We have determined based on the Flight Data Recorder information that has been analyzed thus far provided by the NTSB, that it is impossible for this aircraft to have struck down the light poles.

We have an animation of the entire flight provided by the NTSB. I have sat through the whole flight from taxi out at Dulles... to the impact at the Pentagon in real time.

The screenshot below shows the very last frame of the recorded data. Its stops at 9:37:44 AM EDT (Official Impact Time is 09:37:45). You will notice in the right margin the altitude of the aircraft on the middle instrument. It shows 180 feet. This altitude has been determined to reflect Pressure altitude as set by 29.92 inHg on the Altimeter. The actual local pressure for DCA at impact time was 30.22 inHg. The error for this discrepancy is 300 feet. Meaning, the actual aircraft altitude was 300 feet higher than indicated at that moment in time. Which means aircraft altitude was 480 feet above sea level (MSL, 75 foot margin for error according to Federal Aviation Regulations). You can clearly see the highway in the below screenshot directly under the aircraft. The elevation for that highway is ~40 feet according to Google Earth. The light poles would have had to been 440 feet tall (+/- 75 feet) for this aircraft to bring them down. Which you can clearly see in the below picture, the aircraft is too high, even for the official released video of the 5 frames where you see something cross the Pentagon Lawn at level attitude. The 5 frames of video captured by the parking gate cam is in direct conflict with the Aircraft Flight Data Recorder information released by the NTSB. More information will be forthcoming as we come to our conclusions on each issue.



The FDR Research Team
[salute]

Feel free to ask questions and i'll do my best to answer them, barring any speculation.

If the plane from which the FDR came (allegedly AA77) did NOT knock down the light poles, does this mean that Merc is doing an end-zone dance right now?

:D

i'll let Merc answer that..

;)

Thats interresting! too bad the Fdr stuff didnt come bundled with the Sheraton tape [thmdwn]

I have to ask... How reliable is the google earth altidude reading?
Not that I think its a problem, would need to be to be quite far off for the whole thing to make sense...

nice Squaragon:)

wonder if the AC had GPWS....????

should of been screaming at this point.... plus the radio altimeter should of been recorded as well.....????


still stinks.......

putting it up on the website now...

GPWS was going off...IIRC

RDR ALT i havent been able to find in the parameters.. FAR violation. But i need to look more throughly..

Good question...

Margin for error on Google Earth we estimate at 10 feet for thaat area and known elevations.

As far as the squaragon.. yeah..lol... i guess the NTSB isnt known for their graphic design...

:D

Even at 180ft Alt, minus 40ft for elevation, the light poles were AT LEAST 140 feet tall and that can't be the case either. So the light poles were between 140-400 feet tall according to the official information. This data is NOT from the flight that actually hit the pentagon (or squaragon here). It also conflicts with the 2 videos we've gotten released. Whatever hit the pentagon was more than likely a fighter jet that fired a missile just before impact. And since a fighter jet can fly near ground level, that may be what knocked the light poles down, or the poles were knocked down by some other means. A missle most definitely hit the building, but whatever hit the building after that is gonna be hard to find.

Either way, we need to find the plane that this data goes to.

Excellent post and info, thanks for sharing.

Adding this red flag.

[look]

"...This altitude has been determined to reflect Pressure altitude as set by 29.92 inHg on the Altimeter..."

So, you are saying that the altimeter setting was not change ?

And...what I mean... is it absalut a fact that the altitude is reflect to Pressure altitude as set by 29.92 inHg ?

(if you know what I mean :D )

The altimeter was set on the way up... but not on the way down.. according to the animation.

i cant pretend to understand...

soo, using the actual data....it was nowhere near the lightpoles?..
if so, id let the scolars know about that...thats awesome...

BUT....does anybody know the actual speed "it" was?..
and would it be possible to SWOOP down inches from the ground and hit the wall at the last second?......

damn that must have been one great pilot with thousands of hours of experience.. [doh]

Ok. this is all very big news.

And how will "they" react to all this ?

Someone has a lot of work to give some explaination!

Bottom line we are talking about an improvised flight path.

The official data doesn't match the official story or the eyewitness stories which even conflict with each other.

There would be no reason for any of this if we had been told the truth.

I support this research...good job guys.

Yes.

But the BIG question is why does official data not match the official story ?

Why ?

And...in fact... the most important part of the flight path and the official story.... just is not in the data! That is... how a B757 could travel close to the ground over Pentagon lawn at about 530 m.p.h.

The data just seem to end hundred of feet up in the air etc. End of story!

And they dont try to explane it any way!

To me... it is HUGE!

And yes I am doing an end zone dance...in my mind.

But I am still waiting for the referee to make his final call.

something isnt adding up in all of this though. either the fdr and flight paths are faked, the fdr was malfunctioning, or the fdr info didnt come from whatever hit the pentagon. which only brings us to wonder what the roles of the aditional planes videotaped in the air that day.

Mercury (Hg) was at 29.92 inches reading final...

so, translating, 29.92 inches corresponds to that day's Atmospheric pressure, at final reading of AA77 FDR, on 9/11/01 --- the atm pressure at DCA was 30.22.....

100 feet difference roughly corresponds to I think about 0.1 inches of mercury column height. Or 1000 feet = one inch. (ouch, my brain...)

The assumption is that the initial altimeter calibration according to barometer readings (ground?) was done at take off, and then the altimeter was not altered or messed with again during AA77 flight: so that a final reading of 29.92 can be used to determine final altitude = way too high to strike the Pentagon.

well, that might contribute a wee bit to the lack of tail section debris.

If I remember correctly, the Pentagon is 77 feet high, about the size of a 7 story building. If the FDR data is correct, that means a 757 (or other plane) could have flown over the Pentagon, while something else struck the Pentagon? Like a missile fired from the plane that passed over?

Sorry, I'm a total dumbass on all this. I don't know anything about flight technology or how to interpret data from an FDR. So for those who are well trained in all this, what does the FDR analysis say bottom line?

Outstanding work BTW.

The altimeter at take off was accurate. It was showing 300 feet for field elevation for IAD. All altitudes throughout the flight matched up with, and leveled off at altitudes instructed by ATC. They altimeter was set at 29.92 climbing through 18,000 feet as is standard, it was not set again descending through 18,000 according to the animation.

The altimeter was working properly on this aircraft.

This assumption would be incorrect.
Your 1st part is correct, set at Grd prior to takeoff. The 2nd part is false.
Several alitmeter BARO adjustments were made. Some after the assumed hijacking.

A final bottom line report is not done yet. It can be easily said however, that the number errors in the readable output (which all movies, charts, etc, are based) is simple outstanding.

We have ways of making them talk however...

I'd like to know why we dont have the last second of data at impact at 09:37:45.

But, after looking at the above report, i think i can figure out why. But, im not one to speculate... ;)


Something that needs to be looked into..

Yes... and why did 9/11 commission say 9 37 46

UnderTow


the upshot of the careful FDR analysis is that the MINIMUM elevation that the aircraft from which this FDR recorder was taken (said to be AA77 by NTSB and FBI?) would have it passing the Pentagon at 480 feet over sea level, roughly, at 937.44 ---

which means that the light poles have a lot of explaining to do.

METAR KDCA 111251Z 35005KT 10SM CLR 21/14 A3021
SPECI KDCA 111341Z 33010KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111351Z 34009KT 10SM CLR 23/14 A3023
METAR KDCA 111451Z 32008KT 4SM HZ CLR 24/14 A3022
METAR KDCA 111551Z 33009G15KT 7SM CLR 26/14 A3021

JDX - you took the words right out of my mouth.

altitude translation?

for every .1 change on the colesmann window (the meter to adjust altimeter) is a 100 foot change in altitude.

Its addressed in my first post.

29.92-3022 is a 300 foot difference. The aircraft actual altitude was 480' MSL (above sea level.)

JackD....

FAR's require AC flying into higher altitudes to all be on the same "altimeter setting". We use 18,000' (flight level 180) as the standard reference plane in the atmoshpere to change our altemeter settings, so that all nearby AC are on the same setting, and we don't come close to slamming into each other..... The flight crew obviously performed this switch in settings as they climbed up through FL 180... 29.92 is called "standard". However, the meathead hijackers, if there really were any, did not reset the altimeter as the descended down through FL180, and bacvk down into the lower altitude airscape structure. The point being, is that the altitude we see displayed in the final frame of the animation shows roughly 183', I think...??? If the barometric pressure that day at DCA was standard, or 29.92, the altimeter would be showing 183' MSL..... mean sea level, or in other words, height above sea level. This would still place the 757 TOO HIGH in that spot to hit the poles. HOWEVER, when we correct for the wrong altimeter setting, and place 30.22 into the atlimeter, our indicated altitude increases around 300' or so.... which would place the 757 correctly at about 480' MSL..... even further compounding the error in the animation. Subtract the elevation of the Pentagon, 30'MSL, and you are still no where near pole height. Every time a pilot changes frequencies, ie sectors, he is given a fresh altimeter setting to avoid these exact type of errors, when flying below FL180. Either there were incompetent pilots flying this AC, or someone just forgot to switch the setting, or it was done deliberately..... those seem like the only options to me... regardless, this data we have from the NTSB does NOT match up with the facts, and light poles laying in the street..... I believe something happened that day at the Pentegon to cause that tremendous explosion.... but I do not believe that a 757 did it.


jdx edit: typo. switch 400 to 480'

Agreed.

Is the screenshot from the NTSB animation? [hmm] It looks like Microsoft Flight Simulator 98 but perhaps it will do. Since then we have from Microsoft FS 2000, FS2002, FS 2004 (the version on my computer), & soon to have FSX, of which demos have already been released. One would think that this barely-adequate animation is easily upgraded if the NTSB wanted to. My simulations & screenshots of the official "attack path" (which I've never really believed as the truth, either one of them) are much better comparatively & the even Pentagon is shown with great detail, as are the accurate elevations & roadways thanks to my addons.

Am agreeing that, with one second remaining, there would be no way for the 757 in that attitude to dive & impact where the hole ended up ... especially considering the few frames that have been released to us thus far. @ 531 mph/462 kias - No Way. Have performed it too many times on the sim & I know. In fact, at those speeds that low in the atmosphere, my simulated accelerating airliner will self-destruct before reaching the Pentagon wall if my realism settings are set to real world damages.

Am also agreeing with your reasoning concerning the true altitude if, indeed, the altimeter was not reset from altitude (usually done when passing through 18K' each way ... ascent & descent, as you well know. :) ) BTW, am reading the altimeter on the screenshot as 178 FAS. Even if the pudknockers had not reset the altimeter on descent, this puts the '57 above the poles. To me, the poles always looked as if they were popped out of the ground, possibly with pre-set pneumatic charges.

It is disappointing that the info released continues to not line up. We want the truth. And if this is mostly true then the hotrod airliner cruised over the Pentagon afterwards, not impacting into it imo as well.

The NTSB needs to release one good solid video ... a real one preferably ... & be done with it!

* Edit- Also, from the look of that screenshot, am venturing that the image represents 2 to 2 1/2 seconds before impact, not one second.
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