Eyewitness Reliability in Motor Vehicle Crashes: A Primer for Practitioners, Second Edition

Eyewitnesses: Flight 77 Crash

---

Some acquire post-event misinformation. And human memory, always unreliable, plays a crucial role. Now you can be prepared with this book, exploring all the fallible aspects of eyewitness testimony. You will learn how a jury evaluates eyewitness testimony on the basis of witness confidence and personality. This book teaches you to counteract this by knowing what questions to ask your witnesses to get the most accurate information, where to undermine the eyewitness testimony against you, and how to avoid the pitfalls of eyewitness evidence. Robins cites case studies, research, and seminar demonstrations that are both interesting and educational.

By learning from one of the world's experts, you will make eyewitness testimony an asset to your case. Patrick J Robins Dimensions: They suspect that this was where a part of the aircraft came through this hole, although I didn't see any evidence of the aircraft down there. This pile here is all Pentagon metal. None of that is aircraft whatsoever. As you can see, they've punched a hole in here. This was punched by the rescue workers to clean it out.

You can see this is the -- some of the unrenovated areas where the windows have blown out. He heard "an increasingly loud rumbling" One to two seconds later the airliner came into my field of view. By that time the noise was absolutely deafening. The aircraft was essentially right over the top of me and the outer portion of the FOB flight path parallel the outer edge of the FOB. Everything was shaking and vibrating, including the ground. I estimate that the aircraft was no more than feet above me 30 to 50 feet above the FOB in a slight nose down attitude.

The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines, but I couldn't be sure. It looked like a and I so reported to authorities. Engines were at a steady high-pitched whine, indicating to me that the throttles were steady and full. I estimated the aircraft speed at between and knots. The flight path appeared to be deliberate, smooth, and controlled. As the aircraft approached the Pentagon, I saw a minor flash later found out that the aircraft had sheared off a portion of a highway light pole down on Hwy As the aircraft flew ever lower I started to lose sight of the actual airframe as a row of trees to the Northeast of the FOB blocked my view.

I could now only see the tail of the aircraft. I believe I saw the tail dip slightly to the right indicating a minor turn in that direction. The tail was barely visible when I saw the flash and subsequent fireball rise approximately feet above the Pentagon. There was a large explosion noise and the low frequency sound echo that comes with this type of sound. Associated with that was the increase in air pressure, momentarily, like a small gust of wind.

At once there was a huge cloud of black smoke that rose several hundred feet up.

Product details

Elapsed time from hearing the initial noise to when I saw the impact flash was between 12 and 15 seconds. T The aircraft had been flown directly into the Pentagon without hitting the ground first or skipping into the building. I looked over and saw this big silver plane run into the side of the Pentagon" http: The plane, with red and blue markings, hurtled by and within moments exploded in a ground-shaking "whoomp" as it appeared to hit the side of the Pentagon. A huge flash of orange flame and black smoke poured into the sky.

Smoke seemed to change from black to white, forming a billowing column in the sky. With traffic at a standstill, my eyes wandered around the road, looking for the cause of the traffic jam. Then I looked up to my left and saw an American Airlines jet flying right at me. The jet roared over my head, clearing my car by about 25 feet. The tail of the plane clipped the overhanging exit sign above me as it headed straight at the Pentagon.

The windows were dark on American Airlines Flight 77 as it streaked toward its target, only 50 yards away. The hijacked jet slammed into the Pentagon at a ferocious speed. But the Pentagon's wall held up like a champ. It barely budged as the nose of the plane curled upwards and crumpled before exploding into a massive fireball. I saw the bodies of passengers burning.

But I'm not sure. It could have been Pentagon workers. It could have been my mind playing tricks on me. I hope it was my mind playing tricks on me. I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet,' said the year-old O'Keefe, managing editor of Influence, an American Lawyer Media publication about lobbying. I'd just heard them saying on the radio that National Airport was closing, and I thought, That's not going to make it to National Airport.

Its downward angle was too sharp, its elevation of maybe 50 feet, too low. Street lights toppled as the plane barely cleared the Interstate overpass. Gripping the steering wheel of my vibrating car, I ducked as the wobbling plane thundered over my head. Once it passed, I raised slightly and saw the left wing dip and scrape the helicopter area just before the nose crashed into the southwest wall of the Pentagon.

I could feel both the car and my heart jolt at the moment of impact. An instant inferno blazed about yards from me. The plane, the wall and the victims disappeared under coal-black smoke, three-story tall flames and intense heat http: The plane was about yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the ground, Patterson said.

He said the plane, which sounded like the high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetary so low that he thought it was going to land on I He said it was flying so fast that he couldn't read any writing on the side. The plane, which appeared to hold about eight to 12 people, headed straight for the Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent runway, Patterson said.

He said the plane, which approached the Pentagon below treetop level, seemed to be flying normally for a plane coming in for a landing other than going very fast for being so low. Then, he said, he saw the Pentagon "envelope" the plane and bright orange flames shoot out the back of the building. I looked idly out my window to the left -- and saw a plane flying so low I said, "holy cow, that plane is going to hit my car" The car shook as the plane flew over.

But there was no plane visible, only huge billows of smoke and torrents of fire. I jumped up from my chair as the screeching and whining of the engine got even louder and I looked out the window to the West just in time to see the belly of that aircraft and the tail section fly directly over my house at treetop height. It was utterly sickening to see, knowing that this plane was going to crash.

The sound was so incredibly piercing and shrill- the engines were straining to keep the plane aloft. I was unaware at this time that the World Trade center had been attacked so I thought this was just" a troubled plane en route to the airport. I started to run toward my front door but the plane was going so fast at this point that it only took 4 or 5 seconds before I heard a tremendously loud crash and books on my shelves started tumbling to the floor.

American Airlines Flight 77 approached from the west, coming in low over the nearby five-story Navy Annex on a hill overlooking the Pentagon. He had lights off, wheels up, nose down," Probst recalled. The plane seemed to be accelerating directly toward him.

He dove to his right. He recalls the engine passing on one side of him, about six feet away. The plane's right wing went through a generator trailer "like butter," Probst said. The starboard engine hit a low cement wall and blew apart. I dove towards the ground and watched this great big engine from this beautiful airplane just vaporize.

It looked like a huge fireball, pieces were flying out everywhere. On either side of him, three streetlights had been sheared in half by the airliner's wings at 12 to 15 feet above the ground. An engine had clipped the antenna off a Jeep Grand Cherokee stalled in traffic not far away. The Pentagon By Lon Rains Editor, Space News, was driving up Interstate from Springfield to downtown Washington I heard a very loud, quick whooshing sound that began behind me and stopped suddenly in front of me and to my left.

In fractions of a second I heard the impact and an explosion. The next thing I saw was the fireball. I was convinced it was a missile. It came in so fast it sounded nothing like an airplane. Friends and colleagues have asked me if I felt a shock wave and I honestly do not know. I felt something, but I don't know if it was a shock wave or the fact that I jumped so hard I strained against the seat belt and shoulder harness and was thrown back into my seat.

The impact created a huge yellow and orange fireball, he added. Renzi, who was interviewed at the scene by FBI agents, said he stopped his car to watch and saw another plane following and turn off after the first craft's impact. I was looking directly at it when the aircraft struck.

The sight of the diving in at an unrecoverable angle is frozen in my memory. I froze, gaping for a second until the sound of the detonation, a sharp pop at that distance, shook me out of it. His brother inlaw also saw a jetliner flying low over the tree tops near Seminary Rd. He kinda did like that. At that point the plane was slow, so that happened concurrently with the engines going down. And then straighten up in sort of suddenly and hit full gas. It was just so loud. Commander John Sayer, a Navy reservist, was riding on a bus when he heard a thud.

I had to look back at the road and then back to the plane as it sort of leveled off. I looked back at the road, and when I turned to look again, I felt and heard a terrible explosion. I looked back and saw flames shooting up and smoke starting to climb into the sky. And five minutes later, boom. Walking back to his motorcycle he saw a commercial airliner coming from the direction of Henderson Hall the Marine Corps headquarters.. He was standing in the parking lot at the Pentagon when he noticed a jetliner lower its landing gear as if to make a landing and then he realized that the airplane was actually heading towards the southwest wall of the Pentagon.

It "flew above a nearby hotel and dropped its landing gear.

The plane's right wheel struck a light pole, causing it to fly at a degree angle", he said. The plane tried to recover, but hit a second light pole and continued flying at an angle. For a brief moment, you could see the body of the plane sticking out from the side of the building. Then a ball of fire came from behind it. That right wing went directly over our trailer, so if that wing had not tilted up, it would have hit the trailer. The smell seemed to singe the inside of my nose. I spent an eternity in my car.

I couldn't roll up the windows, the car smelled like the Inferno. Concrete dust coats the outside of the car, turning it a weird color. I've showered and showered. Ultimately, I think I'm going to throw away my clothes. I don't think the smell will ever come out. September 11, Slater, who was yards away from where the jet slammed into the Pentagon's west side. As soon as Mr.

Slater stepped outside, he saw and smelled something uncomfortably familiar. Minutes later, jet engines rumbled overhead. There were light poles down. There was what appeared to be the outside covering of the jet strewn about. Within about two minutes there were fire trucks on the scene. Within a minute another plane started veering up and to the side.

At that point it wasn't clear if that plane was trying to maneuver out of the air space or if that plane was coming round for another hit. Stephens Levi Levi Stephens 23, courier Armed Forces Information Service - According to one witness, "what looked like a " plowed into the south side of the Pentagon, possibly skipping through a heliport before it hit the building.

Personnel working in the Navy Annex, over which the airliner flew, said they heard the distinct whine of jet engines as the airliner approached. It flew over the van and I looked back and I saw this huge explosion, black smoke everywhere. I was sitting in heavy traffic in the I HOV lanes about 9: I heard the scream of a jet engine and, turning to look, saw my driver's side window filled with the fuselage of the airliner. It was flying only a couple of hundred feet off the ground. I could see the passenger windows glide by.

The plane looked as if it were coming in for a landing - cruising at a shallow angle, wings level, very steady. But, strangely, the landing gear was up and the flaps weren't down. The fireball that erupted upon impact blossomed skyward, and the blast hit us in a wave. I don't remember hearing a sound. It was so eerily similar to another experience during the Gulf War. A piece of twisted aircraft fuselage lay nearby. I was looking out the window; I live on the 16th floor, overlooking the Pentagon.

I hear jets all the time, but this jet engine was way too loud. I looked out to the southwest, and it came right down , right over Colombia Pike, and as it went by the Sheraton Hotel, the pilot added power to the engines. I heard it pull up a little bit more, and then I lost it behind a building. And then it came out, and I saw it hit right in front of -- it didn't appear to crash into the building; most of the energy was dissipated in hitting the ground, but I saw the nose break up, I saw the wings fly forward, and then the conflagration engulfed everything in flames. It was a Boeing , American Airlines, no question.

It was so close to me it was like looking out my window and looking at a helicopter. But it was flying too low. Maybe less than 25 feet off the ground. And it was heading right at them. He hit the ground and rolled under a parked van as a fire engulfed his fire truck, then blew through the firehouse. Wallace got back to his feet, saw Skipper had escaped, then rushed to the scorched fire truck to see if it would run, but the truck only belched fire.

The airplane was a Boeing or a Airbus. The truck was useless. So he dashed for his gear inside the torched firehouse. His boots were filled with debris. His suspenders were on fire. Wallace and two other firefighters rushed to a window, where Pentagon employees were crammed together, frantic to escape the darkness. Fire burst through the windows above them.

The ground burned near Wallace with heat so hot he thought several times that his pants were on fire.

most eyewitnesses were not interviewed by the media

I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low. I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon. The second plane looked similar to a C- transport plane, he said. He believes it flew directly above the American Airlines jet, as if to prevent two planes from appearing on radar while at the same time guiding the jet toward the Pentagon. AP reporter Dave Winslow also saw the crash. He said, "I saw the tail of a large airliner It ploughed right into the Pentagon.

It was an airliner coming straight up Columbia Pike at tree-top level. It was low -- unbelievable! I could see the cockpit. I fell to the ground I was crying and scared," Zakhem recalls. Cbsnews Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7, feet in two-and-a-half minutes. The steep turn was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed. The jetliner disappeared from radar at 9: We analyzed seismic records from five stations in the northeastern United States, ranging from 63 to km from the Pentagon.

Despite detailed analysis of the data, we could not find a clear seismic signal. We concluded that the plane impact to the Pentagon generated relatively weak seismic signals. However, we positively identified seismic signals associated with United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed near Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania.

The time of the plane crash was The collapse and roof fires left the inner courtyard visible from outside through a gaping hole. The area hit by the plane was newly renovated and reinforced, while the areas surrounding the impact zone were closed in preparation for renovation, so the death toll could have been much higher if another area had been hit.

Photos of jet fuel on front of Pentagon: He was just heading back down the hall to his office when the building exploded in front of him.

He was transferred to George Washington Hospital, where [he was treated by] the best, cutting edge burn doctor in the U. The doctor told him that had he not gone to Georgetown first, he probably would not have survived because of the jet fuel in his lungs. You could smell the jet fuel, it was unbearable" http: He had only to turn to watch the disaster unfold. According to Matt Hahr, Kirlin's senior project manager at the Pentagon, the employee "was thrown about 80 ft down the hall through the air.

As he was traveling through the air, he says the ceiling was coming down from the concussion. He got thrown into a closet, the door slammed shut and the fireball went past him," recounts Hahr. Fires from the plane's 20, gallons of fuel melted windows into pools of liquid glass. Fires were burning closer as deposits of jet fuel ignited. You could hear these getting closer. That smell was his only clue that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon, where he works as an operations research analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Mark Steven Kirk R-Ill. The first thing you smell is the burning.

And then you can smell the aviation fuel. And then you can smell this sickly, rotten-meat smell, he said. Spotting a Pentagon door that had been blown off its hinges, Maj. Leibner went in and out several times, helping rescue several people. I walked her out onto the grass. Leibner said a police officer pulled up onto the grass and began to help.

Everybody was burned on their hands and faces. All I know is that the blast must have pushed open the steel door to the closet," says Mr. Pfeilstucker, who had been 40 feet away from the plane's point of impact. Then he smelled jet fuel and smoke. The putrid odor was seeping into the closet. Flames bathed his skin, his eyes, his lungs. The room went dark. Shaeffer, dazed, prone on the carpet, realized his back and head were on fire. He rolled to put himself out, then staggered to his feet. He ran a hand through his hair. His scalp felt wet.

Slater stepped outside [the Pentagon], he saw and smelled something uncomfortably familiar. It was about 25 feet off the ground and just yards away. Wallace hadn't gotten far when the plane hit. I felt the blast," he says. He saw Skipper out in the field, still standing. The grass is on fire. The building is on fire.

The firehouse is on fire," Wallace recalls. Areas of the blacktop were on fire. There was trash and debris everywhere. The trees were on fire. Cabinets overturned, partitions exploded, ceiling tiles burned and danced and fell with their metal frames. Yates could not breathe. He could not see. The room was ablaze around him. His glasses remained on his face. They were smeared with something -- unburned jet fuel, which Yates mistook for blood.

He carefully took them off, folded them, and slipped them into his shirt pocket. They looked up and saw the plane coming over the Navy Annex building. They turned and ran, and at the point of impact were partially shielded by their fire truck from the flying debris of shrapnel and flames. They were knocked to the ground by the concussion. They had to put out parts of their uniform--their bunker gear was actually on fire, so the first thing they had to do was put out their own fire truck and their fire equipment and they tried to start the truck and move it, but they discovered that it wouldn't move.

They got out and looked, and the whole back of the fire truck had melted. EDT and continued smashing its way through the D and C rings. Fuel triggered an intense fire that caused the roof of the damaged E-ring section to give way at It was still burning 18 hr. Many of these offices are occupied again. But there was extensive fire damage hundreds of feet away in unrenovated areas that had not yet had sprinklers installed. The fire was so intense it cracked concrete.

Photograph by Steve Riskus at this site: The photos show widespread fires as a result of burning jet fuel, described by smell, sight and burn injuries, which were diagnosed by doctors at nearby hospitals. It is interesting to note his impressions of mis-information being discussed in the weeks soon after the crash.

One shows the roof caved in, the next day, or 2 days later. The evidence of burns on the Pentagon walls are in the pattern of a plane crashing the walls and the burning fuel having splattered all over them. Steve Riskus website http: Carter saw the tail section when she went to the site to support the people who were doing recovery of bodies and evidence.

If the tail section was there and hauled away soon after the crash, then it is possible that the photos that we see commonly, of the front of the pentagon were taken late in the day, or the next day, after removal of the tail section. Documents now being held by the govt. I saw the remains of the engines in the North parking lot of the Pentagon as well as melted aluminum and other debris left from the aircraft. One of the aircraft's engines somehow ricocheted out of the building and arched into the Pentagon's mall parking area between the main building and the new loading dock facility, said Charles H.

Krohn, the Army's deputy chief of public affairs. The lawn was scattered with chunks of the airplane, some up to four feet across. Delawareonline Smoke and flames engulfed the west wall. Cars traveling nearby were lifted up off the roadway and showered with rocks and other debris. Among the trash littering the road was a scorched green oxygen tank marked "Cabin air.

Trees were on fire. Hot slices of aluminum were everywhere. Wallace could hear voices crying for help and moved toward them. People were coming out a window head first, landing on him. He had faced incoming fire before -- he was with the hospital corps in Vietnam when mortars and rocket shells dropped on the operating room near Da Nang -- but he had never witnessed anything of this devastating intensity.

I looked back and I saw the fire, it was just huge and just incredible. Eyewitness memory and perception is a dynamic field -- the principles that Robins cites are sound and long established, but it would have been useful to see what had changed in the 10 years between editions. Instead the bulk of the sources in the text and references are unchanged, which might suggest to a reader that the field is stagnant rather than quite dynamic with new papers out every month.

The sad part is that even in , this information might not be familiar to even an experienced attorney, never mind to jurors and judges. As an intro, it is a good resource. This book is directed towards people who deal with eye witnesses such as police officers, attornies etc. It explains how sensory input is processed and turned into a memory. The book further explains how and why people remember something differently than it actually occurred and why 2 people who saw the same event tell different versions. Over all the content of the book was excellent and it probably cannot be found in any other work.

The book is essentially 80 pages long as the rest is filled with appendixes and that is why I rated it 4 stars and not 5.

Eyewitness Reliability in Motor Vehicle Crashes - A Primer for Practitioners (Paperback, 2nd)

See all 3 reviews. Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway. Eyewitness Reliability in Motor Vehicle Crashes: A Primer for Practitioners, Second Edition. Set up a giveaway.

There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide.

• The Gifted Sophomores
• Confutatis Maledictis: 20.000 leguas de viaje sub-submarino (Spanish Edition)
• Vers versus Prosa (German Edition)
• Solo los inocentes (Mistery Plus) (Spanish Edition)
• 30 Ways To Please Your Man
• Radiation-Induced Processes of Adaptation: Research by statistical modelling
• Perhaps Tomorrow