Craig Ranke has written an extensive rebuttal to the piece Erik Larson wrote a couple weeks ago. Craig's rebuttal is entitled Dawn Vignola's Account vs. Erik Larson's Methods by CIT. I'll let readers go to the link to read the whole thing. Here are my own thoughts and highlights:

Larson's essay began with the following:

"From their apartment, Dawn Vignola and her roommate Hugh ‘Tim’ Timmerman saw American Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, September 11, 2001. Shortly afterward, they gave witness accounts to local and national TV media. In 2007, they were interviewed by Citizen Investigation Team (CIT), who attempted to discredit their testimony."

Craig correctly points out that Larson stated this particular aspect of the OCT as proven fact (AA77 hitting the Pentagon [whether piloted by Hanjour or remote control]), with "zero skepticism or objectivity applied whatsoever (it would be impossible for any witness to definitively tell that the plane was "Flight 77" or specifically tail# N644AA)."

First off: Vignola and Timmerman did not grant formal, recorded interviews to either CIT or Larson, so it's strange that out of all the witnesses who DID grant interviews to CIT, Larson would choose to visit one who did not.

In a nutshell: Dawn Vignola and Tim Timmerman were in an apartment almost a mile away from the Pentagon, and from their window view, there is a big building which would have obscured the view of the plane in the final critical seconds of the flight path before the alleged impact (thereby nullifying any possibility of Dawn/Tim knowing where the plane was in relation to the Citgo station). The plane would be approaching from the left side of the picture, towards the side of the Pentagon that's in shadow:

In Larson's entire essay he failed to acknowledge that CIT provided the exact same image (minus the zoom-in) that he did of their view from their window as a means to imply they were somehow deceptive or covered up this information. The above picture was taken by Larson and here is the one provided by CIT:

Larson did not report anything different than what CIT. However he nonetheless claimed CIT engaged in deception.

Clearly this is all a diversion from the extraordinarily strong testimony from the people who were on, for example, the gas station property and thus had the best possible vantage point of where the plane was in relation to the station.

Craig also says (boldface/underline added):

It also isn't fair when Larson says that we "attempted to persuade Dawn and Dan they were mistaken and [our] theory was correct". Again, the evidence we have uncovered is not a "theory". However, while it is true that we discussed this evidence with them because they were already aware of it, after speaking with dozens of witnesses this is not typically the case. This was a unique experience unlike any we have had with any other witness since it had already been almost a year since The PentaCon had been released and they had actually viewed it before letting us into their home. This means they were clearly anticipating a discussion on that level. The notion that this particular circumstance is indicative of our "methods" is entirely contradicted by the fact that none of the other witnesses we have interviewed were aware of what we had uncovered before we interviewed them and we have never "tried to convince" them of anything during interviews as anyone can plainly see when viewing them.

Another highlight I liked (boldface added):

Once again, it is not our "theory" that the plane flew on the north side of the gas station, it is what the witnesses we spoke with told us. We were very interested in Dawn's account and would have been happy to record it and report it independently but she declined. What's clear is that all objective researchers are forced to "dismiss elements of Dawn's testimony" because it is a proven fact that her claim the plane hit the ground at the heliport is false. Since it was immediately clear to us upon seeing the view from her apartment that she could not tell where the plane flew in relation to the Citgo, we simply made the obvious determination that it is therefore impossible for her to refute the evidence we present proving that the plane flew on the north side.

So, at the end of it all, there really is no "controversy" regarding the Vignola's account or CIT's "methods" concerning this at all. The fact is that Vignola does not refute the north side evidence in the least.

Craig has also issued a formal challenge to debate Larson via podcast here:
http://s1.zetaboards.com/artists4911truth2/topic/2872044/1/