Bomber crashes into Empire State Bldg. 1945

[Armistead]

I wasn't aware this happened.



Amazed this lady survived...

Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver was injured. Rescuers decided to transport her on an elevator which they did not know had weakened cables. She survived a plunge of 75 stories, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall.[7]

[Aktungbby]

My dad, a Brooklyn boy, was there for that one. You can still find burn marks if you know where to look. Unfortunately the gentleman from my college who showed me this and other notable Manhattan buildings, was in the world trade center in his office on the North side of tower one on the hundredth floor... My uncle was in tower two and my sister-in-law was in building seven which was also damaged on 9-11. I don't tour skyscrapers much any more. Another college mate recently sent me a photo of my friend's name on the monument which replaces tower one.

[Wolferz]

And it didn't fall down. They don't build anything right these days.

[Jimbuna]

Interesting...never knew that.

Is the hole , the one made reference to right at the end, still there?

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

And it didn't fall down. They don't build anything right these days.

Well, you can't compare a B-25 to a modern airliner. The difference in size, weight, speed and fuel capacity is huge.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

Well, you can't compare a B-25 to a modern airliner. The difference in size, weight, speed and fuel capacity is huge.

Both buildings were engineered differently as well. From my understanding this played a large factors in the towers coming down.

[Wolferz]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Both buildings were engineered differently as well. From my understanding this played a large factors in the towers coming down.

Well, they tried at least...

From Wikipedia...
Empire State Building incident[edit source | edit]

Main article: B-25 Empire State Building crash
At 9:40 on Saturday, 28 July 1945 a USAAF B-25D crashed in thick fog into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors. Fourteen people died - 11 in the building and the three occupants of the aircraft including the pilot, Colonel William Smith.[12] Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator attendant, survived the impact and a subsequent uncontrolled descent in the elevator.
As a partial result of this incident, Towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand an aircraft impact. However, this design came with the then-new Boeing 707 in mind, not the larger and faster Boeing 767 - two of which struck the towers on September 11, 2001, resulting in their eventual collapse.[13]

Though I'm still puzzled as to why the towers began collapsing from the top floors down, when the aircraft impacted the buildings much lower and the structures were supported by 48 central columns of concrete and woven steel reinforcement. The real puzzle is building seven which was minimally damaged and dropped in its own footprint like a controlled demolition.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Though I'm still puzzled as to why the towers began collapsing from the top floors down[...]

There's your problem, they didnt start collapsing from top floors, but from the impact areas.

Originally Posted by Wolferz

The real puzzle is building seven which was minimally damaged and dropped in its own footprint like a controlled demolition.

Burning for several hours isnt exactly "minimal damage".

[Wolferz]

I dunno, Dowly. I witnessed the whole event on live television as it happened.
Building seven had a few small fires in it that should have been taken care of by the sprinkler system and the NYFD but, the fire chief bailed out of that building and then it just fell down for no apparent reason whatsoever. Oddly enough, one floor of building seven was occupied by the NYC emergency management office and had just recently undergone a multimillion dollar upgrade to that floor only. Which included reinforced glass windows capable of withstanding an explosion or flying debris from a CAT 5 hurricane. It's just curious is all I'm sayng.

The fires in towers one and two should have at least been dampened by the sprinklers and never reached a high enough temperature to melt or even deform steel floor trusses.

[August]

Boeing 767
Weight full: 412,000 lbs
Fuel capacity: 23,980 gal

North American B25
Weight full: 35,000 lbs (including a bomb load)
Fuel capacity 2,000 gal


Apples and oranges

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

I dunno, Dowly. I witnessed the whole event on live television as it happened.

As did I.

Building seven had a few small fires in it that should have been taken care of by the sprinkler system[...]

Not quite so. There are plenty of photos that show either heavy fires or heavy smoke pouring out of WTC 7.

You are correct in that the sprinklers should've dampened the fires, IF they had been working.
After the twin towers collapsed, they lost water pressure. Partly due to the damage from the collapses,
and partly due to the heavy use of the hydrants.

Quote from Captain Chris Boyle:

"There was an engine company... right underneath building 7 and it was still burning at the time.
They had a hose in operation, but you could tell there was no pressure. It was barely making it across the street."

And another from firefighter Eugene Kelty Jr.:

"And 7 World Trade was burning up at the time. We could see it. ... the fire at 7 World Trade was working its way from
the front of the building northbound to the back of the building. There was no way there could be water put on it, because
there was no water in the area."

The fires in towers one and two should have at least been dampened by the sprinklers and never reached a high enough temperature to melt or even deform steel floor trusses.

The sprinklers were only partially working, the jet impacts severed quite a few water pipes in both towers.
Even if they had been working 100% they were designed to suppress fires of about 1500 square feet in size.
Each floor was about 40 000 square feet.

[Sailor Steve]

I read about the B-25 and the Empire State Building when I was ten or so, about fifteen years after it happened.

When I first heard about the WTC my first thought was "Oh, no! Not again!"

As to the collapsing and Building 7, we only recently had a huge thread on this. All the angles were covered. Wolferz, I don't know how you missed it.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=205143

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Wolferz

Well, they tried at least...

From Wikipedia...
Empire State Building incident[edit source | edit]

Main article: B-25 Empire State Building crash
At 9:40 on Saturday, 28 July 1945 a USAAF B-25D crashed in thick fog into the north side of the Empire State Building between the 79th and 80th floors. Fourteen people died - 11 in the building and the three occupants of the aircraft including the pilot, Colonel William Smith.[12] Betty Lou Oliver, an elevator attendant, survived the impact and a subsequent uncontrolled descent in the elevator.
As a partial result of this incident, Towers 1 and 2 of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand an aircraft impact. However, this design came with the then-new Boeing 707 in mind, not the larger and faster Boeing 767 - two of which struck the towers on September 11, 2001, resulting in their eventual collapse.[13]

Though I'm still puzzled as to why the towers began collapsing from the top floors down, when the aircraft impacted the buildings much lower and the structures were supported by 48 central columns of concrete and woven steel reinforcement. The real puzzle is building seven which was minimally damaged and dropped in its own footprint like a controlled demolition.

Actually from the Wall Street Journal: the sprayed-on fire insulation used in the World Trade Center may have been 'chintzed' on by the contractor as a function of Gallo/mafia contractor influences (New York City!?). The reduced insulation shortened the time that the steel corner trusses holding the steel cross beams could withstand the heat, giving way at the 98th floor so that each 1 acre floor then crashed downward with massive velocity onto the acreage floors below. The fully fueled jet would have initiated the blaze but the detritus of an office (carpets, furniture etc.) would have sustained it at 2000+ degrees for hours, more than sufficient to cause a poorly insulated truss to fail initiating the collapse within 2 hours... Building 7's problem was caused by the tremendous seismic impact of the collapse causing the emergency generator fuel tank (700 gallons) to rupture. My sister-in-law, a personnel manager, led the escape down the fire stair exits, stopping to assist an extremely heavy person and an asthmatic, as others in the stairwell rushed over and past. (real gents) She made it to the ferry to New Jersey and turned to see Building 2 go down. She bears a charmed life, as she also survived the massacre on the 32nd floor at a 101 California Street in San Francisco before taking her eastern job. My uncle in his 80's, walked out of building two unscathed but passed all of the first responders going in... They found my college friend in March using his toothbrush for DNA matching.

[Catfish]

How can burning office furniture produce temperatures of 2000 degrees Celsius ?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Catfish

How can burning office furniture produce temperatures of 2000 degrees Celsius ?

You might be surprised.

First, polyurethane foam (furniture cushions that you sit on every day) burns at well above 1000 degrees.
http://www.areyousittingcomfortably.eu/killer-foam

Second, many other materials burn as hot or hotter.
http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article10.html

Third, steel doesn't have to melt to become structurally unsound.
http://education.jlab.org/qa/meltingpoint_01.html