Conspiracy theorists make numerous claims on the event.
1. There was no recognizable plane wreckage.
2. There is no video footage of AA77 from any of the security cameras at or around the Pentagon.
3. The hole in the Pentagon is too small for a plane of that size.
4. There was no damage to the foundation of the Pentagon.
5. The plane shot the missile, and then flew over the Pentagon to Reagan International Airport (often cited as "Pentacon") and was on a different flight path from what the official story says.
AA77 CAUGHT ON CAMERA
Many truthers try to claim that there is no footage in known existence that has American Airlines Flight 77 on it. To that I quote the popular football analyst Lee Corso "NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND!"
In the first videos released by the group Judicial Watch from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the government about said tapes, shows one frame on each of them with what looks like a large plane. The cameras were a fish bowl lens variety, and were more of a photographic camera rather than a video camera, taking a picture once ever second. They both get part or all of the object that struck the Pentagon.
Here is the scene with no object in it.
And now here is the shot with the "object" in it.
A closer look of said object, pointing out the characteristics of a plane.
Notice the color on it, the shape (clearly visible on the back what looks like a large tail fin), and the smoke billowing out of it, which is consistent wit the official account of one of the engines getting damaged when it clipped one of the light poles. None of it looks to have characteristics of a cruise missile.
The other released footage, the Doubletree Hotel, and the Citgo gas station (more on that with Pentacon) have cameras that either were not pointing at the Pentagon (gas station) or had the highway obstructing the view (Doubletree).
PENTAGON IMPACT HOLE
This is a picture that truthers will often cite for their claim that a plane couldn't possibly have hit the Pentagon.
Notice that this picture is from sometime after the portion hit had collapsed. Notice immediately to the right of the collapsed area more damage, however.
Now, here is a picture of the Pentagon damage BEFORE the area collapsed.
Notice how it looks like the shape of a plane, and not a missile.
Truthers also like to claim that the lawn was undamaged, and no damage to the Pentagon foundation occurred. Though it is true that precious green grass was unhurt (until all of the debris splatters all over it), the foundation was indeed damaged:
Notice the round shape of the damage, indicating it was struck by one of the plane engines.
BONUS:
Here is the overhead view of what AA77 looked like flying in via the official flightpath in regards to the light poles.
Notice how AA77 would just have to go straight to clip those light poles, where as a missile would have to bob and weave like Floyd Mayweather avoiding Pacquiao like the plague. A cruise missile cannot do this.
As a counter argument, truthers claim that the light poles, in front of hundreds of witnesses on the interstate that day, popped off each pole from the base.
That wiley government will stop at nothing! However, there is one more part to the story of damage before Pentagon impact. That would be the Pentagon generator.
So what 9/11 truthers would like for you to believe is that a cruise missile zig zagged back and forth to knock over light poles (or the government agents popped them off), hit a fairly large generator without exploding, THEN hit the Pentagon, and blew up. Seems pretty far fetched, doesn't it?
But bring this up to them and they will then rebuttal with a lack of...
AA77 DEBRIS
Yes, they believe that there are little, or many of them will say, no, debris at the Pentagon that looks like it would have come from American Airlines flight 77. They will often cite this photograph as proof:
Why would they cite this, you ask? They believe that this shows little to no debris on the Pentagon lawn. Loose Change I believe was the first to make this claim.
They seem to ignore the red lettering on the piece of debris closest to the camera having red lettering on it, which is consistent with American Airlines. You can also see in the background closer to the Pentagon a whole heaping lot of debris on the lawn.
More debris that was outside of the Pentagon:
Quite a bit of debris from a plane that hit at over 500 mph, right? There's more on the inside:
I'll talk about the flight data recorder and the data it holds a little later.
Now, here is another portion of the landing gear assembly. Note the area in the yellow circle:
And now here is an undamaged landing gear assemble. Notice the area inside the yellow circle. Also, notice the wheel design and then look at the wheel in the debris above:
How much of this debris looks like it came from an airplane? All of it. How much of it looks like it came from a cruise missile? None of it.
Ya'lls Just a Bunch of Puppets!
Now comes to the weird theory of the event. A duo that calls themselves the Citizen Investigative Team (CIT for short) came up with a theory that is often ridiculed by debunkers and truthers alike. I elected to include it because a lot of people surprisingly believe in it. This theory is called the "North of the gas station" theory.
They interviewed a 13 eyewitnesses that claimed they saw American Airlines Flight 77 fly over the Citgo gas station. They all believe that the plane did in fact hit the Pentagon. The main argument made here? It disagrees with what has been deemed as the official flightpath.
Here are all of the eyewitnesses' accounts of how the plane flew in. The red line is the botched reading of the flight data recorder data, and the light teal line is the official flight path:
Notice how almost all of these witnesses disagree with how AA77 got to the gas station. Some claimed it came in from the Naval Annez in the lower left corner. One said it came in from Arlington Cemetary. However, they all agree that it flew by on the left )north) side of the Citgo gas station.
CIT takes these accounts and makes a theory of their own: that the plane may have indeed existed. And it shot a missile from its underbelly and then flew over the Pentagon and landed at Reagan International Airport.
There are a few problems with this so-called theory, to put it bluntly.
First, they use the botched reading of the flight data recorder from the group Pilots for 9/11 Truth as proof that the plane did indeed fly over the Pentagon. The data Pilots revealed ended before impact and showed an elevation too high to strike the Pentagon.
The problem with this? That isn't what the FDR displays. In a paper by Warren Stutt and frank Legge, To make it a TL;DR (though I highly recommend you read it), they read it wrong.
Note that this paper was published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, which is run by another CT nutter Kevin Ryan. Seems to me that even they have accepted that AA77 did indeed impact the Pentagon.
Another problem with their gas station theory? The security footage shows no evidence of AA77 coming anywhere close to it. No shadows, no nothing.
Also, AA77 was tracked on Radar all the way to it's crash at the Pentagon. Here is the footage from Reagan:
BONUS:
HANI HANJOUR
The last thing I will davel on when it comes to the Pentagon is the belief by truthers that Hani Hanjour could not make a certain maneuver before he made his final approach to the Pentagon.
The maneuver:
Same maneuver from an altitude point of view:
Hanjour was 2500 feet above the ground when he started the maneuver. He was around 1000 feet above the ground when he B-lined it for the Pentagon. Notice that he apparently had enough knowledge to know he should probably go up more altitude to begin the maneuver.
I really don't see how hard it is for someone who doesn't really care about the safety of the plane or the passengers on board to pull a maneuver like this off. In fact, it really isn't even that hard, because amateurs have duplicated in in a Boeing flight simulator (pretty much the very same that the hijackers used to flight train, mind you):
He manages to duplicate, the very same maneuver that truthers deem only military professionals could pull off, three times.
CONCLUSION
So here are the pieces of evidence I lay out to counter the truther argument that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon:
There is a large plane shaped hole in the side of the Pentagon that is seen before the area collapses.
There are several pieces of debris that are consistent with an American Airlines commercial jet crashing there.
The maneuver that AA77 hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour pulled off was not nearly as difficult as you think.
The flight data recorder shows that AA77 hit the Pentagon.
There is zero evidence of a cruise missile hitting the Pentagon.
There is zero evidence for, and serveral amounts of contradictory evidence against the north of the gas station/Pentagon flyover theory.
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