CBC documentary shows 2nd hit approach - boeing dive

aside from the video being generally quite an interesting take on 9/11 I do not recall seeing that footage of the 2nd impact before. Its about half the way into the video (the still frame in the google vid window is the clip i mean).

Does anyone else find this a little strange? I guess it could be down to perspective once again but I have been wondering since i watched this video about how thats second plane loses altitude so quickly, I have never seen anything like it.

If you watch carefully at the start of the clip the plane it right at the top frame and in just a few seconds it drops down a couple of hundred feet below the smoke and levels off for its approach. It looks like the plane is diving tremendously fast, the sort of maneuvers you might expect more from a military jet.

After seeing that one clip I am not so sure any more if those things were flown manually, the way it looks the pilot would have to be pretty damn good and very confident diving like that then leveling out for a direct hit with the building, and this is the wtc approach! I expect the pentagon approach was way more 'impressive'.

Google Video Link

[edit on 10-6-2007 by VicRH]

just to add you need to go to 59:11 to check out that shot i am talking about, the dive is incredible, the angle the plane comes in at is really steep you can see the top of the aircraft. Notice how much the angle changes after it levels out, its almost like a nose dive.

I guess there are records of the exact flight path and altitude for this approach.. I might have to check them out. It must be diving really fast, it almost like he pulls up at the last moment to bring it into alignment for the collision, the timing seems more than lucky if you know what i mean. I never thought it would be diving like that in all the other footage i have seen.


[edit on 10-6-2007 by VicRH]

Originally posted by VicRH After seeing that one clip I am not so sure any more if those things were flown manually, the way it looks the pilot would have to be pretty damn good and very confident diving like that then leveling out for a direct hit with the building, and this is the wtc approach! I expect the pentagon approach was way more 'impressive'.

You got that right — they weren’t flown manually by pilots. They were flown only as pixels on a screen by some devious geek sitting in a basement eating a twinkie and drinking a tab soda.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

[edit on 6/10/2007 by Wizard_In_The_Woods]

Nice find, haven't seen that approach footage before. Yes thats quite a manuever for a novice pilot. When I talked about this with my wife she says even the losers get lucky sometimes. Well there was alot of "luck" that day wasn't there.

No air defence

Bad airport security

Incredible piloting

If it wasn't for bad luck we would have no luck at all.

Thanks for the new footage. I did not realise the approach path was that steep. However, I personally think that it was in the range of possibility of this plane. But of course NOT in the range of flying ability of the so-called 'hijackers' who could hardly fly a Cessna, according to their trainers! LOL!

Such a radical manoeuvre is good evidence of remote-controlled flying.

yeah, i thought I had seen just about every angle of this approach but obviously not, the moment I saw this clip it stayed with me.

Did you notice they show the same clip at the start of the documentary yet they edit the first few seconds where it nose dives downwards? Which i think is the common version of the clip. I am quite surprised I hadn't seen this in full length before, a few extra seconds on that video can make quite a difference!

This to me is stunning, being a flight enthusiast from a very early age and testing many generations of flight simulation i have put boeings and the likes through some rigorous maneuvers and like to believe i have a feel for what they can do. They are slow and heavy beasts and just turning safely takes time, flying a boeing is a slow and careful process.

Sure, I know a boeing can pull off this maneuver but only just! That sort of thing could overstress the aircraft and put it into an irreversible stall, could even snap in mid air. Its like a very extreme stunt with stunning precision. Its going to be a really close call when your putting a plane into a dive like that, it was rapidly losing height yet levels out so perfectly and straight on course for the building - its banking too to line up with the building. In that sort of a maneuver i think your only concern would be trying to get the nose back up!

Yet this guy manages to level off from such a steep drop to the correct height and then to hit the building whilst banking into position the whole time! WOW.

I was intrigued so naturally my next step was to check the flight path and black box altitude/speed levels but surprise surprise, no black boxes recovered, or atleast not on the record. Damn it!



[edit on 10-6-2007 by VicRH]

Originally posted by VicRH
That sort of thing could overstress the aircraft and put it into an irreversible stall, could even snap in mid air. Its like a very extreme stunt with stunning precision. Its going to be a really close call when your putting a plane into a dive like that, it was rapidly losing height yet levels out so perfectly and straight on course for the building - its banking too to line up with the building. In that sort of a maneuver i think your only concern would be trying to get the nose back up! [edit on 10-6-2007 by VicRH]

There is evidence to support that also. I remember watching a show earlier about a Boeing crash that occurred when a trained pilot overused his rudders and the tail end of the aircraft ripped off.

I think the perspective tends to exaggerate the "dive" a bit. The camera position combined with the speed at which the plane was flying. There are other videos of the approach that were taken from more of a side angle, and though there was a somewhat rapid descent, they don't show near the "dive" that this video would seem to suggest.






 

This is an interesting angle I haven't seen before. Are there any pilots who could comment on how hard of a manuver this was?

From the start of the video you posted to the impact 8 seconds elapsed, lets say the jet was traveling at 500 mph. That calculates at about 733.6 feet per second for 8 seconds to 5,868.8 feet which is over a mile that the jet traveled (when at start, appears around the 100th floor).

Did the jet hit between the 77th and 85th floors? Lets average the center (fuselage) at the 81st floor. Simple math taking the height of the tower at 1,362 and dividing it by 110 floors gives us an average floor height of 12.38 feet, times a generous 20 floor drop is simply a 123.8 foot decline in well over a mile of lateral distance. Not impossible. That’s not even the wing span of a 757.

Correction, 123.8 times two (20 floors not ten) is twice that, 247.6 feet in over a mile. Sorry I didn't see an edit option. But you see the foreshortening of the near straight on view makes things look more dramatic. Double the wing span drop in 8 or even 7 seconds is not a star wars or military jet maneuver.

But I am not a pilot.

Originally posted by infinityoreilly
Bad airport security

This is the second or third time I've seen this claim today. WHAT bad airport security? With the exception of pepper spray everything carried onto the planes was ALLOWED on the planes by the FAA. As for finding pepper spray, we usually found it more by accident, because it was one of the hardest things to find on an x-ray machine. ESPECIALLY in a crowded bag.

Setting off walkthrough metal detectors (WTMDs) was NOT a reason to stop a passenger from boarding a plane. If we kept everyone who set off a WTMD from boarding a plane then flights would be amazingly empty.

Ticket agents checking names against no fly lists is not part of airport security. That was a separate check.

You would be amazed at what a commercial plane can withstand. That accident with the rudder causing the vertical fin to separate was made worse by the fact that they were caught in wake turbulence which was putting much more stress on vertical fin than under normal circumstances.

I've seen black box recordings of commercial planes withstanding +6Gs, while undergoing violent maneuvers from turbulence. I've also seen a video of a 757 pulling up into a climb that left it going straight up, like a fighter.

sure the plane can hold together, but the accuracy seems too good especially for a suicidal hijacker/rookie pilot. That approach was really fast diving down at that speed whilst banking.

These hijackers couldn't even land a Cessna manually how are they able to pull off such a dare devil approach like that! When your diving at that angle you might not even see the towers your aiming for.

What i am trying to get at is you can't just do that without some sort of planned flight navigation or an approach route. If it were an in a militar fighter jet that sort of thing could be done in the spare of the moment but because its overspeeding boeing it takes miles just to turn around! The plane banked into the tower. Just stunned a bit by this.

But landing and just flying is completely different, landing is very difficult (I'm assuming) and honestly what the hijackers did to the wtc buildings (I don't know about the pentagon) seems I don't want to sound cocky or nothing but kinda easy. All you have to do is push the stick where you want to go.

Please correct me if I am rong

Landing is the hardest thing you have to do in a plane. I always had a really hard time with my landings back when I could take flying lessons. It's NOT an easy thing to do.

Originally posted by racerzeke
But landing and just flying is completely different, landing is very difficult (I'm assuming) and honestly what the hijackers did to the wtc buildings (I don't know about the pentagon) seems I don't want to sound cocky or nothing but kinda easy. All you have to do is push the stick where you want to go.

Please correct me if I am rong

a fair point that landing is a difficult technique but were talking accuracy here at high speeds in a very large plane. Landing a Cesna is probably easier is many respects to this maneuver we see.

Pushing the stick where you want to go is essentially correct but they can only bank so fast without stalling.

You can't bank and pull up in a large boeing like you can in a fighter or even a cesna which makes turning much slower, just like you can't barrel roll or whatever, the plane just isn't responsive like that which is why you really need to plan an approach with them.

I've seen video of commercial planes doing things that people say they can't. For instance, I had a video of a 757 going straight up like a fighter. And some other members on here have some crazy stories about watching them at airshows as well. Some of these planes are more responsive than you think they are. They don't fly them that way because it's not safe for the passengers, but if you don't care about the passengers, you're going to push them hard.

I cant understand why the terrorists went through all these death defying manouvers to crash into these building.
Sure the towers represented what these madmen hate,but surely everything on the ground does aswell. American Banks,society,Mcdonalds?etc.
Horrible to ponder but why not just crash in the middle of Times square?
The towers falling seem too much like an icing on the cake,too conveniant.
The Pentagon crash,a sympathy vote by the polititians,"hey,we're at risk tooo"
And flight 93,an action film.

What death defying maneuvers? Every maneuver made was well within the performance envelope of the plane. I've seen many videos of Flight 175 hitting, and I really didn't see anything in the flight that seemed odd or risky to the plane except for hitting the building.