This is a direct view of the catastrophic structural damage to the west facade of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, including the outer E Ring. I photographed this in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack.
At 9:37 a.m. EDT, hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757-223 registered N644AA, struck the west side of the building. Its radio call sign was American 77. The impact and ensuing fires caused severe damage across the E, D, and C Rings, exposing interior offices, structural framing, and the damaged limestone facade.
The photograph also shows temporary shoring and stabilization work installed during the early recovery and reconstruction effort. That work became part of the Pentagon’s Phoenix Project, the high-priority effort to demolish, rebuild, and repair the damaged section of the building after the attack.
The project’s name referred to the mythical phoenix rising from its ashes. Organized in the weeks after September 11, the effort set an aggressive goal: to restore and reoccupy the damaged E Ring by September 11, 2002, exactly one year after the attack. During critical phases, crews worked around the clock. The team beat the deadline, with the first E Ring tenants returning on August 15, 2002.
The attack killed all 64 people aboard American Airlines Flight 77 and 125 people inside the Pentagon.