| The impact of a jumbo jet on a building is relatively modest. Not good to those on the directly affected floors, but even high-speed direct impacts are sustainable. It's the jet fuel that melts steel beams. Kinetic energy = 0.5 * m * v^2 The energy density of kerosene (jet fuel) is about 33 MJ/l We can compare the impacts of American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767-233ER weighing about 180 tonnes, with about 38,000 l of fuel aboard, with the energy capacity of that fuel, comparing both to barrels of oil equivalent, using GNU Units: You have: 0.5 * (180 tonnes) * (748 kph)^2
You want: barreloil
* 0.63494668
/ 1.5749354 And for the fuel (I'm assuming 1kg/l for kerosene, this is slightly high, but the fuel quantity isn't precisely known. Rough accuracy is sufficient.) You have: 0.907 * 38 tonoil
You want: barreloil
* 235.81404
/ 0.0042406296 The energy of the plane's fuel is roughly 370x that of its kinetic impact. |