Editing 966: Jet Fuel

{{comic
| number    = 966
| date      = October 19, 2011
| title     = Jet Fuel
| image     = jet_fuel.png
| titletext = The 'controlled demolition' theory was concocted by the government to distract us. '9/11 was an inside job' was an inside job!
}}

==Explanation==
This is another comic in the [[:Category:My Hobby|My Hobby series]], where [[Randall Munroe|Randall]] talks about a strange hobby. This comic is a reference to the "{{rw|9/11}} {{w|9/11 truther|Was An Inside Job}}" theory that the {{w|World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center}} in {{w|New York City}} was blown up by a "controlled demolition". This is a fairly {{rw|9/11#Molten_steel_was_found_in_the_basement_seven_weeks_later.2C_and_jet_fuel_can.27t_melt_steel_beams|common argument}} that is seen on the internet.

[[Hairy]]'s statement that "jet fuel can't burn hot enough to melt steel" references a common argument used by conspiracy theorists in references to the attacks. The official investigation concluded that the combination of the impact of the jets and the subsequent fire sufficiently compromised the structural steel beams of the towers that they lost integrity and collapsed. People who do not accept this conclusion frequently insist that the flame temperatures resulting from burning jet fuel is less than the melting point of steel, and so argue that the official explanation must be wrong, supporting their argument that the towers were deliberately brought down by explosives, planted by some conspiracy.

This argument has been {{rw|9/11#Molten_steel_was_found_in_the_basement_seven_weeks_later.2C_and_jet_fuel_can.27t_melt_steel_beams|frequently refuted by experts}}, on a number of grounds. No fuel has a single burning temperature, the temperature of any given flame depends on a number of factors, which can be hard to predict in uncontrolled situtions. In addition, multiple fuels could have contributed to the fire, including not only the jet fuel but also flammables inside the building, and even metals (such as aluminum) that would have been pulverized and dispersed by the impact. Importantly, it is not necessary for beams to melt in order to collapse a building. Metals lose much of their structural strength well below their melting point. If enough beams were sufficiently weakened, they would fail under the weight of the building, putting more pressure on the remaining beams, which would then be likely to fail, and so on. 
 
Cueball, however, doesn't argue with Hairy's premises, but instead tries a different tack, by appealing to a completely different conspiracy theory, concerning {{rw|Chemtrail|chemtrails}}.  The Chemtrails conspiracy theory claims that the {{w|Contrail}}s left behind aircraft contain mind-control agents planted by the US Government (or any other government, {{w|reptiloids}}, {{w|Freemasons}}, etc.), which are used to drug the population en masse. Cueball operates under the assumption that this theory is true, and points out that this means typical passenger jets would be equipped with containers of these chemicals, which could potentially burn at a high temperature. Because these chemicals are entirely hypothetical, no assumption about them can possibly be disproven. This puts Hairy in a position of either having to argue against the chemtrail conspiracy theory, while arguing for a {{rw|9/11}} conspiracy theory or admit that there are factors he can't account for. In the comic, he goes with the latter course of action.

The title text is the natural "double down" on a theory which says that the conspiracy theory itself was concocted by the government and was supposed to distract from the truth, a parodic theory already seen in ''South Park'' episode {{w|Mystery of the Urinal Deuce}}.

==Transcript==
:[Hairy throws his arms out as he talks to Cueball, who answers while lifting a hand palm up.]
:Hairy: 9/11 was an inside job! Jet fuel can't burn hot enough to melt steel!
:Cueball: Well, remember — jet fuel wasn't the only thing on those planes. They would've also carried tanks full of the mind-control agents airliners use to make chemtrails. 
:Cueball: Who ''knows'' what temperature that stuff burns at!
:Hairy: Whoa. 
:Hairy: Good point!

:[Caption below the panel:]
:My Hobby: Playing conspiracy theories off against each other.

==Trivia==
For those wondering: it is true that kerosene does not burn hot enough in air to ''melt'' steel, but it does burn hot enough to cut the steel's supporting strength roughly in half, which is more than enough to collapse a building weighing thousands of tons.  (Although standard engineering practice is to use a safety factor of three, and a safety factor of two is sufficient to allow for a 50% reduction in strength, over half of the columns in the two towers were severed in the initial impact, increasing the stress on the remaining columns.)

This argument is debunked [https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/9/11 here].

Cueball messing with 9/11 truther conspiracy theorists was also the subject of [[690: Semicontrolled Demolition]], and in [[496: Secretary: Part 3]] Black Hat claims the Twin Towers never actually collapsed. Chemtrails are mentioned again later in [[1677: Contrails]] and [[1803: Location Reviews]].
{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Hairy]]
[[Category:My Hobby]]
[[Category:Conspiracy theory]]
[[Category:9/11]]