Reply #38: I thought it hit the second-floor slab...

[AZCat]

along with some objects outside.

But yeah, you have the right idea (I think). The problem lies in assigning how much energy was used on each column. The same force applied at different places on a column will have different results, so a column that displays more damage will not necessarily have used more of the "energy budget" of the aircraft.

This is where numerical simulations, like the ones the NIST is using for the WTC, are useful. They can simulate the collision (several times, if necessary - like in Monte Carlo methods) and can give an idea of how the energy dissipated throughout the structure.