In 1949, the predecessor to NASA decided to do some testing to find out why crashing planes went boom. None of those namby-pamby computer simulations for them! (Well, to be fair, they had no computers to speak of). Instead, they simulated crashing lots of actual planes (many of them left over from the Berlin Airlift). Lots of cool footage ensued (and, ultimately, some life-saving regulations).
These Full-Scale Plane Crash Tests From the 1950s Are Absurd
Learning about how planes explode by exploding some gat dang planes.