(I realize that it's difficult to find humor in the Sep. 11 act of terrorism, but the following satirical piece captures so well the sheer absurdity of their actions)

Mohammed Atta has been posthumously nominated for an IgNobel award in Civil Engineering for

"Tests of the Structural Integrity of Large Buildings
with Impacts from Large Airplanes"

Previous work:

In 1944-1945, the Japanese armed forces performed some pioneering work in this field; they performed an intensive series of tests of the structural integrity of US warships under collisions with Japanese aircraft.
These "kamikaze" tests had mixed success; though some smaller ships were sunk with such collisions, larger ships generally suffered much less damage,
and could sometimes continue to operate with relatively little hindrance. The most likely reason for this limited success was the relatively small aircraft
that the Japanese had used.

Materials and methods:

Mohammed Atta and several colleagues had done intensive research and preparation for their experiments, doing a detailed study of airliner floor layouts, fuel consumption, flight routes, etc. They also prepared themselves by acquiring a supply of knives and probably-fraudulent bombs. These were used to take over 4 airliner flights by overpowering and intimidating their pilots and flight attendants.

The flights were carefully selected so that the planes would have a large quantity of easily-combustible cargo for added destructive capability: their fuel;
this was accomplished by choosing transcontinental flights that originated near the locations of the intended targets. Once they were taken over, these were flown toward 4 selected buildings, with the intention of crashing into them.

These buildings were the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and possibly either the White House or the Congress building. Though the experimenters were aware that success in these experiments would lead to their deaths, they motivated themselves to continue by convincing themselves that their deaths would be followed by them awakening in a realm with an abundance of water, gardens, precious metals and stones, fancy fabrics, fresh fruit, milk, wine, honey,
charming boy servants, and 72 very attractive young women for each one of them.

Results:

The World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were successfully crashed into; the fourth flight did not reach its target because that plane's passengers
mounted a partially-successful attack on the experimenters, an attack followed by a crash in a rural area.

Of those buildings, the World Trade Center buildings were successfully destroyed, and one segment of the Pentagon was partially destroyed. However, these experiments were only a partial success because
the two WTC towers did not collapse immediately
and because the damage to the Pentagon was relatively localized.

The two WTC towers survived for times of an hour and 1.5 hours after the collisions; the delayed collapse is probably due to the weakening of structural components from the heat of the large fires started by the airplanes' fuel. The Pentagon's damage was relatively localized because its collided-with segment had had some recent renovations that had included fireproofing and similar safety measures.

None of the experimenters appear to have survived their experiments; for this reason, they are not listed as authors of this paper.

Future Work:

It will be difficult to repeat these experiments, because experimenters are likely to face much greater hostility from airliner crews and passengers. Previous policies had been based on the premise that those who try to take over airliners would try to survive and not attempt anything like the experiments reported here; thus, passengers and crew would try not to antagonize their attackers. Though that premise had been abundantly confirmed for over two decades,
these recent experiments have provided some spectacular counterexamples.