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Total Destruction Redux: F4 Phantom vs. Concrete Wall - Additional Camera Angles

What You Haven't Seen · 951.6K views · 2017-11-20 · 2:53

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Overview

Additional camera angles of the 1988 Sandia National Laboratories rocket-sled test in which an F-4 Phantom was crashed at about 500 mph into a block of reinforced concrete. The footage shows the aircraft disintegrating against the wall.

On Hacker News

HN commenters cite it in nuclear and engineering debates as evidence that concrete containment structures can withstand aircraft impacts.

Discussed on HN; no positive recommendation is recorded in this export · HN mentions 2021–2026

Topics

Aviation & aerospace engineeringCivil engineering & constructionNuclear power & fusion
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f-4 phantomsandiareinforced concretecrash testnuclear containment

What people said

nitwit005 · 2026-04 · Reference

They were designed with that in mind though. They were built to withstand an plane crash or attack. You may have seen the famous test of ramming a F4 Phantom into a reinforced concrete walls without much effect: [VIDEO] It's certainly possible to blow them up, but they very unlikely to melt down like Chernobyl did anymore due to all the effort put into preventing that. Easier to just launch radioactive materials at your enemy if that's the result you want.

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pawsforthought · 2022-07 · Reference

To your fifth point, nuclear reactor containment vessels can easily withstand a plane crashing into them [1]. [1]: [VIDEO]

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adamcharnock · 2022-06 · Reference

I don't think anything manmade and space-borne is going to have enough structural integrity to perform any kind of summersault upon impact at that velocity. See the fighter jet vs concrete wall video [1]. That was going at 500mph, and notice how the tail of the craft doesn't even perceptibly slow down. And a change in velocity would be required for the tail to rotate around (whether the impact is on an angle or head on) This space object was travelling at 5800mph, 11+ times the speed. Sure a meter or so of moon dust may be a bit softer, but its solid rock underneath right? I'd guess the equivalent would be putting a kitchen sponge between that fighter jet & concrete wall. [1] [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by What You Haven't Seen, played through YouTube.

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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