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Terrorists strike heart of nation's defense
Witnesses watch as plane crashes into Pentagon.Date published: 9/12/2001 ARLINGTON--Ian Wyatt glanced into the sky just as a commercial airplane roared by about 100 yards off the ground. "I was so scared I thought it was coming after me and just ducked for cover," said Wyatt, a 1999 graduate of Mary Washington College who was walking to his federal job when terrorists struck at the heart of the nation's defense yesterday morning. "It was going so fast and it was so low," he said, standing on Army-Navy Drive. "The only intelligent thought that came into my head was, 'Oh my God, they hit the Pentagon.' I could then hear cars squealing all around and people were just stunned." After the plane struck the west side of the famed five-sided building, thick black smoke billowed from a huge crater as fire raged within. Inside the Pentagon, Connie Morrow was talking to co-workers in the fourth floor of the Pentagon's Air Force Logistics office at the time of the crash about 9:30 a.m. She said employees had been put on heightened alert after the World Trade Center attacks. "We were trying to figure out what our next move should be," Morrow said. "Then, we heard an explosion and people started racing for the doors. There was a lot of fear, but it wasn't total chaos." Morrow, who rides her bike to work from her Arlington home, said it took a long time to be evacuated from the reinforced concrete building. "It was just horrible," she said, afterward standing a few blocks from the Pentagon embracing a friend. "And people were trying to get through on their cellphones to notify family, but nothing was working." Others who witnessed the mayhem around the Pentagon yesterday said it felt like a scene from the movie, "Independence Day." Only in this case it was the Pentagon that erupted into flames, not the White House. Casualty estimates ranged from 100 to as many as 850. "This is worse than any disaster movie," said Arlington resident Rob Schickler, who was standing on a hill near the Pentagon with a crowd of onlookers. "You might be able to expect one plane, but four planes hijacked? I would never have imagined something like this."
Date published: 9/12/2001
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