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Up to 800 Possibly Dead at Pentagon: CNN Report
Up to 800 people may have died Tuesday when a hijacked commercial airliner was crashed into the Pentagon, officials said.
Firefighters were still battling a fire on the west side of the 29-acre, 6 million-square-foot building late Tuesday, more than 12 hours after the crash. Washington hospitals reported 71 people injured, some severely, and another 100 to 800 were still listed as missing and possibly dead late Tuesday.
Despite the serious damage caused by the attack, the headquarters of the U.S. military will reopen Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said.
"The Pentagon is functioning. It will be in business tomorrow," Rumsfeld said late Tuesday from a Pentagon briefing room.
An American Airlines flight from Washington to Los Angeles crashed into the Pentagon with 64 passengers and crew aboard. The fuel-laden jet, which had just taken off from Washington's Dulles Airport, set the world's largest office building ablaze and forced thousands of employees to evacuate.
The attack occurred shortly after two other commercial jetliners were hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. A fourth plane that was hijacked crashed in a wooded area in Pennsylvania.
Casualties were expected to be high, but Rumsfeld released no estimates Tuesday.
In addition to the "many dozens in the aircraft," he said, "there are a number of people that they have not identified by name, but have identified as being dead, and there are a number of casualties. The number has yet to be calculated, and it will not be a few."
The Pentagon suffered widespread damage on its the building's fourth, fifth and sixth corridors, and the impact tore a gaping hole in one side of the building. Firefighters continued to battle the blaze on the building's west side Tuesday night, describing it as "contained" but not yet under control.
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