9/11: Delta Air Lines Flight 2315 collides with United Airlines Flight 175

[Arkenfolm]

En route to their final destination at the WTC South Tower, United Airlines Flight 175 collides with Delta Air Lines Flight 2315. It came within 300 feet of colliding with this flight OTL. This would've killed hundreds of people, but would have spared the South Tower from impact.

How might this have impacted 9/11? Clearly, the impact on the North Tower, as well as the Pentagon and Flight 93 would deal huge damage to Americans, but with the failure of destroying the South Tower, how might things change in the aftermath? Presumably, everyone in the South Tower is ordered to evacuate after the North Tower collapses. The South Tower sustains serious damage regardless because of the collapse of the North Tower.

Now, less people die in 9/11 than died OTL, although Delta Air Lines Flight 2315 causes additional deaths of people who did not die OTL--was anyone of any note on that flight? And what happens to the damaged South Tower? Is it repaired along with a rebuilt North Tower? Which I suppose means the Twin Towers remain in the 2002 Spider-Man movie, as well as anything else set in New York.

What might the total number of people who die in this 9/11 be? Less than OTL's 9/11, but still no doubt so many people.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I'll bump this for any further discussion.

 

[Archibald]

Great minds think alike.
I often wonder about one of the two WTC tower not being hit. What would have happened ? would the collapse of its sister doom it ? and how the hell do you demolish a 1200 ft tall building in such a densely packed area as Manhattan ?
My own take is Midex 7 hitting one of the hijacked airliners over La Guardia, but your idea is equally interesting.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/search/3809576/?q=Midex&o=date&c[node]=16&c[user][0]=5334

The usual answer is that the second WTC impact led to Flight 93 missing his target - since the passengers aboard rebelled after learining about that second impact - hence terrorist attack and not a stupid accident.

So flight 93 press on to its target, either the White House or Capitol. Will it hit them ? not sure.
First, they make for much smaller targets than WTC or Pentagon. They are harder to glimpse from a very fast flying airliner at very low level.
Also, both White House and Capitol are old constructions, much more robust than a frail building.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Great minds think alike.
I often wonder about one of the two WTC tower not being hit. What would have happened ? would the collapse of its sister doom it ? and how the hell do you demolish a 1200 ft tall building in such a densely packed area as Manhattan ?
My own take is Midex 7 hitting one of the hijacked airliners over La Guardia, but your idea is equally interesting.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/search/3809576/?q=Midex&o=date&c[node]=16&c[user][0]=5334.

I've seen conflicting opinions on the South Tower's fate--some say it'll collapse, others say it'll just be damaged. In any case, it'll need serious repair that will take months. And if collapses, I think the relevant authorities would rather the collapse be done on their own timetable and demolish the thing--demolishing it in a clean, controlled manner will be a feat of civil engineering.

Symbolically, I think it would be nice if they renovated the South Tower and built a new North Tower in the same fashion. Would repair the skyline of New York rather well, and re-open years before the new One World Trade Center OTL. I'd assume that repairing/renovating the South Tower comes first (so business can resume), then rebuilding the North Tower.

The fact United Airlines Flight 175 almost collided with two planes is just insane. The amount of luck those terrorists had is nothing short of ridiculous. Which would've resulted in more casualties? I'd assume the amount of people on each flight is floating around somewhere.

So flight 93 press on to its target, either the White House or Capitol. Will it hit them ? not sure.
First, they make for much smaller targets than WTC or Pentagon. They are harder to glimpse from a very fast flying airliner at very low level.
Also, both White House and Capitol are old constructions, much more robust than a frail building.

Yeah, I personally don't think that Flight 93 would hit the White House or Capital. Having flown into and out of DC, those are hard to see from the air, unlike the Pentagon, and of course smaller targets. The plain is still coming down in some part of DC which will markedly increase the casualties.

 

[Workable Goblin]

I've seen conflicting opinions on the South Tower's fate--some say it'll collapse, others say it'll just be damaged. In any case, it'll need serious repair that will take months. And if collapses, I think the relevant authorities would rather the collapse be done on their own timetable and demolish the thing--demolishing it in a clean, controlled manner will be a feat of civil engineering.

My suspicion is that the South Tower would be damaged beyond economic repair by the collapse of the North Tower, the way many buildings around the site were badly damaged by the collapse IOTL. If anything, this probably delays the construction of a successor, because instead of carting away debris quickly, clearing the site means carefully and cautiously deconstructing one of the tallest skyscrapers on Earth, full of fun things like asbestos.

 

[Lost Freeway]

I'll bump this for any further discussion.

Please don't.

 

[Arkenfolm]

My suspicion is that the South Tower would be damaged beyond economic repair by the collapse of the North Tower, the way many buildings around the site were badly damaged by the collapse IOTL. If anything, this probably delays the construction of a successor, because instead of carting away debris quickly, clearing the site means carefully and cautiously deconstructing one of the tallest skyscrapers on Earth, full of fun things like asbestos.

There's also the factor to consider of the Twin Towers still standing being a giant middle finger to al-Qaeda and all others enemies of the US. "You take out one tower, we'll just build it again". Economic cost might be placed aside for this matter.

 

[Vikingstar]

Two airlines crashing out of control on Manhattan? Ironically, that may cause more casualties than the OTL attacks, depending on where they hit. Not a pleasant thought...

 

[Arkenfolm]

Two airlines crashing out of control on Manhattan? Ironically, that may cause more casualties than the OTL attacks, depending on where they hit. Not a pleasant thought...

It's not over Manhattan in this case. And to make it a worse scenario, the event still has to kill the 600-700 people killed in the South Tower (which is in addition to those killed in United Airlines Flight 175). The planes would crash over the New York suburbs of New Jersey. Everyone on Delta Airlines Flight 2315 would die, as would everyone on United Airlines Flight 175. Some people on the ground would die as well because of the debris. But the South Tower still stands, and only in the investigation following is it realised that the South Tower was the target of the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175. Or would they realise that? Maybe they think their destination was the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Statue of Liberty, or another New York City landmark? Would they ever find out the real target of the hijackers (being the South Tower)? Would Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, once he'd captured, tell them it?

 

[Archibald]

The fact is, we still don't know the exact target of Flight 93 and probably never will. Did the hijackers were given specific targets before, or was there some improvisation left ?

 

[Arkenfolm]

The fact is, we still don't know the exact target of Flight 93 and probably never will. Did the hijackers were given specific targets before, or was there some improvisation left ?

AFAIK, they had targets. The World Trade Center, which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew Ramzi Yousef bombed, was obviously one of them. Evidence has failed to cough up whether they wanted to hit the White House or the Capitol (I recall someone saying Camp David was a target), but I think we can reasonable suspect that Flight 93 was bound for a government building in Washington DC. Those hijackers incidentally had the hardest job because of the difficulty of hitting those buildings compared to the Pentagon or Twin Towers. They could've killed more people crashing the plane into some building in DC than the White House or the Capitol (would've killed neither Bush nor Cheney), nor killed the assortment of Congressmen they wish they could have. While the flights which took out the Twin Towers were the ones which causes the most casualties, Flight 93 was the one which would've killed the most important people (lots of government officials), ideally. It's the hardest one to succeed because of how hard hitting the White House (Dubya isn't there) or the Capitol Building is from the air.

I suppose they can improvise when they see the DC skyline, but they'll end up hitting some random building in the area, which won't have quite the impact killing hundreds of Congressmen or other government officials might. Still will increase the 9/11 deathtoll, and might make this alt 9/11 equivalent to OTL's 9/11 in terms of death.

 

[Sasalele]

It's the hardest one to succeed because of how hard hitting the White House (Dubya isn't there) or the Capitol Building is from the air.

I understand the White House being hard to hit, but not the Capitol. Couldn't you use the National Mall as a guide? Granted you have the Washington Monument, but couldn't the terrorists just fly above it and then accelerate down in to the Capitol?

 

[Archibald]

I have this vision of the Washington Monument playing badass and saving the capitol by sending the hijacked airliner cartwheeling into the ground. Washington saving the capitol, how about that ?

More seriously, the Washington monument is 170 m tall and hence diving the airliner into the Capitol would need pulling the controls in a fraction of second.

 

[Asp]

The fact is, we still don't know the exact target of Flight 93 and probably never will. Did the hijackers were given specific targets before, or was there some improvisation left ?

Atta ruled out the White House because it's too difficult of a target. It's small, not that visible, very low to the ground, surrounded by some potent flight obstacles (especially the Washington Monument), and flying a path to get around those things would necessitate flying a very suspicious flight path that would leave it in view of the White House air defenses for several minutes. That was a no go.

 

[Asp]

I understand the White House being hard to hit, but not the Capitol. Couldn't you use the National Mall as a guide? Granted you have the Washington Monument, but couldn't the terrorists just fly above it and then accelerate down in to the Capitol?

I have this vision of the Washington Monument playing badass and saving the capitol by sending the hijacked airliner cartwheeling into the ground. Washington saving the capitol, how about that ?

More seriously, the Washington monument is 170 m tall and hence diving the airliner into the Capitol would need pulling the controls in a fraction of second.

The Washington Monument is more than a mile from the Capitol. It makes the White House a hard target, not that.

 

[Apollo 20]

Atta ruled out the White House because it's too difficult of a target. It's small, not that visible, very low to the ground, surrounded by some potent flight obstacles (especially the Washington Monument), and flying a path to get around those things would necessitate flying a very suspicious flight path that would leave it in view of the White House air defenses for several minutes. That was a no go.

The difficulty of hitting the White House is overstated. Even if approaching from the south, the Washington Monument could be fairly easily avoided; it isn't that wide. And don't forget that the buildings in DC are capped in height at 10 stories. Approaching from the north by flying straight down 16th Street is also possible. This is a maneuver that would have easily been practiced in commercially available game software that existed in 2001. Yes, the Capitol is an easier target, but that doesn't mean the White House was an extraordinarily difficult target to reach. In fact, United 93 was a Boeing 757 and one could have programmed the Flight Management System computer to do it on autopilot if one had the requisite knowledge to program in custom waypoints. It will handle coordinates down to degrees minutes and seconds.

 

[Asp]

The difficulty of hitting the White House is overstated. Even if approaching from the south, the Washington Monument could be fairly easily avoided; it isn't that wide. And don't forget that the buildings in DC are capped in height at 10 stories. Approaching from the north by flying straight down 16th Street is also possible. This is a maneuver that would have easily been practiced in commercially available game software that existed in 2001. Yes, the Capitol is an easier target, but that doesn't mean the White House was an extraordinarily difficult target to reach. In fact, United 93 was a Boeing 757 and one could have programmed the Flight Management System computer to do it on autopilot if one had the requisite knowledge to program in custom waypoints. It will handle coordinates down to degrees minutes and seconds.

If Hani Hanjour, a professional pilot, had been flying United 93 he might have been able to pull it off but they needed him for the hardest one, the Pentagon. I think Atta correctly foresaw that hitting the White House would be beyond the capabilities of someone like Ziad Jarrah.

Having actually been there, the distance is pretty short; it would take some professional flying to get around it and still hit the White House. And it's very heavily defended. There are also other reasons not to target it. It's not a very impactful target from the perspective of actually disrupting the workings of the Federal Government. The odds of killing the POTUS are pretty low even if the plane actually hits because he'll probably either be in the bunker when word of attacks gets out or he'll be somewhere else at the time (as was the actual case on 9/11). The Capitol is different. If you could take out even one chamber of Congress you would seriously the actual ability of the government to function, and you know exactly when they'll be there because there is a nice convenient calendar of all the days it's in session. Atta actually did make sure to choose a date it would be working. Much better target for a host of reasons.

 

[Sasalele]

Atta actually did make sure to choose a date it would be working.

I've never heard this. That would confirm that the Capitol Building was United 93's target.

 

[Viper81]

All this Flight 93 talk disregards the F-16s scrambled out of Andrews AFB and Toledo, OH rushing to down the airliner before it reached DC, not to mention whatever air defenses were covering the Mall area. The chances of the airliner making a controlled crash are very slim.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...4d231dfde50_story.html?utm_term=.083f530c3d20
http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2011/09/02/Local-F-16-pilot-reflects-on-role-chaos-of-9-11.html

 

[James G]

Atta ruled out the White House because it's too difficult of a target. It's small, not that visible, very low to the ground, surrounded by some potent flight obstacles (especially the Washington Monument), and flying a path to get around those things would necessitate flying a very suspicious flight path that would leave it in view of the White House air defenses for several minutes. That was a no go.

Air defences? An agent, maybe two with Stinger's. A little bang will make no different if the aircraft is coming in. Something I've always had issue with when regards to post 9-11 talk of shooting down an aircraft. Unless its blown into millions of tiny pieces, if you bring its down then it hits somewhere else. If a 747 or suchlike is hit with several SAMs on its way in then it isn't going to stop or turn away.