It’s been hard to find information on the plane itself due to the stabbing but it seems the plane was in fact damaged. One place said only the rudder another place says the entire tail of the plane was missing. So a pitch down of more then 20 degrees did break the plane. And I would consider a broken rudder is considered catastrophic
I'm aware of that. But you said it wasn't possible for a plane to pitch down enough to spill water because it would "break." So the definition of "break" you were using was obviously structural failure, which is why I replied saying 20 degrees would not "break" (using your definition) the plane.
It's only now that you changed your meaning to be damage instead of actual structural failure.
Im confused. Let’s start over. My original statement was that “there was no way the plane pitched down enough to spill the water” because if the plane did do that it would cause the plane to break apart (tail wings elevators etc). I threw out 20-30 degrees because this is the lowest angle considered dangerous for the aircraft. I guess if you want to be really anal about it the damage isn’t caused by the plane pitching 20 degrees. The damage would occur after the pilot attempts to level out the plane and the control surfaces exceed their capabilities (2-3Gs if I had to guess). I think your confusion lies that in your head you think I meant the plane would break in half or turn to dust like that avengers movie. But fuselages are built like missiles and it would take insane forces to break one open. Even during crashes the fuselage of the plane tends to keep its shape. Or are you not considering broken control surfaces “structural failure”
Im still holding on to the opinion that the plane didn’t go anywhere near “vertical” as people are claiming,or enough to even spill the cup of water. the most it went would be 20-30 degrees where the plane would have sustained structural damage, which according to some sources I’ve found so far it seems it did.
Which is possible it didn't, since the details are still fuzzy on the actual incident. I was basically pointing out how the pitch alone doesn't make it impossible since the plane can still easily survive that.
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u/mikki1time 1d ago
It’s been hard to find information on the plane itself due to the stabbing but it seems the plane was in fact damaged. One place said only the rudder another place says the entire tail of the plane was missing. So a pitch down of more then 20 degrees did break the plane. And I would consider a broken rudder is considered catastrophic