If it didn't crash into the Pentagon and nearly vapourise, what happened to AA Flight 77?
The American Airlines Boeing 757-200 took off 10 minutes behind schedule at 8:20 AM on September 11 with a crew of six and a scant 58 passengers, including the militants.
They encompassed three children and three teachers and some officials on a National Geographic Society field trip, the political pundit Barbara Olson (wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson), as well as people traveling for work or for vacation and people returning home. In addition, five hijackers boarded the flight.
About half an hour after takeoff, the hijackers took control of the aircraft.
At 8:54 the westbound plane turned to the south, a deviation from its flight plan.
Two minutes later the airplane’s transponder was turned off. Radar contact was also lost.
An air traffic controller at the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center tried repeatedly to make contact with the pilot; receiving no response, he contacted American Airlines, which was similarly unsuccessful.
Unaware of the earlier hijackings, the air traffic controllers began notifying other agencies that the plane might have crashed.
At 9:09 the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center notified the FAA regional centre that it had lost contact with flight 77.
At 9:12 one of the flight attendants, Renee May, used her cell phone to call her mother; she asked her mother to tell American Airlines that the flight had been hijacked.
A couple of minutes later, Barbara Olson phoned her husband to tell him that the plane had been hijacked and that all the people aboard had been herded to the back of the plane.
It was about that same time that the Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center learned from American Airlines that other planes had been hijacked.
A discussion ensued between the FAA command centre and Indianapolis, and another confused conversation took place between the FAA and the Northeast Air Defense Sector.
In the meantime, flight 77 travelled undetected back toward Washington for 36 minutes.
At 9:32 air traffic controllers at Dulles found an unidentified aircraft traveling east at a high rate of speed and notified their compatriots at Reagan National Airport.
FAA officials at both airports notified the Secret Service, and controllers at Reagan ordered an airborneNational Guard cargo plane to find and follow the unidentified aircraft.
At 9:34 flight 77 was 5 miles (8 km) west-southwest of the Pentagon; it executed a sharp turn and quick descent and dove toward the Pentagon, slamming into it at 9:37.
On board were,
The American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757-223 aircraft, was hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was part of the coordinated September 11 attacks. The hijackers deliberately crashed the airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Here are the details:
Passengers: There were 58 passengers aboard Flight 77, including the 5 hijackers. Crew: The flight had 6 crew members. Fatalities: All 64 people on board (passengers and crew) lost their lives. Ground Casualties: The impact also resulted in the deaths of 125 people in the Pentagon building.
Some 58 passengers and six crew were on board when American Airlines flight AA77, en route from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon.
This is a preliminary, partial list of passengers aboard the flight whose next of kin have been notified.
Some families asked the airline not to include their loved ones' names: these do not appear.
Crew Captain Charles Burlingame First Officer David Charlebois Michele Heidenberger Jennifer Lewis Kenneth Lewis Renee May
Passengers Paul Ambrose Yemen Betru MJ Booth Bernard Brown Suzanne Calley William Caswell Sarah Clark Asia Cottom James Debeuneure Rodney Dickens Eddie Dillard Charles Droz Barbara Edwards Charles Falkenberg Zoe Falkenberg Dana Falkenberg James Ferguson Budd Flagg Dee Flagg Richard **riel Ian Gray Stanley Hall Bryan Jack Steve Jacoby Ann Judge Chandler Keller Yvonne Kennedy Norma Khan Karen Kincaid Norma Langsteuerle Dong Lee Dora Menchaca Chris Newton Barbara Olson Ruben Ornedo Lisa Raines Todd Reuben John Sammartino Diane Simmons George Simmons Mari Rae Sopper Robert Speisman Leonard Taylor Sandra Teague Leslie Whittington John Yamnicky Vicki Yancey Shuyin Yang Yuguag Zheng
