do you think the terrorists had forseen that crashing planes into the WTC would collapse it?

[holden j caufield]

to this day I still find it hard to believe that the WTC would collapse. Do you think they planned on it collapsing? Had a bomb on the plane? It is still hard to believe that even with all that fuel, all that steel could just melt and lead to the collapse.

 

[AMDPwred]

I don't think so.

 

[Pr0Hawk]

It's hard to believe a 2 planes could make the twin towers just a bunch of rubble. I doubt they would think it would actually fall.

 

[Balt]

I've asked myself this before too. Also, maybe they even thought they would immediately collapse?

Edit: Also don't forget the (1993?) bombing of the WTC. It seems like they were determined to take it down.

 

[777joee]

I agree with AMD. I think they got an unexpectid bonus.

 

[GasX]

That was the whole point of the exercise, so the answer is YES

 

[worth]

I don't think that that was the terrorist's plan. Who could suspect that a plane would make a tower collapse?

I think that they expected a lot of people to die, but not that the tower would collapse. Why did they fly in the Pentagon? I think because it's a symbol of the US and they wanted to take it down. However, I don't think the WTC was supposed to go do down in their sick and twisted plot.

worth.

 

[Colt45]

i think that they figured the towers would colapse

 

[The Dancing Peacock]

yes, that was their intention. They had already tried it once back in 1993. Their plan then was to bomb that one in the basement, then have it topple over and knock the second one down. Bin Laden was said to be pretty mad that it didn't work back then.

They probably had a good idea of how it was built. The first airplane hit too high it seemed like. That's why it took longer for it to go down. The second one hit more in the middle, weakening it to the point of collapse much faster.

 

[OptiQ]

Yes, they chose the flights that had maximum amount of fuel on board. That alone suggests they weren't just looking for a small "boom".

 

[randomlinh]

why does it seem surprising? Buildings aren't made to withstand an airliner jet smacking into it's side... especially w/ all that fuel.... melts away wherever it its... top comes down.. boom.. too much stress on the structure and we're at rubble. It's quite unfortunate, but i'm sure they knew exactly what would happen. Remember the bombings... they were what, 30ft or so away from sucessfully taking down the tower then. I believe this has been discussed before.

 

[Spudd]

Unfortunately, I think they knew it would collapse. Note that the planes were aimed at about the 3/4 mark on each building. Those planes were vastly larger than the biggest plane at the time that the WTC towers were made to withstand a direct him from. When the plane crashed into the tower, it destroyed that floor thru the explosion and eventual melting of the support steel, which caused the upper floors to collapse in on THAT floor which led to a chain reaction of 100,000's of pounds free falling onto the rest of the tower: too much weight, too quickly, from above= collapse. I for one think we should stop building sky scrapers, and go with more domes and "pyramidish" structures which are vastly more sound, structurally speaking (I'm not an engineer, but my cousin is! Does that count? LOL)

 

[holden j caufield]

yeah I guess it was a "bonus" for f#@#$#s but looking at where it hit I would have never thought it would go down. I can understand if they hit the bottom of the building but that is impossible because the surrounding buildings provided "cover" and protection from planes coming at a high angle. Did they have a bomb? I mean like I can understand a cornerback taking down a running back at the legs or going low but hitting high doesn't seem plausible.

 

[thEnEuRoMancER]

Even though there's almost no media attention to the problem of poor behaviour of steel constructions in a case of fire, the engineers know what happens in such cases. IMO although Mohammed Atta was an EE student, he was very able to foresee the outcome of the attack.

 

[CocaCola5]

They definitely intended to collapse it.

 

[GasX]

<< yeah I guess it was a "bonus" for f#@#$#s but looking at where it hit I would have never thought it would go down. I can understand if they hit the bottom of the building but that is impossible because the surrounding buildings provided "cover" and protection from planes coming at a high angle. Did they have a bomb? I mean like I can understand a cornerback taking down a running back at the legs or going low but hitting high doesn't seem plausible. >>


You lack of achitectural training matters not. Their sole goal was to level the buildings. They failed the first time. They succeeded the second time. You can't argue this one. If you don't believe me, show a single piece of evidence other than your intuition that hints otherwise.

 

[tommigsr]

<< Yes, they chose the flights that had maximum amount of fuel on board. That alone suggests they weren't just looking for a small "boom". >>



but they just took off though...isn't every airplane suppose to have full tank of fuel before take off anyways? or am i just plain diddly wrong on this one

 

[CocaCola5]

The idea is not new, back in 1993 they wanted to collapse both building by bringing one down on top of the other. They failed largely because of a misplacement of the truck bomb by the terrorists.

 

[OptiQ]

<< yes, that was their intention. They had already tried it once back in 1993. Their plan then was to bomb that one in the basement, then have it topple over and knock the second one down. Bin Laden was said to be pretty mad that it didn't work back then. >>

If the collapse had happened back then, the US would have had much greater chances of defeating Bin Laden and Al-Qaida. They weren't so strong then as they are now...

 

[PsychoAndy]

<<

<< Yes, they chose the flights that had maximum amount of fuel on board. That alone suggests they weren't just looking for a small "boom". >>



but they just took off though...isn't every airplane suppose to have full tank of fuel before take off anyways? or am i just plain diddly wrong on this one >>



NOPE. pilots calculate how much fuel they need per flight and factor in a safety margin in case they need more. It does NOT make sense to load a plane full of fuel for a flight from Orlando to Atlanta. Maybe Orlando to San Franscisco, but......

REASON: Fuel adds weight. Why have 33,000 lbs when you only need 10,000. If you run a short flight with a full tank, your fuel economy goes south. Heavier planes use more fuel. Thats why not every flight uses a full tank.

 

[OptiQ]

<< isn't every airplane suppose to have full tank of fuel before take off anyways? or am i just plain diddly wrong on this one >>

You are wrong, buddy. They calculate the amount of fuel needed for each flight depending on distance, air streams direction, etc.

 

[holden j caufield]

yes my knowledge or architechture is nil and I can see placing a bomb at the base of the building as a way to topple it but that was one meek attempt because it did almost squat in terms of relative damage. If so I think some of the city engineers should have informed the firemen and police of what exactly they were running into. Granted those brave guys would have probably gone in anyways but having heard city officials and fire department chiefs talk about, if similar events were to occur they would change their strategy on how to evacute the building hinting that they wouldn't be rushing their men in like at the WTC. This leads me to believe even the top brass had no idea this thing was going down.

 

[CocaCola5]

<< yes my knowledge or architechture is nil and I can see placing a bomb at the base of the building as a way to topple it but that was one meek attempt because it did almost squat in terms of relative damage. >>



That meek attempt costed $550 million in repairs and was quite close in succeeding its goals.

 

[UnixFreak]

Of course they did. For one thing, lets consider that Osama bin laden is a civil engineer. He is going to know how to obtain, and truly understand, the engineering
specs of these buildings.

You have a 767, with a weight of around 450,000 lbs, with a fuel capacity of 23,000 gallons.

They have figured that a 767 has the potential energy and equivelant power of a small scale power plant.

(The amount of energy required to get a 767 to 35,000 feet in 10 minutes- 35.6 Megawatts) I can look it up if you want the raw details on this calculation.

The kinetic energy of a 767 at impact is around 40 MegaJoules. This alone, however did not bring the buildings down, as they stood for around an hour.
but, the fuel in the plane, had some effect as well. Gasoline has the potential energy of around 130 megaJoules per gallon. Jet fuel of course is higher.
so lets say they had 20,000 gallons of fuel on board, if were to detonate (20000 Gallons-792x10/9 (slash denotes exponent) Joules), and if 3 sticks of dynamite
is 1 Megajoule, than the combusting fuel would be around 2,376,000 sticks of dynamite.

Consider the flame temperature of Jet Fuel- 1727c
and the melting temperature of steel (1570c)
so the flames coming out of the windows could have melted the steel skin on the building.
this could have also heated up the beams enough to cause them to creep rapidly, causing a kink in the column,
causing buckling, (failure).

I think this is what happened, and when there was a collapse near the impact site, it drops the upper structure down to the lower structure,
impact is at least 2 times the static load, for an infinitesimal drop to the ground.

so, in short, the fire confined within the impact site caused the steel to heat at or near melting point,
the melting caused the structure above the impact to free-fall on to the intact lower structure.
upon that impact the force is approx 30 times the wieght of the above structure, this fails all attachments in the intact lower
structure causing a the floors to pancake downward. th outer skin peels back like a banana (you saw this on TV) once detached from the floor beams.

So, at the given point of impact, this collapsed the buildings. At a higher point on the building, the lower structure may have survived, given the load
would be considerably less. at a lower point on the building, the upper intact structure could have pancaked the lower structure, but theoretically
remain intact.


If you think this wasnt planned this way, by a CE, you're nuts.