was and what she could do. flight 77 made a left turn after it was hijacked. they came back over washington fairly high and then he did a left descending turn, which gave him good visual visibility of the pentagon. i heard it before i saw it. i looked up and directly in front of my field of vision, parallel to the ground, i saw a jet airplane with the silver paint job, with the red, white and blue stripes underneath the windows. it was clearly an american airlines passenger jet come roaring by. we did not know where that aircraft was. just moments later, that aircraft hit the pentagon. of course, our aircraft headed towards washington d.c. are well south of there at that time. they were not yet over washington d.c. it didn t veer from its course at all. it was like a missile, right into the side of the pentagon.
come to the cockpit. the minute the door opened the atmosphere just hit me full force. it was like oh, no, this isn t an emergency. it s a bleep, bleep crisis. the situation is grave. the plane has lost all of its hydraulic fluid. hydraulics in a modern large jet airplane is the lifeblood of the airplane. it is how you physically move the flight controls. it provides the muscle to move these very large surfaces against very fast moving air in a controlled manner. we were keeping an ear, i ll put it that way. control, no. we were just trying to keep it flying. it was doing what it wanted to do. in the midst of the chaos a flight attendant informs the crew there s a united captain who was a dc10 flight instructor sitting in first class. his name is denny finch, and he s offering to help.
there s still a person who s in critical condition. this plane is an older plane, from the 1950s, a hawker hunter jet airplane. the pilot just unable to maneuver, to pull the plane up in time, and really just some horrific video coming out of this. people filming it. as you see, there s that moment of impact, there s a large fire ball that goes up. paramedics on the scene say that the majority of those casualties were people in their cars, traveling on that highway. it has been closed. and the investigation right now to determine exactly what happened and how this could happen. horrible situation. all right, ian lee, thank you so much for that detail. and we ll be right back after this.
the minute the door opened the atmosphere just hit me full force. it was like oh, no, this isn t an emergency. it s a [ bleep ] crisis. the situation is grave. the plane has lost all of its hydraulic fluid. hydraulics in a modern large jet airplane is the lifeblood of the airplane. it is how you physically move the flight controls. it provides the muscle to move these very large surfaces against very fast moving air in a controlled manner. we were keeping an ear, i ll put it that way. control, no. we were just trying to keep it flying. it was doing what it wanted to do. in the midst of the chaos a flight attendant informs the crew there s a united captain who was a dc10 flight instructor sitting in first class. his name is denny finch, and he s offering to help. he said go tell them i m
and he is truly a hero. heather, thank you very much. five minutes after the top of the hour. it s incredible, the velocity of stories coming through. major world crises. you heard heather open up the show we know what s happening in gaza and israel. we know what happened last thursday as a malaysian jet airplane was shot out of the sky. 298 lives ended, and yet the russian leader continues to point fingers at the west and say it s not our fault. you can blame ukraine. back and forth. people more and more are looking to the president of the united states to take the lead, get nato involved, get western europe mobilized and finally come down on russia with the condemnation they deserve. but the president seems to have a different agenda publicly. where is he going? he s heading west. west coast that is. by noon today he s set to arrive in seattle for a