Why Buildings Fall Down: How Structures Fail

The authors examine buildings of all kinds, from ancient domes like Istanbul's Hagia Sophia to the state-of-the-art Hartford Civic Arena. Their subjects range from the man-caused destruction of the Parthenon to the earthquake damage of 1989 in Armenia and San Francisco.
The stories that make up Why Buildings Fall Down are in the end very human ones, tales of the interaction of people and nature, of architects, engineers, builders, materials, and natural forces all coming together in sometimes dramatic (and always instructive) ways. B/W line drawings

MARCH 31, 1949

JOHN W MCKAIG had stepped out of his house and was going up the laneway to check the mail, at roughly about 10:30 am, when he heard an airplane flying nearby. Thought nothing of it really. He lived close to the airport, and he heard twin engine airplanes, like these, all the time.

But, when he finally did look up, what he saw, startled him!

He set his eyes on a Dow Chemical Beech 18 coming from the west, and it was heading directly for his house!

His wife and the children, he thought. Have to warn them… to get out. He started running back to the house…

Good grief, the aircraft was now flying only about twelve feet off the ground! And look at how fast it was going!

Suddenly, AJ Bowie, the Dow Chemical pilot, violently swerved the company's Beech 18, just narrowly missing the occupied home. John noted that Beech 18 had already passed between the Dobinson home, and the Dobinson barn safely, when the collision course toward his homeshead been adopted.

Thankfully, the pilot had been able to make this crucial, last second, adjustment.

John watched, spellbound, as the Beech with its wheels down, dropped even lower, and continued on.

Finally, tragically, it plowed into a knoll that was on the far reaches of his property, only about a half mile away. As it hit the knoll, flash fire flames engulfed the entire cabin of the aircraft. It became a flaming streak as the plane bounced, and continued forward for another 200 feet before it heaved to a full stop.

ERNIE DOBINSON who was entering his barn when the Beech 18 flew by, watched in horror as it passed, only to crash into the knoll.

He was the first person to arrive on scene.

What he saw when he got to the flaming wreck astounded him.

Somebody, was actually, getting out of the airplane!

Soon enough, they'd learn it was Calvin Campbell. And he was trying frantically to pull something out of the wreck!

NO! Not something! Someone!!

Sadly… it was his trapped wife!

But the heat was too much, and Calvin finally stumbled backwards to safety. Momentarily. He attempted yet again to enter the burning plane, but had to fall back even more quickly. The heat was so intense. He couldn't accept it, but he knew then, that she was already gone.

Calvin, and Ernie watched helplessly now, from a much safer distance, as the inferno consumed the rest of the cabin.

The engines and the Beech undercarriage were behind the wreck! But how?

WILLIAM CORFIELD was flying overhead and was amazed at what was unfolding on the ground below him. He swung his single seater around, and immediately dropped down to the runway, which surprisingly, was almost just below him. By the time he had stopped and was out of his airplane at the other end of the runway, there was now an RCAF airport truck bearing down on him. Someone motioned him to get on, and so he, too, was on his way back to the crash.

When William got out to the crash, about a dozen folk had gathered. They were milling about the wreck. John and Ernie brought Calvin, who was now overcome with grief, over to the RCAF truck. He had to be helped aboard, he could hardly stand, and as soon as Calvin had settled in, the truck lurched forward, and left, speedily making its way to St Joseph's Hospital.

Calvin couldn't understand it. How did this happen? Sure the weather had been sketchy, yet the flight crew didn't seem overly concerned. And now, everyone, was gone!

What would he tell his kids?

William walked up to the Beech 18. The onlookers were silent. Courtesies, were extended through nods. Stoic, these Ontario farming types, he thought.

The Beech 18 was not an airplane Bill liked. He wasn't impressed with it at all. The manufacturer sung a different tune, for sure… but he had flown the "18", and he didn't like it.

As he approached charred wreckage, "– – – – – –", he thought to himself, "…the Beech's magnesium roof was gone!!"

William was absolutely shocked. Since the Beech's roof was conveniently gone, burned off, he could lean over the still mildly smouldering fuselage, and look right inside the cabin, and into the cockpit!

Like some sort of horrendously, gruesome, displayed cutaway!

Everyone was in position.

The five occupants though were burned to an unrecognizable mound, of charred, glazed flesh, and clothing materials.

Willard, and the women, or even the flight crew, hadn't had a chance to move. They were roasted alive in that final 200 foot journey inside that burning coffin!

What a horrible way for these RCAF airmen to go, William thought.

A flash fire had enveloped the Dow airplane as it struck the knoll, and that horrific fire was fed by the airplane's full to capacity fuel load.

At this point in time, no one knew that it wasn't an RCAF aircraft, as all aircraft registration and identification lettering, had been burned off the Beech's fuselage. And the RCAF had lots of Beech 18s.

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Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read

Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should. The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American watches 153 hours of television a month. In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. Together, the "big six" absolutely dominate news and entertainment in the United States. But even those areas of the media that the "big six" do not completely control are becoming increasingly concentrated. For example, Clear Channel now owns over 1000 radio stations across the United States. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are increasingly dominating the Internet.

But it is the "big six" that are the biggest concerns. When you control what Americans watch, hear and read you gain a great deal of control over what they think. They don't call it "programming" for nothing.

Back in 1983 it was bad enough that about 50 corporations dominated U.S. media. But since that time, power over the media has rapidly become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people....

In 1983, fifty corporations dominated most of every mass medium and the biggest media merger in history was a $340 million deal. … [I]n 1987, the fifty companies had shrunk to twenty-nine. … [I]n 1990, the twenty-nine had shrunk to twenty three. … [I]n 1997, the biggest firms numbered ten and involved the $19 billion Disney-ABC deal, at the time the biggest media merger ever. … [In 2000] AOL Time Warner’s $350 billion merged corporation [was] more than 1,000 times larger [than the biggest deal of 1983].

--Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly, Sixth Edition, (Beacon Press, 2000), pp. xx—xxi
Today, six colossal media giants tower over all the rest. Much of the information in the chart below comes from mediaowners.com. The chart below reveals only a small fraction of the media outlets that these six behemoths actually own....

Time Warner

Home Box Office (HBO)
Time Inc.
Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
CW Network (partial ownership)
TMZ
New Line Cinema
Time Warner Cable
Cinemax
Cartoon Network
TBS
TNT
America Online
MapQuest
Moviefone
Castle Rock
Sports Illustrated
Fortune
Marie Claire
People Magazine

Walt Disney

ABC Television Network
Disney Publishing
ESPN Inc.
Disney Channel
SOAPnet
A&E
Lifetime
Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
Buena Vista Records
Disney Records
Hollywood Records
Miramax Films
Touchstone Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation Studios
Buena Vista Games
Hyperion Books

Viacom

Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Black Entertainment Television (BET)
Comedy Central
Country Music Television (CMT)
Logo
MTV
MTV Canada
MTV2
Nick Magazine
Nick at Nite
Nick Jr.
Nickelodeon
Noggin
Spike TV
The Movie Channel
TV Land
VH1

News Corporation

Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Fox Television Stations
The New York Post
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Beliefnet
Fox Business Network
Fox Kids Europe
Fox News Channel
Fox Sports Net
Fox Television Network
FX
My Network TV
MySpace
News Limited News
Phoenix InfoNews Channel
Phoenix Movies Channel
Sky PerfecTV
Speed Channel
STAR TV India
STAR TV Taiwan
STAR World
Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
Times Literary Supplement Magazine
Times of London
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox International
20th Century Fox Studios
20th Century Fox Television
BSkyB
DIRECTV
The Wall Street Journal
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Interactive Media
FOXTEL
HarperCollins Publishers
The National Geographic Channel
National Rugby League
News Interactive
News Outdoor
Radio Veronica
ReganBo

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