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One of the signs of our times is a recent ruling by a federal judge that those who lost loved ones in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks can sue the planes' manufacturer and the owners of the World Trade Center, among others. This extraordinary -- indeed, unique -- terrorist attack was "foreseeable," according to Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in New York.

By the same reasoning, it was "foreseeable" that there would be jackasses like Judge Hellerstein on the federal bench. Similar judges have allowed our courts to become clogged with frivolous lawsuits and turned law into an instrument of legalized extortion.

Worst of all, they have fostered a legal mindset in which virtually every tragedy is seen as the fault of the nearest source of "deep pockets." Often those deep pockets are nothing more than the sum total of a lot of much shallower pockets belonging to taxpayers or stockholders.

This sort of thing makes me despair for the future of our society.

The complete article may be found here:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/

Did the terrorists gain control of one or more of the planes by breaking through the cockpit door?

My first reaction was unabashed legal travesty, but then, I haven't read his judgement. I find that a lot of outrageous decisions look quite reasonable if you read the judgement- often many thousands of words.

Vympel wrote:My first reaction was unabashed legal travesty, but then, I haven't read his judgement. I find that a lot of outrageous decisions look quite reasonable if you read the judgement- often many thousands of words.

And a lot of them don't. I'm with Mr. Sowell; building all these extra "safeguards" into everything, and making maufacturers, retailers, etc. retroactively responsible for everything that goes wrong is simply a bad idea when carried to the extreme to which it has been carried in our society. It imposes extra costs and burdens on society, not to mention clogging up our courts with loads of frivolous lawsuits. Even the ones that are so outrageous that they are soon dismissed take up some of the courts' valuable time. We desperately need a loser pays rule in the United States. That will discourage frivolous cases, but still leave the way clear for those with a solid case to make.

I don't think we'll get it anytime soon, since most of our legislators are lawyers, and they make out like bandits the way things are right now.

I don't see a problem actually. The Judge simply said they can sue Boeing for the cockpit doors. If the cockpit doors were broken down, then maybe there's a case. After all, cockpit doors were built [prior to 9/11] to stop terrorists entering the cockpit. It's not like these terrorists had a battering ram with them.

Were they? IIRC, they were not designed to withstand a concerted attack; they were designed more along the lines of ensuring equalized cabin pressure in case something Bad happened.

I don't know, I always thought they were.

From http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/5/14246/2563

By Federal Aviation Regulation [FAR] a cockpit door must be weak enough to be kicked open by a normal person in the event of an emergency. It must also have allowances to open by itself in the event of a depressurization.

So no, they weren't meant to stop terrorists.

Which makes the suit stupid and frivilous. Why the fuck they can sue the aircraft manufacturers for not breaking the law is beyond me.


As for the World Trade Center, those buildings were probably the only two in the world that could have been destroyed in that fashion. They had a unique vulnerability because of their design. But that's hardly grounds for a lawsuit. I doubt any could have honestly forseen something like the WTC attacks before hand.

For that matter, they performed quite well considering the load they were under, no? They absorbed the impact and initial detonation more or less as well as could be expected; no skyscraper (AFAIK) could withstand that much fuel being dumped into it.

Most other buildings would have toppled from the point of impact *upwards*, not collapsed down to the base. Actually most buildings wouldn't have had that silly structural lattice of light steel reinforced by what could only be called styrofoam, so probably the heat wouldn't have been such a big factor in the damage.

EDIT: Here's something I found:

Eventually, the loss of strength and stiffness of the materials resulting from the fire, combined with the initial impact damage, would have caused a failure of the truss system supporting a floor, or the remaining perimeter columns, or even the internal core, or some combination. Failure of the flooring system would have subsequently allowed the perimeter columns to buckle outwards. Regardless of which of these possibilities actually occurred, it would have resulted in the complete collapse of at least one complete storey at the level of impact.

Once one storey collapsed all floors above would have begun to fall. The huge mass of falling structure would gain momentum, crushing the structurally intact floors below, resulting in catastrophic failure of the entire structure.

Most buildings would have survived with a large hole in the middle, I think.

Slartibartfast wrote:Most other buildings would have toppled from the point of impact *upwards*, not collapsed down to the base. Actually most buildings wouldn't have had that silly structural lattice of light steel reinforced by what could only be called styrofoam, so probably the heat wouldn't have been such a big factor in the damage.

EDIT: Here's something I found:

Eventually, the loss of strength and stiffness of the materials resulting from the fire, combined with the initial impact damage, would have caused a failure of the truss system supporting a floor, or the remaining perimeter columns, or even the internal core, or some combination. Failure of the flooring system would have subsequently allowed the perimeter columns to buckle outwards. Regardless of which of these possibilities actually occurred, it would have resulted in the complete collapse of at least one complete storey at the level of impact.

Once one storey collapsed all floors above would have begun to fall. The huge mass of falling structure would gain momentum, crushing the structurally intact floors below, resulting in catastrophic failure of the entire structure.

Most buildings would have survived with a large hole in the middle, I think.

Again you're most likely wrong. Most skyscrapers (and certianly almost all built to the 100ft + line of the WTC towers) are built with the central core and surrounding framework of steel girders. In those caes the load in carried (for the most part) by the four side of the central core. Now because its located in amidst elevators and piping and such (as oppossed to being constrained by exterior appearence) you can make some great reinforced concrete pillars. The problem is that your cross sectional area (this is a great time to apply that little section of Mike's site) is MUCH smaller compared against the huge dispersion of forces in the WTC design. In a typical skyscraper the impact would have eliminated a significant section of the internal core (as it did with the WTC) with a proportionaly greater loss of structural stability. Once more those structures would suffer from the same problems of burning jet fuel melting or softening steel beams. There isn't a jet fuel I know of (as a former USMC Bulk Fuel specialist I've played with a few) that burns under 1500 F so you're basically screwed. The only difference between the WTC desing and a typical skyscraper is that in the WTC's case the vast dispersion of the load meant a near vertical fall whereas the certralized system of other skyscrapers would have lent itself to a lot more tumble (and thus a lot more collateral damage).

The problem with the twin towers was that their exterior walls were load bearing and vulnerable to buckling if the floor trusses linking them to the building core failed. The jet impacts knocked a hole in the outer walls and damaged the cores of both buildings. They also knocked much of the fireproofing off the floor trusses. Then the jet fuel ignited all the flammable material on the affected floors and the exposed floor trusses failed. The outer walls buckled and the core failed, and the whole structure came pancaking down.

The effect was very similar to what you see in controlled demolitions. Comparatively little material from either tower landed outside the site. Had they had traditional steel cage skeletons, they would have collapsed much more messily. IIRC, however, it was impossible to build towers that shape and size with a steel cage--I know the Sears Tower, the only building in the US taller than they were, is basically a cluster of hollow boxes similar to the WTC towers. I don't know and I don't think anyone knows if a steel cage structure would have collapsed completely--it seems to me that the fire might have weakened enough structural columns to cause the upper floors to drop, and that much moving mass would be enough to cause the columns below to fail, and so on until the building is destroyed, but I just don't know. If only all the columns on one side failed, the top might fall off but leave the lower tower intact, or the greater number of columns might ensure that enough survived to carry the load.

At any rate, even with all the precautions taken after the 1993 bombing, the death toll still would have been in the thousands and the buildings probably would have had to have been demolished. All the water lines to the upper floors were broken by the impact. The firefighters would have had no way to fight the fires on the upper floors and no way to rescue the people trapped above. Even if the towers had somehow survived, the ~2000 people above the impact point in tower 1 would have died of smoke inhalation or burns.

phongn wrote:For that matter, they performed quite well considering the load they were under, no? They absorbed the impact and initial detonation more or less as well as could be expected; no skyscraper (AFAIK) could withstand that much fuel being dumped into it.

What about that bomber that crashed into the Empire State building?

Enigma wrote:

phongn wrote:For that matter, they performed quite well considering the load they were under, no? They absorbed the impact and initial detonation more or less as well as could be expected; no skyscraper (AFAIK) could withstand that much fuel being dumped into it.

What about that bomber that crashed into the Empire State building?

It was a B-25 Mitchell. Smaller and slower to begin with and of course the Empire State Building is massively over done to begin with.

Stormbringer wrote:

Enigma wrote:

phongn wrote:For that matter, they performed quite well considering the load they were under, no? They absorbed the impact and initial detonation more or less as well as could be expected; no skyscraper (AFAIK) could withstand that much fuel being dumped into it.

What about that bomber that crashed into the Empire State building?

It was a B-25 Mitchell. Smaller and slower to begin with and of course the Empire State Building is massively over done to begin with.

How would the Empire State building fare against a collision from a 747?

Enigma wrote:How would the Empire State building fare against a collision from a 747?

That would depend on who you ask, really. There's still a lot of debate about the safety of conventionally built skyscrapers when it comes to terrorists attacks.

Still, a 747 is going to do a hell of a lot of damage even if the building doesn't come down. It's a huge jet even compared to the airliners used in the September 11th attacks.

A 747 slamming into the Empire State Building will probably bring it down from the resulting fires, or make it so structually weak that it'll have to be abandoned.

A B-25 hardly compares, and at any rate half the thing was sticking out of the building - no huge jet fuel explosion like what happened to the WTC.

The WTC was designed competently to meet all of its design requirements. Anyone who seeks to scapegoat the designers is being a jack-ass; if the financiers had asked them for protection against fuel-laden jumbo jets crashing into them, they would have provided it.

BTW, the recent news articles about Pakistani men inquiring about learning to fly aircraft around Toronto's CN tower exaggerate the threat. The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

Darth Wong wrote:The WTC was designed competently to meet all of its design requirements. Anyone who seeks to scapegoat the designers is being a jack-ass; if the financiers had asked them for protection against fuel-laden jumbo jets crashing into them, they would have provided it.

BTW, the recent news articles about Pakistani men inquiring about learning to fly aircraft around Toronto's CN tower exaggerate the threat. The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

Well not that it says all that much really as the WTC was also designed to withstand the impact from a fully loaded 707 (admittedly they assuemd it would be flying at takeoff/landing speeds).

The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

National Phallic Symbol?

Stormbringer wrote:

The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

National Phallic Symbol?

It was actually a monument to the gods of television, to be more precise. They wanted to have a transmission tower really high off the ground. But it also serves as a phallic symbol, and with the big round SkyDome sitting at its base, it sort of looks like a cock and ballsack.

Darth Wong wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:

The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

National Phallic Symbol?

It was actually a monument to the gods of television, to be more precise. They wanted to have a transmission tower really high off the ground. But it also serves as a phallic symbol, and with the big round SkyDome sitting at its base, it sort of looks like a cock and ballsack.

You get a great view of the tower from inside the Skydome when the roof is open. I found myself looking at it more than the Blue Jays' ineptitude.

Darth Wong wrote:The WTC was designed competently to meet all of its design requirements. Anyone who seeks to scapegoat the designers is being a jack-ass; if the financiers had asked them for protection against fuel-laden jumbo jets crashing into them, they would have provided it.

BTW, the recent news articles about Pakistani men inquiring about learning to fly aircraft around Toronto's CN tower exaggerate the threat. The CN Tower is not the WTC; it is essentially an armoured spire with steel-reinforced concrete all around. It was designed to withstand a direct hit from a loaded 707, 200 kph winds, and earthquakes up to 8.5 on the Richter scale without structural damage. But of course, it was designed for an entirely different purpose than the WTC.

What is the CN tower actually designed for? I remember in Canadian Bacon it was said to be used for military stuff. I doubt that's true.

Gandalf wrote:What is the CN tower actually designed for? I remember in Canadian Bacon it was said to be used for military stuff. I doubt that's true.

Nothing military.....[size=0]sit back quietly on your chair a team of men in white are coming to se you with a straight jacket.[/size]