At the Pentagon, horror and
confusion followed the crash
By Sandra Jontz, Lisa Burgess
and Patrick Dickson, Washington bureau
Lisa Peterson / Stars and Stripes
Traffic snarls Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., Tuesday as workers who were sent
home after the attack on the Pentagon make their way out of town. |
The Pentagon was abuzz with news of the World Trade Center attacks Tuesday morning,
when disaster struck the heart of the Defense Department.
American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the west side of the Pentagon, ripping a hole
80 to 100 feet wide, on all five floors. It had 58 passengers, four flight attendants and
two pilots aboard, the airline said.
The injured were being treated at makeshift triage centers set up on the grounds.
Many more are believed trapped in the Pentagon, but could not be evacuated due to
rumors of further strikes circulating.
At 9:30 p.m., crews still were fighting fires that had flared up on the rooftop.
Stars and Stripes reporter Lisa Burgess was walking on the Pentagon's innermost
corridor, across the courtyard, when the incident happened.
"I heard two loud booms — one large, one smaller, and the shock wave threw me
against the wall," she said.
Hundreds of people rushed for the exits of the world’s largest office building
after being ordered to evacuate.
Stripes reporter Sandra Jontz, an emergency medical technician, was pressed into
service.
"I treated one guy, he had second- and third-degree burns over 80 percent of his
body, and another guy with less [burns].
At first, "Triage was [chaos], too many people were trying to call the
shots," Jontz said.
Vincent Martinez, 48, who works in the Navy Annex with a graphics and publications
unit, raced to the scene after hearing the explosion and pulled a badly burned woman from
the wreckage.
"Her eyes and eyelids, everything — was melted," Martinez said.
"Then I saw a staircase fall, and the building started to cave in."
As efforts were better coordinated, triage teams and litter bearers were organized in
teams, but a resilient blaze traveled along the Pentagon’s outer wall, consuming
offices and preventing emergency crews from continuing evacuation.
Emergency services from Washington National Airport Authority, Fort Belvoir (Va.),
Walter Reed Army Medical Center (Washington, D.C.) and several Arlington city and county
agencies were brought in to help.
Civilian surgeons and nurses from are hospitals also were rushed to the scene. At 1:30
p.m., medical personnel were organized in shifts to cover the next 48 hours.
Crews were tearing down barriers on a nearby major route to facilitate evacuation of
casualties.
Burgess, reporting by telephone from the scene at about 4 p.m., said that five hours
after the blast, still no one was able to get into the building. After the first
casualties were removed, no one was brought out of the building, either dead or alive.
"It appears to be a body-recovery operation at this point; nobody has come out for
hours … I see them bringing in dogs, I think body-sniffing dogs," she said.
FBI agents also arrived soon after the blast and began combing the area for pieces of
the plane’s wreckage.
They commandeered photographers and equipment from Martinez’s unit, having photos
taken of the entire area.
Sept. 11, 9:40 a.m.
Two explosions were heard. According to one witness, "what looked like a 747"
plowed into the south side of the Pentagon, possibly skipping through a heliport before it
hit the building.
Personnel working in the Navy Annex, over which the airliner flew, said they heard the
distinct whine of jet engines as the airliner approached.
Levi Stephens, 23, a courier for the Armed Forces Information Service, spoke of the
crash:
"I was driving away from the Pentagon in the South Pentagon lot when I hear this
huge rumble, the ground started shaking … I saw this [plane] come flying over the
Navy Annex. It flew over the van and I looked back and I saw this huge explosion, black
smoke everywhere."
Army Sgt. Christopher McFarland, 27, who works at the Pentagon but is on leave this
week, received a phone call at home soon after the incident.
McFarland’s fiancee, Sunni Wells, 24, works in an office where the plane hit.
"A friend called me, crying, and said there was an explosion at the Pentagon. She
was on the phone with Sunni when she heard screaming and then the phone went dead. This is
just horrible."
McFarland has combat lifesaving training.
"Everyone is saying I should go sit down, but I came in to help somebody; whether
it be her or someone else."
McFarland said they hoped to get married in April or May.
People in the area were just bewildered by events, Stephens said.
"It looked surreal; like something out of a movie … everyone was in shock.
Emergency personnel just stood in shock, no one was moving … Everything was in slow
motion, nobody believed it at that point. Traffic just stopped. People froze; nobody
ran," he said.
"You know, I thought, ‘Let me get out of here,’ so I called back to the
office, I was hysterical I guess, and drove away, and you could see debris on the highway
(Interstate 395, approximately ¼ mile from the site of the crash)."
Asked about his thoughts, Stephens said, "I immediately said ‘Thank you’
to God, because I was on my way into the Pentagon. If I hadn’t had to [make an
unscheduled stop just before], I would’ve been in the building. I was supposed to be
in the building."
Wire services contributed to this report.
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