Lloyd / Lloyde England at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001

An open letter to Mary Agee,President and CEO of Northern Virginia Family Service’s Survivors’ Fund Project a not-for-profit charity providing long-term support for the victims and families affected by the terrorist attack at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.

Dear Ms. Agee: As a member of the 9-11 skeptics community, I was gratified to learn through your website, the identity of Lloyd A. England, the 69-year-old, African-American cab driver who was witness to the crash of a 757-jetliner—-American Airlines Flight 77-—into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Although, well known in certain circles through photographs taken of him in the first minutes after the attack, standing alongside his taxi on Washington Blvd., to my knowledge, Mr. England was not publicly identified until your 2003 report. Your organization did a service in bringing him forward-—a piece to the puzzle, which 9-11 truth-seekers aim to solve.

However, some details in your narrative of his experience are at odds with the official version of events. His story of hardship and fortitude—an obvious intent when focusing an appealing “survivor’s spotlight,” (and, speaking generally, the raison d’être of your organization---is also directly contradicted by evidence contained in photographs taken of him that day.

I submit Lloyd England was the star of a short entre-acte, titled, The Taxi Driver and the Downed Lamp Poles, part of a larger epic-—in which the poles starred, not Mr. England—-called The Rumsfeld Conspiracies, where these downed lamp posts serve as a corps de ballet, tangible “proofs” of a 757-jetliner’s trajectory and altitude. Other entre-actes were produced that day, en suite, like the miraculous staging of The Priest at the Medical Triage a human interest story meant to provide verisimilitude, but which instead got panned as mere bathos, melodramatic grist for the Grand Jury.

These were photographed by Mark D. Faram, Journalist 1^st Class in the U.S. Navy, who was, (in his words) “a senior writer with Navy Times newspaper. It is an independent weekly that is owned by the Gannett Corporation (same owners as USA Today,) and published worldwide.”

It would be sad to think Americans had become so somnambulant that we would accept such second-rate fare as served up at the Pentagon on September 11—an aesthetic more Archie Bunker than West Wing, with production values more Judge Judy than Law and Order—-but to analyze it any deeper might bring dread, as we realize this clumsy charade was made so dreadful on purpose, eventually to be found out, perhaps by plan.

I’ll try to keep the sarcastic and accusatory tone out of my criticism of your organization, Ms. Agee. I don’t know what you are aware of, or the timeline of any learning curve. The fact so many obvious inconsistencies exist between your report of benevolence to Mr. England, as compared with the commonly understood evidence from September 11 that it is best explained by indifference, not guile or cunning. But adding the gloss of fake charity as public relations cover for what is, in my opinion, a clandestine false-flag operation by shadow components of government, which has led to the brutality and savagery of two unjust wars to date, tempts me mightily. From your September 2003 Community Report

He had driven his taxicab past the Pentagon a million times before, but September 11 was different from any other day. On that day, Lloyde A. England had just dropped off a passenger and was driving home as American Airlines Flight #77 flew directly overhead, sending a light pole crashing through his windshield. In that brief moment, his car was totaled and his livelihood threatened.

When other agencies did not help, the Survivors’ Fund and NVFS case manager Sarah Carter stepped in and arranged for funds for his mortgage and groceries until he could buy another cab. Perhaps as valuable as those financial contributions were the talks he had with his case manager, who validated the trauma he had experienced that day.

“It’s good to know there are people out there who are willing to help working people,” says England. “It’s not that I couldn’t work. I was just set back.”

However, other than a broken windshield, his cab appears spotless in this photo, not “totaled,” and rather than having “his livelihood threatened,” he might be calling Geico for an estimate.

  http://www.pentagonresearch.com/images/016-large.jpg
A Google search of Lloyd England’s name in the variant spellings you use, returns three relevant references—-two to your group. The third was an interview from April of this year with a local D.C. television affiliate, NBC4, which provides these details:

"The plane was so low it hit the light pole," England said. "And when it hit the pole it knocked the light part off and nothing came through the car but the pole itself." The light pole shaft speared its way through England's cab, pushing the front passenger seat backwards into the rear of the car. If it had fallen a few feet to the right, England said he would have been crushed.

"I had to wrestle with the car to stop it and when I did stop the car there was no noise," England said.

In your Survivors’ Fund web posting, “Lloyd,” no last name, the spelling changing to “Lloyde” in the third paragraph, provides some additional information:

Simultaneously, the plane struck a light pole and the pole came crashing down onto the front of Lloyd’s taxicab, destroying the windshield in front of his eyes. Glass was everywhere as he tried to stop the car. Another car stopped, and the driver helped move the heavy pole off Lloyd’s car. As they were moving the pole, they heard a big boom and turned to see an explosion. The light pole fell on Lloyd and he struggled to get up from underneath, wondering what had happened.

The mental and physical toil these struggles must have taken on Mr. England, combined with damage to the cab’s interior, must have brought your fund and Mr. England together, however some have speculated the intent is more public relations spin, meant to create a public record for an undocumented participant to a historically important event.

But the details are beginning to now not add up. “Another car stopped"...“as he tried to stop the car.” Both of these statements imply the cars were going at some rate of speed. However, there is unanimity in the eyewitness accounts that traffic was at a standstill, or at best crawling, in both directions, on Rt27/Washington Blvd. and in both directions on I-395. Penny Elgas's “Personal Experience At The Pentagon on September 11, 2001,” statement, part of her Smithsonian Museum donation

“I found myself stuck in late morning rush hour traffic-—almost in front of the Pentagon. Traffic was at a standstill.”

Father Stephen McGraw, the Catholic priest whose photograph was published worldwide:

"The traffic was very slow moving, and at one point just about at a standstill," "The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car.

Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work but stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon when the plane flew over.

"There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit some lampposts on the way in."

(Two very good witness lists can be found at Killtown’s and at Eric Bart’s web site.) Research tells us, that without the lamps, the light poles were 30 feet high and weighed 190lbs. It is difficult to imagine even two strong men extracting such an awkward spear without also scratching or denting the hood.

Mr. England describes two sequential events: a plane flying over that clipped the light poles, followed several moments later by an explosion, as he and another driver attempted to remove the pole from the windshield. Although Mr. England may have meant to reference a secondary explosion, of which apparently there were several, conveniently, as exposed diesel and propane tanks exploded, they were by comparison all minor, which in the absence of first mentioning a primary explosion, doesn’t seem the intent of the story.

Moreover, his recollections of a dual event supports any number of theory variants, such as a fly-by, or fly-over with a 757, or a similar jet liner, followed by a Cruise missile, or drone attack—are all possible given the wide range of conflicting testimony.

But there are more reasons to doubt Mr. England’s story. You report, “Police started to arrive on the scene and forced Lloyde to move. They urged the bystanders to leave the area in case there was another explosion. Lloyde was forced to abandon his car in the middle of the street to begin the long walk home.”

I should think the police or F.B.I. would have done just the exact opposite and forced Lloyde to stay and be debriefed as an eyewitness to a horrific crime. In one photo, Lloyde and his taxi are left all alone on the highway, which seems to imply some sort of special status for him.

The F.B.I. was quick to take control of the “crime scene,” even putting journalists in handcuffs in their effort to control access, but strangely, interviews with eyewitnesses is a detail lacking in almost every published account, which strains credulity.

If England isn't being a stooge here, (and he is much too central-casting for me to believe he’s not,) but instead truly was the innocent passerby, caught up like Zelig or Forrest Gump in grand events, then the precision of his new recall of a dual event is very, very useful. As the paradigm shifts, more witnesses will recover disparate memories that weren’t reconcilable with previous versions of “reality.” Of course, one must leave open the possibility any new or changed disclosures are made out of sheer unmitigated stupidity, or even a cunning reverse-psychology misinformation ploy.

I think the lamp poles were rigged to fail in tandem with a fly-over, fly-by, or fly-in, since their evidential job of “proving” the wingspan and the directional path of a 757, was too important to leave up to chance. As is common with lethargic employees good enough for government work, the recounting of the detail of downed lampposts by scores of witnesses, can only be called heavy-handed.

The following two photos cannot be reconciled to my way of thinking. Either Lloyde's taxi was on the bridge with its stone parapets, or it was further along, with open metal guard rails alongside of him.

USAF photo by Staff Sgt. Gary Coppage 030204-O-9999J-007

My final point isn’t so much about Mr. England, as it is about the effect given off by the writing in your reports—-an effect I label Lost In Space.

For instance:

“Perhaps as valuable as those financial contributions were the talks he had with his case manager, who validated the trauma he had experienced that day

Trauma, from the Greek, “to pierce,” doesn’t need validating. To validate, means to confirm, to legalize, to support or corroborate on a sound and authoritative basis; to recognize, establish or illustrate the legitimacy of.

And that does seem to be the intent of your organization, albeit, unwittingly.

Trauma needs healing. Those who thought they were rehearsing simulated drills, playing the closed-mouth cogs within that most hierarchical of environments, a military exercise of mock plane attacks, then wrote the breathless (read: lifeless) prose in the after-action reports. They can be picked out from the planners, those who had actual foreknowledge of the events of that day. Were the bus loads of F.B.I. agents mustered on to the scene within half-an-hour the same ones who couldn’t stop a lame B-movie high-jacking plot before it reached its target? Everybody ran through their chain-of-command training, pitching in, helping out, doing what they were supposed to do, setting up shade tents, seeing to the beverage supply, ordering port-o-potties, all as the fires spread and burned.

Multiple, moving, mobile triage care centers were staffed with hundreds of care providers; litter bearers, and vehicle operators went into gear, all for the benefit of the approximately 58 wounded causalities taken to hospitals, which included the seven serious burn victims to come out of the Pentagon after the attack.

Rowan Scarborough, writing in the conservative Washington Times afterward, struck the right skeptical tone December 26, 2003

“In fact, in a catastrophe that appeared as if it would produce mass numbers of wounded, just seven inside the Pentagon, including Mr. Shaeffer, were critically burned.”

The Targeted Ones
Lastly, lies need to be rigorous and technically perfect. Who wrote this bit of nonsense?

Lloyd still keeps a torn dollar bill signed by a stranger and dated September 11, 2001. It marks a day he has struggled to survive for two years. As he made his way on foot up Route 395 he met a man who had been working at the Pentagon. Walking side by side they found a dollar bill lying in the road. They picked it up, tore it in half, each signed one half and traded with each other. Parting ways each took half of a torn dollar with a stranger’s name on it. Lloyde still keeps this tangible reminder of his experience on 9/11.

Listen, it would make a great deal more sense if the dollar bill came out of one of their wallets, it was supposedly raining oxygen canisters that day, not money. It would be all there was in lieu of scratch paper, to write down the contact information of the new friend, together bonded by trauma, but whose name happens to escape me at the moment.

Lloyde says the hardest part of his journey since 9/11 has been trying to survive without money. He realized once he got home the morning of September 11 that he would not be able to work without his car—it is his livelihood. He was without a vehicle for two months until he purchased a used car with the help of American Red Cross funds. They were the only people to come to his aid in the beginning until his daughter came across the Survivors’ Fund. With the help of his case manager and financial support from the Fund, he has been able to afford his monthly expenses, something he struggled with after 9/11. “I’m not accustomed to people helping me,” he says. “I’m amazed that there are people there just to do that.”

Lloyde tends to keep his feelings to himself. He is quiet, respectful and humble when speaking of his experiences. When asked if it helps him to talk about September 11^th, he says, “I don’t know. There are things I’d like to forget.” The remnants of September 11, the reminders are all over for him but he concludes, “surviving hasn’t been easy, but it can be done.”

(Not to worry--other survivor stories, like that of Lt. Comdr. David Tarantino, Jerry Henson, and Capt. David Thomas, are equally inane and pointless. A core series of about a dozen high-resolution photographs taken within the first 30 minutes of the Pentagon attack, before a section of the building fell, are archived on a conservative website.

I notice that you haven't run any more survivor stories since 2003--you haven't even updated your web page for almost a year. Maybe that signals your 25 employees on the payroll have spent down the $20 million given you and you'll be moving on. You don't want to be left all alone in the middle of the road, do you? Skeptics of the official story of 9-11 have been busy in the interim, they even interviewed Lloyde. The Loose Change Forum has a thread on him, which is starting to unravel, bit by bit, inch by inch. I highly recommend it!