A modern airplane, even the fighters, are built on the principle of the
eggshell. There is no 'keel' as on a ship. The strength is in the
stressed skin and the wing spars, if the design uses them. The F4, for
example, has no spars per se; they are spanwise ribs machined into the
upper and lower wing skins. I have been a member of official accident
investigation teams for four fighter crashes. The husky looking
creation of aluminum titanium and steel simply disintegrates when it
hits terra firm at 500plus. The next step is to retrieve all the pieces
and try to lay them out on a hangar floor in their relative positions
on the airplane. Then examine each one to see what can be found out.
When the bird goes in fast and steep - there isn't much left that you
couldn't hold in your hand. Parts of the engine(s), landing gear, and
many many small pieces of crumpled compressed aluminum - if they
haven't burned in the post-crash fire. The idea that a large
recognizable chunk of airplane fuselage and tail will be left sticking
out of a hole in the ground is totally ridiculous. What do these people
think would be left of a standard automobile if it hit the side of a
dirt hill at 400 mph? They sure as hell have seen on TV what's left of
a NASCAR racer when it hits the wall at a measly 200 mph. Somehow these
conspiracy fiends are devoid of reasoning ability; all is cast aside as
they pursue their little fantasies. If only they would keep these
baseless speculations to themselves and stop wasting bandwidth.
Walt BJ