Hopes dim for any more survivors of Pentagon attack

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon officials said Wednesday they are still hoping to find survivors amid the rubble, but admitted that the possibility was dwindling as parts of the building continued to burn.

“Of course we’re hopeful there are survivors,” Lieutenant-Commander Don Sewell told CNN. “But if you go on what you see here, you’d think there wouldn’t be any survivors. We’ve got to get that fire out before we get access.”

J.H. Schwartz, assistant fire chief for Arlington, said no bodies had yet been taken from the debris.

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"We want to assure that we have a safe working environment for the firemen going into that building," Schwartz said to The Associated Press.

The Associated Press also reported that teams of about 12 rescuers are equipped with dogs that can differentiate between bodies and live victims; acoustic listening devices that can pick up the faintest sound; and sophisticated cameras.

Up to 800 missing

There was no updated estimate of the casualties, but authorities said 100 to 800 people were missing.

Smoke billowed from the damaged and collapsed areas on the southwestern side of the building, wafting over the northern Virginia skyline.

The attack on the Pentagon occurred shortly after two commercial airplanes were hijacked and flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York. Both towers eventually collapsed. A fourth plane that was hijacked crashed in a wooded area in Pennsylvania.

FBI sources said the Boeing 757 jet that hit the Pentagon was an American Airlines flight that had been hijacked after taking off from Washington Dulles International Airport bound for Los Angeles. There were a total of 64 people on board, including the crew. The plane appeared to be completely destroyed, and the passengers and crew are presumed to be dead.

Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and lawyer, was on board that flight, and she alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane was being hijacked, Ted Olson told CNN.

"We still have areas we think are viable" for survivors, said Michael Tamillow, a battalion chief and search and rescue expert for the Fairfax County, Virginia, Fire Department when speaking to The Associated Press. "Somebody could still be in there who could be alive."

Around the area of impact along the building's perimeter, where a section of the building collapsed, FBI evidence teams found parts of the fuselage from the Boeing 757, Tamillow said. No large pieces apparently survived.

Agents also were looking for the plane's black box and flight data recorder.

Major reconstruction

Air inside the Pentagon was tinged with the scent of an electrical fire. In corridors where workers gathered, water and electricity, phone lines and computers were in full use.

But many corridors ended in blacked-out hallways. Yellow tape and Defense Department policemen warned people away.

“We are attempting to return to business as usual,” Pentagon spokesperson Major Jay Steuck told CNN. “Obviously we will have major reconstruction going on.”

The plane smashed a 35-foot area across five floors. The aircraft entered the building in the wedge between two corridors, collapsing the outermost ring of the building.

Pentagon officials asked workers in surrounding corridors not to enter their offices because of structural damage.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, was in his office early Wednesday, as was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, officials said.

In the air around the Pentagon, helicopters frequently landed and took off. Military trucks and jeeps went by in convoys. Ambulances and firefighting equipment ringed the area.

Tamillow said his team propped up the collapsed area overnight but did not try to search inside, where it was extremely dangerous. The wreckage was at an angle and there was concern about the possibility of an avalanche, he said.

Tamillow said the rescuers were able to identify locations of some of the dead.

Overnight, as the Fairfax team worked on the Pentagon's perimeters to shore up the collapsed section, they heard no sounds from survivors. But survivors could be deeper inside the building, and rescuers have not yet poked through the rubble inside.

"We were having a tremendous problem with smoke and tremendous heat," Tamillow said.