A National Transportation and Safety Board agent at the task of inspecting and cataloging aircraft parts following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the Pentagon. The morning before, in an attempt to frighten the American people, five members of Al-Qaida, a terrorist group of fundamentalist Muslims, hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, then flew a circuitous route returning to Washington and impacting the Pentagon killing all 64 passengers onboard and 125 people on the ground. The impact destroyed or damaged four of the five rings in that section of the building

According to the official 9/11 Commission Report, the Flight 77 was 5 miles (8.0 km) west-southwest of the Pentagon when, it made a 330-degree turn. At the end of the turn, it was descending through 2,200 feet (670 m), pointed toward the Pentagon and downtown Washington. Boeing 757-223, flying at 530 mph over the Navy Annex Building adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, crashed into the western side of the Pentagon. The plane hit the Pentagon at the first-floor level, and at the moment of impact, the airplane was rolled slightly to the left, with the right wing elevated. The front part of the fuselage disintegrated on impact, while the mid and tail sections moved for another fraction of a second, with tail section debris penetrating furthest into the building. In all, the airplane took eight-tenths of a second to fully penetrate 310 feet (94 m) into the three outermost of the building's five rings and unleashed a fireball that rose 200 feet (61 m) above the building.