9/11 news footage on Pentagon attack deceptively edited
CLAIM: A CNN report from Sept. 11, 2001, is evidence that no airplane debris was found at the site of the Pentagon attack.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The CNN report was deceptively recut to make it seem as though a correspondent at the scene, Jamie McIntyre, said debris from an airplane had not been found. In the real footage, McIntyre says that debris had not been found anywhere except the Pentagon, and describes in detail the parts of the plane that he did see. There is also photographic evidence of airplane debris found at the crash site.
THE FACTS: On the 21st anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, an old, false claim that no airplane debris was found at the Pentagon after the building was attacked reemerged in an Instagram post.
The post includes a short clip from CNN’s Sept. 11, 2001, coverage. Text above the clip reads, “THIS FOOTAGE AIRED ONCE AFTER 9/11 AND WAS NEVER ON TV AGAIN,” while the post’s caption claims that “every article or photo will show you ZERO debris at the alleged crash site at the pentagon.”
In the clip, then-CNN anchor Judy Woodruff says: “Jamie, you got very close to where that plane went down,” and McIntyre, at the time the network’s military affairs correspondent, responds: “That’s right Judy, a short while ago I walked right up next to the building as firefighters were still trying to put out the blaze that — the fire, by the way, is still burning in some parts of the Pentagon — and I took a look at the huge, gaping hole that’s in the side.”
He appears to continue by saying: “But from my close-up inspection, there’s no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. The only site is the actual site of the building that’s crashed in. And as I said, the only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you could pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, a fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around.”
But the clip posted to Instagram was edited deceptively. A longer version of McIntyre’s report makes clear that he did, in fact, see airplane debris at the Pentagon itself.
In the real footage, after McIntyre mentions the “huge, gaping hole,” he continues: “I can see parts of the airplane that crashed into the building — very small pieces of the plane — on the heliport outside the building. The biggest piece I saw was about three-feet long. It was silver and it had been painted green and red, but I could not see any identifying markings on the plane. I also saw a large piece of shattered glass that appeared to be a cockpit windshield or other window from the plane.”
After more description of the scene from McIntyre, Woodruff cites an eyewitness report CNN covered earlier in the day that American Airlines Flight 77 may have “landed short of the Pentagon,” and asks McIntyre, “Can you give us any better idea of how much of the plane actually impacted the building?”
That is when McIntyre gives the response that is featured in the deceptive Instagram video, clarifying that he had not seen any evidence that a plane had crashed in the area surrounding the Pentagon, only evidence that it had crashed into the building itself, including small pieces of airplane debris.
In the years since the CNN report aired, McIntyre has addressed conspiracy theories that misuse the footage numerous times. He wrote in a 2010 post for his “Line of Departure” blog on news site Military.com: “What the 9/11 deniers intentionally misrepresent, is that I was answering a question about an earlier report that the plane crashed SHORT of the Pentagon, nearby. I was explaining there was no sign of a crash anywhere BUT at the Pentagon.”
There are also multiple photographs of debris from American Airlines Flight 77 found at the Pentagon crash site, including images released by the FBI.
On Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers crashed the American Airlines plane into the southwest side of the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. after two other hijacked planes hit the World Trade Center towers and a third crashed into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The Pentagon attack killed 125 people in the building and the 59 passengers and crew on board the airplane.
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