A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength tempered steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box column holding up a skyscraper?

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site. Fuel for example, will just move out of the way. It's not going to do shit.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. The lips that make it into an "H" on each side that are part of the attachment points actually make it even stronger in the direction of impact. You have to basically crumple both sides as well as both faces. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.

A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength tempered steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box column holding up a skyscraper?

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site. Fuel for example, will just move out of the way. It's not going to do shit.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. The lips that make it into an "H" on each side that are part of the attachment points actually make it even stronger in the direction of impact. You have to basically crumple the entire side as well. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.

A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength tempered steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box column holding up a skyscraper?

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site. Fuel for example, will just move out of the way. It's not going to do shit.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.

A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength tempered steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box column holding up a skyscraper?

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.

A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength tempered steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box beam.

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.

A wing is just a bunch of little boxes with ribbing in a hatch pattern. Those boxes are made out of strong aluminum, however, the steel that the building is made out of is "high strength steel," not "mild steel." From the paper I linked above:

How was it possible that the relatively weak, light and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

They don't say specifically how strong the steel is, though they might in their actual analytical paper, which I didn't find (I didn't look that hard). It is "high strength steel," which is anywhere from about 6 to 15 times stronger than the strongest aluminum per volume. On the airplane, it doesn't matter how many boxes there are to give it structure. Once one crumples, the rest behind will follow, just like a martial artist breaking blocks. The separation between the blocks makes it easy after the first. The test then will be for any one individual box.

it's damn near as hard as mild steal

It's not "mild steel," it's not "rebar," its high strength steel in a box column designed to hold up the, at the time, tallest skyscraper in the world.

So the relevant question is, how thick are each of the individual cross beams in the wing v. the thickness of the box beam.

The weight of the fuel, the number of boxes in the wing, all that other stuff is far less important because of the dynamics of impact and the narrow focus of the actual impact site.

The aircraft doesn't need to cut the beams it just needs to punch it out of the way.

Have you ever tried to punch through 10mm of hardened steel in a box design? Those bolts are even thicker. The failure mode will not be the bolts. You have to actually break the whole box. Try to do it with aluminum. Just try. See how thick you have to make the aluminum. It will have to be 6 to 15 times thicker to even hold it's own, which is why the model created by the government proofers did exactly that, modeling the wing as if it were just one box with the collective thickness of all the wing boxes, which is ludicrous.