Twin Towers stayed standing

Scambush · Apr 24, 2014

Let's say in this scenario, both of the towers were hit by aircraft as they were, sustained all of the damage they did in terms of walls, floors, electrical, water, other systems, but ultimately did not collapse.

What would have happened in terms of rescuing those in the upper floors, repairing the damage done to the buildings, deciding if the buildings are even salvageable?

Note that if they deemed the towers to be beyond repair, you have to consider how long demolishing them would have taken. You saw how many months it took to dismantle the much smaller Deutsche Bank Building, and people even died during that project as well.

Readman · Apr 24, 2014

The Scenario you're describing is a physical impossibility. By which I mean, its not possible given the physics of what *actually* happened. The Twin Towers structural support was critically and irreparably compromised by the impact of a almost-fully-laden with High Octane Aviation Fuel airplanes. *Unless* maybe if we change it to a smaller *type* of plane, but even then....Yeah like you said the same damage with the same planes and the same areas, collapse was inevitable.

The only realistic chance I believe may have been if somehow the Highjackers Pulled Up at the last few moments before Impact and hit higher on the Top Floors, and that might have bought more time for people to get out. Not much, but maybe an addition hour or two, 3 I would say maximum, then again I dont have a blueprint of the Twin Towers handy, but what I do know is the area of impact was more ore less the 'hollow" of the elevators which was one of the primary reasons for the collapse occuring in the manner it did.

Scambush · Apr 24, 2014

Readman said:
The Scenario you're describing is a physical impossibility. By which I mean, its not possible given the physics of what *actually* happened. The Twin Towers structural support was critically and irreparably compromised by the impact of a almost-fully-laden with High Octane Aviation Fuel airplanes. *Unless* maybe if we change it to a smaller *type* of plane, but even then....Yeah like you said the same damage with the same planes and the same areas, collapse was inevitable. The only realistic chance I believe may have been if somehow the Highjackers Pulled Up at the last few moments before Impact and hit higher on the Top Floors, and that might have bought more time for people to get out. Not much, but maybe an addition hour or two, 3 I would say maximum, then again I dont have a blueprint of the Twin Towers handy, but what I do know is the area of impact was more ore less the 'hollow" of the elevators which was one of the primary reasons for the collapse occuring in the manner it did.

Yeah, that must be why they never discuss this what-if scenario. But I sure have been wondering; Also, what if only one tower collapsed and the other remained standing?

How about this: The towers were not built of the exo-skeleton design, and instead had fewer, stronger beams not concentrated just in the center like they were. Therefore, make the point of divergence in this case around the year 1966 when the design was finalized. And then on 9/11 the towers each had seven of their upper floors exploded. But the towers stayed standing. Do they repair, or spend years tearing them down?

THE OBSERVER · Apr 24, 2014

Do you have any examples of this design?

Scambush · Apr 24, 2014

THE OBSERVER said:
Do you have any examples of this design?

Well it could have been built more like the Empire State Building, or perhaps with today's skyscraper technology.

Basically, I wanted to see if anyone could imagine what the aftermath of the attacks could have been like with the towers still standing, and not so much the logistics with which this scenario would have been possible.

Torqumada · Apr 24, 2014

Readman said:
The Scenario you're describing is a physical impossibility. By which I mean, its not possible given the physics of what *actually* happened. The Twin Towers structural support was critically and irreparably compromised by the impact of a almost-fully-laden with High Octane Aviation Fuel airplanes.

Jet fuel is basically kerosene, which contain cetane rings, not octane rings. So the octane rating of jet fuel is basically nil. It would have to be a piston engined plane to have a high octane aviation fuel, like the B-25 that hit the Empire State building in 1945.

Torqumada

David S Poepoe · Apr 24, 2014

The towers, in the end, would be deemed unsafe and slowly demolished. They would be a hazard to be left standing. Probably 2-3 years to dismantle and remove off site, not including the possibility that they could be unstable in a hurricane.

Simon · Apr 24, 2014

Readman said:
The Twin Towers structural support was critically and irreparably compromised by the impact of a almost-fully-laden with High Octane Aviation Fuel airplanes.

Rather than domestic flights that had only taken off fairly recent then how about the terrorists decide to use international flights coming in from abroad so that their tanks are fairly empty?

Lord Grattan · Apr 24, 2014

Simon said:
Rather than domestic flights that had only taken off fairly recent then how about the terrorists decide to use international flights coming in from abroad so that their tanks are fairly empty?

Why would they do this? Answer - they wouldn't. Their objective was to destroy the twin towers and they made their plans accordingly.

Scambush · Apr 24, 2014

Lord Grattan said:
Why would they do this? Answer - they wouldn't. Their objective was to destroy the twin towers and they made their plans accordingly.

Actually I thought I heard somewhere that Bin Laden didn't expect to destroy the towers; terrorism's goal is to instill fear, not necessarily kill as many as possible.

That said, Flight 11's hijackers missed killing possibly 2,000 more people since they could easily have hit around the 60th floor instead of the 96th. That's also been one of the enduring mysteries to me.

Kung Fucious · Apr 24, 2014

Scambush said:
Actually I thought I heard somewhere that Bin Laden didn't expect to destroy the towers; terrorism's goal is to instill fear, not necessarily kill as many as possible.

That said, Flight 11's hijackers missed killing possibly 2,000 more people since they could easily have hit around the 60th floor instead of the 96th. That's also been one of the enduring mysteries to me.

No idea where you read that, but the plan was always to bring the towers down. The bombing in '93 was an attempt to blow out the foundations of the North Tower and have it "tip over" onto the surrounding area, killing upwards of 20,000 people. Thank god it didn't, but it set the stage for 9/11.

As for hitting the 60th floor over the 93rd, it's probably because they were piloting a Boeing 757 going over a hundred miles an hour, trying to hit a target not much bigger than the plane, with the bare minimum of training.

And as others have pointed out this is physically impossible. Once those planes hit the towers were going down. Maybe one plane goes down (either shot down or the passengers fight back) but one hits the target, collapsing the tower. The surviving one is quarantined because of all the debris, and then I'm not sure what would happen to it, as I'm not an architect/engineer (my guess is that it's written off as a total loss and brought down in a controlled demolition).

Readman · Apr 24, 2014

Torqumada said:
Jet fuel is basically kerosene, which contain cetane rings, not octane rings. So the octane rating of jet fuel is basically nil. It would have to be a piston engined plane to have a high octane aviation fuel, like the B-25 that hit the Empire State building in 1945.

Torqumada

Fair Enough, but I think the point still stands--Jet fuel+fire+metal=wet spaghetti to supporting metal structures and the like

General Mosh · Apr 24, 2014

Kung Fucious said:
The bombing in '93 was an attempt to blow out the foundations of the North Tower and have it "tip over" onto the surrounding area, killing upwards of 20,000 people. Thank god it didn't, but it set the stage for 9/11.

Was that actually physically possible?

Kung Fucious · Apr 24, 2014

General Mosh said:
Was that actually physically possible?

From what I understand if they had placed the bomb closer to the foundations, they had a shot, but I don't think it's ever been modeled (the architect says that there was a serious chance of it occurring, so take from that what you will).

MattII · Apr 25, 2014

Readman said:
Fair Enough, but I think the point still stands--Jet fuel+fire+metal=wet spaghetti to supporting metal structures and the like

So what happens if one of the hits isn't dead on, say the terrorists are aiming for it, but come in off-centre leaving most of one wing out the side of the building? Would a reduction in the amount of jet fuel inside lead to sufficient strength remaining to allow it to stay upright?

Dan · Apr 25, 2014

If one tower goes and one survives, their insurer goes bankrupt, (the EML for the twin towers covered the loss of anly one tower or partial loss of both), this triggers an examination of the US financial system and either the toxic sub-prime mortgages are butterflied away or can be nipped in the bud, if not, the the collapse of one insurer, no matter really how well reinsured they were could lead to a domino effect in the US financial market and you have the recession earlier, but hopefully not as bad.

NHBL · Apr 25, 2014

they come down...

If one tower took a glancing blow, I doubt that it would be safe to leave it standing. And if it was deemed safe and rebuilt, (note that I don't mention it actually BEING safe...) would people feel secure in it?

Ashtagon · Apr 25, 2014

PoD: the planes clip the buildings with their wings, but crash into a relatively-low-rise building instead. Still a disaster, but the towers remain standing, though badly damaged.

Baron Bizarre · Apr 25, 2014

NHBL said:
If one tower took a glancing blow, I doubt that it would be safe to leave it standing. And if it was deemed safe and rebuilt, (note that I don't mention it actually BEING safe...) would people feel secure in it?

Good question. I was in a business meeting in the John Hancock tower in Boston about a month or so after 9/11. I remember seeing a plane flying in the middle distance, and seriously getting the willies from it.

sparky42 · Apr 25, 2014

Baron Bizarre said:
Good question. I was in a business meeting in the John Hancock tower in Boston about a month or so after 9/11. I remember seeing a plane flying in the middle distance, and seriously getting the willies from it.

I worked there for a while in Boston, the whole thing gave me the willies for weeks, particularly anytime a storm came in. Not helped by a coworker who happily pointed out that the windows used fall out when it was first built.