I'll accept your explanation for now, and it is not my intention to post something so inciendary if I didn't question *some* of it. Evidently a minority of posters aren't buying *all* of it either.
I would have expected to see more pieces of the plane on the grounds at the Pentagon; all I saw was a few bits and that one obvious plane part. They could have "planted" it there as far as I am concerned, not because I believe that but because I wasn't paying attention to anything like that initially. In the initial hours and days, I wasn't looking at hows and whys, believed everything 100% that was claimed to be known by the officials, and like most everybody else, I was numb with shock.
I hate the conspiracy stuff, and I know that group is left of left, and thought it was kook stuff. Maybe most of it is. I'm still not 100% sure of all the official explanations now.
I haven't talked to anybody on a plane with a cell phone lately, actually never that I know of, haven't flown for years, and only vaguely understand how the signals are transmitted/lose communication until the next tower is approached/contacted, etc., etc.
How high altitude can a plane be and still make contact with the ground towers via regular cell phones? Are some cell phones more capable than others? It kind of blew me out of the water when I read that theory, can't remember where. I know aircraft air-to-air and air-to-ground/reverse communications are different, so that is not an issue, especially with terrorists at the controls.
I appreciate not being flamed because I have questions and wish I'd paid more attention to it early on. I did read the Popular Mechanics article which made sense from a lay person pov and have seen one tv documentary twice.
Two points.
First, people who point at the "lack of wreckage" really need to look at
photos like this one. This is a classic example of what a fuel fire can do to an aircraft. Remember, they're made of thin aluminum, with aluminum spars and lots of plastic. If you have a fuel driven fire onboard, there's very little on the plane capable of surviving it. The half of the photo plane that DID survive only did so because this plane ignited on the runway and the fire department was immediately on scene to foam the plane down.
Now look at that photo and realize a few things. The plane that hit the Pentagon was traveling at high speed, so it would have been compressed into a much smaller area and burned faster. Also, the plane would have been cooked in not only its own fuel, but the fuel from the collapsed building around it (the Pentagon has a concrete outer structure, but there's lots of wood inside). Finally, understand that the plane in that photo only burned for a half hour or so before the firefighters had it completely out. The fire in the Pentagon burned for HOURS.
There really is no mystery about the plane that hit the Pentagon except in the minds of people who want to create one. Simple physics says that objects traveling in a straight line keep doing so, and the aircraft was traveling in a line that lead into the building...so all the parts went into the building. A few small pieces that broke off during the ground impact did in fact bounce clear of the building, but most went inside. The upper levels of the building collapsed onto the wreckage below, and the whole thing cooked until there was nothing left.
If you really want to test this theory for yourself, toss an empty soda can into a burning fire pit sometime and dig through the ashes a day later to find some trace of it. You may find a few small chunks where the thicker pieces were, but most of the can will be reduced to slag or be completely vaporized. That's fairly consistent with what was found at the Pentagon.
My second point is about cellphones. A couple months ago I was flying from LA to Sacramento at about 20k feet when I looked out and realized that my jet (757) was going to fly over Modesto. I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, called my house, and had my kids run outside to watch dad fly waaaay overhead. Unfortunately they never did spot the plane, but my cell phone worked JUST FINE.