Quote Originally Posted by awright View Post
I hate to show my ignorance of mechanics, but I do not understand how cutting the guy wires results in a vertical collapse straight down into its footprint instead of starting to tip over away from the cut wires and then buckling into a tangled mass of steel over a large area. I was not able to detect any explosive event at the base of the tower in the video. ]

I would think there would be no need to cut the guy wires. Rather, I would have expected that a small array of explosive charges or cutters like used on the wire anchor in the video at the tower base woulld better control the descent of the tower over a minimum area.

Help!
If you look closely, the tower jumps back away from the cut line. The lowest section falls over away from the camera and the rest then falls more or less straight down after the lower section fell away.

Safer for the workers and doesn't damage the foundation.


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I had a friend who was in the transmitter shack of a tower when the guys working on it removed too many braces to speed installing new waveguide. The tower twisted and came straight down right outside his building. He and one of the guys on the tower survived.