... were NOT in a position to tell the difference. They were off to the side, about perpendicular to the flight path. Ranke gave them a map to draw the flight path, but the plane was in the air, not rolling on the ground. So, their perception of the flight path would depend entirely on how far away they judged it to be. That's very difficult to do for something in the air, since it's too far for our stereo vision to help and there's nothing up there to compare to. Unexpectedly seeing a 757 that low, it could have easily appeared to be closer than it was -- the same thing that made Paik think the plane flew over his head -- so they drew a flight path closer to themselves than it really was. Notice that they had to curve the path to get it to
hit the building -- something
all the witnesses agree on. Most people report that the plane banked right and left a bit as it approached, but the path they described would require something like a 70-degree bank, if it could be done at all. (In flight simulator, I can't get a 757 to turn that fast.)
Look at the size of the window in Paik's shop and where he says he was standing again. On either the path he drew or the "correct" flight path, he would have only seen the plane very briefly as it passed by the shop. And let me say this again: If the the plane was where he drew that line, he would not have seen it at all, so that line simple cannot be accurate.
The only real "NoC" witnesses who were in a position to tell were Lagasse and Brooks. They work together, so it's entirely possible that one of them gave the other the "false memory" of where the plane was. If you aren't aware of it, Lagasse has no tolerance at all for the various "77 didn't hit the Pentagon" fantasies: He is absolutely certain that the plane hit the building, and even describes seeing it twist as it tore through the wall. If both memories cannot simultaneously be correct, which do you think is more likely to be mistaken: the flight path or the plane plowing into the wall?
I mentioned my parent's neighbor seeing the plane hit. I took this photo from the approximate place on 95 where he was, coming around the south Pentagon parking lot:
The plane hit the wall around the left corner. Can you really convince yourself that nobody on that side of the building noticed a 7-fucking-57 fly a few feet over the building and fly away? From that angle, it would have looked like the plane bombed the building. When I told Ranke about this witness, he dismissed it because this was not a published interview. Fine, but 95 is bumper-to-bumper stop-and-go going into DC that time of morning, and also pretty crowded coming out (as my parent's neighbor was). And this is just one of the roads passing the building. Why did nobody call the media or the authorities to report that, no, the plane didn't hit the building; it bombed it and flew away? I'm sorry, but Ranke's "fireball magic trick" is one of the most incredibly idiotic "theories" I've ever heard, and he won't even discuss this serious problem with it. It seems to me he understands his "target audience" pretty well...
Yes, I understand Ranke's "logic" entirely: If Lagasse and Brooks are correct about the path, that means the plane didn't hit the building, so all that physical evidence must have been faked. Never mind that he won't even attempt to explain how that could have been done right in front of hundreds of witnesses, much less
why the perps would attempt such a ridiculously and unnecessarily complicated hoax with any expectation of getting away with it. And I don't doubt that there will be people who find that to be more plausible than that the perceived flight paths are simply wrong. But I have to say, I'm surprised and disappointed to see your name on the list.
(ETA: I keep forgetting that that highway is called 395 now. Before the Beltway was built and for many years after, it was 95 and the Beltway was 495. At some point, authorities decided to rename half the Beltway 95 and that section of highway 395, to encourage through traffic to go around DC instead of ending up on city streets through DC. I moved out of the area a little after that, so it's still 95 to me.;)