yeah, I have a copy of that 9/11 movie on DVD. Very moving. Also, the only video of the first plane hitting the first tower.
IIRC from the search for MIA in Vietnam, someone mentioned that they could tell if the pilot died in the crash or not. If the pilot experienced a suddne stop from 600mph to zero, the sides of their boots blew out from the sudden pressure wave of bodily fluids.
of course, a terminal velocity for a falling body on its own is about 100mph so as mentioned above, it depends on the hardness of the impact surface.
In a 600-to-zero vertical impact , the aircraft parts will obliterate any human being caught between them and the ground; you’re not likely to find any boots, intact or otherwise, in the wreckage.
At 600MPH, “soft” doesn’t matter much. People who jump off of the Golden Gate Bridge into nice soft water (traveling at 110 MPH at best) tend to die from massive blunt-force trauma: the impact with the water shatters bones and crushes organs.
I have that video. I’m pretty sure those startlingly loud impacts came from jumpers who were landing on the roof of the lobby. Notice that the firefighters kept looking up when they’d hear one.
Yeah. plus I’d think that in any scenario that a pilot would get killed in the crash or in the air, the results of a crash on the pilot’s body would be pretty similar.
Am I right in thinking that a 600 mph crash wouldn’t really be something you’d feel as a pilot? One second it would be “OH crap!” and then lights out- you and your brain would be all squished up before any nerve impulses from your body could actually reach it, right?
If you saw Best in Show, the scene with Larry Miller the “hostage negotiator” who describes what happens to a body of a person who jumps from a tall building (“They all jump!”) … basically the abdomen splits open and intestines spray out… Anyhow, fairly accurate, apparently.
If its the one I am thinking of they were with the Golden Knights and in 1994 they collided during a high speed crossing maneuver Sgt. Jose Aguillon was killed and Sgt. Dana Bowman lost part of both legs.
Did a death inquest once into the death of a parachutist whose chute failed to deploy. He landed in a cow paddock prone (can’t recall if on front or back). He was embedded about 6 inches into the ground. All bones broken, but his skin (perhaps supported by his jumpsuit) managed to contain all his organs - no bursting, splattering, etc.
Ah, did the lobby of one of the towers have a roof that extended out into the plaza?! Cause otherwise what roof was there to hit?! And I think the firefighters looking up would just be a reflex to the sound of any jumpers impacting.
Actually, to nitpick, the is one other shot of it that was discovered much later. It’s from a security camera at a toll plaza someplace. It’s far enough away that it’s only a very tiny part of the upper corner of the image, but it’s clearly the first plane hitting.
The “burst boots” was in the context of determining from the very old buried remains whether the pilot died on impact, or survived (parachute?) and was killed by local soldiers.
I’ve read news reports that victims in plane breakups lose their clothing during the fall. I don’t even want to imagine what happened when the hit the ground.
There was a bad passenger plane breakup in Central America a few years ago. I can’t recall many details except that the victims were scattered in a wide area and most had lost clothing during the fall.
I don’t know about the lobby itself, but the outdoor area immediately adjacent, separated from the lobby only by glass windows, was covered.
Besides which, in the video, the sounds the firefighters react to are loud, resonating, bangs; not the sound one would expect from a mostly fluid human body hitting solid pavement.
But I really don’t know what I’m talking about here, so decide for yourself-- The first instance in the video comes about 30 seconds into this section:
The Moore tornado was an F4 with a couple peaks at F5. Most the the damage you see is from winds 200-250 mph. A plane breaking up due a dive could be going 500-600 mph. So at least twice a fast. But remember that wind resistance goes up with the cube of velocity. So basically 8 times the force of the Moore tornado.
Yeah, it’s going to do terrible things to humans.
Probably best to die instantly rather than survive the breakup with a 20,000 ft fall as your future.
Someone jumped off the four story library at my college. One of my profs happened to just be going thru the doors at the time into the library when the guy hit the ground behind the prof. Didn’t turn around, kept walking in. Knew what it was. Strange how we “know” certain sounds even if we haven’t heard them before.
I worked with a guy who had been a Marine. He said they were on an exercise involving parachuting (he was on the ground). He said that a Marine’s 'chute became tangled, and he deployed the reserve 'chute before the main chute had been jettisoned (or whatever you call it when you get rid of the main 'chute). The Marine’s body had a stream of red coming from it, like stepping on a catsup packet.
In regards to the covered lobby at WTC on 9/11: there is video of jumpers hitting the steel roof and just punching holes right through, like a bullet punching through a soda can.
There are photos of a jumper who appeared to land on a side walk. Basically, it looked like their guts exploded out in a mess of intestines, and there legs crumpled messily (if I remember right, really regret viewing that many years ago).
Worst I recall hearing about was someone in a BASE jumping wing suit who planned to fly through a bridge opening. He clipped the railing (?) and was messily cut in two. I’m sure similar things occur when jumping from a tall structure, depending on what you strike before contacting the ground.
This is incorrect: aerodynamic drag force scales with the square of velocity, not the cube. The power requirement scales with the cube (since power = force * speed): this is why getting a car at 200MPH takes 8 times the power of a car at 100 MPH.