Pentagon MASCAL
2000 U.S. military exercise
The Pentagon Mass Casualty project (codenamed Pentagon Mascal) was a contingency exercise that was held in the Office of the Secretary of Defense conference room between October 24 and October 26, 2000. The exercise required emergency response teams, members of the defense protective services, and U.S. government officials to conduct emergency simulations in preparation for a possible plane crash into the Pentagon.
In the experiment, emergency personnel were required to hold radio and other communications devices to increase their operational readiness for quickly transporting massive casualties from the disaster area to medical centers. Toy trucks were used as miniature models to simulate emergency transport vehicles for victims.
The event is historically notable as a plane crash into the Pentagon did occur during the 2001 September 11 attacks 322 days later.
The public source identifies “Pentagon MASCAL” as 2000 U.S. military exercise. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Pentagon, MASCAL and military.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Pentagon MASCAL”, the useful work is to connect “2000 U.S. military exercise” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 18, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1307145. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2000 and 2001.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Pentagon MASCAL”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Pentagon MASCAL primary sources, Pentagon MASCAL archive and Pentagon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Pentagon MASCAL”?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Pentagon MASCAL” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.