Do you think the 9/11 hijackers knew that the WTC buildings would collapse?

[u/JMRooDukes808]

I really don’t know where else to ask this. There is obviously an overload of information about the event itself online, but one thing I can’t find out is if the hijackers intended to, or knew that the WTC buildings would collapse. Do you think they just planned on the impact and fires to be the extent of the damage caused? As far as I know, no steel structure buildings in history had collapsed from fire at that point, so it makes me wonder if they actually “succeeded” in their plan more than they intended.

Edit: no conspiracies please, that was not the point of my post

[u/Christmas2025]

100% no—everyone was incredibly surprised that day when they did.

If the hijackers had anticipated the physics of what would’ve happened, they would’ve hit the buildings as low as possible and after 9:00 AM, as this would’ve resulted in tens of thousands of more deaths. In the North Tower (the first hit), no one above the floor where the airplane impacted survived, as all the staircases were severed. If Atta had hit a lower floor and after 9:00 AM (instead of 8:45 AM), tens of thousands more would’ve assuredly died from that tower alone, and the tower also would’ve collapsed much sooner, and potentially toppled over, which would’ve caused even more deaths below.

[u/Nickppapagiorgio → u/Christmas2025]

they would’ve hit the buildings as low as possible and after 9:00 AM, as this would’ve resulted in tens of thousands of more deaths.

I don't think the time would have changed. If they were going for maximum number of deaths, they would have hit later, regardless of whether they thought the towers would come down or not.

They were going for maximum global audience, not maximum number of deaths. The 8 o'clock hour(AM) in New York City is probably the hour with the most human beings awake on Earth at any one time. All of Europe and Africa was in the middle of the day. Most of Asia would be awake too. It would have been 8 PM in China, and 9 PM in Japan. In South America, it would have been 7 AM to 10 AM. The only areas that were in the middle of the night were remote stretches of the Pacific.

If you start bumping it to later in the day in NYC, you begin to lose the live Asian audience as the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians begin to go to sleep, and they represent about 4 out of 10 humans. This was about publicity for Al-Qaeda, and that time of day was maximum publicity.

[u/SenatorStone → u/Nickppapagiorgio]

Sorry but why is this being upvoted? If this is your personal speculation then maybe you could clarify that. If the timing of the attack was dictated to attract the most attention then why did Bin Laden/ Al Qaeda initially deny responsibility for the attacks?