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Title: WTC 7: Silverstein's "Pull It" Explanation Examined
Source:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/silverstein_pullit.html
URL Source: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/silverstein_pullit.html
Published: Feb 10, 2007
Author: M Rivero
Post Date: 2007-02-10 20:28:49 by Kamala
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Keywords: 911
Views: 37392
Comments: 467
WTC 7: Silverstein's "Pull It" Explanation Examined On September 9, 2005, Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, issued the following statement on this issue: Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours. There were no casualties, thanks to the heroism of the Fire Department and the work of Silverstein Properties employees who evacuated tenants from the building. ... In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building. Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building. [US Department of State] There is a problem with the above statement, namely there were no firefighters in WTC 7: "No manual firefighting actions were taken by FDNY." [Fema Report] "There was no firefighting in WTC 7." [Popular Mechanics] "By 11:30 a.m., the fire commander in charge of that area, Assistant Chief Frank Fellini, ordered firefighters away from [WTC 7] for safety reasons." [New York Times] Let's have a look at Silverstein's full statement: "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." WMV video download (490kB) In summary, the fire department commander said the fire could not be contained, Silverstein said "the smartest thing to do is pull it", and the fire department made the decision to pull. "Pull" is a term used in building demolition... "We're getting ready to pull Building 6" ... "We had to be very careful how we demolished Building 6..." WMV video download (564kB) ...but the US Department of State contends that Silverstein's "pull it" statement refers to withdrawing firefighters from WTC 7. If this was the case then firefighters should have received a message which said something like "World Trade 7 is unsafe. Abandon the building and withdraw from the area." Okay, let's have a look at the language used by firefighters withdrawing from the area of WTC 7: "It's blowin' boy." ... "Keep your eye on that building, it'll be coming down soon." ... "The building is about to blow up, move it back." ... "Here we are walking back. There's a building, about to blow up..." WMV video download (1 MB) The above indicates the message received by the firefighters was "We are going to demolish 7 World Trade. Clear the area." INDRA SINGH EMT: "...by noon or one o'clock they told us we need to move from that triage site up to Pace University a little further away because Building 7 was going to come down or be brought down." HOST: "Did they actually use the word "brought down" and who was it that was telling you this?" SINGH: "The fire department. And they did use the words 'we're gonna have to bring it down' and for us there observing the nature of the devastation it made total sense to us that this was indeed a possibility..." [Prison Planet] It has also been stated that a 20 second radio countdown preceded the collapse of WTC 7. The statement by Silverstein Properties and the US Department of State also contends there were no deaths in WTC 7 because "pull it" was an evacuation order. This is factually incorrect: Speakers for voice evacuation announcements were located throughout the building and were activated manually at the Fire Control Center (FCC) [WTC 7 Report] It would be impossible to miss an evacuation order. "...I'm on top of building 7 just pulling out rubbish. Pulled out a Port Authority cop at about 11 o'clock in the morning..." WMV video download (597kB) "When 7 World Trade Center came down on Sept. 11, an agent on loan from Washington, special officer Craig Miller, perished..." [PDF download (link expired)] "The Secret Service New York Field Office was located in 7 World Trade Center ... Master Special Officer Craig Miller, died during the rescue efforts." [PDF download] The death of Master Special Officer Craig Miller is another inconsistency in the official explanation of Silverstein's "pull it" comment. Why aren't the numerous inconsistencies questioned by the mainstream media? See also: Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the 9/11 Demolition The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis What Really Happened Email This Page To A Friend
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#115. To: angle, ALL (#63)
Here's a good rebuttal video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6243624912447824934 "Screw 9/11 Mysteries - Clunkity Clunk Edition This is a counter-video to the first edition of "9/11 Mysteries". Using their own video and words, "Screw 9/11 Mysteries" aims to point out ... all » not only the bad science used in the film, but also the several accounts of lying, quote mining, tricky editing and strawman arguments."
No, Dr Greening also provides an alternate source for the other components in thermite. For example, he points out that sulfer was present in large quantities in building materials. Furthermore, in his paper ( http://www.911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf) he shows that there are other explanations than thermite (or thermate) for the heat needed to explain the heat and the molten materials observed at the WTC site. Sorry, but you are misrepresenting Greening's work if you are trying to suggest to readers that he wasn't trying to dispute the thermite theory. He was. And unlike *EX-professor* Jones (a sub atomic particle physicist), Dr Greening actually does have a PHD in CHEMISTRY. He also observed that *EX-professor* Jones' test "lacks most of the key conditions that were present in the WTC impact zones on 9-11, namely prolonged fires ignited by aviation fuel, sustained by burning plastics, paper, furniture, etc, that directly heated water, aluminum and rusted steel in the presence of crushed concrete and gypsum. I challenge Prof. Jones to repeat his tests under these conditions and publish the results." And as far as I know, *EX-professor* Jones has done neither.
So you claim now that the air in the building was the prime agent in the sidewards expulsion of heavy metal building materials in the collapse of the Towers? Back up your assertion with proof. Photos of the collapse show 30 foot steel sections blown as much as 70 meters to the side. The aluminum cladding was also not weightless, but weighed many tons. You've made the claim that compressed air was sufficient to blow these heavy metal pieces over half a football field clear of the collapse, and now you're going to have to show that the collapse generated energy sufficient to allow the air in each floor space to compress and blow out that steel and aluminum to such a lateral distance. Your "breezy" ipse dixit that the air in the building "took along a few things with it" doesn't begin to prove your claim. Quantify it, or link to someone who has.
Slurpy, You're all so stuck in arguing that it's not a dog; it's an animal. You never learn.
And you think Conservation of Momentum doesn't apply to vertical structures made of beams, trusses, steel and concrete? ROTFLOL!
By all means, supply us with the name of ONE expert (you know ... someone with a degree in structural engineering, demolition or macro-world physics) who agrees with you. Afterall, you are claiming this is obvious. So surely you can come up with the name of some expert (your own but one with a relevant degree) who supports what you are claiming to be the "physics" of the situation. No? ROTFLOL!
Better tell that to FormerLurker and Dr Wood. ROTFLOL! The interior columns weren't the only members bearing the weight of the building.
Again, you better tell FormerLurker and his Dr Wood. ROTFLOL!
Screw 9/11 mysteries (a good rebuttal video) available on Google here
Of course he was "disputing" the thermite hypothesis if he was trying to provide alternatives. My point was that he failed to falsify the hypothesis he was disputing---he never claimed to have done that. And unlike *EX- professor* Jones (a sub atomic particle physicist), Dr Greening actually does have a PHD in CHEMISTRY. He also observed that *EX-professor* Jones' test "lacks most of the key conditions that were present in the WTC impact zones on 9-11, namely prolonged fires ignited by aviation fuel, sustained by burning plastics, paper, furniture, etc, that directly heated water, aluminum and rusted steel in the presence of crushed concrete and gypsum. I challenge Prof. Jones to repeat his tests under these conditions and publish the results." And as far as I know, *EX-professor* Jones has done neither. This is simply irrelevant. Jones was pressured to take early retirement from BYU because of his questioning of the 9/11 official story, but that does not delegitimize his credentials. The fact that he has a PhD in physics instead of chemistry does not mean that he has no expertise in chemistry in general or thermite reactions in particular, as you would know if you had any inkling what you were talking about. Finally, Greening's challenge (and I notice you don't provide a link to it) to Jones to exactly replicate the conditions in the Towers on 9/11 is nonsense and he knows it: according to the terms of Greening's hypothesis, Jones should have been able to replicate Greening's hypothesized "violent thermite reactions" using molten aluminum pouring onto crushed gypsum, concrete and rusty steel. He couldn't: For example, F. Greening has suggested that aluminum from the planes which struck the Towers could melt, and that this aluminum might fall on "rusted steel surfaces inducing violent thermite explosions." [Greening, 2006] So a few students and I did straightforward experiments by melting aluminum and dropping molten aluminum on pre-heated rusted steel surfaces. There were in fact no "violent thermite" reactions seen. We observed that the temperature of the molten aluminum in contact with the rusty iron simply cooled at about 25 oC per minute (measured with an infrared probe) until the aluminum solidified, so that any thermite reactions between the aluminum and iron oxide must have been minimal and did not compete with radiative and conductive cooling, thus NOT supporting predictions made by Greening. There was no observable damage or even warping of the steel. (See photograph below.) Nor were violent reactions observed when we dropped molten aluminum onto crushed gypsum and concrete (wet or dry) and rusty steel. [Jones, 2006; available at http://www.scholarsfor9 11truth.org/ExptAlMelt.doc ] These experiments lend no support whatever to the notion [see Greening, 2006] that molten aluminum in the WTC Towers could have destroyed the enormous steel columns in the cores of the buildings, even if those columns were rusty and somehow subjected to direct contact with liquid aluminum. F. Greening’s latest hypothesis (another try) is this: oxygen tanks from planes somehow survived the plane crashes and the fireballs, yet leaked about an hour later to release the oxygen in the tanks. This relatively small amount of oxygen was somehow enough, he suggests, to burn office materials such as to melt the structural steel in the building, to produce the large metal flow seen at yellow-hot temperature, flowing from WTC2. [Greening, 2006] Note that the latest proposed explanation provides no mechanism for feeding fuel (office materials) into the oxygen stream, i.e., this is not like an oxy-acetylene torch. Moreover, even if the tanks survived the plane crashes, to melt steel would require steel (not air) temperatures of over 2,700 degrees F – while the steel structure is wicking the heat away from the heat source. Greening needs to consider heat transport in the steel as well as the probability that oxygen tanks in the planes could survive the destructive crashes of the planes. Finally, no plane hit WTC 7, so this latest hypothesis fails from the outset in this case. But we do consider alternative hypotheses such as these. Finally, the data from the solidified slag are not consistent with molten structural steel since it contains almost no chromium, yet shows significant fluorine and elemental sulfur, and high concentrations of nickel and zinc. The laws of physics were not somehow suspended during the supposed "unprecedented attack" of 9/11.
So go cite some real physicists who back you up. And nut bag Prof. Stephen Jones doesn't count. They put him out to pasture - he couldn't even convince his *peers.* I'm patient, so I'll wait till this evening for you to come up with some credible sources. Something tells me you're going to need that time... You're not important enough for anyone to pay money to post to. My replies take a couple minutes, tops. Then I go back to the real world, where I make about 3 times what you'll ever earn. Poor BeAChooser is actually trying to reason with you and cite factual information. I know better. I've been pretty harsh on the lad on LPee because he supports the Iraq war. Now you've *almost* got me feeling sympathy for him. ROTFLOL! Large airplanes flew into towers almost fully loaded with fuel at unprecedented speeds. The crash and the resulting fires seriously weakened the structures. After a relatively short time period, the structures collapsed. Part of the flaming debris generated during their collapse caused fires and substantial damage to a 3rd structure. After a fire was allowed to burn out of control in that 3rd structure, it too collapsed. Now explain to me why you believe the world's engineers and physicists when they say a structure will not fail, but then when it does fail you do not believe their explanations of why it actually did fail. If they are lying for their paychecks after the event, why wouldn't they lie before it when they said it was fail-safe. PS: "Pull" my finger!
Why doesn't that fear factor apply in any other conspiracy? Take the Ron Brown case, for instance. Multiple experts from around the country in forensic pathology came forward publically to suggest that Ron Brown had a bullet hole in his head. And they did this despite threats by the government concerning their jobs and even jail. What makes structural engineers, demolition experts, experts in steel, fire and impact, experts in seismology and experts in macro-world physics so different from forensic pathologists? ALL those who came forward in the Ron Brown case worked directly for the government ... in fact, for an administration that was very hostile to them and had demonstrated in the past a willingness to hurt its opponents. Yet ALL of the experts with direct knowledge of the case did come forward. Why is the WTC and Pentagon case different? In fact, in this case, a great many experts have come forward in support of the government scenario who do not depend on the government for their livelihood. Some even work for other countries. Many, who have said nothing, even work for countries that are quite hostile to the US and Bush administration. Can you explain that, Original_Intent? By the way, I'm flattered that you'd join FD4UM just because I did. ROTFLOL!
Let's take a look at the first collapse(thanks to BootHill for the graphic) (start) is first visual indication of collapse, (end) is the end of the collapse. NOTES: 1. The unannotated original of the above chart is available from LCSN labs . Boot Hill posted on 2006-02-27 18:18:20 ET (1 image) Reply
As the graphic shows,there is a significant spike 3 seconds after the first visual indication of a collapse and a peak 4 seconds after the first indication of collapse, before any rubble has reached the ground? BAC, what was the source of the energy that caused the peak?
Sorry, Ricky, but you completely missed the point of what was modeled by Judy Wood. We weren't even talking about the transfer of momentum from the 767. So is your theory that Goldi-Lox is a government agent and my being booted from LP was simply cover for my coming here?
Good post. BAC is exposed - again! ;0)
"We are Americans. This is our country. He, who would take it from us, by force or by stealth, is our enemy. And it is our purpose -- nay, it is our duty, to our children and to their children and to our yet unborn posterity -- to use all feasible means to destroy him." Dr. Revilo P. Oliver
Large airplanes flew into towers almost fully loaded with fuel at unprecedented speeds. The crash and the resulting fires seriously weakened the structures. After a few hours, the structures collapsed. Part of the flaming debris generated during their collapse caused fires and substantial damage to a 3rd structure. After a fire was allowed to burn out of control in that 3rd structure, it too collapsed. There's not a responsive word in that "explanation" how or why the building mass on the South Tower on which the top of the tower was rotating disintegrated. That was my question, remember? In fact, there's a lot in your "explanation" that is simply and demonstrably untrue, manifesting that you have no interest in the truth or debating this important issue in good faith. Now what do you think that leaves me to do? That's right: I'm putting you on "ignore." You can continue to be an embarrassment to the people who have hired you to "debate" this issue---you can just do it without wasting my time.
FEMA Performance Study, p.1-10 Table 1-1 Timeline of Major Events The FEMA Performance Study states in Table 1-1 that WTC 2 began collapsing 56 minutes and 10 seconds after impact. Impact was recorded at 9:02:54 in the FEMA Report. 9:02:54 plus 56:10 is 9:59:04, the origin time of the 2.1 magnitude event.
Now from: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster Answers to Frequently Asked Questions http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm 5. Why were two distinct spikes—one for each tower—seen in seismic records before the towers collapsed? Isn't this indicative of an explosion occurring in each tower? "The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds. There were no seismic signals that occurred prior to the initiation of the collapse of either tower. The seismic record contains no evidence that would indicate explosions occurring prior to the collapse of the towers." ---------------------------------------------------------------- My comment:The graphic above establishes beyond any reasonable doubt the the individuals at the NIST that wrote and approved the above statement lied. Why did the NIST determine it was necessary to lie concerning this fundamental fact?
"The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds." All the significant spikes for the South Tower collapse occurred before any debris impacted the ground.
I was able to independently verify the first visual indication of collapse of the South Tower occurred at 9:59:04 EDT. I was able to do this by viewing a one of a kind video- 9/11 Eyewitness. This video allows us to pinpoint what was occurring at the WTC Complex at the exact time of the origin of 2.1 magnitude event, plus or minus one second. Richard A. Siegel captured the collapse of the South Tower on video. While he was recording the WTC Complex, he was simultaneously recording the live 1010 WINS NYC News Radio Broadcast.At 10:00, the top of the hour tone was recorded;hence,we have an accurate time reference for the first visual indication of collapse. The time on the video is consistent with the time in the FEMA Performance Study and the time reported by LCSN.
Hey Peetie, someone should ask this nincompoop protege of BAC why the TV towers were the first thing to show movement at the start of the collapse. Betcha he has no answer. ROTFLOL!
"We are Americans. This is our country. He, who would take it from us, by force or by stealth, is our enemy. And it is our purpose -- nay, it is our duty, to our children and to their children and to our yet unborn posterity -- to use all feasible means to destroy him." Dr. Revilo P. Oliver
Very good point. It would be impossible to overstate the significance of the fact the first indication of collapse of the North Tower was the downward movement of the atenna array mounted to the core of the Tower. So we know the failure of the core initiated the collapse of the North Tower.
Obviously, any seismic impacts before the buildings actually hit the ground have to be of energy released as they started their collapse. Even if you subscribe to the explosives/thermite theory, there would still be energy released as the building started going down. The question would then become how much of that energy was from the explosives, and how much was from the structures - because "they" didn't set off half a million tons of explosives, did they?
What a dumb-ass question. Wouldn't you expect the first movement to be where "they" put their explosives? LMAO!
From the NIST: "The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds." Considering the seismic peak of the South Tower collapse occurred 4.5 seconds after the first indication of collapse,what do you make of this statement by the NIST? Is it accurate?
I don't think you appreciate the significance of the fact the collapse of the North Tower began with a failure of the core. Entire documentaries have been produced and aired with impressive graphics and impressive experts explaining the "pancake theory" and "Why the Towers Collapsed". The fact the core failed first means impressive experts and impressive graphics and expensive documentaries can all be dead wrong.
Now that you mention it, I would expect some seismic activity to register from objects weighing many tons and falling hundreds of feet. However in a conventional collapse, things don't have to weaken and release their energy all at once. However in an explosives-initiated collapse, you'd expect to see some seismic spike from the explosives being set off. So where's the explosives-induced spike at the very beginning of the collapse, if explosives were in fact the cause?
It is a very good question and I don't have a supportable answer.
Becuase the building was engineered to distribute loads, all its components were rather closely interconnected with each other, and therefore able to take stresses and loads from each other. As far as what would happen during a catastrophic event where the building loses a number of its load-bearing components, and some remaining components may or may not have also been affected, I think that's a complex question on the order of how an airfoil operates. However hypothesizing explosives as a magic answer certainly does not lead us very far towards resolving that issue - especially when at least one structure did not begin its fall in the nice orderly "controlled demolition" manner.
Would you expect the NIST to make such a clearly false statement? "The seismic spikes for the collapse of the WTC Towers are the result of debris from the collapsing towers impacting the ground. The spikes began approximately 10 seconds after the times for the start of each building’s collapse and continued for approximately 15 seconds."
I agree. We have seen more than enough hypothesizing. What is needed is a legitimate investigation by independent experts. Ones not prone to publishing false information as answers to legitimate questions. We need an investigation into the molten steel discovered days and weeks after the collapse. We need the fire,EMT, and police personnel coming forward describing the nature of the demolition of WTC7 interviewed under oath and we need the supervisors interviewed under oath. We need a forensic analysis of the 9/11 Eyewitness video that recorded the smoke billowing from the base of the South Tower and numerous explosions prior to the collapse. We need independent experts to investigate and explain in detail how a plane crashing on or about the 80th floor caused structural "damage beyond belief" in the basement including the failure of key structures. Well, I could go on for another ten pages,put the point is I agree. We don't need a hypothesis, we need answers to significant questions.
Given the structure of the building core; it's possible that the collapse would have NORMALLY been telegraphed through the structure, itself. In engineering terms that's referred to as the product of "Transmisability." Essentially, smacking the end of a pipe with a hammer. Thereafter, it's a matter of observing magnitude & pattern. A lateral blast from explosives might have a relatively minor vertical component, notable as being minor. What IS significant is the role of the well documented molten steel, as to its disguising that 'transmisability.' There's my focus. Laterally directed shape charges (concussive) would still have a vertical component; but was it predominantly absorbed by the molten steel? I'm assuming that to be the case. I'm more interested in a delay in the seismic transmission. Good luck trying to find the information, but I think there is such a critter as a lateral thermite shape-charge. That might be a commercial product, as well as military. In his intellectual and emotional cowardice, BAC probably has me [Skydrifter] on 'Bozo,' so you'll probably need to feed that idea to him independently of a ping to me - I assume. I don't know how the Bozo filter works. "Whooo, Goldi! Get Back, BeOcho."
Wouldn't you expect the first movement to be where "they" put their explosives? LMAO! Such a typical response from someone who has no meaningful answer. Exactly as I had predicted. ;0)
"We are Americans. This is our country. He, who would take it from us, by force or by stealth, is our enemy. And it is our purpose -- nay, it is our duty, to our children and to their children and to our yet unborn posterity -- to use all feasible means to destroy him." Dr. Revilo P. Oliver
And your proof for this is what? Again, what is your source for this? Here's what actually happened in the Madrid fire, folks: http://www.911myths.com/html/madrid_windsor_tower.html The color of the smoke doesn't prove a fire is oxygen starved. This source discusses that fact at length: http://www.911myths.com/html/black_smoke.html Notice in that link all the photos of fires that clearly aren't oxygen starved which are still putting out dark grey or black smoke. And, for the record, NIST has not said that the WTC fire was oxygen starved ... everywhere. The face where the collapse was observed to start was clearly burning quite fiercely prior to the collapse. Something molten was even seen dripping from one corner of that face. And keep in mind that a wind was blowing into the building from that direction, providing a good source of oxygen. Finally, the fire was also no more fuel starved than the one in the Madrid tower. Both were office buildings filled with what office buildings are filled with. Is this dying out? The photos I posted aren't scientific proof? ROTFLOL! And they weren't hanging loose. They were sagging. Pulling on each end. Plus, the support they had provided to the outer face along the lengthwise dimension was gone. All NIST tested were floor systems with fireproofing intact. But the experts and their codes indicate that the fireproofing materials would have been damaged by the impact of the plane. Do you know what a boundary condition is? Really? This is picture of molten aluminum: So is this: And this: And this: And this: Well, here is an image of burning aluminum from a very credible source ( http://www.csar.uiuc.edu/~tlj/aluminum.htm): It didn't. The top clearly tilted as the collapse began. Well where are all the experts in fire and fire codes who agree with you? They seem to have no problem with the notion that temperatures in the WTC reached 1800 F. Care to prove this? Here are the reports you need: http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P5SimulationofFiresinWTC1&2.pdf http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P5SimulatingtheCoupledFire.pdf http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P5ReconstructionofFires.pdf http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P6StructFireResp&Collapse2.pdf http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/fire05/PDF/f05161.pdf But not from the locations where the fire were most intense in the models. ROTFLOL! Readers ... see http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-2.pdf First, Skilling was not the main designer. This is false. The chief structural engineer of record ... onsite in New York where the design was done ... was Leslie Robertson. Robertson relocated to New York City when the firm was awarded the WTC contract. He was the project engineer. Not Skilling. In fact, according to http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20I%20History.pdf "Robertson was the most influential engineer on the project and assumed the position of lead structural designer of the towers. Robertson had as much influence on the form of the building as anyone apart from Yamasaki himself." Just because Robertson had a boss (Skilling) in Seattle does not mean that Skilling was the head designer or aware of all design details in New York. Second, Skilling was talking about an analysis that was NOT part of the design of the towers. It was a back of the envelope "what if". And Skilling was only partially right in his white paper. The towers did indeed survive the impact ... no one denies that ... (in fact, NIST has said that had there not been a fire, the towers probably would have remained standing for a time) ... but he was wrong in concluding they would not suffer substantial damage. Eyewitnesses and MODERN computer modelling show that is untrue. We can't fault Skilling. He really had no means to determine that in the 1960s. Skilling didn't have access to the types of computer codes routinely used in building design and analysis today. Those code and the computers needed to run them weren't developed until the 70's and 80's and 90's. They couldn't do the sort of impact (or fire) analyses possible today. Such analyses show that the impacts must have shattered dozens of structural members, and both analyses and tests show that the impacts would have to have taken the fireproofing off many of the surviving structural members. And it is the loss of those fire coatings which is the key to collapse of the towers in the fires that followed. Demartini was a construction manager. Do you know what that means? He was NOT a structural engineer. There is a difference. In education. In expertise. In that statement he made, he completely overlooked the importance of velocity in the impact. It was NOT "designed" for a high speed impact. PERIOD. In fact, do you know what Demartini's degree actually was? ARCHITECTURE. Also, Demartini was not the construction manager during the construction of the towers. He was 14 when construction began. So I doubt he was all that familiar with their design. On the other hand, Leslie Robertson was. Leslie E. Robertson – " The two towers were the first structures outside of the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airliner, the Boeing 707. It was assumed that the jetliner would be lost in the fog, seeking to land at JFK or at Newark. To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance. Indeed, at that time, no fireproofing systems were available to control the effects of such fires." (http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/CGOZ-58NLCB?OpenDocument) Leslie E. Robertson – "The twin towers of the World Trade Center were designed to resist safely the impacting by the largest aircraft of that time...the intercontinental version of the Boeing 707. In no small measure because of the high level of competence of the men and women of LERA, each of the towers resisted the impact of an aircraft larger than the 707. Yes, fire brought down the towers, but the structural integrity created by the engineers of LERA allowed perhaps thousands of persons to evacuate the buildings prior to the fire-induced collapse." (http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/LesRobertson.html) By all means, provide your source for this claim. Besides this white paper, no documents are known detailing how this analysis was made. NIST stated that it has been “unable to locate any evidence to indicate consideration of the extent of impact-induced structural damage or the size of a fire that could be created by thousands of gallons of jet fuel.” Third, Robertson is on record stating that reports that a 600 mph impact was considered in the design are flat out WRONG. According to Robertson, "It was assumed that the jetliner would be lost in the fog, seeking to land at JFK or at Newark." It was designed for a 180 mph impact. Not 600 mph. Remember, the impact energy is not only a function of mass but velocity SQUARED. Robertson went on to note that the kinetic energy of the 767 impact witnessed on 9-11 was nearly seven times greater than the building's design ever anticipated. Leslie Robertson is also quoted stating that "To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance." By all means. Provide your evidence that he has been caught lying. Not relevant. The impact of the planes dislodged much of that fireproofing. And that is in the NIST report too. No, they did not claim ALL the fireproofing was scraped off. As I've already pointed out, with sourced material from NIST, the samples tested were NOT from the locations where NIST fire models showed the peak temperatures. Furthermore, the methodology used by NIST to test samples preselected out any exposed to high temperatures because it required the paint still be basically intact. NIST said the method was limited to temperatures around 250 C. There are photos of some people in the impact hole on the face of the structure opposite from where the collapse clearly began. It proves nothing. The steel on the face of the building opposite the impact hole was not cool.
No, the chief structural engineer of record, Leslie Robertson, said categorically that the towers were not designed to withstand an airliner hit as occurred on 9/11. They were designed for a relatively low speed impact with nearly an order of magnitude less energy. Plus fire wasn't considered. It is just fortunate the towers lasted as long as they did.
And you completely missed, or rather, completely ignored my point.
God is always good! I see you missed my earlier post where this proof was provided. Here it is again, just for you this time: http://www.911myths.com/html/explosive_force.html There is even an analysis in it of what's necessary to throw the sections of steel that were observed the distance observed.
The fact that Dr Greening has a PHD in CHEMISTRY and EX-professor Jones' degree (and experience) is in sub-atomic particles is far from irrelevant or inconsequential. The problem with your side in this debate is that EX-professor Jones' is about the best you can come up with ... out of a world filled with experts who really do understand structures, demolition, thermite, chemistry, fire, steel, impact, seismology and macro-world physics. The rest of your *experts* are mostly philosophers, theologians, economists, janitors, software developers and jazz musicians. ROTFLOL! No, you just proved you didn't actually read the report from Dr Greening that I kindly linked you to (http://www.911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf). The challenge is in that link. Since you insist, let's take a look at the appropriateness of Jones' *experiment*. From the above link: ----------------------- 3. Prof. S. Jones at BYU has recently tested the reactivity of molten aluminum towards materials such as rusted steel and concrete. (See his Feb, 2006, article at: Scholarsfortruth.org). While his results are interesting, Prof. Jones has not conducted anything close to the tests I suggested. Ironically, Prof. Jones quotes from an e-mail I wrote to him on January 26th 2006, where I outline the type of test that would settle the question of the role of molten aluminum in the WTC collapse: "I suspect our different views will never be resolved by discussion alone. I therefore suggest an experimental resolution: The NIST fire tests, which were designed to simulate the conditions in WTC 1 & 2 after the aircraft impacts, should be repeated in a more realistic environment that includes shredded aluminum alloy 2024, crushed concrete and gypsum, water, rusted steel, aviation fuel, plastics, etc.... Then I want to see two things happen: (i) The fires melt the aluminum, and (ii) The molten aluminum ignites violent, explosive reactions." In spite of what I suggested in my January e-mail, namely simulations that reproduce conditions in the WTC fires and thus be an acceptable test of my claims, Prof. Jones carries out two entirely different experiments: (i) Molten aluminum was poured onto a section of clean, dry, rusted steel. Because there were no violent reactions in these two tests, Prof. Jones concludes that my hypothesis is invalid! This conclusion is reached in spite of the fact that gypsum was not even tested, and none of the materials were pre-heated or crushed. Of all the parameters not duplicated in Prof. Jones' experiments I would argue that the crushing of the materials is one of the most important. Why? It is a well-known fact that solid-state reaction rates depend on the surface area of the reactants. A one kilogram block of concrete has a surface area of about 0.06 m^2. The surface area of one kilogram of concrete crushed to 60 um particles has a surface area calculated as follows (BAC - see link) = 67 m^2. Crushed (pulverized) materials are much more reactive than solid blocks of material. ... In conclusion I would say that Prof. Jones is, of course, entitled to his opinion, but I would argue that his "simulation" lacks most of the key conditions that were present in the WTC impact zones on 9-11, namely prolonged fires ignited by aviation fuel, sustained by burning plastics, paper, furniture, etc, that directly heated water, aluminum and rusted steel in the presence of crushed concrete and gypsum. I challenge Proj. Jones to repeat his tests under these conditions and publish the results. ----------------------- And we see he has not done either. And to those who would like to know what Dr Greening actually theorized, I suggest reading the above link. Regarding this claim (since you got it from EX-professor Jones): http://www.911myths.com/html/traces_of_thermate_at_the_wtc.html "a) Professor Jones tells us that a metal low in chromium, with “abundant manganese” rules out the possibility of it being structural steel. Checking the steel specifications for the time tells us otherwise, though." And for those who would like to see other reports on 9/11 by Dr Greening, go here:
Now, honway, surely you aren't claiming that the video imagery from multiple sources (CNN, NBC and others) that clearly shows the collapse took more than 10 seconds ... on the order of 15 seconds, in fact ... are fakes. Because that seems to be the only alternative, if you want everyone to believe that the collapse time was 10 seconds ... which it seems, you do. And just because you show us a graphic annotated by who knows who that the collapse "began" at a certain tim and ended at another, isn't all that convincing. The NIST effort was much more definitive, drawing from many more sources. AND IS CONSISTENT WITH WHAT THE VIDEO IMAGERY CLEARLY SHOWS. What do the seismologists who produced and analyzed that data you post say? "There is no scientific basis for the conclusion that explosions brought down the towers," Lerner-Lam tells PM. "That representation of our work is categorically incorrect and not in context." And finally, note that ImplosionWorld, experts on demolition, is on the record (http://www.implosionworld.com/Article-WTC%20STUDY%208-06%20w%20clarif%20as%20of%209-8-06%20.pdf) stating that "In all cases where seismographs detected the collapses, waveform readings indicate a single, gradually ascending and descending level of ground vibrations during the event. At no point during 9/11 were sudden or independent vibration "spikes" documented by any seismograph, and we are unaware of any entity possessing such data. This evidence makes a compelling argument against explosive demolition. The laws of physics dictate that any detonation powerful enough to defeat steel columns would have transferred excess energy through those same columns into the ground, and wuold certainly have been detected by at least one of the monitors that were sensitive enough to record the structural collapses. However, a detailed analysis of all available data reveals no presense of any unusual or abnormal vibration events."
Don't you guys know by now that was an optical illusion? Where have you been? http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-6.pdf "Photographic and videographic records were reviewed to identify structurally-related events. Where possible, all four faces of a building were examined for a given event or time period to provide complete understanding of the building response. Observations from a single vantage point can be misleading and may result in incorrect interpretation of events. For instance, photographic and videographic records taken from due north of the WTC 1 collapse appeared to indicate that the antenna was sinking into the roof (McAllister 2002). When records from east and west vantage points were viewed, it was apparent that the building section above the impact area tilted to the south as the building collapsed." (NIST 2005)
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#116. To: Peetie Wheatstraw, ALL (#66)
Greening's hypothesis did not purport to disprove the possibility of cutter charges using thermite reactions---it merely proposed an alternative explanation relying on aluminium supplied by the crashing planes!
See Dr. Steven Jones' paper here.
#117. To: BeAChooser (#110)
Actually, very little steel debris was ejected out and away from the tower. Most of what is seen is the aluminum siding. And why would one expect that not to be ejected outward during the collapse. Remember, the building was 95 percent air. As it collapsed that air had to go somewhere. And it took along a few things with it.
#118. To: BeAChooser (#115)
#119. To: FormerLurker, ALL (#67)
Apparently, you don't take into account a floor of the WTC is not a pool ball sitting on a pool table, but a solid structure held up by beams, trusses, and connected to a steel core and outer shell.
#120. To: FormerLurker, ALL (#68)
and would have either come to a rest at an angle, or slid off of the undamaged section of the building.
"It didn't. As the videos prove."
Of course it DIDN'T, but it SHOULD have if it had been a collapse caused by the mechanism described by your "experts".
#121. To: RickyJ, Formerlurker, ALL (#70)
Yes gravity would indeed be a factor here but the billiard ball example is not a good one at all.
the 47 massive steel columns that were bearing the weight of the building
#122. To: tom007, Formerlurker, ALL (#73)
The billard analogy is not applicable.
#123. To: christine, angle, ALL (#74)
911 Mysteries available on Google here
#124. To: BeAChooser (#116)
Sorry, but you are misrepresenting Greening's work if you are trying to suggest to readers that he wasn't trying to dispute the thermite theory. He was.
#125. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#105)
(Edited)
After just a couple of posts, it's obvious to me and to everyone that you don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.
Whoever's paying you to post here is not getting their money's worth.
So, explain the disintegration. We're all waiting.
#126. To: Original_Intent, ALL (#77)
All good points - and particularly the "fear factor" which does much to explain why people with credentials, whose income depends upon those credentials, will not come forward - they are AFRAID.
#127. To: BeAChooser, *9-11* (#113)
According to http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/collapses/freefall.html
"the CNN video suggests that it takes about ten seconds for the bottom of the mushrooming dust cloud to reach the ground, and another seven or so for the top to reach the ground. The following composite timeline combines timing estimates of collapse events from the CNN video and the PAL seismic record. It assumes rubble hitting the ground caused the large ground movement, and thus that the crumbling of the tower prior to that caused only minor ground movement. Given that, the times from these pieces of evidence match up remarkably well.
10:28:23 North Tower starts to crumble
10:28:31 Rubble starts to hit the ground (start of big signal)
10:28:36 The heaviest rubble hits the ground (peak of big signal)
10:28:39 Most heavy rubble has reached the ground (end of big signal)" 
2. The red-lined annotations in the above chart are based on the following five data points supplied by the LCSN seismic labs
a. The time of initial seismic rupture at the WTC tower was 9:59:04 EST.
b. The duration of the seismic signal of the collapse was 10 sec.
c. The distance from the WTC towers to the LCSN seismometer in Palisades, NY ("PAL") is 34km .
d. The velocity of the seismic waves transiting that distance was 2km per second.
e. The origin time on the zero axis of of the LCSN chart is 9:59:07 EST.
#128. To: All, BeAChooser, *9-11* (#127)
#129. To: RickyJ, ALL (#82)
The transfer of momentum from the huge 767 that hit the towers at 500 MPH plus did not cause the towers to tip over or fall down.
BTW, I don't think it is a coincidence that you and other pro-government theory posters are just happening to come here at the same time.
#130. To: Peetie Wheatstraw (#124)
#131. To: AGAviator (#125)
So, explain the disintegration. We're all waiting.
#132. To: all (#131)
(Edited)
After a few hours, the structures collapsed.
#133. To: All, *9-11* (#127)
#134. To: All, *9-11* (#133)
From the NIST:
#135. To: All (#134)
#136. To: Peetie Wheatstraw, AGAviator (#105)
So, explain the disintegration. We're all waiting.
#137. To: BTP Holdings (#136)
BAC why the TV towers were the first thing to show movement at the start of the collapse.
#138. To: honway (#132)
9:02:54 plus 56:10 is 9:59:04, the origin time of the 2.1 magnitude event.
#139. To: BTP Holdings (#136)
Why the TV towers were the first thing to show movement at the start of the collapse
#140. To: AGAviator (#138)
obviously, any seismic impacts before the buildings actually hit the ground have to be of energy released as they started their collapse.
#141. To: AGAviator (#139)
(Edited)
What a dumb-ass question.
#142. To: honway (#140)
Considering the seismic peak of the South Tower collapse occurred 4.5 seconds after the first indication of collapse,what do you make of this statement by the NIST? Is it accurate?
#143. To: AGAviator (#142)
(Edited)
So where's the explosives-induced spike at the very beginning of the collapse, if explosives were in fact the cause?
#144. To: honway (#141)
I don't think you appreciate the significance of the fact the collapse of the North Tower began with a failure of the core.
#145. To: AGAviator (#142)
Now that you mention it, I would expect some seismic activity to register from objects weighing many tons and falling hundreds of feet.
#146. To: AGAviator (#144)
However hypothesizing explosives as a magic answer certainly does not lead us very far towards resolving that issue - especially when at least one structure did not begin its fall in the nice orderly "controlled demolition" manner.
#147. To: honway, Christine, Brian S, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#134)
#148. To: AGAviator (#139)
What a dumb-ass question.
#149. To: Kamala, ALL (#87)
Magnesium was the main fuel source at Madrid. Quit being deceptive.
1400 degrees may have been the physical temps, but the gas temps were over 2000 degrees.
Look at the photos of WTC 2 just before the collapse. The fires are just a black, smokey, fuel poor and O2 starved office fire, just as NIST as written.
If you compare the photos right after the impact, and then just before it was "poised" to collapse, the photos show the fires dieing out.
If the floors were hanging loose, then how do disconnected floors pull? NIST has no scientific proof of sagging floor systems.
All live scale floor model experiment preformed by UL for NIST bare this out.
Another NIST deception was that in their computer models, NIST used 9 floors for their model, instead of the known 5 floors of damage. Again, doubling and tweeking software to get the pre desired results.
Aluminum is silvery in a liquid nature.
If there were no fires on the western side to heat all the structural steel of the WTC 2, how did it symmetrically collapse.
NIST has no scientific proof of gas temps of 1800 or higher for anytime.
NIST got gas temps by increasing the known jet fuel load, then over ventilating the fire.
The steel saved was marked from its construction and was known to be from the location of the impacts.
The steel was deemed to have preformed great, and the impacts did very little to the towers.
Skilling, the main designer/architect said the towers could withstand the impact of an airliner and the resulting fire. The engineers/designers/architects planned for the fuel dump and the fires that would follow.
DeMartini said he truely believed that the towers could take multiple airliner impacts.
MIT engineers hired by FEMA/NIST concluded the airliners energy was expeneded upon impact. Just as the towers were designed. There was no energy left to "dislodge" or scrap clean all the fireproofing on 5 floors.
a research white paper signed by Skilling, the main designer/architect, in 1964, PLANNING FOR HIGH SPEED IMPACTS OF 600 MPH by airliners, this was in conjuction with the Port Authority.
All the skeptics like to quote Leslie Robertson. HE has been caught lying and has lots of ties to government funded projects.
Why don't ever mentioned that the fireproofing was upgraded in the mid 90's to 2.2 inches and a much more robust type was used. This is stated in the NIST report.
NIST claim ALL the fireproofing was scraped off
yet they tested the steel from the fire zones, they had the serial construction numbers of the girders and such, and only found temps of 480 degrees.
By that time, the north face was cool, and employees were standing in and around the impact zones.
How does cool structural steel fail?
#150. To: Peetie Wheatstraw, ALL (#104)
The relevant question is whether the Towers were designed to absorb the impact of an airliner such as did hit them on 9/11 and stay standing. They were, and they did.
#151. To: BeAChooser (#129)
Sorry, Ricky, but you completely missed the point of what was modeled by Judy Wood. We weren't even talking about the transfer of momentum from the 767.
"It was an interesting day." - President Bush, recalling 9/11 [White House, 1/5/02]
#152. To: Peetie Wheatstraw, ALL (#117)
So you claim now that the air in the building was the prime agent in the sidewards expulsion of heavy metal building materials in the collapse of the Towers? Back up your assertion with proof. Photos of the collapse show 30 foot steel sections blown as much as 70 meters to the side. The aluminum cladding was also not weightless, but weighed many tons. You've made the claim that compressed air was sufficient to blow these heavy metal pieces over half a football field clear of the collapse, and now you're going to have to show that the collapse generated energy sufficient to allow the air in each floor space to compress and blow out that steel and aluminum to such a lateral distance. Your "breezy" ipse dixit that the air in the building "took along a few things with it" doesn't begin to prove your claim. Quantify it, or link to someone who has.
#153. To: Peetie Wheatstraw, ALL (#124)
This is simply irrelevant.
Finally, Greening's challenge (and I notice you don't provide a link to it)
For example, F. Greening has suggested that aluminum from the planes which struck the Towers could melt, and that this aluminum might fall on "rusted steel surfaces inducing violent thermite explosions." [Greening, 2006] So a few students and I did straightforward experiments by melting aluminum and dropping molten aluminum on pre-heated rusted steel surfaces. There were in fact no "violent thermite" reactions seen.
(ii) Molten aluminum was poured onto a clean, dry, concrete block. F. Greening’s latest hypothesis (another try) is this: oxygen tanks from planes somehow survived the plane crashes and the fireballs, yet leaked about an hour later to release the oxygen in the tanks.
Finally, the data from the solidified slag are not consistent with molten structural steel since it contains almost no chromium, yet shows significant fluorine and elemental sulfur, and high concentrations of nickel and zinc.
#154. To: honway, ALL (#127)
(start) is first visual indication of collapse, (end) is the end of the collapse.
#155. To: honway, BTP Holdings, Peetie Wheatstraw, ALL (#137)
BTP Holdings to Peetie Wheatstraw - Hey Peetie, someone should ask this nincompoop protege of BAC why the TV towers were the first thing to show movement at the start of the collapse. Betcha he has no answer. ROTFLOL!
Very good point.
It would be impossible to overstate the significance of the fact the first indication of collapse of the North Tower was the downward movement of the atenna array mounted to the core of the Tower. So we know the failure of the core initiated the collapse of the North Tower.
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