Physical and mathematical analysis of Pentagon crash
by Gerard Holmgren

PART 4. EXPLOSION ANALYSIS AT 90 DEGREE FUSELAGE ANGLE

The only available energy source for such an explosion is the fuel load, which means that the explosion must have been centred in the fuselage. An explosion generates force equally in all directions. It had to have cremated both ends of the plane, which means that the minimum force which can be postulated is one sufficient to destroy a tail or nose from 77 ft away. That’s what was required if the explosion occurred in the exact centre of the plane. Shifting it away from the centre means that less force is needed at one end, but more at another. Since the force must be generated equally in all directions, the smallest force we can postulate is one emanating from the centre, if we assume the force needed for cremation to be equal at both ends. Because any discrepancy in relation to that question is not calculable, I will assume that to be the case. If it is incorrect, it won’t effect the integrity of the following analysis, because it reveals fundamental problems with the scenario as a whole, which can’t be solved by shifting the problem from one part of the plane to another. An equal force must have been generated forward of the centre point, behind it, above it, and below it. (At least potentially so, if not blocked by the ground) So we must draw a 3D circle around the centre of the plane, and know that every point on the edge of that circle was impacted by a force sufficient to cremate the tail of a plane, and that all points closer to the centre were subject to an even greater force.

If the plane blew up as it was entering the building, there are two basic scenarios. 1) The centre of the explosion was inside the building. For example, the plane entered with the wings sharply tilted, and exploded after the wings had entered (and passed above) the impact area. 2) The explosion occurred outside the building, because it happened earlier in the process than in scenario 1).

The previous analysis of the depth problem tells us that scenario 1) is impossible. If the plane was half way into the building (77 ft of penetration) then even allowing for 12 ft of compacting, the nose would have been hard up against the second ring when the explosion took place. There’s no sign of such damage to the second ring. Nevertheless, I’ll explore the full implications of the “inside the building” scenario, just to make sure that nothing is left out.

Assuming half the plane to be inside the building, and the explosion to be just inside the hole, at this time the tail is still about 77 ft to the front of the wall. Its exposure to the blast is partly shielded by the fact that the explosion is actually inside the collapsing section of the building. The same goes for the nose which is, allowing for compaction, about 60 ft forward of the blast centre, outside the collapsing ring. And yet both were cremated. So we have to increase the alleged power of the blast to account for the shielding of the front and rear extremities. We can’t quantify the shielding, and must note that because the wall had been smashed down by this time, the shielding may have been small, but we can say that the force of the explosion was something greater than what was needed to cremate the nose and tail, had the plane been in the open.

What would have received the greatest impact from this blast? The centre of the fuselage, and the first ring of the building. The explosion was right inside it. So the building was subject to a force significantly greater than that of the cremated nose and tail.

What was the effect on the building of this massive blast? Nothing, apparently. It had already been split open and weakened by the impact of the plane entering it. It appears to have suffered no extra damage as a result of the explosion. The wall face was negligibly damaged beyond a width of 65 ft - less, when we take into account that the original hole was smaller. Neither was the inside area of the wall, behind the face, significantly damaged width-wise beyond this point. Neither did the force of the explosion have any effect further into the building. The second ring, right next to the cremated nose, closer than the cremated tail, suffered no damage. If the explosion was centred in the middle of the 65 ft hole, just inside the building, then allowing for the width of the fuselage, it means that the wall suffered negligible sideways damage only 26 ft from the edges of the fuselage which was cremated. Speculation that the wall was of an extraordinarily strong construction, apart from suggesting an impossible strength, makes no contribution to explaining these anomalies. If it was so tough, then how did the plane slice its way into it to begin with? We’d have to believe that in the test of strength between the plane and the wall, that the plane penetrated the solid wall, but was then completely obliterated by an explosion which had no effect on the now damaged and weakened building. This isn’t possible.

There’s a further problem. A number of alleged witnesses claim that small pieces of the plane were scattered over a wide area. One (Mike Walter) said he saw debris up on the overpass. Penny Elgas (report reviewed later in this article, said a piece of the plane landed in her car. A number of photos (examined later) purport to show small fragments of the plane, flung out considerable distances from the scene. But curiously, none of these alleged witnesses or any of the photos describe showers of rubble from the building. Why aren’t there stone pieces scattered all over the place, if the building was the centrepoint of the explosion?

But this is an aside from the main proof. The scenario of the explosion inside the building is impossible on two counts:

1) That an explosion of sufficient power to cremate a 100 ton aircraft, some of it at distances of 77 ft away, could have no impact on an already partly demolished stone building, which was at the centre of the blast.

2) That not enough length of plane could have entered the building, unless one is to suggest that the explosion occurred right at the front of the plane, which then forces one to increase its alleged power by orders of magnitude to cremate the rear, more than 140 ft away, compounding the problems of reason 1.

So it’s impossible for the explosion to have occurred inside the building.

In order to keep the 757 theory alive, we must postulate that the explosion took place outside the building. Then we have the same problem in reverse. Suppose the centre point of the explosion was the centre of the plane. If it took place when the wings were close to the wall, then the wall was still subject to the maximum force. A greater force than that applied to the tail. And the nose is now the part that’s shielded, inside the wall. If the 125ft wingspan was parallel and right next to the wall and was cremated, then there should be 125 ft of severe damage along the wall, and an extensive area of gradually declining damage beyond this point. If we tilt the wings at 45 degrees, to reduce the effective horizontal width and effective height of the wingspan to about 90 ft, meaning that no part of the wing was further than 90 ft from the blast, we must still postulate an area of massively destructive force at least 90 ft wide along the wall face, with gradually declining severity of damage further to the sides. There can’t have been a sudden cutoff point for damage to the wall. It would have been pulverized to nothing at the centre point, gradually reducing in severity, to cosmetic damage such as broken windows, blackening and superficial face damage at a point significantly beyond the wingspan width. Since the wall shows negligible damage beyond 65 ft, the damaged area isn’t wide enough to accommodate speculation of the nearby wings being blasted into nothing. Even if the plane went in at the crazy angle of a 90 degree wing tilt, the wing extremities covering a total span of 125 ft, above and below the explosion still have to be cremated, meaning that an equal span of force has to be generated sideways along the wallface. And yet somehow the building escapes with negligible damage beyond a total span of 65 ft. So this didn’t happen either.

The last hope is to suggest that the explosion took place almost at the instant of impact, before the plane had significantly penetrated the wall. This places the centre of the blast the maximum possible distance from the wall - about 77 ft. It makes no difference to try to compound this by suggesting that the blast was also further towards the back of the plane, because then we have to increase its power, to account for the cremated nose. The wall, at the point where the nose struck, still has to be receiving a force equal to that necessary to destroy the nose.

If we draw the 77 ft circle around the middle of the plane, the extremities of the 65 ft hole are only about 8 ft beyond the circle, meaning that this width of wall should still have been subject to massive force, and that we should still be seeing very significant damage beyond this width. At 50 ft either side of the centre of the nose, creating a wallface length of 100 ft, the wall is only about 16 ft from the circle. So although the scenario is not as ridiculous as the previous scenarios, it’s still impossible to reconcile the narrow area of significant damage to the wall with the enormous forces being inflicted on the nearby plane. When one considers that only 16 ft away, the blast is powerful enough to cremate a plane tail or nose, the impact on the 100 ft section of wall should be dramatic.

And this scenario creates another problem. It requires the postulation that there was no significant penetration of the plane into the wall. In this case, then virtually all of the damage we see to the wall, was caused by the explosion, not the impact. In this case, it’s very difficult to create a plausible scenario for the shape and size of the damage. The force would have been at its greatest in the centre where the nose was obliterated. It would have been gradually less as you look to the sides. So the original damage should have been V shaped, with the centre point of the V, in the middle of the 65 ft hole, and the wide shallow area at the outside wall. No such evidence exists. What we see is a neat rectangular hole. The obvious counter argument is that the original shape of the hole has been masked by the later collapse of one wedge of the wall, and that the early photos are too obscured by smoke and water to tell us exactly how far and in what shape the original damage extended. Quite so, but this admits that most of the damage wasn’t even caused by the explosion directly, but simply by the secondary collapse, meaning that the original area of direct damage was tiny. For example, the points on the wall 20 ft each side of the centre, creating a total span of 40 ft, were only 5 ft further away than the tail, which was allegedly cremated. So this area should have been ferociously demolished in the original damage. Early photos show this wasn’t the case, and only 15 ft further to each side - points which are only about 9 ft further from the blast than the tail, all we see are broken windows. Some are still intact.

This photo demonstrates the absurdity of this scenario
http://www.pbase.com/image/536173

The windows you can see just outside the damage area are only about 10 ft further away from the blast centre than the nose or tail would have been.

Trying to solve this problem is futile. The fundamental problem is that the modest damage to the wall is not only irreconcilable with the impact of a such a large plane, but also irreconcilable with the explosive forces needed to destroy one.

So any scenario of the plane hitting the building at a 90 degree fuselage angle is impossible. The wreckage is not inside the building, is not outside, and the force of a blast powerful enough to cremate the missing wreckage was impossible in the context of the wall damage.


Next Contents
The World Trade Center Demolition
and the So-Called War on Terrorism
Serendipity Home Page