Kamikaze Small Plane Pilot Hits Tampa's Tallest Building

newsmax.com ^

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

A fifteen-year-old student pilot apparently trying to recreate the 9/11 kamikaze attack on the World Trade Center slammed a stolen Cessna 172 private airplane Saturday into Tampa, Florida's Bank of America building, the city's tallest structure.

Charles J. Bishop, a 15-year-old flight student from Great Britain, stole the small aircraft from Albert Whitted Municipal Airport in nearby St. Petersburg at about 5 p.m., law enforcement sources said.

Bishop was killed as the Cessna carrying 56 gallons of fuel slammed into the Bank of America tower, leaving the tail section of the plane dangling precariously from its side.

The fuel did not ignite, though authorities remain concerned over the potential for a Twin Tower-like conflagration.

Despite sharing national origin with American Airlines shoe bomber Richard Reid and attempting to mimic the 9/11 hijackers, the FBI said Bishop's stunt had no connection to terrorism.

A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was in pursuit of Bishop's plane after being alerted by local air traffic controllers of the unauthorized take off. Witnesses said the plane made no effort to avoid the Tampa skyscraper as the Coast Guard chopper crew frantically signaled it to land at a nearby Tampa airport.

The plane's wings tore from the fuselage when it struck the 23rd and 24th floors, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said.

Bishop, a student at East Lake High School in Palm Harbor, Florida who had taken flying classes for two years, was at the airport with his mother and grandmother performing a pre-flight check when he got into the plane and unexpectedly took off, Pinellas County Sheriff's Department Sgt. Greg Tita said.

[Jennifer in Florida]

Don't ya wonder where those planes were that should have shot it down?

Exactly! How many times did they "warn" him before he smashed into the building? Was anybody else hurt in this?

[PatrioticAmerican]

What was the last thing that went through this kid's mind? (hehe)

[Cvengr]

I disagree with you on the melting of steel. Since it seems so easy to melt steel with jet fuel or diesel, try melting your barbecue pit some time and see how successful you might be. Air flow, fuel consumption, temperature and total heat available don' t add up to melt the steel in order to cause the failures observed quantitatively. Differentials in expansion rates between the concrete and the steel would have produced far greater failing shear stress combined with the weight of the floor above at the connections of the floors to the outer walls. Additional loading on the assymetric nature of catastrophic failure from the aircraft s impact and damage to internal columns increased the catalytic nature of the initial failure of the first floors to drop, but the heating of the steal only reduced total strength. The steel didn't melt.

[Hugh Akston]

Since it seems so easy to melt steel with jet fuel or diesel, try melting your barbecue pit some time and see how successful you might be.

I doubt some charcoal would have caused the steel in the WTC to melt or buckle.

However, if you took your backyard grill, put it in a pool containing the jet fuel that a fully loaded airplane would contain, and set the pool ablaze, the grill would melt.

[Hugh Akston]

By the way- if you were trying to argue a distinction without a difference, namely that the steel did not actually "melt" but rather just had buckled, having had its ability to retain its formed shape due to the heat, then I will concede that point.

[MinuteGal]

I hope the authorities immediately obtained a warrant to search this kid's bedroom. Interesting to see what he has on his computer, in his closet and under the bed. Maybe even in the soles of his Nike's.

Leni

[blam]

"Don't ya wonder where those planes were that should have shot it down?"

They did scramble two F-15's from Homestead air base but they arrived after the crash.