Modeling the Pentagon Security Camera Video Capture of the "Plane"

In the 2nd Pentagon security camera videos that were released in May 2006 (after the conclusion of the Mousaaoui trial), one frame had the putative plane.

Here is the "before" shot:


Here is the frame with the putative plane:


Here are close-ups of the region of interest.
The "before" frame:


The "plane" frame:


I've liberally outlined an area corresponding to the "plane":


It is unknown what the white stuff below the "plane" is, though officially people assume it is smoke coming from a damaged engine.

The question then becomes, WHAT DOES A 757 APPROACHING THE PENTAGON AT THIS ANGLE LOOK LIKE?


So I tried to model this using Microsoft Flight Simulator, which has quite sophisticated scenery and plane graphics and is useful for analyzing angles and perspective.

Here's a top view of the plane near the Pentagon (for this shot I moved the plane close here so the Pentagon could be seen better):



Here's the best that I could model the security camera view. It's not bad (the plane is there but hard to see). Note, the date and time in Flight Simulator were set to 9/11/01 9:40am. Thus the sun should be in the proper position in this modeling:


Here is a zoom-in on the plane (a Boeing jet with American Airlines livery):


Here is the plane in an analogous close-up to what I did with the official security camera video frame:




The Boeing modeled in FS doesn't look much like the purple thing seen in the Pentagon video, though there is a very vague resemblance if you use your imagination. The most noticable thing is the lack of a large light-colored tail in the Pentagon video frame. The "fuselage" and "engine" seem much thinner than the model, and the low resolution seen in the video would normally exaggerate size. There is some strong reflection seen on the top of the object that is not seen with the FS AA jet. Finally the white smoke is coming out at a very odd angle, definitely detached from where the engine would be.

So, not exactly conclusively NOT a 757 in the Pentagon security camera frame, but certainly the object captured isn't not clearly an AA757 either.


Side note-- look how CLOSE the Reagan airport is to the Pentagon and how a plane flying over the Pentagon could easily land at the airport: