To: DavesM who wrote (2861 ) 10/6/2001 9:01:20 AM From: RocketMan Respond to It depends how you do the calculation. I've seen estimates as small as a few thousandths of a kt, but that only measured the direct impact energy, to a few kt's, including the impact, the fires, and the collapse (which released the most energy). Here is a calculation posted on a materials science newsgroup that appears reasonable. He estimates .14 kt for the fire and .13 kt for the collapse in each building, or a bit over a half a kt for both buildings. Certainly within the range of a small tactical nuke. As this guy comments, this also compares favorably to Hiroshima, taking into account the time scale difference (seconds in Hiroshima, hours at the WTC).The morning of 11 September 2001 hosted four planes fueled for intercontinental flight hijacked by Islamic terrorists. Two were flown into New York's World Trade Center twin towers, eventually collapsing both 110-story mammoth edifices and killing some 5,500 civilians, plus ancillary damage. Impacts were 200,000+ lbs at a speed of 300-350 mph. This is 2.2x10^9 joules or 0.00053 Ktonnes nuclear equivalent. Remarkably, the impacts were small stuff compared to what followed.
