WI: 9/11 fails. Sort of...

Alexander North

Alexander North

Let's say that 9/11 fails. It's been done a lot, which is completely understandable. But what if 9/11 failed only partially?

By that I mean the following:

The two flights headed for the Twin Towers don't carry out their desired mission. One of the groups of hijackers just misses their flight due to bad traffic or something, while the other is subject to the passengers rising up. They try to crash the plane in the bay as the plane enters New York City, with the result of one of the plane's wings shearing off the Statue of Liberty's arm on the way and the plane itself crashing in the water off of Liberty Island. Around 30% of the passengers survive by swimming to the shore, all of the terrorists drown.

The plane headed for the Pentagon crashes in a field in northern Virginia due to the passengers rising up.

The plane which in our timeline crashed into a field in Pennsylvania makes it into DC, but the hijackers miscalculate when to go down and crash in the middle of Constitution Avenue NW. Though the Capitol Building sustains some damage from the explosion, asides from the unfortunate victims within the airplane there are surprisingly few casualties.

With that in mind, what most likely comes next?
 

mattep74

Why would the passengers rise up? Only reason they rose up on United 54 was becauce they heard about WTC and the Pentagon
 
Alexander North

Alexander North

mattep74 said:
Why would the passengers rise up? Only reason they rose up on United 54 was becauce they heard about WTC and the Pentagon
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The hijackers decided to wait a little longer than originally planned just in case on one plane, and on the other one, one of the hijackers decided on his own to pretend to fall asleep to lull everyone into a false state of security... and then actually did fall asleep, meaning that the others had to wake him. Those events gave the planes just enough extra distance to go thanks to the delayed hijacking that the occupants heard about the attacks beforehand and tried to take action.

Besides, this timeline has at least half the deaths of ours. Even if the scenario isn't as plausible as it could be, isn't the lower death rate worth it?
 

Johnrankins

Not much changes, even with half the death toll the US will be extremely pissed. The US will still go after AQ and Taliban in Afghanistan. The good thing that comes from it is less families will suffer from loved ones deaths. However, in the greater scheme of things not much changes.
 
creighton

creighton

I don't think anyone is swimming out of a fully fueled 757 that just ripped off a wing and smashed into the Hudson
 

edgeworthy

Lurkus said:
The Americans might try to repair the Statue of Liberty.
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Actually they'd have to call in the French, during the big restoration in the 80's the NPS had to hire foreign consultants and workers.
There was no one in America with the legacy skills, a lot was done by hand.
For example the Torch was rebuilt by ten craftsmen from Les metalliers Champenois based in Reims.
 

Iron Sun

Banned
Alexander North said:
You'd be surprised as to the tenacity of desperate people who have something to live for.
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The "tenacity of desperate people who have something to live for" isn't very helpful against 300+MPH impacts. Take the example of Swissair Flight 111.
HALIFAX (CP) - Like he always does when he returns to Nova Scotia, Dr. John Butt will drive the winding road to Bayswater next month to a granite memorial overlooking the sea.
For the better part of an hour, the province's former chief medical examiner will sit on one of the stone benches there and look at the names of the 229 victims of the Swissair crash on Sept. 2, 1998.
"I go there for my own memories," said Butt, who now lives in Vancouver but has returned to his former home several times.
And every time, he visits the memorial and its patch of fenced grass where many of the victims' remains lie buried.
"I think it's important for me to go - and I think it is for a lot of people in Nova Scotia."
Butt was thrust into the national spotlight after Flight 111 crashed into the ocean off Bayswater following an intense fire on board.
Over long months and many sleepless nights, the soft-spoken medical examiner led a team charged with sorting, cataloguing and identifying body parts that washed ashore or were pulled from the ocean.
There were 15,000 in all, a grim testament to the unimaginable force of the crash.
"The thing that was overwhelming about it was the quantity. Not only the fragmentation, but the sheer quantity of human remains," Butt said in an interview.
The three-engine Swissair MD-11 was early into a flight to Geneva from New York when a fire in the cockpit crippled the plane's flight systems.
Less than 30 minutes later, the wide-body jet hit St. Margarets Bay with such force that it shattered into two million pieces.
As Butt rushed from his bed to the air base at Shearwater, outside Halifax, he imagined that many of the bodies would be found strapped in their seats.
That notion was quickly dispelled when the first remains and wreckage began arriving from the crash site.
"I suppose the thing that impressed me even more than the decimation of the human bodies was the fragmentation of the aircraft itself," he said.
"I went into the hangar one day and looked at some of the wiring. It was mind-boggling that it could be torn up so much."
Butt and his team used a combination of dental records, fingerprints, X-rays and DNA samples to identify as many of the bodies as they could.
It was largest use of DNA analysis prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The injuries inflicted on the passengers had many of the same characteristics. Most were decapitated and the amputation of feet was widespread. Many limbs were also "de-gloved," a phenomenon where the bones were simply missing from the flesh.
Butt had a nightmare one night while living at the base where the temporary morgue was established, but says he isn't haunted by his experiences 10 years later.
"That was a blessing for me," he said.
"I get moments of sadness, but those are things I can totally handle. I can still get upset if I think about it a little bit, but there's nothing wrong with that."
The hardest part of his work, he said, was having to deal with the sorrow of the families.
Over his long career as a pathologist, Butt always tried to discourage relatives from visiting the morgue to see a loved one.
But it was always about protecting himself, not them.
"It's much easier emotionally to just do the job and forget about that part of it, and keep them away from the building so you don't see grieving relatives and get upset yourself."
But with Swissair, Butt had to assume that role very early when he was asked to address shell-shocked families shortly after they began arriving in Halifax.
He decided to be honest, telling them only one body had been found intact to that point and that no others were likely.
"I had to bite the bullet," he said. "Somebody had to do it. It was best to say it early."
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Kalvan

What? Considering all the, ahem, borrowed symbols, why didn't any of the hijackers try to steer a plane into the downtown Manhattan Oleika Temple? They could have at least hit it by accident.
 
Talwar

Talwar

Iron Sun said:
The "tenacity of desperate people who have something to live for" isn't very helpful against 300+MPH impacts. Take the example of Swissair Flight 111.
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I was at a presentation given by one of the senior people involved in the investigation; after giving us considerable warning, he showed us a slide of some remains. It's fair to say they were not recognizable in any way.
 

Iron Sun

Banned
creighton said:
I'm sure you could find the conditions for survivors, but if you shear an entire wing off a 757 mid flight, wouldn't the fuel ignite and explode?
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Yes, but it's the impact with the water that would be the killer. At a high enough speed and impact angle, it doesn't matter whether you hit water or solid ground-you're fucked.
 
Alexander North

Alexander North

Kalvan said:
What? Considering all the, ahem, borrowed symbols, why didn't any of the hijackers try to steer a plane into the downtown Manhattan Oleika Temple? They could have at least hit it by accident.
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Um, what do you mean by "borrowed symbols?" Maybe I'm just not seeing what you mean due to sleep deprivation, but I legitimately don't understand.
 

desmirelle

A more realistic TL would be the hijackers missing their flight, but the first or second plane hitting its mark (depending on which hijackers missed their flight), leave the pentagon - United 93 then requires no butterfly. It was the images of the burning towers and the reality of the passengers sacrificing that made the points. (Of course, you'll have to go to International Skeptics Forum to find out if a single place crash would bring one or both towers down........)
 
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