How the Pentagon's design enabled hundreds to evacuate to safety on 9/11 | 60 Minutes Archive
In a Nutshell
The Pentagon survived a direct 757 impact on 9/11 because its renovated section—completed just five days prior—incorporated blast-resistant steel framing, ballistic fabric to contain debris, and specially designed windows that prevented immediate structural collapse, allowing hundreds to evacuate safely before the floors fell after 35 minutes. This design was based on classified research analyzing prior terrorist attacks like Oklahoma City and Khobar Towers, which informed redundant structural supports and materials to minimize flying debris and progressive collapse. The survival of 125 victims (instead of potentially thousands) validated the effectiveness of these retrofits, now being used to improve future building protections.
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Even though 125 people were killed in the Pentagon on September 11th, there was something miraculous about that day. The 757 obliterated the first and part of the second floor, but the third, fourth, and fifth floors remained suspended in midair for 35 minutes. Hundreds of people escaped. The answer lies in a partially classified government study of terrorist bombings that had come before, including Oklahoma City and Khobar Towers. Everything learned in that project was hidden inside the walls of the Pentagon itself in anticipation that one day the building would be bombed.
John Yates, a civilian security manager in the Pentagon, was in his office watching the World Trade Center on TV. Five minutes before the plane hit, someone said, "Come over. You got to see what's going on." He walked over to watch television and called his wife. She asked him jokingly to do the rest of his work for the remainder of the day from underneath his desk. He joked back, "Yeah, okay, honey, I will." He walked back to watch more of what was happening in New York and had been standing there for just a couple of minutes when the plane hit the building.
Yates described the sound as "deafening. Absolutely deafening." He remembered "this bright ball of fire that just went right over my head." The fire burned 35% of his body. The plane hit directly below his office, but the floor held, giving some, but not all, a chance to live. There were people standing next to him in the room watching television. The lady standing to his left didn't make it. They were standing "within an arm's length" of him.
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