Rescue teams assembled on the lawns, highways and parking lots around the Pentagon. At one point one of the firemen planted an American flag on a tall pole in the blackened debris just outside the smoking building, prompting an emotional cheer from the military and rescue officers outside the building.
The regular Pentagon helicopter pad was scattered with debris from the plane and the explosion and was not usable. Helicopters were landing and taking off from a cordoned-off area nearby.
Arlington firefighter Derek Spector, head of the first unit that arrived on the scene, stumbled out of the building two hours after the incident, exhausted and blackened by smoke, as the fire still blazed.
"We got there, and the whole side of the building was in flames. It's terrible in there." Spector told Reuters.
Pentagon security officer George Clodfelter, whose uniform was stained with blood, said he pulled a woman and her infant out of a window close to the impact site and they were shaken but unhurt.
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