Video tapes showing a plane crashing into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was released for the first time on Tuesday, CNN television reported.

 

The Pentagon released tapes showing American Airlines Flight 77 striking its headquarters outside Washington to Judicial Watch, a public interest group that requested the video.

 

The video is now available on the group's Web site.

 

The Pentagon attack killed 184 people, including 53 passengers and 6 crew members on board American Airlines Flight 77, and 125 military and civilian personnel inside the building.

 

Judicial Watch said the video will dispel the so-called "conspiracy theory" claiming that the aircraft was shot down in flight, and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile.

 

The crash came shortly after two other hijacked airlines were flown into the twin towers at the World Trade Center in New York.

 

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the video a long time ago, but the government had refused to release it until after the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the convicted al-Qaeda conspirator who was sentenced earlier this month to life in prison.

 

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2006)