# Could the Capitol Building have withstood Flight 93? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 1, 2013, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769 "2013-09-01T23:30:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/21 "2013-09-03T06:16:00Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I agree that the WH isn’t as prominent from the air as the Capitol, but had the hijackers intended to find and hit it, they easily could have, probably lining up on the Washington Monument and Jefferson Memorial: Alternatively, if they had read Tom Clancy’s _Debt of Honor_ they could have followed the fairly detailed directions he gives in the book. Hang a left at a certain waypoint and then just follow the road straight on. Hit about two-thirds of the way up the steps and the jet engines pound the building into gravel. The exploding fuel takes care of the rest. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/22 "2013-09-03T15:02:25Z")
Obviously, the guy who hit the Pentagon was successful, but I wonder in general how easy it is to hit a low target like the White House, or even the Capitol building. My understanding (don’t remember where I read or heard it) was that even the WTC targets were stressing the wings of the jets going at the speeds they were. You can’t go that fast for very long at low altitude. Would you fly in like you were landing (I guess)? ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/23 "2013-09-03T15:56:05Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Comparing the size of the plane to the width of the Capitol sort of misses the point; a 105MM howitzer round’s much less wide than my torso, but if it hits me I’m going to go kablam. > > The Capitol would have been essentially destroyed by a direct hit due to the subsequent explosion and catastrophic structural damage. The fire would have been extraordinary. The far reaches of its wings might have stayed up, at best. This is my vote. The impact damage would be bad, but the _real_ damage would be due to the fact that the Capitol is now full of burning jet fuel. Remember, the WTC survived the impacts. It was the fire that compromised the structure. My guess is that a shell of a building would survive, but the insides would be totally gutted from fire. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/24 "2013-09-03T16:38:58Z")
Since the Rotunda’s basically a big huge hollow space, would there be any chance that the aircraft fuselage might in large part, have gone in one side and straight out the other, leaving the wings and tail? I got the impression from the Pentagon that the major damage happened as the fuselage plowed deeper and deeper into the building, strewing flaming fuel and wreckage everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/25 "2013-09-03T16:42:50Z")
I’m going to say there’s no chance “that the aircraft fuselage might in large part, have gone in one side and straight out the other, leaving the wings and tail.” For one thing, as said above, the rotunda isn’t paper; it’s mostly iron. Secondly, there’s a large amount of kinetic energy involved. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/26 "2013-09-03T16:54:50Z")
I think the destruction would be near total. The new Senate and House chambers may survive but be heavily damaged by smoke, the dome would be demolished and the jet fuel would take care of the Rotunda and the old House and Senate chambers in the vicinity. The fuselage would be in smithereens much as the Pentagon plane was. The engines might wind up taking out some of the building, but I think whatever the engines hit would be engulfed in the inferno anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/27 "2013-09-03T19:51:51Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > Alternatively, if they had read Tom Clancy’s _Debt of Honor_ they could have followed the fairly detailed directions he gives in the book. Hang a left at a certain waypoint and then just follow the road straight on. Hit about two-thirds of the way up the steps and the jet engines pound the building into gravel. The exploding fuel takes care of the rest. Clancy had the plane hit the Capitol, not the White House. I was referring to the White House. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/28 "2013-09-05T09:34:14Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Clancy had the plane hit the Capitol, not the White House. I was referring to the White House. I feel like a jet just flew right over my head and hit the totally wrong building! ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/29 "2013-09-05T10:40:52Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I think the destruction would be near total. The new Senate and House chambers may survive but be heavily damaged by smoke, the dome would be demolished and the jet fuel would take care of the Rotunda and the old House and Senate chambers in the vicinity. > > The fuselage would be in smithereens much as the Pentagon plane was. The engines might wind up taking out some of the building, but I think whatever the engines hit would be engulfed in the inferno anyway. Right. In these situations, it’s the engines and the landing gear that often come to a rest some distance beyobd everything else. If you think about it, they’re the only things that are big, solid, and dense. The rest of the plane is just air, little things, thin walls and struts, and (sadly) about a hundred sacks of meat. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/30 "2013-09-05T13:22:27Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Right. In these situations, it’s the engines and the landing gear that often come to a rest some distance beyobd everything else. If you think about it, they’re the only things that are big, solid, and dense. The rest of the plane is just air, little things, thin walls and struts, and (sadly) about a hundred sacks of meat. I don’t know if that’s true; if you look at the Pentagon damage, you see that it’s more or less a cone, centered on where they think the fuselage hit, implying that the fuselage penetrated the deepest. Clearly the wings/tail are going to shear off, and the engines may continue on a good distance due to momentum, but that leaves the fuselage with the majority of the mass, and probably the highest sectional density of anything save the engines. The reason I was saying that the fuselage might go in and straight on through would be that there’s just not that much in the rotunda/dome relative to the 3 of 5 Pentagon rings that Flight 77 went through, combined with the fact that in the Pentagon, the tail sections were found the deepest into the building, implying that as the fuselage impacted, it cleared a hole for the parts behind it to continue moving deeper into the building. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/31 "2013-09-05T13:32:48Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > This is my vote. The impact damage would be bad, but the _real_ damage would be due to the fact that the Capitol is now full of burning jet fuel. Remember, the WTC survived the impacts. It was the fire that compromised the structure. My guess is that a shell of a building would survive, but the insides would be totally gutted from fire. I’m also among those that think the initial damage would have been fairly bad at point of impact, but the fuel fires would have potentially really escalated it. I suppose it depends also on where the plane came to a rest… if it bounced off the ground before impact and hit the Capitol on rebound it would be slower impact but likely come to a rest closer to the building… if it clipped the dome or went through the dome, you could have the fuselage 7 blocks away. Tangentially… I’m still even a couple of years later stunned by Rosie O’Donnell’s “I do believe that it’s the first time in history that fire has ever melted steel.” This could actually be the most wrong thing ever opined, inasmuch as actually EVERY time in history fire has melted steel. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769/32 "2013-09-05T14:36:33Z")
Rosie O’Donnell is not usually noted for her skills as either a historian or a structural engineer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-the-capitol-building-have-withstood-flight-93/667769.md?page=1)