“...No one was clever enough or quick enough on their feet to envision borrowing the helicopters power companies use to wash off the insulators on high voltage lines as aerial firefighters.
Directly injecting water at the fire floors might have partially compensated for the sprinklers having been shut off.*...”
Just when you think you’ve heard it all...
BFLR
*shrug* Follow the link. My speculation, labeled as such.
Black smoke. Adequate water would have made it white with steam.
That does have possibilities. Cooling the fire floors, even if the fire was not completely extinguished, would have helped maintain structural integrity by keeping support members cooler, and might (at the least) have bought time for people to get out.
A good steam conversion or fire retardants might have snuffed enough of the fire or bought enough time by cooling structural members to get people above the fire floors out--especially if it could have been achieved.
Not very many had figured on the fire weakening the remaining structural supports (which without the fire would likely have continued to support the structure) to the degree they would no longer support the load above them, either. There were a lot of unprecedented situations there.
As for using the helicopters, it would have been worth a try anyway.
Sooner or later, other high rise fires will occur (whether or not terrorism is involved), and further developing the technology to effectively fight them is a good idea anyway.