American Airlines Flight 77

Categories: Accuracy disputes | NPOV disputes | September 11, 2001 attacks | Virginia history

American Airlines Flight 77 was a morning flight that routinely flew from Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia, near Washington, D.C., to LAX in Los Angeles, California (IAD-LAX). On September 11, 2001, the Boeing 757-223, N644AA, was hijacked as part of the 9/11 attacks. The hijackers were reported to have been Khalid al-Mihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, and the suicide pilot Hani Hanjour.

The flight was scheduled to depart at 8:10 AM EDT, but actually departed at 8:20. It was later determined that three of the hijackers had been stopped before boarding the flight because they failed the metal detector test, but were nonetheless allowed to enter the plane.

By 8:59, the flight had been hijacked. The assailants used knives and box-cutters to gain entrance to the cockpit. By 8:56, 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 as well.)

Barbara K. Olson, who was on board this flight, had called her husband, United States Solicitor General Theodore Olson at the Justice Department twice to tell him about the hijacking and to report that the passengers and pilots were held in the back of the plane. After the call was cut off, Theodore Olson tried unsuccessfully to contact Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The plane crashed into the western side of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just south of Washington, DC at 9:37 AM EDT, killing all of its 58 passengers (including the hijackers) and 6 crew. The section of the Pentagon hit consisted mainly of new, unoccupied offices and was damaged by the crash and the ensuing violent fire. 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.

After the crash, the flight route designation for future flights on the same route was renumbered Flight 149.

Among American Airlines Flight 77 were 3 young schoolchildren, embarking on an educational trip to the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary near Santa Barbara, California, as part of a program funded by the National Geographic Society. The student names were Bernard Brown, 11, Asia Cotton, 11, and Rodney Dickens also 11 years old. Their chaperones; Sarah Clark, 65; James Debeuneure, 58; Ann Judge, 45; Hilda Taylor and Joe Ferguson also died.

In total 5 passengers were under 12 years old.

Claims that the Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77

Some people have voiced doubts about claims that the Pentagon was not hit by a Boeing 757 based on the lack of debris, lack of damage to the building or the lawn on the first photographs, the confiscation of footage and other factors ^[1]. See 9/11 conspiracy theories for more details. These theories do not account for the above mentioned in-flight calls made by the passengers to their loved ones describing the hijacking.

See also

• Flight manifest for American Airlines flight 77
• List of accidents and incidents on commercial airliners
• Memorial wiki tribute to those killed in this flight (with flight manifest)

External links

• CooperativeResearch.org - 'Project: Complete 911 Timeline' (Open-Content project)
• GPOAccess.gov - 'The 9-11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Official Government Edition'
• [2] - 'Missile & remote control systems added to small jets before 9-11; same parts found at Pentagon', Tom Flocco (May 26 2005)
• Oilempire.us - A list of detailed analyses that argue for complicity but against the "no plane" claims.
• [3]- An analysis of the report that a 757 hit the Pentagonid:American Airlines Penerbangan 77

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