American Airlines Flight 77 - Rescue and Recovery

Rescue and Recovery

Rescue efforts began immediately after the crash. Almost all the successful rescues of survivors occurred within half an hour of the impact. Initially, rescue efforts were led by the military and civilian employees within the building. Within minutes, the first fire companies arrived and found these volunteers searching near the impact site. The firemen ordered them to leave as they were not properly equipped or trained to deal with the hazards. The Arlington County Fire Department (ACFD) assumed command of the immediate rescue operation within 10 minutes of the crash. ACFD Assistant Chief James Schwartz implemented an incident command system (ICS) to coordinate response efforts among multiple agencies. It took about an hour for the ICS structure to become fully operational. Firefighters from Fort Myer and Reagan National Airport arrived within minutes. Rescue and firefighting efforts were impeded by rumors of additional incoming planes. Chief Schwartz ordered two evacuations during the day in response to these rumors.

As firefighters attempted to extinguish the fires, they watched the building in fear of a structural collapse. One firefighter remarked that they "pretty much knew the building was going to collapse because it started making weird sounds and creaking". Officials saw a cornice of the building move and ordered an evacuation. Minutes later, at 10:10, the upper floors of the damaged area of the Pentagon collapsed. The collapse area was about 95 feet (29 m) at its widest point and 50 feet (15 m) at its deepest. This amount of time between impact and collapse allowed everyone on the fourth and fifth levels to evacuate safely before the structure collapsed. After the collapse, the interior fires intensified, spreading through all five floors. After 11:00, firefighters mounted a two-pronged attack against the fires. Officials estimated temperatures of up to 2,000 °F (1,090 °C). While progress was made against the interior fires by late afternoon, firefighters realized a flammable layer of wood under the Pentagon's slate roof had caught fire and begun to spread. Typical firefighting tactics were rendered useless by the reinforced structure as firefighters were unable to reach the fire to extinguish it. Firefighters instead made firebreaks in the roof on September 12 to prevent any further spreading. At 18:00 on the 12th, Arlington County issued a press release stating the fire was "controlled" but not fully "extinguished". Firefighters continued to put out smaller fires that ignited in the succeeding days.

Various pieces of aircraft debris were found within the wreckage at the Pentagon. While on fire himself, and escaping from the Navy Command Center, Lt. Kevin Shaeffer observed a chunk of the aircraft's nose cone and the nose landing gear in the service road between rings B and C. Early in the morning on Friday, September 14, Fairfax County Urban Search and Rescue Team members Carlton Burkhammer and Brian Moravitz came across an "intact seat from the plane's cockpit", while paramedics and firefighters located the two black boxes near the punch out hole in the A-E drive, nearly 300 feet (91 m) into the building. The cockpit voice recorder was too badly damaged and charred to retrieve any information, though the flight data recorder yielded useful information. Investigators also found a part of Nawaf al-Hazmi's driver's license in the North Parking Lot rubble pile. Personal effects belonging to victims were also found, and taken to Fort Myer.