Thread: Hunt the Boeing
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Old 04-17-2006, 11:36 AM   #292 (permalink)
The_Jazz
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Quote:
Originally Posted by crossova
okay and the fact that they did not find any luggage, seats or other pieces of the fuselage is questionable. If they were able to retrieve and reassemble parts of flight 93 and flight 800 which both crashed at the bottom of the ocean, why could they not do that to any of the four planes that crashed on this day
You've never taken a physics course, have you? Flight 800, according to the report, had a midair explosion of a fuel tank according to the official report. Regardless, all witnesses reported that the plane broke apart. That means that the fuselage was unpowered, or at least significantly underpowered to make no difference. The pieces immediately began to slow down as air resistance took effect. Terminal velocity at sea level is roughly 150 mph (I don't remember exactly), although it would be higher at a higher altitude. Regardless, their speed of roughly 450 mph (remember that Flight 800 was a heavier plane that was climbing at the time of the incident) would be reduced fairly quickly, although I don't think that they would slow to terminal velocity by time of impact. My point? The fact that they found bigger pieces of Flight 800 than the flight that hit the Pentagon is irrelevant because the two planes were moving at much different speeds, hit different surfaces and had different forces acting upon them.

Luggage and seats are going to burn pretty well at 2000 degrees, and I seem to recall the building burning for a couple of days. What part of your luggage is going to survive just 1 hour at 2000 degrees?

As far as the fuselage, remember that this is a plane running at full power doing maximum speed (estimated at 550 mph by the website you linked) hitting at an oblique angle. Basically the entire plane went from doing 550 mph to 0 mph in less space than it's body length. Given that the Pentagon was originally designed to withstand aerial attack, it's not surprising that it had hardened walls. The stresses involved would have shredded just about any material - and then you got the fuel detonation behind that.

Again, this is basic physics and there's no mystery here.
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Last edited by The_Jazz; 04-17-2006 at 11:57 AM..
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