We Were Lucky On 9/11

This weekend I had a chance to watch several shows on the attacks of 9/11, and I can't help but come to the conclusion that we were very lucky that day. Of course, the loss of life was terrible and there was nothing lucky about the people who perished that day, but in review, it could have been so much worse.

I'm certainly not an expert in any of this, but it seems to me that the terrorists failed in one major way. They succeeded in bringing down the World Trade Center, but not in the manner that I think they had originally planned.

The first aircraft struck the tower near the top, above the 80th floor. If we were privy to the planning documents for the attack, I think we would have seen that the terrorists expected that a large, high speed aircraft, striking near the top of the tower, would have caused a levering effect that would have resulted in structural failure near the base of the tower. The result would have been the toppling of the tower onto adjacent structures, which would have killed virtually everyone in the tower, and hundreds or thousands in the nearby buildings.

You’ll note that the second attack came in from the opposite direction and again struck near the top, though this one was a little farther down the building. I believe the intent was to topple that tower in the opposite direction, thus increasing the damage area and death toll.

Fortunately for thousands of survivors, the buildings were built better than the terrorists had thought. Despite being grievously wounded, the buildings stood for 62 (South Tower) to 102 (North Tower) minutes following each strike, which allowed something like 27,000 people to flee the buildings safely.

There’s a different scenario that could have proven far more deadly. If the planes had struck near the base of the buildings, or at least in the bottom 30 floors or so, two things would have happened. Number 1, everyone above the strike zone would have been lost, a toll in the many thousands more than what was suffered that day. Secondly, the building may have failed much quicker due to the extra weight above the strike zone. It’s possible that the North Tower, hit 15 minutes before the South Tower, might have failed even before the second plane came in which would have stranded most of the occupants of the South Tower who couldn’t have escaped due to the rubble from the North Tower.

I’m not give anybody any ideas for the next attack – just thinking out loud about how fortunate we really were that day that the way the attacks were carried out allowed so many people to escape.