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Unfortunately, New York City with its sky high buildings and proximity to multiple airports is somewhat of a target for low flying planes. One of the earliest memories of a plane smashing into a building comes from July 28, 1945, when residents were terrified after a B-25 bomber in the middle of a routine test mission crashed into the Empire State Building. 14 people were left dead following the incident which Therese Fortier Willig remembers as a living nightmare. She told NPR:

In the other side of the office, all I could see was flames. Mr. Fountain was walking through the office when the plane hit the building and he was on fire -- I mean, his clothes were on fire, his head was on fire. Six of us managed to get into this one office that seemed to be untouched by the fire and close the door before it engulfed us. There was no doubt that the other people must have been killed.

Unfortunately, New York City with its sky high buildings and proximity to multiple airports is somewhat of a target for low flying planes. One of the earliest memories of a plane smashing into a building comes from July 28, 1945, when residents were terrified after a B-25 bomber in the middle of a routine test mission crashed into the Empire State Building. 14 people were left dead following the incident which Therese Fortier Willig remembers as a living nightmare. She told NPR: In the other side of the office, all I could see was flames. Mr. Fountain was walking through the office when the plane hit the building and he was on fire -- I mean, his clothes were on fire, his head was on fire. Six of us managed to get into this one office that seemed to be untouched by the fire and close the door before it engulfed us. There was no doubt that the other people must have been killed.

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[–] • 4 pts

Gasoline of course. But the planes that hit the WTC weighed more by nearly an order of magnitude. The different B-25 variants had MGTOW from 28k to 41k lbs. The 767-200ER had an MGTOW of 395k lbs.

[–] • 8 pts

Men Going Their Own Way?

[–] • 0 pt

For the oblivious, mean gross takeoff weight.

[–] • 0 pt

It means max, not mean dr3

[–] • 4 pts

B-52s were original mgtow

[–] • 1 pt

To the love shack?

[–] • 0 pt

The Love Shack, or Your Own Way. Which one, western man?

[–] • 1 pt

And the Empire State Building uses a different structure. It disperses the strength throughout the building, whereas the WTC used the external walls for most of the strength. No big deal on a day to day basis, but a really big deal when you knock an enormous hole in two external walls.

[–] • 0 pt

Just under the outer walls of the WTC was a steel frame. Pretty amazing how airplane wings could cut right through that and disintegrate inside the building instead of detaching from the fuselage and falling to the street below.

[–] • 0 pt

Put enough energy behind anything and you can shove it through anything. Look at what tornados can do at a fraction of the energy.

[–] • 0 pt

The government's calculations put the speed of the first plane at 494 mph, and the second at 586 mph. The MIT analysis determined the first plane was traveling 429 mph, and the second 537 mph.

This is only about 200 fps below a point blank .45 ACP, which would probably have a similar velocity at 200 yards. So imagine being hit with a quarter million lbs pistol bullet at 200 yards. That's correct but not totally fair since f=ma and you get lower 'a' with increasing dimension, like old movies faking distaster on scale models it's just different. But local effects are still the same. That plane is going to splatter on steel like a lead bullet, which is more or less like a water balloon.

[–] • 0 pt

767 was probably moving about twice as fast too.