"Capt. Rob" wrote in message
oups.com...
The aircraft struck the ground immediately before hitting the Pentagon.
It
is speculated that the impact with the ground probably broke the wing
spars
and the wings folded back along the fuselage as the plane entered the
building. The entrance hole was actually between the first and second
floors, lending credence to the idea that the plane actually bounced
slightly after striking the ground.


Virtually no wing fragments were found outside the building and the
lawn outside is also mostly intact. Planes, loaded with fuel have hot
mountainsides...and they still found parts of the wings, tail section
and so on.

Hitting (hotting?) a mountainside is radically different from penetrating a
solid concrete or brick building. The wings would be fragmented and then
melted into oblivion with the subsequent conflagration. Don't forget that
al Qaeda chose transcontinental flights in order to have maximum fuel on
board.

Jet fuel burns almost instantly, very fast,

Wrong. Jet fuel is nothing but relatively unrefined petroleum. It's far
more like fuel oil or diesel than gasoline. It burns more slowly than
gasoline or kerosene. And in an enclosed space, such as a *building*, the
amount of oxygen available to the blaze is regulated by how much can rush in
through the hole created by the penetration of the fuse/wings/etc., plus any
collapse of the roof. The fire burned extrememly hot for well over 15
mintues--plenty of time to melt all of the aluminum parts, and hot enough to
incinerate any magnesium parts. Incidentally the NSTB reported that the
inrushing wind created by the oxygen demand of the fireball exceeded 300mph
in spots. That alone caused some destruction of the building(s).

which is why
even in the most violent crashes much of the plane can be found.

See above. Equating a mountainside crash with a penetration of a solid
building is something I'd expect from you, Bubbles.

Max