PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - United Flight 93, What actually happened ? [somewhat edited by JT]
Old 10th Aug 2006, 20:26
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nugpot
 
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Originally Posted by SUPERMNNN
As the result, there were three seperate events happened in the sky before the plane crashed, which contributed to the three isolated debris fields.
Or one event/manoevering sequence which lasted 2 minutes. Looking at the CVR transcript, the terrorists were making serious control inputs during this time. ("push, push, push" and "roll it") An airliner is not designed for high "g" flight, especially negative g. You only need one fastener on a panel to fail for the whole panel or cowling to be shed from the aircraft. In previous accidents where aircraft were subjected to high g-loads (like flight in thunderstorms), there was significant damage and debris away from the crash site.

High sideslip loads on the aircraft could easily make engine pod attachments fail. In the A300 crash in New York a few months later, both engines had departed from the wings with the sideloads on the aircraft after the vertical tail had failed.
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