- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
In the early 1970's the World Trade Center's chief structural engineer, Leslie Robertson, calculated the effect of the impact of a Boeing 707 with the World Trade Center towers. His results were reported in the New York Times where it was claimed that Robertson's study proved the towers would withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 moving at 600 miles an hour. Little did he know that decades later two aircraft, almost identical to the Boeing 707, would impact the towers.
Other engineers are on public record as saying that the World Trade Center would even survive an impact of the larger and faster Boeing 747.
The maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 707-320B is 336,000 pounds.
The maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 767-200ER is 395,000 pounds.
The wingspan of a Boeing 707 is 146 feet.
The wingspan of a Boeing 767 is 156 feet.
The length of a Boeing 707 is 153 feet.
The length of a Boeing 767 is 159 feet.
The Boeing 707 could carry 23,000 gallons of fuel.
The Boeing 767 could carry 23,980 gallons of fuel.
However, the actual aircraft involved in the World Trade Center impacts were only flying from Boston to Los Angeles, and consequently, would have been nowhere near fully fueled on takeoff (the Boeing 767 has a maximum range of 7,600 miles (12,220 km)). The aircraft would have carried just enough fuel for the trip together with some safety factor. Remember, that carrying excess fuel means higher fuel bills and less paying passengers. The aircraft would have also burnt some fuel between Boston and New York.
Government sources estimate that each of the Boeing 767's had approximately 10,000 gallons of unused fuel on board at the times of impact.
To give you some idea how much jet fuel this is, an 11 foot by 11 foot by 11 foot tank contains 10,000 gallons (1 US gallon = 0.13368 cubic feet). So a novel way of destroying high-rise buildings is to load an 11 foot by 11 foot by 11 foot glass tank of jet fuel into a Ryder truck, drive it into the ground floor lobby, break the glass, set light to the fuel and walk away, the high-rise should collapse in about an hour (after all, 12,000 gallons of diesel was all it took to bring down WTC 7). Look mom, no explosives needed.
