On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Ralph Lewis wrote:
> Interesting that the Empire State Building took a direct hit of an american
> air force bomber with a much more explosive fuel (aviation gas) than jet
> fuel and damage was minimal. Makes you wonder about building standards and
> building permit enforcement today.
The B-25 that hit the Empire State Building weighed around 41,800 pounds
maximum takeoff weight, with a normal total load of 974 gallons aviation
gasoline.
http://www.b25.net/
The 767 that hit the WTC has a maximum take-off weight of 412,000 pounds
and a normal total fuel load of 23,980 gallons aviation kerosine.
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767-300/product.html
Roughly 10 times the mass and 20 the fuel capacity. Note that the B-25
was trying to land, and so was low on fuel, whereas the 767 was nearly
full. Also note the impact wasn't what took down the buildings...it was
the heat of nearly an hour of intense aviation fuel fire (probably
softening the steel structure).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:40:29 MDT