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The Five Sided Fantasy Island -- an analysis of the Pentagon explosion

Rebutting "Pentagon 9/11 Getting the Facts Straight"

Eyewitnesses and the Plane-Bomb Theory

The Five-Sided Fantasy Island

An analysis of the Pentagon crash on 9-11

By Richard Stanley  & Jerry Russell                                                   version 2.0 (3/12/2004) Page 3 of 5

Aluminum Foiled

Jean-Pierre Desmoulins has claimed that the aluminum could have been reacted away in an exothermic (self sustaining) reaction with fire sprinkler water coming in contact with the aluminum already heated by the burning jet fuel.  However, this is countered by the unlikelihood of this reaction to occur in total (or even to a significant fraction) to sheet aluminum as the thin material will pull away from the high temperatures. This is a common occurrence when trying to weld on the edge of thin sheets of metal if the parameters are not controlled precisely and heat sink clamps are not provided.

    In sheet or block forms, aluminum will not normally propagate or sustain combustion. http://www.meridianeng.com/aluminum.html

The exothermic reaction (see Hydrogen Generating Reactions from the same link above) with water is one that would more commonly be seen happening to a cooling aluminum ingot where the still molten and unreacted interior metal accidentally becomes exposed to water. Additionally, there is a problem that much of the available oxygen entering the area from outside or other parts of the building is being consumed by the jet fuel fire, undoubtedly in a non-optimal fashion that would most likely preclude the entire area of the internal debris field to reach the 660C melting temperature of the aluminum. In fact, one could argue that in many places the fire temperature would be such that it would help re-oxidize any freshly exposed aluminum. The surface oxide layer on aluminum being  rather inert to further reactions.

Also, one must consider how much water being sprinkled down from the ceilings (if the sprinklers or their feed pipes even remained intact to any extent) would really reach the aluminum laying on the floor. The water being exposed to the fuel fire alone would mostly turn to steam and rise away from the lower aluminum. If there was any localized exothermic reaction going on this would raise the temperatures even higher and dissallowing sprinkler water from reaching even more metal.

For those parts of the fuselage and wing which were able to penetrate the Pentagon walls, we would expect the debris to be intact in somewhat larger chunks, similar to most air crashes where the airframe has an opportunity to decelerate gradually. Or at least larger pieces than one would allow for by the Sugano et al report's F4-D fighter that hit a 10 foot thick block of reinforced concrete, where the concrete face was barely affected. Once the 10" thick brick and limestone infill walls were breached by the alleged 757 fuselage the only opposition to the remainder of the plane material would have been interior columns spaced at 10 or 20 foot intervals allowing for relatively large fragments to remain intact.

The lack of evidence of large amounts of aircraft debris from inside the Pentagon is a highly suspicious circumstance, which could be addressed by the release of more Pentagon cleanup photographs (some of which might have been withheld due to the presence of human remains.) This leads to the contradiction between the claims of the high temperatures causing the aluminum to disappear to a great extent and the high percentage of victim's DNA which was claimed to be identified. The questions which must be asked then is: why keep all of this 'cleanup material' in the dark when rampant speculations could be put to rest? And are the victim's families really that perturbed that they don't care about a real investigation?

Regardless of all this, the bottom line is that we have no proof that the debris was not found inside the Pentagon, as claimed in the late-emerging reports.

Sarah Roberts collected eyewitness testimony (some of it second-hand, and/or  from unnamed sources) as well as several  photographs of the interior of the Pentagon following 9-11.  From these photographs, only a small amount of aircraft debris can be confirmed, and even less of this was specifically identifiable as the remnants of a Boeing 757.  

Engine photos

Engine debris allegedly from Pentagon, showing combustion chamber housing (Source: Sarah Roberts)

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Engine compressor or turbine disc (Source: http://www.photolibrary.fema.gov/photolibrary/index.jsp, Photo #4414)

RB-211 overview, combustion chamber housing and high-pressure compressor disc (Source: Boeing maintenance documents)

The question remaining here from the extremely limited amount of crudely identifiable 757 parts is what can be derived from this evidence? There were two engines on the plane, there should be many more turbine disks, blade and vane fragments, and casing fragments. There should be 9 more wheel hubs to be accounted for, as well as more landing gear parts. There should also be heavy tungsten (not Depleted Uranium) counterweight ballasts to have survived. (These counterweights are used to balance the ailerons, flaps and tail control surfaces, to prevent flutter.) Depleted Uranium is used as ballast on 747s, L1011s, and DC10s, not 757s or 767s.

So in light of all the other anomalies, one must ask whether the parts were from a 757, or were they planted as fake evidence, perhaps having been from an earlier 757 crash?  Or perhaps some of the pictures were taken directly from other crashes (although this would not account for the turbine rotor, which does appear in context.  Eyewitness Lagasse also reported that one engine was seen being removed from the Pentagon.)  As Gerard Holmgren has noted, all of the parts shown in photographs released by the Pentagon are small, portable chunks.

With regards to the missile theory:  The engine parts might comport with the Rolls-Royce turbofan engine in a British Harrier jump-jet, but probably not with a Global Hawk or other missile.  The wheel and landing gear parts do not look like they came from a fighter plane or missile.  After a diligent search, we have been unable to find any photographs of parts which are clearly from a fighter jet or missile, rather than from a Boeing 757.

Next: The Quantum Flight Path

References for page 3:

http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm Sarah Roberts review of debris

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jpdesm/pentagon/pages-en/dam-alum.html  Desmoulins aluminum-water reaction hypothesis

Boeing 757-200 information

Next: The Quantum Flight Path