke know about this than I? It seems to me of all things hit, this is the most likely to behave like a cookie, considering the conceptual similarity of dough and concrete.

A while back he expanded the theme to include the bottom photos; “It seems the perpetrators (and some 757 impact conspiracy theorists) expected us believe that similar cartoon like curves were created by the engines on the fence to the generator trailer AND the tree up by the light poles: Unfortunately for the official story this cookie cutter anomalous damage raises more questions than it answers.” It does raise questions like was the tree (middle) chopped by the right engine’s turbofan blades, or burned by its heat or both? Or why would the fakers do it too cartoonish like that? The tree damage is a supiciously perfect fit; relative to the probably irrelevant/easily-faked VDOT camera pole damage and approximate height and nature of damage to light pole 1, a wingtip and engine placement like this is illustrated, matching the official story with cartoonish precision you might say. Another good question raised by this alleged damage is why did they tear the fence in such a perfect curve (bottom)? Everyone knows that actual chain-link fence damage is jagged and angular,like this, causing the fence to lose tensile strength and slump into nice smooth curving shapes like this. Oh, wait… now who exactly has ever said that curve was caused directly by the engine?

The diesel generator trailer said to be impacted by the high-banking right engine just before impact also bears the stamp of Disney. It was featured prominently in Integrated Consultants’ animation of the official scenario, as seen above, with the engine just punching a nice curved hole in it like it was a block of tofu. I doubt that many really believe this is what happened - it's a cartoon. But the photos of the generator (below, bottom photo) do look a bit like this, with a very large deformation on a scale of an airliner engine and with a curve reminiscent of one. CIT co-conspirator Aldo Marquis explained why this was not evidence for an airliner engine: “Did you ever watch the video of the trailer on fire before it was put out and left the damage you see? If not you should. Look at the damage, it reflects the thin metal sheet of the trailer MELTING into [an] even bend. So the plane did not cause that, the resulting FIRE DID.”[source]
At the time I conceded that the actual curve seen in this metal could not be caused directly by an RB-211 engine unless it was dropped from above, but maintained it was apparently centered around some extensive pre-fire damage that might be compatible with an engine impact. I saw the Pugh video of the raging fire, and even one better – a photo from even before the blaze got bad, taken by Steve Riskus within five minutes tops of the event (middle). It shows a missing area and a damage profile that’s actually quite similar to the post-melting photos, if rougher and shinier, like fresh torn metal. (Note also the large piece of debris off to the left - is this part of what was removed in the collision?) It started out rectangular (top) and even before the fire took hold was knocked out or pre-fabbed almost the same as it looked later when it appeared to many that an engine passed through it like butter. In short: the fire did nothing to this damage but soften it. But as Craig once simmered it down, "the bend in the top corner to the trailer was likely simply caused by the raging fire melting it. […] the damage to the generator trailer and the cookie cutter curved damage to the fence going all the ground makes even less sense."[source]
And finally, another cookie-cutter anomaly that I discovered and that Craig and Aldo have glossed over: the vent door panel beyond the chipped wall, bearing another improbable cartoonish curve. It would seem these doors were propped and locked open at impact and remained so afterwards, but in a different position and with one side swept down severely at the corner, roughly on the scale of a RB211 engine. How convenient! In fact it looks almost melted, like a lot of energy was transferred into it suddenly by some massive physical force. Pure Hanna Barberra.

So among the reasons to dismiss evidence of a 757 impact we find “the fact that the curvature in the fence, retaining wall, and tree is clearly cookie cutter and anomalous showing blatant signs of pre-fabrication.” [source] And of course there are the other problems that don’t match, the wrong data that rules out something, and the fact that the plane flew north of the Citgo and wherever else radar didn't show it, and flew over instead of impacting, and the choice is clear. If the cutter fits, you must acquit.
---
Cookie Identification Team: "Yes we had a cookie cutter seen in the vicinity, at least five cookies of the right shape, and many witnesses who saw the cutter press into the gingerbread, at least for the final cookie, before their very eyes. But these gingerbread men are too perfect and cartoonish, which indicates they were prefabricated, and a few witnesses saw that cutter over by the sink as the dough was imprinted. Therefore it’s been proven the cuts were done some other way with advance means that can’t be proven or even narrowed-down. Culinary deception is proven!"

RIGHT WING DAMAGE CONTINUITY

RIGHT WING DAMAGE CONTINUITY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 10 2008

Citizen Investigative Team’s number one claim to fame is of course their trailblazing eyewitness account verification, proving a north-of-the-Citgo flyover of the Pentagon. But garnering less attention is their groundbreaking work on exploring the ‘smoking gun’ physical evidence there was no impact from any airliner. Besides the witnesses, and before they were known of at all, CIT felt they had a strong anti-crash case, based on research into the ‘anomolous’ physical evidence at the site of the anomalous (alleged) impact of a 757 into the Pentagon.

Among the prime points they have made and that I’ve so far addressed is the presence of Column 14AA on the second floor, and the lack of foundation damage. The next claim I will examine and answer to the best of my ability is “why is there no continuity to the "wing damage" when it tilted up its right wing? It looks as if the facade simply fell off in this section.” This question was posted along with the two above and several others at Above Top Secret.com, and illustrated with these two high-res Jason Ingersoll photos:
The area shown here is just south of the main impact hole, the first and second floors of the section just upgraded to withstand bomb blasts. In the middle span there is much visible damage: a windowless panel recently backed with 10” of steel-reinforce concrete, intact but missing most facing and partially scooped-out. Perhaps most odd is another panel of presumably the same type right below it entirely gone, along with two weaker window/door panels just to the right of these. Some limestone facing is removed from the frame to the right of that, but at the left and right are areas of little or no visible damage, labeled in red “no wing.” On first blush this might seem like pretty anomalous damage, considering the alleged wing impact angle (see below); put simply, there’s too much damage on the first floor, and apparently not enough on the second.

The photo below is overlaid with a light grid representing the intact structural frame. Intact panels within the grid are lightened as well, whereas removed or intensely damaged panels are left un-tinted. The partial plane outline is based on the ASCE’s graphics, layered to scale and outlined. Areas shaded red are where the problem is, those marked ‘no wing’ above.
Considering how much continuity of damage there should be, we need to consider many factors, like these:
1) The strength of the wing at various point in optimal conditions
2) Actual wings strength/integrity after impacting light poles, generator, etc.
3) The mass and speed behind the wing (with the fuselage already shredding inside)
4) By the alleged impact angle, the entire right wing would have impacted near-simultaneously
4) Portions of the building impacted – horizontal resistance (floor slab) vs. vertical resistance (columns, wall panels, windows)
5) The possibility of other projectiles (cargo trailers, equipment, etc) and/or the deflagration plume of a pre-impact wing explosion contributing to the extra damage on the ground floor.

Considering these, one red area is near the wing’s mid-point just over and south of the engine. This is a very strong part of the wing, but it met the floor slab at a shallow angle – near parallel - with at least ten feet of it hitting edgewise either the slab or the very bases of the columns anchored to it above. At this point, the building wins and shows no immediately visible scars. The other problem area is nearer the wing’s tip, a weaker point, meeting ordinary columns and façade, if the outer wing was even still attached at that point. The wall south of CL 20 shows nary a sign of impact, so apparently building wins there as well, which somehow doesn’t surprise me.

But further in on the wing, which was after all attached to a barreling 90-ton jetliner at about 460 kts, there should have been some instant damage to the frame. Countering this CIT point at the forums, I’ve previously used the following two images of the damaged panel between columns 18 and 19, cropped from Jocelyn Agustino hish-res photos taken – yes, I’m aware - about a week after the event: The missing brick has a linear edge with a certain slope relative to horizontal. The concrete backing damage has its own similar overall slope. The slab and column damage as well exhibit a similar but shallower slope. The damage is manifested at different heights due to the nature of the materials, their order in layering, etc., but all share a moderate right-high slope that is consistent with the alleged wing tilt of the 757 at impact.
Seen from something of a side view, as above, it’s clearly visible that the columns are disjointed, with the upper floor’s lower ends apparently buckled inward, or the lower ones outward, it’s not entirely clear. Referring to this area of damage, the ASCE’s Pentagon Building Performance Report noted:

“Just above the second-floor slab, the exterior columns on column lines 18 and 19 exhibited aligning gashes that seem to indicate impact by the right wing of the aircraft [...] An area of broken limestone of the facade over the exterior column on column line 20 also aligned with these gashes.” [p 27/28 - emph mine]

Referring to these photos presented as evidence, and apparently missing the majority of information in them, Ranke said “the damage does NOT match a "wing". […] A single broken column does not match a "wing" and does not have to have been fabricated on purpose to match a wing.” He decided I was “incorrectly or deceptively trying to attribute damage to the "plane" that did not exist immediately after the violent event,” rather than to the collapse or some other later event. [source]

In fact, noting the lack of all this damage visible before the collapse, I attribute it to a chain of events unlocked by the plane’s impact. Let’s look at a different kind of continuity of wing damage - continuity through time. At impact the initial damage would be done in a tiny fraction of a second. Some of this – the missing and damaged panels - was externally visible. There would also be damage, especially along the stronger frame, that would be internal and less visible.

Considering both obvious and possibly latent damage, let’s look at a sequence of pictures from the morning of 9/11, at different points between 9:38 and 10:15 or so. In Steve Riskus’ photo at left, taken about one minute after impact, CL18 is framed by magenta markers and a line of fire just to its right. This long-shot is too unclear on its own, but compared to the Darryl Donley photo at center and taken at least five minutes after, it shows a flaming seam at its far right that matches, if more dimly. The Ingersoll shot at right was taken several minutes later and after a coating of fire retardant foam. While the facing is broken fairly clean on the column edge, the “no plane” damage area to the left of that remains unchanged; the column and its facing remain - counter-intuitively - intact.

At lower left in the top photo below, note a major crack in the horizontal frame just to the left of column 18. I speculate that at this point, the area there is holding together by weight and habit, but ready to shear, crumble, and scatter along the fault lines introduced by the big thud at 9:38, waiting for a further violent event to trigger the fractures into rifts.
Then the collapse, immediately after which the bottom shot was taken. The facing around the damaged panel has fallen away, but the brick and concrete backing remain about the same. Below that, something has left the whole corner of the frame above and left of column 18 missing, presumably in the pile large of rubble that formed at the foot of the collapsed zone. Perhaps it was some massive pressure that has stripped away the top of that column, exposing re-bar. Although the separation came after the collapse, the point of give is right about there in the red zone of ‘no plane damage.’ And I’m pretty sure column 19 on the right also shows its later damage at this point, and even before collapse, though that’s less clear. Coincidence? If there was no continuity of wing damage, then why is there no continuity of the column here?


Referring to Augustino's post-shoring photos of the alleged wing gash, Ranke told Above Top Secret.com member Dark Blue Sky, in no uncertain terms:

“You can't use a post collapse photo if you are trying to assert it was from the alleged impact. Catherder used the same image for the same reason and it's deceived many 10's of thousands of people. Please don't help. There is nothing possible about the damage to the Pentagon in relation to a 757 impact.” [source]

Referring to a blurrier version of the bottom post-collapse shot above that clearly shows the breach of column 18, Ranke furter explained “it's quite clear that even after the collapse the left column was not completely breeched as it was after supports were added days later.” [source] Wrong. It might have been worse by the time of Augustino's photos, but it could only be less clear here due to being a head-on shot. The top of the column’s casing is gone, the corner of the frame is gone, lengths of rebar are exposed, and column 19 seems to have its damage as well, visible even before the collapse.

In summary then, all things considered, the answer to CIT’s original question is that there is about as much continuity to the right wing damage as there should be, which is little that was plainly visible after impact, but more that revealed itself after the collapse. And again I'm only left wondering if they really misread the evidence this wrong or are just pretending to have done so.

COLUMN 9AA - WARPED BY THE LEFT WING

COLUMN 9AA - WARPED BY THE LEFT WING
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
September 10 2007
last updated 9/11 early am

In assessing the outer column damage upon impact, I had been hazy for a while on the status of column 9aa (aa meaning the outermost position on a column line). It would have been two columns over to the left (north) of the collapsed portion, and officially impacted by Flight 77’s left wing but left intact. In error I had included it as part of the columns-removed area, which I had taken as too wide. This has now been updated. Although I was focused on the right-hand side and didn’t see or wonder about this non-controversial support. It was usually listed as intact though deformed and impaired, and no-planers hadn't made any noises about it I've heard. But finally I have looked into it and found a few early (pre-shoring) photos that show it – barely. Column line 9 is roughly highlighted in each of the below to help locate it




By coincidence, these four shots rotate, zoom out, and clear-up if looked at in sequence. The first, least clear shot is pre-collapse, less than 20 min after impact, seen close and from the left and obscured by smoke. The second view is further out, just after the collapse, and somewhat clearer. The third view is off to the right from behind the smashed generator, with all up-front fire extinguished, and the final view is a long shot from the far right. Note how the curvature of the columns seems to shift with perspective – it bends to the left when seen from the left, appears straight seen straight-on, and curves to the right when seen from that side. This shape consistently indicates in inward bend.


Column 9 is also visible in figure 9 from FEMA’s Shoring Report (above), again seen from the right, post-collapse, post-fire, but pre-shoring. It’s the “damaged column,” one of the many that necessitated the bracing that report documented. Other photos of column 9 in the report, once the wood went up, are taken head-on and show no evident lateral curve. Figure 16 (left) shows the first of the supports being finished the night after the attack, with the space to the right still left hanging.

The close-up photo used in the American Society of Civil Engineers’s 2002 Pentagon Building Performance Report shows a column displaying “triple curvature” (shown from the right). Besides three remnants of its original square-sided casing, the angular concrete is gone, the column “stripped to spiral reinforcements.”

Regarding the evident curve, its clear inward orientation is seen elsewhere in the building with other columns, in what appears to be a bowing by Boeing. The fulcrum of appears to be in its upper portion, about 2/3 of the way up from the foundation. This is presumably the impact point of any type of wing in the area. The ASCE’s report listed the column as “5 to 6 inches out of plumb.” By the photo below, showing the column and its bend in its stabilization period environs, it seems visibly at least that misaligned at the top end in particular, further indicating a high impact.

But this graphic used in the ASCE’s report seems to disagree, with the left engine centered just to right of column 11aa with columns 10, 9, and 8aa visible to left. In addition to there being no evidence of the left engine entering well below ground level as shown, the wing crosses low on column 9 in this mock-up, almost certainly too low to have created the bend seen above. It might seem presumptuous of me to question the ASCE's graphic placement, but it seems warranted by this evidence to venture that we have an inaccurate graphic here.

They seem to have placed the right wing correctly given the building damage at that location, but neither the left wing or engine seem marked properly. Perhaps they were trying to avoid an overly-complex explanation as to how the wings could impact at differing angles from each other, and just dropped on an intact 757's profile stretched to account for the angular impact. This is about the same reason I've done the same and am still not explicitly reconciling the wing discrepancy here. But the key to seeing how this is possible is to keep in mind that the plane impacted at such an angle that the right wing/engine and much of the fuselage were scattered inside the building by the time the left wing or tailfin ever touched the facade or outer columns. I intend to post this theory in the near future, but for now, I propose a correction like this:

My green rotation, compared to the ASCE's in red, accounts better for both the column warping seen here and for the lack of an engine burrowed six feet under the floor slab. It does seem the engine was likely low enough to have impacted the building’s foundation, if glancingly, and also possibly just high enough to have cleared the floor. This ambiguity is interesting for another study of Citizens’ Investigative Team's undamaged foundation claims by possibly making their point moot.

PUNCH-OUT PAGE {Masterlist}

PUNCH-OUT PAGE {Masterlist}
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last updated July 16 2007

It’s long past time I worked out a study of the much-discussed but little-explained “punch-out” hole at the end of the plane’s trajectory through the Pentagon. The official story maintains that the disintegrating 757 plowed in a northeasterly direction clear through the E, D, and C rings of the building, the furthest-reaching elements from the fuselage coming to rest just outside the inside wall of the final ring, and into the open, ground-level service roadway past that – the A-E Drive that runs around the building between C and B rings. Burning debris was ejected with enough force to leave marks on the outer B ring wall, but otherwise stopped in the drive.
Russell Pickering of Pentagonresearch.com, who has studied the issue more than perhaps anyone else, aptly describes this exist wound as “one of the most anomalous features of the Pentagon attack […] absolutely inexplicable in terms of the composite nose of a Boeing 757-200 "punching out" through it," given "curiously little" of any plane parts outside of it. [1] It’s a perfect hole implying strong, evenly applies force and yet no ready sign of just what part of the plane made this and then - apparently - vanished before hitting the next wall.
Here is the earliest photo Pickering could locate of the hole, before any marking were spray-painted and before the debris inside was pulled forward. Note the ground is strewn with scattered bricks and flooded with water from firefighting efforts. [2] Compare this with with the damage to ring B's wall across from it [below], separated only by fifty feet of air; not a brick removed. [3]
Only a few photos of the exit hole have been released, many had seen it, and none have explained it with any useful precision. It has proven a magnet for mystery-mongers and skeptics from across the credibility spectrum.

How exactly the plane's trajectory wound up giving us what we’ve seen is left a bit vague in the official record.
- official "explanations:" confusion/silence over the exact cause of the hole.

- Analysis of the plane debris at and near the site.

- Carlson's backhoe punch-out theory assessed for errors

- Possibility of a purposeful, explosive punch-in

Personally I cannot venture a solid guess as to what happened here. The hole was either cut out with explosives for some reason or somehow caused by the barreling 757, perhaps via debris that was removed before the pictures we’ve seen were taken. I’m certainly open to suggestions. But I have to agree that IF there is a physical crime – an inside job element to the Pentagon attack that can be shown with evidence - this is the most likely spot to look.
---
Sources:
[1] Pickering, Russell. “Exit Hole” Pentagon Research. http://www.pentagonresearch.com/exit.html
[2]. [3] Photo Source: Pentagon Research. Exit Hole Chronology. http://www.pentagonresearch.com/062.html

THE OUTER WALL: HOW MANY INCHES OF WHAT?

THE OUTER WALL: HOW MANY INCHES OF WHAT?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Updated August 5 2007

Many questions have been raised about whether a Boeing 757 could have breached the imposing “steel-reinforced,” and just-upgraded, walls of the Pentagon. As 911 In Plane Site and others have explained, each wall of the five-floor, five-side bunker of five nested rings was 18” of solid steel-reinforced concrete, giving 9 feet total the plane would’ve had to pierce to plow through three rings as alleged. Of course this is ridiculous, but in fact, besides the inner C ring wall where the small and odd punch-out hole occurred, a majority of the plane only passed through one major external wall, on the outer E ring where the plane entered through a gaping 90-foot-wide hole. So I set to figuring out how that wall was constructed - how many inches of what?

Wedge one, the southwest fifth of the building, had just been renovated against terrorist attack, with work one day away from completion when Flight 77 plowed into the ground floor of the strengthened zone. This curious fact has attracted much attention among skeptics, but the ASCE’s Pentagon Building Performance Report notes “structurally the renovation was not major,” and makes little mention of the changes other than to note “the exterior walls and windows were upgraded to provide a measure of resistance to extreme lateral pressures.” [1] There was also the addition of a new fire suppressing sprinkler system, which did little good; [separate link], new windows (to which we’ll return), and several less noteworthy upgrades. But the main issue here is the outer wall of the massive office-bunker that was breached.

According to the Performance Report, “the original structural system, including the roof, was entirely cast-in-place reinforced concrete using normal-weight aggregate." [2] This frame is comprised of columns supporting beams, girders, and floor slabs. The report illustrated "the typical members" in the impact area (left). The reinforcements in these columns are vertical bars, typically six, wrapped with a welded rebar that spirals from top to bottom. This cage is filled and covered with concrete, all told measuring 21” square. [3]

Spanning between these sturdy columns, the impacted exterior wall of the E ring was “mostly non-load-bearing masonry infilled in a concrete frame.” This consisted of “5 in. thick limestone […] backed by 8 in. unreinforced brick.” [4] Apparently most of the surface area encountered was only masonry, just over a foot of it. This is not too imposing. But just after noting the weakness of the outer walls, the report mentions that “in some areas the backing is a cast-in-place concrete wall.” [5] I had been looking at a photograph that looked like that to me, and became confused as to how much concrete structure there really was in the wall that the 757 slammed into. I’m now in agreement with Russell Pickering, who decided:

“The exterior columns were 21 inch square steel reinforced concrete covered with 6 inches of limestone facade. In panels with windows it had the 6 inch limestone facade and 8 inches of brick backed with Kevlar mesh. In panels without windows it was 8 inches of brick and 10 inches of concrete.” [6]

This sounds good, and I see evidence for this distinction. As an article passed on by Jim Hoffman noted:

“The idea of supporting the brick infill walls with a reinforced concrete wall "backing" was rejected as a "typical" approach because of the Pentagon's extensive fenestration (although this design was accepted for "blank" wall panels with no window openings).” [7]

The one place I was seeing concrete backing was a damaged non-window panel on the second floor, thought to be the impact point for part of the right wing. Note what seems a third layer of brick is actually stained on the concrete, which fades to gray at the bottom where the backing was smashed to cobble exposing the 2-layer rebar.

I felt like making a model of the solid slab as seen above. I’m going with the Performance Report’s limestone width of 5,” making the sturdy non-window panel 23” thick. 10” of concrete backing 13” of masonry.

[right click - open in new window to enlarge]






In general, however, this is not the type of wall the 757 impacted. “In panels with windows it had the 6 inch limestone facade and 8 inches of brick backed with Kevlar mesh.” Another part of the renovation was the Kevlar cloth, the material in bullet-proof vests, stretched between the columns along the back side of the unreinforced spans of outer wall. This sturdy netting didn’t add any real strength, and was in fact an admission of the very weakness of this panel type; Architecture Week reported the idea as being “holding together building materials so they wouldn't become deadly projectiles in an explosion.” [8] The Kevlar did little good, however, when the bricks were followed in by an exploding, full speed, Boeing 757 that took out the very columns the mesh was anchored to.

As a side note and because I numbered it in my graphic below (area 1), here is a portion of the unrenovated first floor just north of impact, with the old windows and no Kevlar backing. These panels are missing the window panes and limestone facade from the sills up, exposing the frame and unreinforced brick infill. (note the numbering – Columns 7, 6, and 5.)

Straddling the renovation line, the damage would have presented an excellent before-and-after comparison for future study, but for the collapse, twenty mintes after impact, of the upgraded half of the picture. The majority of façade damage as the worst of the structural impairment was in the renovated section, from column line 11 south. Right on that dividing line, briefly, one of the more interesting aspects of the renovation was made visible. One article explained how the window frames actually added structural integrity, according to a renovation plan for “erecting structural reinforcements around the windows, anchoring at the top and bottom to structural concrete floor slabs [which] accepts blast forces from the walls themselves and transfers both window and wall loads into the horizontal slab diaphragms.” [9] Here are two panels exposed on the second floor, between columns 11 and 13, directly over the northern half of the worst of the airliner damage. Facade, brick, and presumably Kevlar seem to be removed, while the columns, window truss framing, and even the glass panes are intact. (the number 2 refers to placement on the graphic at bottom of page)
At the risk of dropping free advertising to the makers of these windows, all sides seem in agreement over how well they held up after the attack. Architecture Week noted “the blast-resistant windows […] remain remarkably intact and in place adjacent the point of impact. Some were popped out of their frames by the force of the exploding jet fuel, but they fell without breaking or splintering.” [10] Ralph Omholt noted “the general good condition of the windows,” correctly deducing “this wasn’t a major impact zone of a B-757.” [11] The "major impact zone" is in fact just beneath that, where there are no windows at all or wall panels for over 100 feet.

Here is a graphic I just finished showing what was encountered and destroyed. For the most part, it seems quite plausible for a 757 with its massive, bullet-shaped fuselage and dense, speeding engines, and hardy wing roots to have done all this. Weaker window panel removal accounts for most of the missing outer wall, while intervening column removal was more uniform, in my analysis, than widely believed. Notably on columns 15-17, I’m in disagreement with the ASCE who listed these as present but impaired.
The big “X” panels were the strongest – backed with 10” of concrete - and yet were removed, despite being hit by neither fuselage nor engines. This is one of the things that I’d classify as counter-intuitive about the Pentagon evidence. Take the one on left; a non-window panel – not renovated, so perhaps not 23 inches of material, totally destroyed by one of the weakest parts of the plane – its outer wing. And to its immediate left, a much weaker panel totally intact but for its lost facing and windowpane.

The X on the right is even stranger. The question mark to the right of this mystery spot seems to be one of three doorway, somehow enlarged, and above that, a final weak window panel removed. But the “X” marks the mystery I can’t answer yet. It’s immediately beneath my highlighted area 3, and presumably the same panel type as analyzed above – again, totally missing. What hit this panel, concrete backed, and removed the whole thing? The wing itself hit higher it seems, looking at that line of second floor damage. The under-hanging engine was a ways to the left, and yet this first floor panel was apparently removed completely by nothing in particular.

It might help to recall the wings hitting objects like light poles and a large generator on the way in. Some accounts imply that the wings were possibly exploding even before impact, with parts flying in on the blast cloud only approximating a plane’s profile. Maybe a major wing element impacted here at just the wrong angle and took out the masonry and all its reinforced concrete backing, uniformly.

In summary, let me revisit an old question raised by Dave Von Kleist in 911 IPS and passed on in Loose Change and elsewhere; “Question – Could a 757 have pierced 9 feet of steel reinforced concrete, and left a 14 to 16 foot hole, and no wreckage?" The answer is that it didn’t need to. Most of the “bunker” surface it pierced was 13 inches of brick reinforced limestone, explaining the 110-foot span of eliminated panels (and 90 feet of removed columns) it created and into which the vast majority of wreckage “disappeared” on its own inertia. But I guess the answer he was looking for was more like “of course not – only a missile could do that.”

sources:
[1] Mlakar, Paul F., Donald O. Dusenberry, James R. Harris, Gerald Haynes, Long T. Phan, and Mete Sozen. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. ISBN 0-7844-0638-3. PDF download link. pp 3.
[2], [3] Ibid. Text pp 5, graphic pp 6.
[4], [5] Ibid. pp 11.
[6] Russell Pickering. "Exit Hole." Pentagon Research. http://www.pentagonresearch.com/exit.html
[7], [9] Biscotte, Michael N., P.E., and Keith A. Almoney “Retrofitting the Pentagon for Blast Resistance.” Structure magazine. July/August, 2001. http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/pentagon/pentagon-retrofit.htm
[8], [10] Novitski, B. J. "Pentagon Battered but Firm." Architecture Week. Undated. http://www.architectureweek.com/2001/1003/news_1-2.html
[11] Omholt, Ralph. “9-11 and the IMPOSSIBLE: The Pentagon. Part One of An Online Journal of 9-11.” Physics 911. Undated. http://physics911.net/omholt

PUNCH-OUT HOLE “EXPLAINED” BY OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS

PUNCH-OUT HOLE “EXPLAINED” BY OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
July 22 2007
Last updated/edited July 25

Official Dodginess:
How exactly Flight 77's trajectory through the building wound up giving us the exit hole we’ve seen is left a bit vague in the official record. The American Society of Civil Engineers' Pentagon Building Performance Report shows a photo of the hole but gives no adequate explanation. Its terse summary: "there was a hole in the east wall of Ring C, emerging into AE Drive, between column lines 5 and 7 in Wedge 2. The wall failure was approximately 310 ft from where the fuselage of the aircraft entered the west wall of the building," [1] The Arlington County After Action Report noted “the damage extended all the way through the inner wall of the C Ring, a distance of approximately 285 feet,” and showed a photo of the hole captioned “penetration through the inner wall of the Pentagon’s C Ring.” [2] An account of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue shoring/bracing of the building is the most detailed of these three reports. It explains that "a nine foot diameter exit hole was created in the wall of C ring and the remainder of the debris from the impact ended up in the alley between C ring and B ring known as A & E Drive," and elsewhere shows a photo of the "'exit wound' where the plane debris exited the C ring." [3]

These three reports, a few early press conferences, published eyewitness accounts, and a handful of photos constitutes the body of evidence on this hole. While it’s been widely seen and commented on, it has not yet been explained with any useful precision, and contradictory theories dominate to an unsettling degree.

Impact Energy Waves?
In October 2004, the National Geographic Channel program Seconds from Disaster proposed a novel theory by which shockwave pressure from the impact cause the punch-out hole. By this model, plane debris and heavy, exploding jet fuel, perhaps along with explosions of things in the building, gave off shockwaves that reverberated and crossed through the building’s first floor. Having no other exit point, these somehow directed themselves and whatever was in front of them to focus on that precise spot, punching the neat 9x11’ hole we’ve seen. [4] While this explains both the improvised exit and the lack of any major evident airplane parts, the official story has generally maintained it was physically caused by the plane, or some part of it, though which part has been widely contested.

Engine?
Military District of Washington’s news service reported two weeks after the attack, mentioning that “an aircraft engine punched the hole out […] on the inside wall of the second ring of the Pentagon." [5] Though the quote has been widely republished, no other official sources support this claim. No debris seen there looks like engine debris.The piece’s author got the “second ring” part wrong (whether one counts A-E or E-A, C is the third ring), so maybe identifying an engine was an error as well.

Fuselage/Nosecone?
As widely noted, Pentagon renovation spokesman Lee Evey explained implausibly during a September 15 press conference “the nose of the plane just barely broke through the inside of the C ring, so it was extending into A-E Drive a little bit. So that's the extent of penetration of the aircraft." [6] As Killtown wondered “how could the fragile nose of Flight 77 penetrate all the way through 3 reinforced concrete/steel hardened rings and punched out a hole through the inside wall of Ring C and leave no evidence of itself outside the punch-out hole?” [7] This seems unlikely, even given that the “hardened” walls from impact to exit really totaled only 22” of unreinforced brick and limestone [link forthcoming], but spanned between by about fifty damaged support columns and only one plane fuselage to absorb the other end of these blows.

What survived this was not precisely the nose cone, but more likely some element(s) of the nosecone assembly – landing gear, landing gear door, cockpit panel or cargo door – some tattered portion of the forward fuselage. As Jim Hoffman explained, in such an impact, “only the parts of the aircraft with the greatest density and total mass, such as the lower third of the fuselage, could be expected to penetrate far into the building. That part also has a small frontal profile - approximately the size of the punch-out hole.” [8] Of course there is no piece of debris anywhere near the size of the hole seen in any of the available photos, but the illustration is helpful. The fuselage had a lot of mass, tens of tons, and though it was under great stress, it didn’t simply disappear on impact.

Landing Gear?
It stands to reason that as the plane disintegrated, the densest parts of aircraft wound up at the deepest point of penetration. For example, the flight data recorder from the tail end of the plane was reportedly found just inside the punch-out hole. [9] The heavier elements from the front end would also come to rest around this point. The book Debunking 9/11 Myths identified the landing gear. The book cited Paul F. Mlakar, ASCE team leader and lead author of the Performance Report, who “saw the landing gear with his own eyes” during his early onsite inspections, for its explanation that:

“The hole was not made by an engine or the nose of Flight 77 pushing through the building’s interior - or a missile - but by the crashing jet’s landing gear, which was ejected beyond the bulk of the wreckage. […] As one of the heaviest and most dense parts of the plane, the landing gear flew farther than any other item in the wreckage and was responsible for puncturing the wall in Ring C.” [10]

Other photos and accounts seem to back this up by recalling or even showing a wheel, a tire, and even a massive landing gear strut, near the hole. But there are some serious problems with this theory as well, like the ASCE’s own Performance Report not identifying this alleged hole-puncher as such, which noted that "the landing gear" (all three sets?) were in fact found inside the building, hardly the best place to be after exiting through the hole into the AE Drive. [13] These questions will be summarized more fully in a [separate post].

ASCE and FBI Secrecy
Mlakar's ASCE study team “went to great lengths of detail down to individual columns” in the plane’s path, Russell Pickering noted, providing their own photos and personal damage assessment of nearly all of them. Yet they danced around the cause of the punch-out, as Pickering wrote, offering “not a single explanation for the exit hole.” [14] The three columns nearest the breeched wall - 1N-North, 3N-North, and 5N-North - remained un-photographed and listed in the report as “damaged per FBI.” [15] Pickering suspects falsification of the status of these three columns to hide inexplicably severe impairment. [16]

He speculated that “the building team […] weren't allowed back at the exit hole for some reason," and noted how "they indicated in the report why they didn't have photos of those columns and who gave them the damage report on the columns - the FBI.” The one photo they published of the exit hole itself was not one of their own, but also credited to the FBI, further indicating this area had special investigative significance to the bureau, although this could have many possible reasons. [17]photo of the hole used by the ASCE, credited to the FBI (lower right, very small print.) [18]
---
Sources: forthcoming
[1] Mlakar, Paul F., Donald O. Dusenberry, James R. Harris, Gerald Haynes, Long T. Phan, and Mete Sozen. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. ISBN 0-7844-0638-3. Page 28. PDF download link
[2] Arlington County After-Action Report. on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. PDF downloaded from http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Fire/edu/about/FireEduAboutAfterReport.aspx. The report bears no publisher or copyright info – it was compiled by Arlington County and Titan Systems Corporation, and released July 2002 according to this story: Weiger, Pam. “Pentagon report: After-action.” NFPA Journal. Nov/Dec 2002. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3737/is_200211/ai_n9114927/pg_1
[3] Titus, Leo J. Jr., P.E./Virginia Task Force One Urban Search & Rescue Team. “A Review of the Temporary Shoring Used to Stabilize the Pentagon After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11th, 2001.” May 3, 2002. Pages 9, 12. PDF download link: http://www.aesvn.org/resources/Pentagon-Shoring.pdf
[4] Seconds From Disaster – season one episode 12 “Pentagon 9-11.” National Geographic Channel. First Aired October 26 2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seconds_From_Disaster
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/seconds/episodes.html
[5] Military District of Washington. Press Release. (9/26/01) original url: http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Commentary-Remembering_the_honored_dead.html. Accessed at: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
[6]

COLUMNS 15-17: STILL ATTACHED?

STILL ATTACHED?
BEING A FASCINATING STUDY OF FIRST-FLOOR COLUMNS 15AA-17AA
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Split-off July 3 2007 from Support Columns masterlist

This photograph by James Ingersoll was used as figure 3.9 in the ASCE’s Pentagon Building Performance Report. It shows exterior support columns 15AA, 16AA, and 17AA, which the report described as “severely distorted but still attached at least at their top ends to the second-floor framing.” [1] This is what I originally saw as well, as have most others. But being just to the immediate left of the main fuselage impact point at column line 14, this should have been the entry point for the right engine and wing root; it stands to reason then they should have been just as removed as the columns to the left of 14.

Despite their distortion, many have taken these columns’ existence at all after the crash as a sign that the no plane the size of a 757 could have entered.For example, Dick Eastman noted these in his piece "You Decide: Fighter Jet? Or 757?" His second proof of a fighter strike, as illustrated by the government graphic at right, is that “the starboard engine would have hit on the first floor at pillar #16. Except that it didn't." He cites their status: "Pillar #15 has been blasted near ground level […] Pillar # 16 is still there, albeit blasted so that it inclines to the right; and pillar #17 is also present and accounted for.” Eastman concluded “clearly there was no starboard engine. An explosion occurring to the left of pillar #15 caused damage to the pillars to the right of it and brought down some outer wall on the first floor wall, but a large turbofan engine of a Boeing 757 never penetrated here. Thus we know that the killer jet was a single-engine aircraft.” [2]

This is classic fraud logic. “there was no 757 because the hole is too small. The “extra damage” is because of explosions to make it look like a bigger 757 hole. But just looking at that hole, you can see it’s too small…" (rinse and repeat).

However, looking at that diagram and noting that everyone agrees that the outermost columns on the left and center of the entry space (10-14AA) were uniformly removed, #15 and 16 indeed should have been nearly vaporized. This never seemed a big enough problem for me to dismiss the 757 hypothesis; I figured the displacement was enough to let an engine pass, but I found it odd that 16 would just "tip over" in straight form rather than being bowed. When I realized the high-right banking angle as well, it became clear this column would have been hit near the top, not the bottom, which makes no sense given the pictured slant of this big, square-sided "damaged column." And I was at least half-aware that the columns the ASCE and I were seeing looked different from each other and from the other pillars we can see, and weren’t quite properly spaced.

In retrospect it was also a bit sloppy of me – and perhaps the ASCE - to be certain these were "support columns" at all. In fact, despite their impressive credentials, no one at ASCE had time to look up close before the collapse, and only so much could be told afterward. in the collapse zone “the team was unable to determine specifically the level and extent of impact damage.” [3] They probably decided on the pillars by looking at these photos – but Jim Hoffman has looked at the same ones and decided “some or all of these objects may in fact be broken portions of the second floor slab that collapsed after the impact,” and came to rest at an angle close enough to vertical to be mistaken for columns. [4] Note also the lowest edge of the 2nd floor façade between 15 and 16 missing a segment of limestone about the size of “column 16.”

Another shot, above, from before the area's blanketing in foam reveals the burning hell a Pentagon doused in jet fuel becomes, as well as better detail on the possible pillars. Here it seems #15 and #17 are just narrow bits of something dangling down nearly to the ground, but these could be battered pillars, reduced to rebar netting. #16 looks most like a solid pillar on first blush, but much burlier than #18 or the other suspects, and I doubt it would look this clean and square if it’d been hit by an airliner at it's "still attached" top end.

Therefore this is actually the weakest candidate for support column and likeliest for second-floor portion –slab, girder, façade, Idon’t know exactly what was there – perhaps something like the chunk missing from the shot above, taken days later and I believe of columns 18, 19 and 20. Perhaps #16 is the sister of the broken slab there, and #17 is the sister of the metal girder beneath it.

Note: “Column 16” appears wider in the original photo, but I noted a light line running down the middle of it, indicating it had a square cross-section, and had somehow rotated about 45 degrees from the camera. When placing it above I “turned it around” by cropping off one side, but then failed to stretch it back out to cancel the perspective. I’ll have to correct this. But anyway, I still say whatever horizontal member this might’ve been, it makes more sense than a column that had been hit by any part of a barreling 757.

A still from the PBPR, a 3-D model by the ASCE. The three red slants here are columns 15-17. Among the worst damaged, these are listed in the Performance Report as “missing, broken, disconnected,” elsewhere described as "without remaining function.” Some were entirely knocked loose but found, some were disconnected but standing, and some totally obliterated, here represented by dots on the floor where they were. These red “columns” appear out of place when all those around and behind it are verified or presumed vanished. I suspect this graphic is incorrect by having the three red pillars shown as anything but dots.

If these three mystery slants are indeed something other than columns 15-17, then we are left with a roughly 90 foot-wide area in which all supports were obliterated on the ground floor, front line - leaving plenty of room for the engine-fuselage-engine penetrating core of a 757, whose deeper but less even damage further in would explain the collapse of everything above that twenty minutes later. While some confusion about this has encouraged speculation and no-757 theories, a little research would show that in either analysis, red is red; missing or in place but non-functional, these columns are no longer functioning support columns because something heavy and fast has traumatized them.

Sources:
[1], [3] Mlakar, Paul et al. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. PDF version. www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf
[2] Eastman, Dick. "You Decide: Fighter Jet? Or 757? 911 Pentagon Crash Evidence proves False-Flag Frame-up." http://www.bedoper.com/eastman/
[4] Hoffman, Jim. “ERROR: 'Surviving Columns Preclude 757 Crash'” 811 Review.com http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/columns.html

COLUMN 14AA: THE SMOKING GUN THAT FELL AWAY

COLUMN 14AA: THE SMOKING GUN THAT FELL AWAY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Updated 6/21/07
(Split-off from the support columns masterlist)
----Let’s look at the roughly 12x16 foot hole apparent on the second floor, where the Foam Fraud has wrongly attracted attention as the main fuselage entry point. The ASCE reported "on the second floor, the facade was missing between column lines 11 and 15. This was caused by the impact of the upper parts of the Boeing - mostly tailfin and horizontal stabilizers. While "windows and their reinforcing frames were still in place between column lines 11 and 13," their Performance Report listed Column 14AA as “missing,” the only one so designated on the second floor. [1]

Yet through some magic, many 9/11 Truthers have found the column there and concluded no plane fuselage entered. Which is mostly true, since the main fuselage entered below that, a disconnect that pops up again and again. Here’s where it all comes back to: in the shot above, even the evident wall-removed hole between column lines 13 and 15 seems to have an intact and vertical support running down the middle of it. Ralph Omholt of Physics 911 noted this “vertical column, next to the purported entry hole on the second floor. Not even a small plane could have hit at the purported location, without destroying the column; inwardly. Note the general good condition of the windows; this wasn’t a major impact zone of a B-757.” [2]

Likewise, but more emphatically, Citizens Investigative Team, producers of the documentary The PentaCon, list this column as unequivocally present and one of their prime clues to look elsewhere for the missing 757. CIT co-founder and PentaCon narrator Aldo Marquis shared the above graphic and told me, in the Above Top secret forums:

“The biggest smoking gun besides the undamaged foundation and the no tail section damage is column 14AA. THIS reduces the size of the "fuselage hole.” It is clear that the two windows were blown out. Would it be more likely or less likely to leave a segment of column hanging in the middle of the "fuselage hole?" [3]

Again, this is not the main point of fuselage impact, but rather the tailfin hole, officially, which in a sense also discredits another of their smoking guns - hte lack of a tailfin hole. I set out to explain this to him, along with three other points. Here are the points I made, his responses in the discussion thread, and my responses to his responses (added here, after I decided it was useless to push it there):

Caustic Logic: THIS dangler is your smoking gun #2?
Marquis: “Yes. No amout of warping of the mind or rationalizing will not change that.”
(Well, that about set the tone…)

Caustic Logic: “1) Jim Hoffman: this “hanging object […] appears to consist in part of remains of the steel reinforcements that were part of column 14. […] it might have pivoted as the plane entered the building, and then fallen back into a vertical position.” [4]
Marquis: “"Might". Again, this is ridiculous. People like you and Jim Hoffman are dangerous to the truth. You will calmly suggest irrational suggestions in order that you mold the mind of the reader. I am not going to comment on Jim Hoffman's silly suggestion more than that. I may not be an expert, but neither is he. He is a software engineer. Not an aeronautical engineer or building engineer.”
(He ignored the point here, replacing defense entirely with offense. None of us are experts, but he feels he’s entitled to be right when he can’t even tell a plane’s nosecone impact from its tailfin hole.)

Caustic Logic: “2) Here’s how the plane is alleged to have entered. It doesn’t seem too odd to me that a partial column 14 might have survived the impact, attached at the top end but not the bottom.”
Marquis: “This is more deceptive artistic rendering.”
(Wrong. I only claimed it represented the official story, and it was carefully prepared to match that in all proportions. It may not be100% precise but accurate enough to make my point, which he entirely ignored, again.)

Caustic Logic: [referring to above “deceptive artistic rendering”] “3) Look at that fuselage top – it couldn’t permanently defy the 2nd floor slab plowing into it edgewise, but couldn’t help but dent it at that spot either. The ASCE agrees with me on this point that the slab shows signs of breaching there:” “The removal of the second-floor exterior column on column line 14, probably by the fuselage tail, suggests that the second-floor slab in this area was also severely damaged even before the building collapsed.” [5] I offered the shot below:
“Look at the glow in the center and notice the floor seems to start a ways in. Therefore C14 would have had no floor to anchor to.”
Marquis: “Nothing conclusive about that photo.”
(it’s one of those things you either see or don’t).

Caustic Logic: “4) Oddly enough, there is another famous shot that shows no column at all in that very spot. Pentagon photoshopping? Or dropped dangler? If this was such a mighty column that would have barred entry to a 757, then why did it disappear on its on within 20 minutes (before collapse)? Am I wrong? Did smoking gun #2 fall away of its own accord?”
Marquis: "Adam, we can not continue this dialog if you are going to be decpetive by using lower resolution photos. The column was there after the event. PERIOD."

Not period. Rather, comma, "apparently, in this one photograph." Okay, the pic I used was a little small, but is resolution really an issue when we have a span of evidence like this? Four of the clearest shots of the area I’m familiar with, which I've used above and elsewhere, and which the CIT themselves might've used: One shows column 14AA hanging in there after the fire foam was sprayed. In one (lower left), no foam has yet been sprayed and the damning column is not evident (though there may be hanging elements back in the smoke). The other two show again after the foam was applied no apparent vertical members. No sign. I’m remembering the old Sesame Street segment about which one of these things just doesn’t belong. It's the one with a column. And it’s one of their “smoking guns” no matter what, that led them to look at the eyewitnesses for an explanation of where the plane went if not into the building.

As we had started out:
Caustic Logic: Of course any realizations would be too little too late of course, and I don't expect a course change.
Marquis: Apparently I should expect the same with you.
Apparently we were both right.
-
Sources:
[1] Mlakar, Paul et al. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. P 17 PDF version. www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf
[2]Omholt, Ralph. “9-11 and the IMPOSSIBLE: The Pentagon. Part One of An Online Journal of 9-11.” Physics 911. Undated. http://physics911.net/omholt
[3] Posted by Aldo Marquis June 9 2007, 11:36 am, at: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread286140/pg4
(Cited responses on following pages of the thread)
[4] Hoffman, Jim. ERROR: 'Surviving Columns Preclude 757 Crash' http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/columns.html
[5] See 1 – page 37.