Kamikaze: F-16 pilots planned to ram Flight 93

[The Brain]

I'm no combat pilot or anything, but I don't really see why they would need to directly tear a wing off or cause the fuselage to come apart or whatever.  This is a 757 we're talking about, not a B-17. They're not really built for the possibility of a bunch of bullets hitting them (from what I understand, airliners can be surprisingly tough, but they're still not "combat" aircraft).  A hundred rounds each seems like it would be plenty to at least cause catastrophic damage to one of the two engines hanging off of that thing, which in turn seems like it would probably damage the wing as well when it came all apart.  The "kamikaze option" seems like it should be more of a fallback in case they both missed with their 100 rounds. 

I dunno.  This rum is tasting really good right now though.  Pecan Street from P-ville, baby.

Even civilian planes have lots of redundancies etc for safety reasons. Big parts of a plane are just non-essential stuff like aluminum sheets and passengers. Many accidents in the past illustrate the kind of beating a passenger jet can take and still keep flying. There are certainly critical points but you have to hit them.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Even civilian planes have lots of redundancies etc for safety reasons. Big parts of a plane are just non-essential stuff like aluminum sheets and passengers. Many accidents in the past illustrate the kind of beating a passenger jet can take and still keep flying. There are certainly critical points but you have to hit them.

Critical points?  You mean like the engines?

[The Brain]

Even civilian planes have lots of redundancies etc for safety reasons. Big parts of a plane are just non-essential stuff like aluminum sheets and passengers. Many accidents in the past illustrate the kind of beating a passenger jet can take and still keep flying. There are certainly critical points but you have to hit them.

Critical points?  You mean like the engines?

I'm thinking bases of the wings. Taking off a wing is good. Taking out an engine in fairly useless.

[MadBurgerMaker]

I'm thinking bases of the wings. Taking off a wing is good. Taking out an engine in fairly useless.

[The Brain]

I'm thinking bases of the wings. Taking off a wing is good. Taking out an engine in fairly useless.

OK what did I say?

[MadBurgerMaker]

OK what did I say?

The engine is not going to be peacefully turning itself off.   It's going to be having a bunch of metal hitting it and it's probably going to violently come apart.  The engine is attached to a wing (that presumably has a bunch of gas in it, so an explosion of any type there seems like it would be bad for the airplane).  Even in a best case scenario (for the airplane), if it doesn't tear itself all up and the wing is miraculously unharmed, we're still talking about an untrained "flight crew" trying to fly a plane with a now destroyed engine.  I don't know how easy a 757 is to fly with one engine, but it can't be the same as if it had two intact ones, right?  It's not going to just fall out of the sky, but it can't be as easy as when the thing was intact.

e:  With F-16s now trying to ram it I guess.  vOv

Hey here's a bird taking out a 757 engine:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tLF-3d3PJk  It seems to actually keep flying pretty well, although that might have something to do with the flight crew and the fact that it was "only" a bird, which is pretty...er...soft...compared to any sort of 20mm ammo, I would think, and didn't cause shit to fly around and come off and such.  That pilot is really chill though the whole thing.  Nice.  Sounds like they were really taxing the remaining engine though.

[The Brain]

OK what did I say?

The engine is not going to be peacefully turning itself off.   It's going to be having a bunch of metal hitting it and it's probably going to violently come apart.  The engine is attached to a wing (that presumably has a bunch of gas in it, so an explosion of any type there seems like it would be bad for the airplane).  Even in a best case scenario (for the airplane), if it doesn't tear itself all up and the wing is miraculously unharmed, we're still talking about an untrained "flight crew" trying to fly a plane with a now destroyed engine.

e:  With F-16s now trying to ram it I guess.  vOv

Yes, if you're lucky the engine could self-destruct in a violent enough way to take out the wing. I don't think it's extremely likely though. As you know the engine hangs suspended from the underside of the wing and positioned a bit forward of it. Seems to me that violent engine failure causing structural failure of the wing is anything but a foregone conclusion.

Of course anything that makes it harder for the Mohamedan flight crew to pilot the plane is good, but I am guessing that failure of an engine is one of the most standard problems encountered in simulator training.

A wing is critical in a way that an engine simply is not.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Yes, if you're lucky the engine could self-destruct in a violent enough way to take out the wing. I don't think it's extremely likely though. As you know the engine hangs suspended from the underside of the wing and positioned a bit forward of it.

Even if it doesn't take the wing out and doesn't explode and all that, due to design or luck or whatever, they've at least taken out an engine, right?  There's at least going to be this big chunk of useless smoking metal hanging off the wing slowing everything down and causing problems for the bad guys and buying time for the good guys.  Seems like you've done something useful with your 100 training rounds of 20mm.  And shit, if the other F-16 can shoot up the second engine, again, even without it blowing up or whatever.....fuck yeah, that 757 is going to be gliding, instead of flying a couple hundred miles to D.C. or wherever.

Of course anything that makes it harder for the Mohamedan flight crew to pilot the plane is good, but I am guessing that failure of an engine is one of the most standard problems encountered in simulator training.

Well sure, engine failure is something you train for in flight school almost from the beginning.  Of course they also, at least in my experience, don't teach you to just keep flying, but to find the nearest safe place to land.

A wing is critical in a way that an engine simply is not.

A wing is very important, of course I'm not going to deny this, but if you need to fly anywhere aside from the immediate area, and are kind of in a hurry because you're a douchebag terrorist and are on the clock, an engine can be pretty important.  I don't know if 100 rounds of (practice?) 20mm ammo is enough to take a wing off, but if it isn't, why not at least go for an engine or two?  Shitty practice ammo can fuck up a turbofan at least as well as a bird, I would think.  Do they even really have "shitty" 20mm ammo? 

[Razgovory]

Isn't there a way to target the gas tank?  I mean, when those things crash they tend to blow up big.  I guess it's because of the volatile fuel.  So I'd aim for that.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Isn't there a way to target the gas tank?  I mean, when those things crash they tend to blow up big.  I guess it's because of the volatile fuel.  So I'd aim for that.

There is gas in the wings, but you need to cause it to explode.

Putting all 100 rounds into the cockpit and killing the guys flying the plane would work really well too, but I imagine that wouldn't be the easiest thing to do.  Ugh it's 7am.

[The Brain]

Yes, if you're lucky the engine could self-destruct in a violent enough way to take out the wing. I don't think it's extremely likely though. As you know the engine hangs suspended from the underside of the wing and positioned a bit forward of it.

Even if it doesn't take the wing out and doesn't explode and all that, due to design or luck or whatever, they've at least taken out an engine, right?  There's at least going to be this big chunk of useless smoking metal hanging off the wing slowing everything down and causing problems for the bad guys and buying time for the good guys.  Seems like you've done something useful with your 100 training rounds of 20mm.  And shit, if the other F-16 can shoot up the second engine, again, even without it blowing up or whatever.....fuck yeah, that 757 is going to be gliding, instead of flying a couple hundred miles to D.C. or wherever.

Of course anything that makes it harder for the Mohamedan flight crew to pilot the plane is good, but I am guessing that failure of an engine is one of the most standard problems encountered in simulator training.

Well sure, engine failure is something you train for in flight school almost from the beginning.  Of course they also, at least in my experience, don't teach you to just keep flying, but to find the nearest safe place to land.

A wing is critical in a way that an engine simply is not.

A wing is very important, of course I'm not going to deny this, but if you need to fly anywhere aside from the immediate area, and are kind of in a hurry because you're a douchebag terrorist and are on the clock, an engine can be pretty important.  I don't know if 100 rounds of (practice?) 20mm ammo is enough to take a wing off, but if it isn't, why not at least go for an engine or two?  Shitty practice ammo can fuck up a turbofan at least as well as a bird, I would think.  Do they even really have "shitty" 20mm ammo?

I don't think we disagree on much.

[The Brain]

Isn't there a way to target the gas tank?  I mean, when those things crash they tend to blow up big.  I guess it's because of the volatile fuel.  So I'd aim for that.

There is gas in the wings, but you need to cause it to explode.

Putting all 100 rounds into the cockpit and killing the guys flying the plane would work really well too, but I imagine that wouldn't be the easiest thing to do.  Ugh it's 7am.

Yeah I thought of the cockpit too but as you say it may not be as easy to target (or maybe it is I'm not a fighter pilot). The pilot(s) are not huge targets and the cockpit is full of reduntant gadgets. It wouldn't automatically put them out of action, even though it does appear pretty likely.

[CountDeMoney]

I don't know much about shooting down jet liners, but the tale sounds a little tall.  They weren't even going to try shooting it before they rammed it?

P.S.: If they wanted to limit ground damage, again, wouldn't shooting one plane town be preferable to crashing three?

Those planes had no ammo or missiles.  It would've taken over an hour to arm them.  CONUS hadn't kept armed flights ready to scramble since the mid 80s.

Doesn't anybody read these articles that are posted?

[Warspite]

I don't know much about shooting down jet liners, but the tale sounds a little tall.  They weren't even going to try shooting it before they rammed it?

P.S.: If they wanted to limit ground damage, again, wouldn't shooting one plane town be preferable to crashing three?

Those planes had no ammo or missiles.  It would've taken over an hour to arm them.  CONUS hadn't kept armed flights ready to scramble since the mid 80s.

Doesn't anybody read these articles that are posted?

Indeed, classic Languish; the issue is unarmed fighter planes, the discussion turns to redundant systems of thrust and structural integrity of commercial airliners. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's cute how the government is slowly admitting in stages like this that it took out Flight 93.  A couple of weeks ago we heard Bush say that he gave the order to shoot down airliners if they threatened targets in DC.  I don't think I'd heard that before.

I've been hearing that orders were issued to take down planes if necessary since 2001 I believe.

The truth is we were in no position to execute any such orders in time, as the article mentions planes weren't at a true state of readiness for this kind of thing. Now we have SAM batteries around DC and fighter jets in the sky 24/7.