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by American Free
Press
Since AFP first
published a photograph from the 9-11 Pentagon crash site, there has been
a great outpouring of interest—and disinfo.
When American Free
Press published a hard-to-find photo from the Federal Emergency
Management Agency’s (FEMA) archive showing a small turbine disc from the
Pentagon crash site, it was hoped that readers could help identify the
object (Sept. 15 & 22). Since the photo and article were published there
has been an outpouring of interest—and disinformation—about the
unidentified jet engine part.
The photograph
reveals a crucial piece of evidence, which if positively identified
could help prove what kind of aircraft hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11,
2001.
“Is this the 9-11
smoking gun?” Fintan Dunne, editor of WagKingdom.com asks on a web page
dedicated to the FEMA photographs. These photos could be the keys to
unlock the cover-up, Dunne wrote on Oct. 7.
“Among all the
arguments about 9-11: tower fires, WTC 7 collapse, etc., none seems as
straightforward as that posed by the jet engine part,” Dunne said. If
the Pentagon photos are authentic, he said, then either the turbine is
from a Boeing 757, or it is not. The web site appeals to “aero
engineers” for help in identifying the disc seen in the FEMA photos.
The photograph is
one of many taken by Jocelyn Augustino, a FEMA photographer, at the
Pentagon crash site on Sept. 13, 2001. In the FEMA on-line photo
library, the best photos of the unidentified disc are numbered 4414 and
4415, archived at: www.photolibrary.fema.gov/ photolibrary/advancedsearch.do.
Several readers
wrote to AFP suggesting that the unidentified disc was a piece from the
Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) mounted in the tail section of a Boeing 757.
Honeywell makes the GTCP331-200 APU used on the 757 aircraft. No one
suggested, however, that the small disc was a piece from one of the main
engines of a 757-200.
AFP contacted
Honeywell’s Aerospace division in Phoenix, Ariz., and sent
high-resolution photos for their examination. “There’s no way that’s an
APU wheel,” an expert at Honeywell told AFP. The expert, who cannot be
named, added: “That turbine disc—there’s no way in the world that came
out of an APU.”
American Free
Press contacted Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce, manufacturers of the
757’s turbofan jet engines to try and identify the piece.
“If the aircraft
that struck the Pentagon was a Boeing 757-200 owned by American
Airlines, then it would have to be a Rolls Royce engine,” Mark Sullivan,
spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, told AFP.
John W. Brown,
spokesman for Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), had previously told AFP: “It
is not a part from any Rolls Royce engine that I’m familiar with, and
certainly not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.”
The AE 3007
engines are used in small commuter jets such as the Cessna Citation; the
AE 3007H is also used in the military’s unmanned aircraft, the Global
Hawk. The Global Hawk is manufactured by Northrop Grumman’s subsidiary
Ryan Aeronautical, which it acquired from Teledyne, Inc. in July 1999.
If the government
version that an American Airlines 757-200 hit the Pentagon is accurate,
then the object in the photo would have to be from a Rolls Royce
RB211-535 turbofan engine.
When AFP told
Brown that it must be a piece of a Rolls Royce engine, Brown balked and
asked who at Pratt & Whitney had provided the information.
Asked again if the
disc in the photo is a piece of a Rolls Royce RB211-535, or from the AE
3007 series, Brown said he could not answer.
AFP then asked
Brown if he was actually familiar with the parts of an AE 3007H, which
is made at the Indiana plant: “No,” Brown said. “I don’t build the
engines. I am a spokesman for the company. I speak for the company.”
Rolls Royce
produces the RB211-535 engines for American Airlines 757-200 aircraft at
a plant in Derby, England. Martin Johnson, head of communications at
Rolls Royce in Derby, said he had followed the story closely in American
Free Press and had also been notified in advance by Rolls Royce offices
in Seattle and Indianapolis.
However, rather
than address the question of the unidentified disc, Johnson launched a
verbal attack on this reporter for questioning the government version of
events at the Pentagon on 9-11. “You are the only person in the world
who does not believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon,” Johnson said. “The
idea that we can have a reasonable conversation is beyond your wildest
dreams,” Johnson said and hung up the phone.
Flug Revue, a
German magazine about aviation equipment was more willing to discuss the
disc. Karl Schwarz, a technical editor at the Bonn-based publication,
examined the photo and technical drawings of the RB211-535 for AFP. “I
think only an engineer who is involved in the design of the engine could
identify the part,” Schwarz said.
While the front
fan of the RB211-535 has a 74.5-inch diameter, compression discs inside
the engine are much smaller. Schwarz said the inner discs are between 29
and 41 inches in diameter. “It could well be” an inner compression disc,
Schwarz said. The discs from the inner stages are made of titanium, he
added.
AFP asked Schwarz
if this could be a disc from a smaller engine, such as the Global Hawk’s
AE 3007H. “It could come from any jet engine,” Schwarz said.
If the disc in the
photo can be matched with a Rolls Royce AE 3007H engine, some speculate
that it would prove something like a Global Hawk hit the Pentagon.
The Global Hawk
engine is hand built at the Rolls Royce plant in Indianapolis and has an
opening diameter of 43.5 inches. Schwarz said he did not have a
technical diagram of an AE 3007 engine to consult.
Because the disc
in the photo appears very similar in size and shape to the front fan of
a Global Hawk engine, AFP asked Schwarz in what position is the solid
disc found behind the front fan of a turbofan engine. “Immediately,”
Schwarz said.
An unnamed former
cruise missile engineer for the engine manufacturer Teledyne Continental
Motors-Turbine Engines added his opinion to the debate:
“Clearly, the part
in the picture is larger than 24 inches in diameter. It also appears to
have a nosepiece-like device on its front. This probably houses
bearings, front oil sump and perhaps an alternator or starter.”
This engineer
concluded with the intriguing comment, “This fan did not come from a
cruise missile engine.”
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