Firefight: A gripping account of the courage and humanity of firefighters at the Pentagon on 9/11, marred by flawed account of Flight 77

A book review by Enver Masud

"Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11" is about the courage and humanity of firefighters called to duty at the Pentagon on 9/11, and it does an admirable job of chronicling that. However, Creed and Newman seem unaware of the vast amount of research that contradicts theirs, and the government’s, version of what struck the Pentagon on 9/11. A simple Google search of “what really happened at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001” would have given them rich material for their book.

For example the authors write: "The airplane's tail, 45 feet tall, was still attached to the plane as it plowed into the Pentagon." This is contradicted by several photographs that show that the hole in the Pentagon wall, prior to the collapse of the roof, was far too small to accommodate a Boeing 757.

They write that the Boeing 757 was blown into tiny pieces so that no fuselage, wings, or tail section remained identifiable, while, miraculously, the body of the hijacker remained. How was the hijacker identfied? Where did they get his DNA? Creed and Newman provide no answer. Moreover, there are no Arab names on the only passenger lists available to the public.

Creed and Newman choose the testimony of witnesses who support their version of events, and omit the testimony of those who contradict them, such as CNN’s senior correspondent Jamie McIntyre on September 11, 2001, and Arlington County fire chief Ed Plaugher at the official Pentagon briefing on September 12, 2001.

Creed and Newman write: "FBI photographer Jennifer Combs (formerly Jennifer Farmer) went far out of her way to pull hundreds of photographs from archives and narrate all of them".

How did the authors get access to these photographs, when others have Freedom of Information Act requests pending for these photographs and Pentagon videos? Did they get special privileges because they support the government’s version of events?

To this day, Bin Laden is not wanted for 9/11 at the FBI's Most Wanted, and the only evidence offered by the government to substantiate their claim of Flight 77 having struck the Pentagon is a fuzzy video that proves nothing — indeed the flight recorder data released by the government shows that a plane flew about 400 feet above the Pentagon.