Bump.
On the morning of 9-11 I was with three other people on the approach to the 14th St. bridge going into DC. The traffic was 'stop and go,' and we were in the far right hand lane. I was in the right rear seat. We were aware of the two planes hitting the WTC and we had the radio tuned to WMAL. The Pentagon was off to our left rear. There were reports of planes heading towards Washington DC. Our vision to the front was unobstructed and I remember that I kept repeating, "The MF'rs are going to hit something."
There was no air traffic that any of us could see. I felt the blast before I turned to my left to see the fireball on the opposite side of the Pentagon. We all knew instantly it had been an airplane that hit, even though none of us had seen it making it's approach from behind us.
My next thought was that I did not want to get on the bridge. With some persuading, we all agreed that we should make the last turn-off to the right, which we did. From there we ended up dodging fire trucks, police cars and other emergency vehicles.
Here is the image I want to pass along: Before making the right turn to get off of the approach to the bridge, I remember looking to the left up the Potomac River. I believe I commented at the time, "What is that airplane doing taking off from National Airport?" What I was looking at was the rear of a four engine airplane that was flying the river departure path up the Potomac. I used to fly the BAe 146, which is a high wing, T-tail, with four engines under the wings. It was the same configuration. The C-141 and C-5 have the same profile. Four engine airplanes are prohibited from using National. To this day I don't know what that was about?