If a window with security window film breaks, the film holds the glass shards intact preventing them from becoming lethal projectiles. The glass may shatter but remain intact in its frame.
"The most significant damage in approximately 75 percent of all bombings is the failure of architectural glass," says Ron Massa, a security consultant quoted in Buildings magazine.
The 1998 bombings at the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania injured more than 5,000, many from broken glass.
Broken glass in the 1996 terrorist bombing of Khobar Towers at the U.S. Air Force base in Saudi Arabia resulted in more than 330 injuries, 80 to 90 percent caused by broken glass.
Obviously, the destruction of the World Trade Center was of such magnitude that no window system would have been able to survive.
However, the broken glass in adjacent buildings might not have occurred if those windows had been equipped with security window film.
Several government and corporate buildings in Washington are equipped with security window film. They include Smithsonian Institution buildings, Reagan National Airport, the Department of State, the Pentagon, the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building and the Department of Energy.
Window protections keep firms from being shattered
Existing glass in buildings was not designed to resist windblown debris, earthquakes, forced entry and explosions. Subject to such stresses, existing glass often breaks into lethal shards hurled from the window frame endangering occupants and passersby.