Robert Hogue was standing close to a Pentagon window, at the moment an airliner crashed into the US government building. He was thrown across the room but survived, thanks to the office“s blast-resis…
Robert Hogue was standing close to a Pentagon window, at the moment an airliner crashed into the US government building. He was thrown across the room but survived, thanks to the office“s blast-resistant window. On 21 November 2002 Hogue joined the Protecting People First Foundation in recognizing the makers of the windows including Solutia Inc. The 3.75 cm thick windows, are built with a performance film sandwiched between two panes of glass. The film, designed by Solutia, makes the window practically shatter-proof. The foundation was started by Aren Almon-Kok, who lost her daughter, Baylee, in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. She paid homage to Solutia and Viracon, the company that puts the glass panes and the film together. “We use windows so much in our daily lives that we don“t realize their danger,” she said. Almon-Kok created Protecting People First to help push organizations to use protective windows. Both Solutia and Viracon are members of the foundation. While the windows have been available for more than ten years, they were used primarily in the front windscreens of cars, said Glenn Ruskin, Solutia“s vice president of public affairs. But in 1998, terrorists simultaneously attacked U.S. embassies in two African cities, killing more than 200 people, An investigation attributed many of the deaths to flying glass. As a result, there was a push for the installation of stronger windows in buildings that could be terrorist targets. By Sept. 11, 2001, 386 of the laminated windows had been installed in the Pentagon. The hijacked plane hit the part where the new windows had been installed.