The FBI has released previously unseen images of the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Almost 16 years on, the photographs show the sheer devastation caused after Al-Quaeda terrorists flew American Airlines flight 77 into the side of the building, killing 189 people inside.
All 59 passengers and crew on board were also killed in the attack, as well as the five terrorists.
The plane struck between the first and second floor of the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, where the US defence is headquartered, as part of the four co-ordinated hi-jacked aeroplane attacks.
The batch of 27 archived images uploaded to the website, FBI Records: The Vault, show the scorched interior and exterior of the building and the gaping hole left in the side of the building by the plane.
Some of the images show fire fighters battling to extinguish a huge fireball, while others show debris from the attack scattered across the area.
One haunting image shows a fireman holding the US stars and stripes flag in the gutted building while others survey the devastation.
Other pictures show fragments of the plane, which had left Dulles International airport in Washington DC for Los Angeles before it was hi-jacked by the Islamist attackers.
The plane which struck the Pentagon at 9.37am was the third of the four attacks and happened 30-45 minutes after the twin towers in New York were hit, with the fourth plane aimed at Washington DC brought down by passengers in Pennsylvania shortly after 10am.
125 of the people who died at the Pentagon worked in the building, but as the plane hit an area under renovation, it was relatively empty.
It is widely agreed the death toll would have been significantly higher had the plane hit a different part of the Pentagon.
One of the pictures shows rescue workers with sniffer dogs searching the rubble for survivors or bodies. Officers spent several days trying to recover bodies hidden within the debris.
The total number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks was 2,996 while more than 6,000 were injured, making it is the single worst act of terrorism in history.
