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Title: Why the towers fell: Two theories [by a civil engineer]
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URL Source: http://www.vermontguardian.com/commentary/032007/TwinTowers.shtml
Published: Mar 1, 2007
Author: William Rice
Post Date: 2007-04-17 16:30:39 by honway
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Views: 13605
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Why the towers fell: Two theories By William Rice William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses, Posted March 1, 2007 Having worked on structural steel buildings as a civil engineer in the era when the Twin Towers were designed and constructed, I found some disturbing discrepancies and omissions concerning their collapse on 9/11. I was particularly interested in the two PBS documentaries that explained the prevailing theories as determined by two government agencies, FEMA and NIST (National Institute of Science and Technology). The first (2002) PBS documentary, Why the Towers Fell, discussed how the floor truss connectors failed and caused a “progressive pancake collapse.” The subsequent 2006 repackaged documentary Building on Ground Zero explained that the connectors held, but that the columns failed, which is also unlikely. Without mentioning the word “concrete,” the latter documentary compared the three-second collapse of the concrete Oklahoma City Murrah Federal Building with that of the Twin Towers that were of structural steel. The collapse of a concrete-framed building cannot be compared with that of a structural steel-framed building. Since neither documentary addressed many of the pertinent facts, I took the time to review available material, combine it with scientific and historic facts, and submit the following two theories for consideration. The prevailing theory The prevailing theory for the collapse of the 110-story, award-winning Twin Towers is that when jetliners flew into the 95th and 80th floors of the North and South Towers respectively, they severed several of each building’s columns and weakened other columns with the burning of jet fuel/kerosene (and office combustibles). However, unlike concrete buildings, structural steel buildings redistribute the stress when several columns are removed and the undamaged structural framework acts as a truss network to bridge over the missing columns. After the 1993 car bomb explosion destroyed columns in the North Tower, John Skilling, the head structural engineer for the Twin Towers, was asked about an airplane strike. He explained that the Twin Towers were originally designed to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707 (similar in size to the Boeing 767). He went on to say that there would be a horrendous fire from the jet fuel, but “the building structure would still be there.” The 10,000 gallons of jet fuel (half capacity) in each jetliner did cause horrendous fires over several floors, but it would not cause the steel members to melt or even lose sufficient strength to cause a collapse. This is because the short-duration jet fuel fires and office combustible fires cannot create (or transmit to the steel) temperatures hot enough. If a structural steel building could collapse because of fire, it would do so slowly as the various steel members gradually relinquished their structural strength. However, in the 100-year history of structural-steel framed buildings, there is no evidence of any structural steel framed building having collapsed because of fire. Let’s assume the unlikelihood that these fires could weaken all of the columns to the same degree of heat intensity and thus remove their structural strength equally over the entire floor, or floors, in order to cause the top 30-floor building segment (South Tower WTC #2) to drop vertically and evenly onto the supporting 79th floor. The 30 floors from above would then combine with the 79th floor and fall onto the next level down (78th floor) crushing its columns evenly and so on down into the seven levels below the street level. The interesting fact is that each of these 110-story Twin Towers fell upon itself in about ten seconds at nearly free-fall speed. This violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum that would require that as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit, the mass (weight) increases and the free-fall speed decreases. Even if Newton’s Law is ignored, the prevailing theory would have us believe that each of the Twin Towers inexplicably collapsed upon itself crushing all 287 massive columns on each floor while maintaining a free-fall speed as if the 100,000, or more, tons of supporting structural-steel framework underneath didn’t exist. The politically unthinkable theory Controlled demolition is so politically unthinkable that the media not only demeans the messenger but also ridicules and “debunks” the message rather than provide investigative reporting. Curiously, it took 441 days for the president’s 9/11 Commission to start an “investigation” into a tragedy where more than 2,500 WTC lives were taken. The Commission’s investigation also didn’t include the possibility of controlled-demolition, nor did it include an investigation into the “unusual and unprecedented” manner in which WTC Building #7 collapsed. The media has basically kept the collapse of WTC Building #7 hidden from public view. However, instead of the Twin Towers, let’s consider this building now. Building #7 was a 47-story structural steel World Trade Center Building that also collapsed onto itself at free-fall speed on 9/11. This structural steel building was not hit by a jetliner, and collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed and five hours after the firemen had been ordered to vacate the building and a collapse safety zone had been cordoned off. Both of the landmark buildings on either side received relatively little structural damage and both continue in use today. Contrary to the sudden collapse of the Twin Towers and Building #7, the four other smaller World Trade Center buildings #3, #4, #5, and #6, which were severely damaged and engulfed in flames on 9/11, still remained standing. There were no reports of multiple explosions. The buildings had no pools of molten metal (a byproduct of explosives) at the base of their elevator shafts. They created no huge caustic concrete/cement and asbestos dust clouds (only explosives will pulverize concrete into a fine dust cloud), and they propelled no heavy steel beams horizontally for three hundred feet or more. The collapse of WTC building #7, which housed the offices of the CIA, the Secret Service, and the Department of Defense, among others, was omitted from the government’s 9/11 Commission Report, and its collapse has yet to be investigated. Perhaps it is time for these and other unanswered questions surrounding 9/11 to be thoroughly investigated. Let’s start by contacting our congressional delegation. William Rice, P.E., is a registered professional civil engineer who worked on structural steel (and concrete) buildings in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. He was also a professor at Vermont Technical College where he taught engineering materials, structures lab, and other building related courses.
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#129. To: nolu_chan, RickyJ, ALL (#128)
Curious. In what you posted, there is no mention of ANYTHING concerning the MANDATORY retention of documents for any period of time. Isn't that what RickyJ claimed and what started this little discussion? As far as negligence is concerned, just how is the builder or owner of the WTC negligent with regards to whether or not the towers were designed or analyzed in 1963-64 for a plane crash or plane crash induced fire? Afterall, that is also the issue that started this discussion. The issue was not whether the owner was negligent because he failed to evacuate people soon enough or allowed folks to breath harmful dust or had asbestos in the building. I think any plaintiff would have a difficult time proving negligence in the design for the issue that started this discussion ... since I know of no building code in existence in 1963 or 1964 that required such a plane crash load nor was it common practice to include one. It seems to me that only product liability (in other words, defective materials, defective design, etc) applies as far as the DESIGN of the towers (the issue at hand) was concerned. And so far nothing indicates the use of defective materials or defective design (for the loads that skyscrapers were supposed to be designed to resist back in the 1960s). You misunderstood, NC (although its difficult to see how). I said all along that the statute of repose would normally (in most states) prevent an action for product liability against the builders. But I pointed out that in cases of personal injury, NY state law has allowed (at least until recently) an indefinite period before the injury takes place before starting the clock on the statute of repose. You apparently overlooked that fact. And apparently you've overlooked the fact that nothing in what you posted talked about suing the builder or owner for not designing against a plane crash and plane crash induced fire. Now back to the original claim by RickyJ. Prove that it is MANDATORY (by law) that design calculations be kept any length of time (such as 40 years). Because that's the issue that started this little exchange. Don't take us off on another spam-filled detour. Prove what Ricky claimed. Say ... I notice he's left the thread. Wonder why?
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A challenge issued! Who would have thought that after taking such a humiliating beating yesterday, the hermaphroditic super villain would have the hubris to arise, still stinging from the scornful destruction he suffered, to issue yet another challenge to the ever-victorious team of Nolu-Chan, his trusty sidekick RickyJ, and THE SKYDRIFTER? Yet, it is apparent that he may have learned some humility from his recent long stream of rhetorical defeats. Gentle reader, you will notice that not a single time in this diatribe has he issued his contemptuous battle cry of "ROTFLOL!" Can it be possible that the BeAChooser has learned a lesson in humility? Is it even conceivable that he may be forced to turn from the arrogance his Legion of Neocon programmers built into his spam-shooter and take a more conciliatory tack? Or is this yet another sinister Neocon plot? What will happen next? Find out in a moment, after a word from our sponsor: Monsanto. Bringing our happy children pus in milk since 2000!
Paranoia is a survival trait in a Decidership.
[BAC-side #129] Now back to the original claim by RickyJ. Prove that it is MANDATORY (by law) that design calculations be kept any length of time (such as 40 years). RickyJ said it. Take it up with RickyJ. For my part, I would presume that the design calculations, if any existed, would have been retained by the corporate entity and not by the employee of the corporate entity. It may be that that particular corporate entity no longer exists. Skilling is dead so we cannot very well ask him about it. [BAC-side #129] Say ... I notice he's left the thread. Wonder why? RickyJ posted on 4/22 (#55) and on 4/24 (#102 #106 #107 #108). That is not exactly prolific. Perhaps he left because he does not find you as entertaining as I do, perhaps he is laughing at you too hard to type, or perhaps he just does not like to debate someone who gets his "facts" from a magic 8-ball. [BAC-side #129] Because that's the issue that started this little exchange. Don't take us off on another spam-filled detour. Prove what Ricky claimed. ----- No, that is NOT the bullshit that got this started. Let us review to remind you how you got this started. ----- [nc #86] ROBERTSON now claims he cannot find the ROBERTSON study analysis report. ----- [BAC-side #87] It's been 40 years. Do you keep everything you've ever written, Nolu? Really? ----- [nc #101] Had I done an analysis 40 years ago proving that the WTC, the most important project of my lifetime, could withstand a hit by a Boeing 707 traveling at 600 mph, and "that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact," if I could not find the paperwork today, I would be able to replicate the analysis and prove the point again. The towers withstood the impact just as Titanic withstood the impact with the iceberg. Aye cap'n, it wasn't the iceberg got 'er, it was the water! It's been 40 years. Do you believe that Robertson not only lost the report but has forgotten how to do the analysis? ----- [RickyJ #106] For such a project it is mandatory BAC. If you knew much about the legal requirements of such projects you would know this. ----- [BAC-side #109] It's probably a good idea to keep such documents, but I challenge you to prove there is any legal requirement that calculations in the design phase of a skyscraper must be kept at all or kept indefinitely. And have you ever heard of a "statute of repose"? It's the number of years after a project is completed after which the designers and contractors cannot be held responsible for damages or problems that may subsequently occur. THAT is the period during which engineering firms PROBABLY SHOULD (again, show me where it says MUST) keep all records if they are smart. Now for New York the statute of limitations/repose on product liability is 3 years, however, personal injury cases currently have an indefinite liability in that for three years after an injury the building builder/owners can be sued. However, that has been successfully contested in court cases recently and architects in New York are currently trying to get a maximum 10 year repose statute passed for personal liability cases. So yes, it would be smart if builders under the current NY laws kept important design documents for a long time ... perhaps indefinitely ... but I know of no laws that state it is mandatory. Go ahead, Ricky ... prove me wrong. So, this got started by my questioning Robertson's "The dog ate my homework" explanation, and your defense of his Gonzo-like explanation. And we got off on this detour by your inane injection of a Statute of Repose. I will note that in my #101 is questioned you as follows, "Do you believe that Robertson not only lost the report but has forgotten how to do the analysis?" The silence is deafening. WHY has Robertson not simply recreated the analysis? I guess we will just have to go with the White Paper and the New York Times article. They actually seem to exist.
Well, duhhhhhh, the owner is "liable for injuries caused by foreseeable dangerous conditions on their property. Considering the White Paper and the Robertson analysis, and the New York Times newspaper article from 1964, one might argue that the dangerous condition was not only foreseeable but was actually foreseen and the people were given assurances that the buildings would be safe in the event of the foreseen condition. PERSONAL INJURY LIABILITY OF OWNERS AND OCCUPIERS Bernard J. Garbutt, III * * * Why Building Owners And Occupiers Are Sued In The First Place As a building owner or occupier you may be asking “why me?” You did not have anything to do with manufacturing or distributing ACMs, you probably did not even know exactly what materials were actually used in the construction and/or renovation of your building and you almost certainly did not know what those materials contained, let alone that they contained asbestos. The answer to the “why me” question is two-fold. First, as the universe of traditional manufacturer and distributor defendants shrinks due to bankruptcy, plaintiffs’ attorneys are forced to be more creative in targeting and selecting other types of defendants in an attempt to maximize recovery for their clients. Since the Johns-Manville Corporation filed for bankruptcy in 1982 in the face of thousands of asbestos claims, many other manufacturers have been forced to seek bankruptcy protection. Most recently, in October 2000, Owens-Corning filed for bankruptcy, and two other manufacturers filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Given the thousands of new asbestos personal injury cases filed every year, it is highly likely that such litigation will force other manufacturers and distributors into bankruptcy as well. Therefore, plaintiffs’ attorneys will be forced to seek new sources for recovery, and large, solvent corporations that owned or occupied buildings constructed or renovated during the relevant time period are particularly appealing. Second, with respect to more traditional types of claims arising out of injuries to individuals occurring on real property (such as a “slip-and-fall”), the law typically has held owners and occupiers liable for injuries caused by foreseeable dangerous conditions on their property. Because this rule of law is itself so seemingly basic and its application so simple, plaintiffs' attorneys have seized upon it and attempted to stretch the rule to cover the more novel scenario of asbestos-related personal injuries.
Upon further review, it appears that your "Statute of Repose" does not truly exist, and that New York has a 3-year Statute of Limitations which is merely strengthened somewhat by Chapter 682 of the Laws of 1996 which is not a pure Statute of Repose. Your documentation for this is curiously missing. Mine is not. Here is my documentation. Show me what you relied upon for your blather. CURRENT NEW YORK STATE STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS In an action brought by an owner/client against a design professional or contractor for damages resulting from a personal injury based on negligence, a three year statute of limitations applies and the cause of action accrues at the time of injury. A malpractice claim against a design professional or contractor by owner/client carries a three year statute of limitations and the cause of action accrues upon completion of the project. Third party suits, however, where the design professional has never had a contract with or contact with the third party, is the real issue of why we have perpetual liability. Under current law, a cause of action grounded on a theory of simple negligence brought by a third party (not an owner of building or structure) against a design professional or contractor is governed by a three year statute of limitations and the cause of action does not accrue until the injury takes place -- even if the plaintiff is injured 20, 30, 50 or 100 years after the design professional has completed work on the building or structure. As a result, design professionals or contractors are answerable to alleged negligence claims commenced indefinitely after project completion. Basic Provisions of Chapter 682, Laws of 1996 — This is the law that AIA/NYS was successful in enacting in 1996. It is not a "pure" statute of repose, but it amends and strengthens the 3-year statute of limitations, and: The claimant (third party) has 90 days before commencing suit to prepare and submit his/her case before a court. Within those 90 days, the claimant has to demonstrate to a court that there is a substantial basis of evidence showing negligence on the part of the design professional and that that negligence is also a proximate cause of the injury. Also, within those 90 days, the design professional must provide the documentation requested. After the expiration of 90 days, the claimant may commence an action against the design professional. However, the design professional then has 30 days to make a motion to the court to dismiss the suit because the 90 day requirement was not followed or because the claimant failed to establish that a substantial basis in evidence exists to prove that the design professional’s actions were a proximate cause of the injury. The law includes architects, landscape architects and professional engineers regardless of whether they practice individually or in a firm. DESIGN PROFESSIONALS LIABILITY REFORM: AIA NEW YORK STATE STRATEGY The Problem The Design Professionals' Liability Reform issue is about the perpetual amount of time that design professionals stand liable for potential actions by third parties for improvements to real property which they have planned or designed. Since 1961, 47 jurisdictions have responded to this extended liability by enacting statutes of limitations or statutes of repose for third party suits. However, New York State is not one of the 47 jurisdictions (nor is Vermont or Ohio). New York State has never enacted a statute of repose to relieve design professionals from perpetual liability. Now, after over 35 years of seeking relief, the AIA New York State believes it is still about time that the New York State Legislature enact a solution to the problem. The Solution - A Statute of Repose for Third Party Suits The AIA New York State supports a 10-year statute of repose bill for third party suits bill for third party suits which incorporates a ten-year plus one year limit for any suit brought against a licensed design professional. Based on studies (Schinnerer and Cardozo Law Review), a statute of repose rather than a statute of limitations is fair to design professionals without imposing an unfair burden on the injured party who would continue to have redress to the courts by bringing suit against the owner or occupier of the building. With the passage of time, the probability increases that improper maintenance, rather than faulty design, is the proximate cause of injury. Thus, some reasonable time limitation for suit is a fair compromise, and statistical data (Schinnerer and Cardozo) suggest a ten year statute as fair and reasonable. The Strategy The AIA New York State’s Board of Directors voted this again as the Association’s top legislative priority. The AIA/NYS continues to introduce a "pure" statute of repose bill with a 10-year statute. By doing so, we want to remind the Legislators that the law enacted in 1996, Chapter 682, Laws of 1996, is but an intermediary step to our over-arching goal of enacting a statute of repose. The Association also believes it is important to support other design professional liability legislation in addition to its ten-year statute of repose for third party suits and supports the following three legislative initiatives as part of its "Design Professionals Liability Reform" package.. Design Professionals Liability Reform We support the initiatives of the New Yorkers for Civil Justice Reform for comprehensive tort reform, which will restore fairness, balance and common sense to our civil justice system and which includes the following Design Professionals Liability Reform issues: 10-year Statute of Repose for third party suits brought against design professionals and a Certificate of Merit provision before commencing suit. The legislative initiatives would extend to design professionals protection from perpetual liability exposure to third party suits in the case of a statute of repose and in the case of a certificate of merit process, protection from non-meritorious litigation in a manner similar to that currently provided for health professionals. THE NEVER ENDING EXPOSURE OF AN ARCHITECT In a decision rendered more than two decades ago by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, the Court observed that "[e]xcept in the middle of a battlefield, nowhere must men coordinate the movement of other men and all materials in the midst of such chaos and with such limited certainty of present facts and future occurrences as a huge construction project." In considering issues related to construction litigation, the Court was merely recognizing the inherent problems associated with construction, and the likelihood that such projects will invariably lead parties to the steps of the courthouse. Given the inherent conflicts associated with construction, it must be understood that architects face risks every time they undertake to perform professional services. Unfortunately for design professionals, unlike other professionals in New York State, their exposure never ceases. Although New York State has a Statute of Limitations of three (3) years for claims of negligence by an owner, design professionals are never truly relieved of responsibility for projects for which they performed services at any time during their careers. Specifically, the law allows third-parties who have suffered injuries as the result of improper professional services to institute a lawsuit against architects, engineers and land surveyors subject to limited exceptions, within three (3) years of the date of personal injury, wrongful death or property damage. In effect, architects who design buildings in New York State any time during their career remain exposed to claims by parties other than the party who hired them. Notably, most claims asserted against design professionals are by parties other than their clients. In many neighboring states, including Connecticut and New Jersey, legislatures have enacted laws creating definitive limitations to the time frame to pursue claims against design professionals. No other New York State professionals face the same continuous exposure which effectively serves to haunt architects and engineers well into their retirement years. In an effort to minimize the exposure of design professionals, New York State promulgated Section 214-d of the Civil Practice Law and Rules known as the Statute of Repose. By virtue of this statute, a third-party pursuing claims against an architect or engineer, who last provided services more than 10 years ago, must establish by substantial evidence the existence of a valid claim in order to pursue an action against the architect or engineer. Although this statute is helpful, it can be easily overcome, thus creating a continuous exposure for the design professional. Conversely, the State of New Jersey has adopted a Statute of Repose which provides that no claim can be pursued against a design professional who last provided services more than 10 years ago. The State of Connecticut has a similar State of Repose precluding claims against design professionals for services provided more than eight (8) years ago. The clear language of the legislation adopted in New Jersey and Connecticut ultimately serves to free the design professional from the never ending exposure currently facing design professionals in New York. Absent a meaningful modification to the current state of the law in New York, the design professional will never be relieved from potential exposure for any project. It is for this reason that architects would be well advised to press the legislature to address this apparent inequity. David B. Kosakoff, the author of this article, is a partner with the law firm of Sinnreich Safar & Kosakoff LLP, and is the General Counsel to the Westchester/Mid-Hudson Chapter of the AIA. He specializes in construction litigation and has represented design professionals by negotiating contracts, and litigating complex cases in court and through arbitration. He can be requested as counsel by your insurance carrier in the event of a claim. Mr. Kosakoff is also available to discuss issues related to businesses practices, and can be reached at 631-650-1200 or by e-mail at DKosakoff@ssklaw.net.
No, I did not misunderstand or overlook anything. You have your head up your butt again and are trying to, once more, your way out of responsibility for your bullcrap. Cases of personal injury are not cases of product liability. It is manifestly clear that cases of personal injury are being brought and are being processed by the courts as we speak. Upon further review, it appears that your "Statute of Repose" does not truly exist, and that New York has a 3-year Statute of Limitations, is merely strengthened somewhat by Chapter 682 of the Laws of 1996 which is not a pure Statute of Repose. THE NEVER ENDING EXPOSURE OF AN ARCHITECT [Excerpt] In an effort to minimize the exposure of design professionals, New York State promulgated Section 214-d of the Civil Practice Law and Rules known as the Statute of Repose. By virtue of this statute, a third-party pursuing claims against an architect or engineer, who last provided services more than 10 years ago, must establish by substantial evidence the existence of a valid claim in order to pursue an action against the architect or engineer. Although this statute is helpful, it can be easily overcome, thus creating a continuous exposure for the design professional. Conversely, the State of New Jersey has adopted a Statute of Repose which provides that no claim can be pursued against a design professional who last provided services more than 10 years ago. The State of Connecticut has a similar State of Repose precluding claims against design professionals for services provided more than eight (8) years ago. The clear language of the legislation adopted in New Jersey and Connecticut ultimately serves to free the design professional from the never ending exposure currently facing design professionals in New York. Absent a meaningful modification to the current state of the law in New York, the design professional will never be relieved from potential exposure for any project. It is for this reason that architects would be well advised to press the legislature to address this apparent inequity. A "statute of repose" applies to architects and engineers. Your documentation for this is curiously missing. This is complete, utter, total bullshit. "Statutes of Repose" toll from the time of the completion of a project. That is what distinguishes them from a "Statute of Limitations." "Personal injury" claims are not controlled by a "Statute of Repose" which applies to actions against architects and engineers. "Personal injury" claims are controlled by a "Statute of Limitations" which does not begin to run until the time of the injury, or in some cases, until the injury becomes known, such as injury from toxic substances. You appear to be unable to tell the difference between a "Statute of Respose" and a "Statute of Limitations." (Appearances can be deceiving. Actually you know the difference full well, but you are trying to lie your way out of your previous bullcrap.) As you stated in BAC-side #109 You clearly stated that personal injury cases currently have an indefinite liability in that for three years after an injury the building builder/owners can be sued. Personal injury cases are not barred by a statute of repose pertaining to architects and engineers. Such a statute bars claims against the architect or engineer a specified number of years after completion of the project. Some states, such as California, have adopted a 10-year statute of repose for product liability cases involving architects or engineers. No state has a statute of repose greater than 10 years. ALL statutes of repose run from the time of completion of the project, not from the time of an injury. Had there been a 10-year statute of repose in New York, actions subject to the statute of repose would have been barred for about the last 25 years. New York appears to have NO true Statute of Repose which bars an action by third parties against an architect or engineer. In New York, the "ten year" statute provides that a third party need show substantial evidence of an existing claim before the architect or engineer needs to defend the case. There is no absolute bar to proceeding. Personal injury claims can be brought for three years after an injury, even if the injury occurs 30 years after completion of the construction. At nolu_chan #112 I asked: The BAC-side #113 response was: Having been caught in one BAC-side , you now attempt to extricate yourself with Now at BAC-side #129 you again as follows: A statute of repose does not apply to builders but to designers - architects and engineers.
You cling to your discredited Republican spin like a dingle berry on a dogs butt.
Bunch of internet bums ... grand jury --- opium den ! ~ byeltsin
BAC is one huge LIE. His queerness thinks he's something 'special,' on the planet. With people like him around, the term "QUEER" will never go away.
Documenting his nonsense can be entertaining. From the positive point of view, if I make him waste 20-30% of his post quota with me, he has that much less opportunity to be a pest elsewhere.
You cling to your discredited Republican spin like a dingle berry on a dogs butt. HAHAHAHAHA And it's glued to the hair so bad nothing short of a good waterboarding will get it off.
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. Albert Einstein
I gotta admit - you've done that quite well. Most of the rest of us have figured "screw him/her/it. It's not worth the time". Prodigies of satan never are.
If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. Albert Einstein
The original corporation was named Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson. That became Skilling, Helle, Christiansen & Robertson. And that became Skilling Ward Christiansen Robertson And that became Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire Inc. And that became Magnusson Klemencic Associates And you can contact them here: http://en.structurae.de/firms/data/index.cfm?id=f005335 So I'm not surprised if some documents have gotten lost in all the intervening years. It's not the conspiracy Ricky and you have made it out to be. Did he ever supply any proof, whatsoever, that it is legally mandated that documents like design calculation be retained for 40 years like he claimed? No???? To which Ricky claimed it was mandatory, by law. Which it isn't. You are presuming the assertion that the analysis assumed the plane impacted at 600 mph is correct. But Robertson said it is not. And indeed, the only plane to hit a building in NY did so at a much lower speed because it was lot in fog. And that's the situation Robertson said he assumed in his analysis. Which seems rational. Furthermore, you are unable to name an instance where commercial jets fly 600 mph at 1000 feet altitude ... unless they are crashing ... which is a VERY rare event. And we know they weren't considering the possibility of hijackers deliberately crashing a plane into structures at full speed back in 1964. But we do know that commercial jets fly at lower speeds ... landing speeds ... over large cities when at low altitude. So Robertson's assertion that he assumed that makes sense ... whereas the claim the building was analyzed for 600 mph impacts back in 1964 simply does not. No matter how much you want to pretend it does.
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Well then go ahead, NC ... bring it to court and see how far you get. ROTFLOL! Call it what you want. Like I said, in cases of personal injury, NY allows folks to sue within that 3 years of injury no matter how long ago the structure was built. However, there have been recent NY court cases that overuled that and architects are working to establish a firm 10 year Statute of Repose. In any case, there doesn't appear to be a legal requirement that design documents be retained during that period or any period. One is wise to do so but I've yet to see any proof that it is legally mandated. So Ricky is just plain wrong. Just like I originally said. Ok. Now go ahead and try to prove negligence in not designing a skyscraper (or any building for that matter) back in 1964 for a high speed impact by commercial jet hijacked by terrorists. Or a high speed impact by a commercial jet, PERIOD. You will only be wasting your money if you try. But it's your money. Good ... looks like what I mentioned has been passed. And it looks like you have your work cut out for you. I never said they were. But not for the architect/engineers being negligent by not designing the WTC towers to withstand a high speed commercial jet impact. You are being dishonest if you claim that's the basis of those cases.
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Are you SURE you are from New York and know New York history??? When last I checked, New York City included Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. Where you get the notion that only one plane ever hit a building in New York is beyond me. It is just about impossible to crash a jetliner in New York City and not hit a building. Just last year, New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle flew into a building between the 39th and 40th floor. In 2001, there was the flight that crashed in Queens. And who could forget the story of Stephen Baltz who initially survived the midair collision which crashed one jetliner in Staten Island and the other in Brooklyn. That was in 1960 and would have been bright in the memories of all New Yorkers in 1964. http://www.fdnewyork.com/lidle.asp On October 11, 2006, New York Yankee baseball player Cory Lidle crashed into a building in New York between the 39th and 40th floors. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/11/12/newyork.crash/index.html Feds eye engines in air crash November 12, 2001 Posted: 10:07 p.m. EST (0307 GMT) NEW YORK (CNN) -- Investigators suspect a catastrophic engine event as the likely cause of an airline crash Monday in New York that likley claimed the lives of everyone on board, a Transportation Department official told CNN. Investigators have not definitively ruled out terrorism in the crash American Airlines flight 587, but think some sort of engine failure caused the disaster, the official said. Officials said the flight, which crashed in Rockaway, a Queens neighborhood, carried 260 people - 246 ticketed passengers, nine crewmembers and five unticketed infants sitting on their parents' lap. At least six to eight people in Rockaway also have been reported missing immediately following the crash, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said. By late Monday, searchers had recovered 265 "relatively intact bodies," police said. The flight was an Airbus A300-600. The jet was propelled by General Electric engines that have been the subject of past National Transportation Safety Board recommendations. Last December, the agency recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require airlines with the same GE engines as those on flight 587 to review repairs made on cracked engine blades. That recommendation followed an incident in which an engine erupted and caught fire during maintenance on a U.S. Airways plane. A year earlier, the NTSB recommended that airlines with Airbus A300s improve their engines' fire detection system. An engine on an American Airlines flight that caught fire on takeoff from Puerto Rico prompted that recommendation. This June, the FAA issued an airworthiness directive, telling airlines to examine specific parts of the GE engine. A GE spokesman told CNN the company complied with the directive, but could find nothing to change. New York Gov. George Pataki said there were "inconclusive" reports the pilot dumped fuel into Jamaica Bay, an indication he may have known of a problem on board. Officials said the Coast Guard had found no evidence of a fuel slick in the waters off John F. Kennedy Airport, which would indicate flight 587's pilot deliberately dumped fuel from the aircraft as it headed toward earth. Just before the crash, the Airbus broke up in mid-air. A sizable portion of the vertical stabilizer from the tail section landed in Jamaica Bay, while most of the fuselage plunged into Rockaway. One engine landed at a gas station, while other engine pieces crushed a boat parked in the driveway of a home that caught fire. Giuliani said the fuselage destroyed up to six houses and severely damaged another six. Pataki said the main crash site suggested the plane dropped at a steep angle, if not vertically. "It's clear that the plane did come down very much in a straight level, which was horrible for that particular site, but minimized what could have happened had the plane glided across the Rockaways," he said. The cockpit voice recorder from American Airlines Flight 587 has been recovered and was flown to Washington for analysis, the National Transportation and Safety Board said. Investigators are still searching for the flight data recorder that will give information about how the different systems, including the engines, were performing. The plane was en route to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. American Airlines said the plane was carrying 251 passengers and nine crewmembers. The plane had not been delayed by mechanical problems, said American Airlines Chairman Don Carty. http://psreader.com/article44.html Pillar of Fire Recalling the Day the Sky Fell, December 16, 1960 by Nathaniel Altman Few Park Slope residents know that our neighborhood was once the scene of the country’s worst air disaster. At about 10:30 in the morning, on Friday, December 16, 1960, a United Airlines DC-8 jet en route from Chicago to Idlewild (now JFK) airport collided with a TWA Super Constellation propeller plane flying from Columbus to LaGuardia. The TWA plane broke into pieces and plunged onto Miller Field, a former military airport in the New Dorp section of Staten Island, killing all 44 on board. The crippled United plane managed to remain in the air for another eight and a half miles before crashing onto Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue, setting fire to over a dozen buildings and killing five pedestrians. In all, 135 people died as a result of the crash. The crash and its aftermath bore the traits of a classic American tragedy: tremendous loss of life and homes and businesses destroyed. It was also a time of individual acts of kindness and powerful heroism. Many also believed that it was a day of miracles, as the two crashes could have been far worse. Government investigations sought to pinpoint the reason for the collision, but were accused of mounting a coverup. The real story remains unresolved to this day. Ironically, the crash was also a possible turning point for a declining Brooklyn neighborhood, and sparked a preservation movement that grew to include much of the city. The Neighborhood While still similar to the neighborhood that today’s residents would recognize, at the time the area around Sterling Place and Seventh Avenue was called “a neighborhood in transition.” While good shopping could be found on Seventh Avenue, middle-income families were moving out and banks began redlining the neighborhood, making it difficult for people to buy homes here. While some neighbors would still visit on their stoops during the warmer months, dozens of buildings-mostly between Fifth and Seventh avenues-were abandoned by their owners, who boarded them up and fled to suburbia. Commenting on the neighborhood in Brooklyn Heights Paper in 1995, Joe Ferris wrote, “There were abandoned and derelict buildings on every block from Flatbush Avenue to 15th Street. St. John’s Place between 5th and 6th Avenues looked as if it had been hit by heavy artillery.” Many of the brownstones became rooming houses, and once-large apartments were divided into smaller ones. On the morning of December 16, the snow on the ground had turned to slush. The grey sky was heavy with low clouds and a wet snow was falling throughout the area. The New York Times reported that “about the only sound on Sterling Place from Sixth to Seventh avenues was the slushing passage of an occasional car.” Due to the bad weather, few pedestrians made their way along Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place, where two men were selling Christmas trees for the upcoming holiday. The Aircraft Trans World Airlines N6907C was a Lockheed Super Constellation delivered to TWA in 1952. Considered one of the most beautiful airliners ever built, the graceful “Super Connie” was powered by four propeller engines and featured a slightly serpentine shape and a unique tri-rudder tail section. The plane’s cruising speed was 325 mph and it could carry 64 passengers nonstop for 3250 miles. United Airlines N8013U was a new Douglas DC-8 jet delivered to United Airlines barely a year before the crash. At that time the largest commercial jet in the air, the DC-8 was equipped with four turbojet engines. This long-range (5720 mile) transport had a cruising speed of 579 mph and could carry up to 189 passengers. The Events TWA flight 266 originated in Dayton, Ohio and stopped in Columbus, where a change of aircraft took place and most of the passengers boarded for the trip to New York. Leaving Columbus at 9 in the morning under the command of Capt. David A. Wollam, the Super Constellation carried five crew and 39 passengers, including two infants. Among the passengers were seven specialists in missile and aircraft development from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton; Richard Bitters, an Ohio University executive; four Ohio State University athletes; Gary Myers, president of the magazine Highlights for Children and his wife Mary, parents of five; and Louella Bricker, who was traveling to the Perkins Institute in Watertown, MA to bring her deaf son George back to Ohio for the holidays. At least one of the passengers had a premonition of death. Before she boarded the plane, Nancy Briggs, a student at Ohio State University, told her boyfriend Leonard Hart that she had a dream she was going to die and was afraid that she would never see him again. As his plane approached the New York area in limited visibility, Air Traffic Control advised Capt. Wollam to stand by in an area known as the Linden Intersection (a five-by-ten mile oval-shaped holding area stretched from East to West above Linden, NJ and the northwest section of Staten Island) before heading towards LaGuardia at an altitude of 5000 feet. Like the route of many of today’s flights into LaGuardia, the plane would have crossed Staten Island into Brooklyn, turned left and flown over Prospect Park and into the airport. After being given permission to land at 10:33:14, the captain began heading toward LaGuardia. Twelve seconds later, LaGuardia Approach Control advised that there “appears to be jet traffic off your right.” Communications with TW 266 then abruptly ended. United flight 826 was on nonstop service between Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and New York’s Idlewild. It left Chicago at 9:11 with 76 passengers and seven crew members under the command of Capt. Robert H. Sawyer. The best-known passengers included Dr. Jonas Kamlet, a leading chemist; Raymond Walsh, President of Wesleyan University Press; and Allen E. Braun, Vice President of North Advertising. Dorothy Miner, head nurse at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago, was flying here to assist her stepmother who was to undergo surgery, and Elsie Platt was traveling from Illinois to see her newborn granddaughter for the first time. Many others were coming home for the holidays, like Frank R. Dileo, a senior at the University of Utah; Darnell Mallory, a student at Omaha University, and Enrique Bustos, Jr., son of the former Consul General of Chile. Some were on trips abroad, like Edwige Dumalskis and her children Patrick and Joelle, who were en route to France to visit relatives. At approximately 10:21, the crew reported to Aeronautical Radio, Inc., operator of United’s aeronautical communications system, that one of their navigation receiver units was inoperative, which was relayed to United Airlines. Unfortunately, the crew failed to report the problem to Air Traffic Control, which probably would have provided extra radar assistance. At 10:32, the crew was told to enter the Preston intersection, an oval-shaped holding area 10 miles west of Red Bank, NJ, and well to the south of Linden. Its border was separated from the Linden intersection by five miles. The last transmission from the United crew was at 10:33:33. “Idlewild Approach Control, United 826, approaching Preston at 5000 [feet].” “I think we have trouble...” An instant later, at 10:33:34, LaGuardia radar observations showed that two targets merged over Miller Army Air Field, in New Dorp, Staten Island. The controller exclaimed, “I think we have trouble here with a TWA Connie...He’s not moving or anything. He might have got hit by another airplane.” Flying 11 miles off course and traveling at a speed of 500 mph- far faster than permitted by Air Traffic Control-the United jet slammed into the slower Super Constellation before the TWA pilot was able to react to the warning from the LaGuardia tower. The right wing of the DC-8 sheared through the upper right section of the Connie’s passenger compartment, causing the smaller plane to break into three pieces and spin out of control. Rev. Milton Perry, a Staten Island resident, told a reporter from the New York Times that he “felt the earth shake” and saw the plane fall in flames and smoke. At that moment, a Mrs. Weber of New Dorp heard an explosion, went to her window, and witnessed the crash. “It seemed to fall a few feet and there was another huge burst of flame... It went down in a terrible way, one wing gone, and it turned over very slowly. You could watch it all the way and it was always red from the flames.” Others reported that the plane had broken into “millions of pieces,” with both airplane debris and bodies falling from the sky. One TWA passenger was sucked into an engine of the DC-8. Narrowly missing a housing development, what was left of TWA plane and its occupants (along with the engine and wing debris from the United jet) fell onto the vacant airfield, recently abandoned by the Army (it is now part of the Gateway National Park). Local residents rushed to the scene and began pulling bodies from the flaming wreckage until rescue workers and soldiers arrived. Pillar of Fire While the tragedy was over for the TWA passengers and crew, the terrible events awaiting those on the United flight and residents of Park Slope were still unfolding. Losing altitude, the crippled DC-8, which was missing its right engine and part of the right wing, managed to continue northeast in the direction of LaGuardia airport and towards Prospect Park, where witnesses speculated that the pilot was attempting to make an emergency landing. Slope residents first saw the plane heading directly for St. Augustine’s Academy on Sterling Place below Sixth Avenue, with over a hundred students in class, when it was able to bank to the right. After barely clearing the school, the jet lost altitude above Sterling Place between Sixth and Seventh avenues. At an estimated speed of 200 mph, the plane’s right wing struck the roof of a brownstone at 126 Sterling Place, causing the fuselage of the plane to veer to the left and crash directly, with tragic irony, into Pillar of Fire Church across the street. The aircraft and the church exploded in flames, killing dozens of passengers and Wallace E. Lewis, the church’s 90-year-old caretaker, as he lay in bed. The left wing, now on fire, sheared into an apartment building next door to the church, while another section of the cabin, filled with screaming passengers, crashed into McCaddin’s Funeral Home on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place. The severed tail section, mostly intact, fell upright into the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place. Several buildings were totally destroyed and at least ten were damaged. For those on the ground, the scene was as if taken from a horror movie. Interviewed by a reporter from The New York Times, a Mr. Manza said, “All of a sudden, the right wing dipped: It hooked into the corner of the apartment house [122 Sterling Place], and the rest of the plane skimmed into the church and the apartment house across the street. All at once everything was on fire, and the fire from the plane in the street was as high as the houses.” Mrs. Robert Nevin lived at 122, and was in her nightgown standing in the front room of her top floor apartment doing her hair when she heard a shattering crash. “The roof caved in and I saw the sky.” Henry and Pauline McCaddin, owners of the McCaddin Funeral Home, were enjoying a mid-morning cup of coffee in their second-floor kitchen while their one-year-old daughter played under the table. Ms. McCaddin reported, “We were having our coffee and I said to Henry, ‘My goodness, that plane sounds awfully low!’ And just then the whole house shook like it had been hit by a bomb, and the room was all in flames.” The McCaddins escaped with the help of Robert Carter, owner of a hairdressing establishment on Seventh Avenue, who ran into the burning building to rescue them. A burning section of the plane’s left wing landed on top of 124 Sterling Place, and soon a fire spread to the roofs of numbers 122, 120 and 118. The jet also set fire to six buildings on Seventh Avenue, including numbers 18, 20, 22, 24, 26 and 28. Repairs can still be seen on the upper floors of many of these buildings. The crash scene was described by reporters as “an orderly kind of pandemonium,” with screaming residents rushing from their shattered buildings into the snow, sirens wailing, emergency radios crackling, and firefighters spraying water on the flaming wreckage. Members of Fire Department Rescue Company No. 2 worked continuously for almost 72 hours at the crash scene, deploying their specialized equipment to both combat the fire and search through the wreckage for bodies. In addition to chunks of airplane and brick, the debris included broken dolls and wrapped presents destined as Christmas gifts, as well as mailbags bulging with holiday cards. In addition to Mr. Lewis, five people on the ground were killed. The unlucky five were Charles Cooper, a sanitation worker who was shoveling snow, Joseph Colacano and John Opperisano, who were selling Christmas trees on the sidewalk, Dr. Jacob L. Crooks, who was out walking his dog, and an employee at a butcher shop located on Sterling Place. About a dozen others were injured, including several firefighters and residents of neighborhood buildings. The Brave Little Boy All of the occupants of the DC-8 were killed instantly, except Stephen Baltz, an 11-year old redhead from Wilmette, Illinois, who planned to spend Christmas with relatives in Yonkers. His father delivered him to O’Hare that morning, and he was to meet his mother and sister at Idlewild; they had flown in the day before. As the plane hit the ground and exploded in flames, Stephen was thrown from the tail section and onto a snowbank, where residents rolled him in the snow to put out his burning clothing. Though conscious and repeatedly calling for his mother and father, Stephen had inhaled flames and smoke, and also sustained severe burns and broken bones. Dorothy M. Fletcher, who lived at 143 Berkeley Place, rushed to Stephen’s side. Knowing that he was in shock, she called on neighbors to throw down some blankets, and was photographed in a leopard-patterned coat holding an umbrella over the boy to shield him from the falling snow. The photo appeared on the front pages of both the New York Times and the Daily News the following morning. It was Ms. Fletcher who brought Stephen to Methodist Hospital. (See sidebar interview.) Still conscious after his ordeal, Stephen Baltz later described the crash to doctors at the hospital. “I remember looking out the plane window at the snow below covering the city. It looked like a picture out of a fairy book. Then all of a sudden there was an explosion. The plane started to fall and people started to scream. I held on to my seat and then the plane crashed. That’s all I remember until I woke up.” Newspaper reports said that people all over the country prayed for Stephen, whose courage and sweet disposition won the hearts of everyone who met him. In spite of heroic efforts by doctors and nurses at Methodist, Stephen Baltz died peacefully at 1 o’clock the following afternoon, his mother and father by his side. A small bronze memorial to the crash victims containing the boy’s blackened pocket change-65 cents-was set up at the hospital, where Ms. Fletcher places flowers on the Sunday closest to the anniversary of Stephen’s death. (The memorial is now in storage, to be reinstalled after new construction at the hospital is complete). Recalling the event recently, the 91-year-old great-grandmother said, “What broke my heart was when he asked me if he was going to die. I couldn’t do all I wanted to do. I couldn’t save him.” Cause and Responsibility Faced with the biggest air disaster in American history, the Civil Aeronautics Board (now the National Transportation Safety Board) undertook an extensive investigation into the causes of the crash and made recommendations so that similar events never happened again. On June 18, 1962-about a year and a half after the crash-the CAB released its report, which stated that the probable cause of the accident was that United 826 proceeded beyond the clearance limit allocated by Air Traffic Control, with contributing factors including a high rate of speed and a change of clearance which reduced the en route distance by approximately 11 miles. Critics of the report called it a whitewash designed to prevent lawsuits resulting in punitive damages not covered by the airlines’ insurance. In an updated edition of Unfriendly Skies: Revelations of a Deregulated Airline Pilot, by “Captain X” and Reynolds Dodson (Doubleday, 1989), the authors wrote that FAA inspectors had previously complained that the United Airlines training program was dangerously unsatisfactory, that many crew members were denied training, and that United routinely falsified air safety records. Those who were critical of airline policy and government collusion were often transferred. “FAA inspectors who discovered serious fraud relating to violations of the government air safety requirements were blocked from taking corrective actions. Obstructing compliance with the air safety laws were FAA and United Airlines officials, and pressure from members of Congress.” Documentation related to these earlier charges were suppressed from the CAB report. Overall, verdicts concerning the lawsuits (which exceeded $300 million) stipulated that United was responsible for 61 percent of the claims, Trans World Airlines 15 percent, and the U.S. government 24 percent, because the planes’ instrument landing approaches were being guided by FAA controllers. In addition to the families of the deceased passengers and crew, local residents received settlements from United Airlines, some of which were considered unsatisfactory. Mr. And Mrs. Andrew Boyle, who owned a brownstone at 130 Sterling Place, received $3,700 in compensation, less $900 in lawyers’ fees. In an interview with the New York Times four months after the crash, Mrs. Boyle said, “We settled for peanuts. We’ll be in debt for the next ten years over that crash.” One woman told a different story. Her husband was also given a settlement of several thousand dollars, and the windfall (remember that $3000 went a lot farther in 1960 than it does today) caused him to go on a spending spree. “He went haywire with it-bought a television set, snappy clothes. Then he took off with the rest. He hasn’t been around for two months.” The four-story building containing the McCaddin Funeral Home was demolished and was soon replaced with a nondescript one-story building; it is now the site of a new multi-story construction that will contain both commercial and living space. While other families eventually moved back to the site of the crash, others simply left the area. Jimmy Moy, who owned a laundry on the parlor floor at 26 Seventh Avenue, decided to move to Manhattan. The vacant lot on which the building housing his laundry once stood is now also the site of new construction. Saving the Neighborhood In his article in Brooklyn Heights Paper, Joe Ferris addressed the danger the neighborhood faced after the crash: the government’s answer to dealing with damaged buildings in an already declining neighborhood was urban renewal: level the area and construct high-rise housing projects. This threat was a wake-up call for many local residents. Though many worked to save the neighborhood, Ferris cited a number of community leaders who helped save Park Slope at that critical time: Robert Makla, who helped found the Park Slope Civic Council; Irene Wilson, publisher of the monthly Park Slope Civic Council News; Evelyn and Everett Ortner, founders of the Brownstone Revival Movement and who helped secure landmark status for many local buildings; Herb Steiner, whose organization helped force the banks to stop redlining urban neighborhoods; and George Lovgren, who saved a local firehouse from closing. Today, the area around Seventh Avenue and Sterling Place is one of the most vital in the neighborhood. Though scars from the crash still can be seen on some of the buildings and a vacant lot remains where Pillar of Fire Church and an apartment house once stood on Sterling Place, few would recognize the quiet intersection as a scene of the nation’s worst aircraft disaster. With each new family that moves to Park Slope, the memory of the crash fades from the neighborhood’s collective consciousness. Yet the memories remain for many of the neighborhood’s long-time residents. Dorothy Fletcher, recalling the events over coffee at a neighborhood restaurant, said, “The crash remains so vivid in my mind. It’s like it happened just this morning.” PSR http://history1900s.about.com/od/1940s/a/empirecrash.htm The Plane That Crashed Into the Empire State Building On the foggy morning of Saturday, July 28, 1945, Lt. Colonel William Smith was piloting a U.S. Army B-25 bomber through New York City. He was on his way to Newark Airport to pick up his commanding officer, but for some reason he showed up over LaGuardia Airport and asked for a weather report. Because of the poor visibility, the LaGuardia tower wanted to him to land, but Smith requested and received permission from the military to continue on to Newark. The last transmission from the LaGuardia tower to the plane was a foreboding warning: "From where I'm sitting, I can't see the top of the Empire State Building." Avoiding Skyscrapers Confronted with dense fog, Smith dropped the bomber low to regain visibility, where he found himself in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by skyscrapers. At first, the bomber was headed directly for the New York Central Building but at the last minute, Smith was able to bank west and miss it. Unfortunately, this put him in line for another skyscraper. Smith managed to miss several skyscrapers until he was headed for the Empire State Building. At the last minute, Smith tried to get the bomber to climb and twist away, but it was too late. The Crash At 9:49 a.m., the ten-ton, B-25 bomber smashed into the north side of the Empire State Building. The majority of the plane hit the 79th floor, creating a hole in the building eighteen feet wide and twenty feet high. The plane's high-octane fuel exploded, hurtling flames down the side of the building and inside through hallways and stairwells all the way down to the 75th floor. World War II had caused many to shift to a six-day work week; thus there were many people at work in the Empire State Building that Saturday. The plane crashed into the offices of the War Relief Services of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. Catherine O'Connor described the crash: Joe Fountain died several days later. Eleven of the office workers were burned to death, some still sitting at their desks, others while trying to run from the flames. One of the engines and part of the landing gear hurtled across the 79th floor, through wall partitions and two fire walls, and out the south wall's windows to fall onto a twelve-story building across 33rd Street. The other engine flew into an elevator shaft and landed on an elevator car. The car began to plummet, slowed somewhat by emergency safety devices. Miraculously, when help arrived at the remains of the elevator car in the basement, the two women inside the car were still alive. Some debris from the crash fell to the streets below, sending pedestrians scurrying for cover, but most fell onto the buildings setbacks at the fifth floor. Still, a bulk of the wreckage remained stuck in the side of the building. After the flames were extinguished and the remains of the victims removed, the rest of the wreckage was removed through the building. The plane crash killed 14 people (11 office workers and the three crewmen) plus injured 26 others. Though the integrity of the Empire State Building was not affected, the cost of the damage done by the crash was $1 million.
ROTFLOLPIMP!!!!! You do it. The line is too long for me. There's thousands of cases, such as: This 2004 ruling http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/2nd/037698p.pdf describes a case brought by multiple plaintiffs against THE PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY and THE CITY OF NEW YORK, and WORLD TRADE CENTER PROPERTIES LLC, sued as SILVERSTEIN PROPERTIES. 1 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 - - - - - - 4 August Term, 2004 5 (Argued: January 13, 2005 Decided: July 14, 2005) 6 Docket Nos. 03-7698(L), -7736, -7699, -7700, -7724, -7743, -7749, 10 _________________________________________________________ 11 In re: WTC Disaster Site 12 VINCENT MCNALLY, GINA MCNALLY, FRANCIS LAVERY, KATHRYN 20 Plaintiffs-Appellees-Cross- 22 DAVID HENDRICKSON, LYNN HENDRICKSON, DEWARDRANTH 1 HAVEL III, ROBERT HENRI, PELOPS IRBY, AUSTIN JOHNSON, JASON 9 Plaintiffs-Appellees*, 10 - v. - 11 THE PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY and THE 13 Defendants-Appellants-Cross- 15 WORLD TRADE CENTER PROPERTIES LLC, sued as SILVERSTEIN 17 Defendant-Appellant. 19 Before: KEARSE and CABRANES, Circuit Judges, and KORMAN, Chief District Judge**.
Just like I originally said. ----------------- [BAC #129] You misunderstood, NC (although its difficult to see how). I said all along that the statute of repose would normally (in most states) prevent an action for product liability against the builders. Well, it is either prevented or perpetual, and you have always said one or the other. Which, of course, makes it BAC-true.
No, there are NO cases which overrule the Statute of Limitations. The statute of limitations for personal injury remains 3 years. There is NO firm statute of repose, and a statute of repose only applies to designers - architects and engineers. A statute of repose would not prevent a personal injury suit which falls within the statute of limitations.
BAC, you're doing a great job of wasting everyone's time with your hair splitting trivia - drawing energy away from the important truth. The fact of the matter is that a stopwatch says that the WTC buildings were brought down with controlled demolition, add the corroborating video captures and witness testimony. That's all that's important, here. The forum deserves much more than you and your damned spamming!
In the complete absence of any evidence, Ricky may be right or wrong.
It at least deserves that he stop inventing his "facts."
I was
talking about at the time the WTC towers were designed. At THAT time the only
NY skyscraper that had been hit by a large plane was the Empire State ... when
that plane was lost in fog. NC, surely you understand that the designers of
the WTC towers had to base their design loadings on past history and what was
LIKELY given how planes were used at that time. In 1964, large commercial jets
weren't being hijacked and then flown into skyscrapers. NOONE was considering
that as a design load. In 1964 (and even today) large commercial planes didn't
fly 600 mph at 1000 feet above a city. So NOONE was considering that a design
load for buildings until 9/11. But you are talking about a very rare event. Surely you
aren't suggesting that we design all structures to survive and protect
occupants from this sort of very rare accident. Especially since the chance of
debris from such a rare event ... or the chance that one of the planes
involved in such a rare event ... hitting a skyscraper is almost nil. And keep
in mind that the crew of flight 826 (the plane that survived the collision and
came down intact) would have been able to avoid a skyscraper.
NONE of them assert
the designers should have designed the towers to survive and protect their
occupants from a high speed impact by a commercial jet. The one case you
linked certainly doesn't. You are being dishonest if you are claiming it does.
--------------------------------------------------------- Aren't you lucky. You get to receive one of the 15 posts I'm allowed each day.
Do you use the 25 or 100 page notepads?
''the messianic side of Americans can be tiresome.'' - Nicolas Sarkozy
[nc quoting at #133] Within those 90 days, the claimant has to demonstrate to a court that there is a substantial basis of evidence showing negligence on the part of the design professional and that that negligence is also a proximate cause of the injury. [BAC #141 to nc #134] And it looks like you have your work cut out for you. The first quote is not from the post being responded to by BAC. The below is from #134. [nc at #134 to BAC] According to the American Institute of Architects: THE NEVER ENDING EXPOSURE OF AN ARCHITECT [Excerpt] In an effort to minimize the exposure of design professionals, New York State promulgated Section 214-d of the Civil Practice Law and Rules known as the Statute of Repose. By virtue of this statute, a third-party pursuing claims against an architect or engineer, who last provided services more than 10 years ago, must establish by substantial evidence the existence of a valid claim in order to pursue an action against the architect or engineer. Although this statute is helpful, it can be easily overcome, thus creating a continuous exposure for the design professional. It would appear there is a reason they want a true statute of repose.
BAC, there is no 'official' assertion that the towers fell due to the aircraft impacts and jet fuel fires. Not even the NIST report says that, versus the fuel burned off quickly. The official line is that it was "...all those OTHER fires" which caused the purported collapsing floors. Make up your mind; what's the 'cause' you're getting behind. The essence of your assertions is that the buildings were not designed to be tolerant of arson. Do you want everyone to believe that?? Well .....? C'mon girly-man, let's hear your position, versus your spamming. About that stopwatch .......
The Chief Engineer wrote a White Paper that said it.
He was NOT the chief engineer. Robertson was the Lead
Structural Engineer of record. Skilling simply owned the design company and
had a strong interest in making potential occupants feel safe. The White Paper
contained ONLY that statement. Nothing else to back it up. That they would
have looked at a 600mph crash as a design load is ridiculous. They didn't
really have the tools back in 1963 to confidently determine what would happen
in that case. And guess what, NIST isn't claiming that the damage done by the
plane collapsed the towers. It was the damage PLUS the fires. And Skilling
also is on record saying fires were "THE PROBLEM". So you continue your
circus act, NC. At this point I think I'll simply link folks to this: http://freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?
ArtNum=51045&Disp=0 "The 9/11 Truther Credo" Because your debating
tactics are listed there.
--------------------------------------------------------- Aren't you lucky. You get to receive one of the 15 posts I'm allowed each day.
Prove it from a contemporary official record from the construction. If Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer "of record," produce that record.
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/Public%20Transcript%20021204%20Final1_withlinks.pdf Transcript of NIST Public Meeting in New York City - February 12, 2004 Table of Contents Jim Hill, National Institute of Standards and Technology ......... 1 Shyam Sunder, National Institute of Standards and Technology ..... 2 * * * Dr. Sunder: Good morning. Jim has already introduced me as the lead investigator for the federal building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center disaster, and I will take this time this morning to explain to you our overall goals, our objectives, and where we are in terms of status and progress on the investigation. * * * I'm going to touch on a number of aspects of our investigation which I think it’s worth for the public to know at this point in time. First of all the issue with regard to the safety of the towers in an aircraft collision. Buildings are not designed to withstand the impacts of fuel laden commercial airliners. However, in the case of the World Trade Center, it was a consideration. The structural safety of the towers in an aircraft collision was considered in the original design. We have some documents from 1964 that suggest that. The impact scenario that was considered is a Boeing 707 traveling at 600 miles an hour. There's another document a month later that considers an aircraft impact at the 80th floor of one of the towers. When you put those two together, the events of September 11th look strikingly similar. The analysis that was reported from that time indicated that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the buildings. We now know that the buildings withstood the initial impact of the aircraft. The loss of life would have been far greater had the buildings collapsed upon impact. The large size of the buildings, the 208 x 208 feet floor plan area, and the dense exterior grid of columns, enabled the buildings to withstand the initial impact of the airplanes. But when you go beyond the initial impact to look at fire safety and life safety, we find that there are some contradictory views.
Let's see. Scientific American
says he was. NIST says he was. American Society of Civil Engineers
says he was. Columbia University says he was. PBS says he was. http://www.skyscraper.org says he was.
The MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering says he was.
McGraw-Hill Construction / ENR magazine says he was. The American Council
of Engineering Companies says he was. http://www.cenews.com says he was. The
National Academy of Engineering says he was. en.structurae.de says he was.
The BBC says he was. The Stanford Engineering Department says he was.
http://www.construction.com says
he was. http://www.istructe.org says
he was. http://www.wtc.com says he was.
http://www.americanscientist.org
says he was. The NYTimes says he was. The University of Berkeley says
he was. Right, NC. We have every reason to doubt them. ROTFLOL!
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Explain a symmetric collapse of a building with asymmetric damage. It cannot be done without explosives to make it happen.
Then you should have no
trouble naming structural engineers and demolitions experts who agree with you
that the WTC towers were brought down by explosives. You can name some,
right? Can you name even one? No????
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You can name some, right? Can you name even one? No???? You are such a fag. Only because it serves my purpose to hoist you on your own retard, I'll give you one, Beach hoser: Van Romero. ------------------------------------------ Three days after 9/11, The Albuquerque Journal interviewed Demolition Scientist Van Romero. Explosives Planted In Towers New Mexico Tech Expert Says By Olivier Uyttebrouck Journal Staff Writer Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech explosion expert said Tuesday. The collapse of the buildings appears "too methodical" to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. "My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse," Romero said. Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures.
[nc #155] If Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer "of record," produce that record. Looking at your non-response SPAM, I accept that you CANNOT produce any actual record showing that Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer "of record." SPAM is not substance. NONE of the links you provided goes to a web page that says anything about Robertson or his being the Lead Structural Engineer of record. Robertson is now a licensed Structural Engineer in California. He is not now, nor has he ever been, a licensed Structural Engineer in New York. There is no such thing as a licensed Structural Engineer in the state of New York. Robertson is a licensed Professional Engineer in New York. Robertson was yet a licensed Professional Engineer in New York in 1964. As Robertson was not a licensed Professional Engineer in New York in 1964, it was impossible for him to have been any engineer "of record" in 1964. All that going on, and Leslie Robertson was NOT even a LICENSED Professional Engineer. Without that license he could not have been the Lead Structural Engineer of record as you have claimed. That is correct. In 1964, Leslie Robertson had not yet acquired his license as a Professional Engineer in the State of New York. However, in 1964, John B. Skilling WAS a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of New York. In 1964, of the two, ONLY John Skilling could have been the Engineer of record. When must I employ a licensed PE? Generally, you will need the services of a licensed design professional such as a PE any time you need the approval of a government agency or official for a construction project; these officials can only accept engineering plans signed and stamped with the seal of the PE. Check with that official to determine what you are required to submit. You will also need a PE when the complexity of the design of a project requires the skills of a professional engineer or when the services fall within the legal definition of professional engineering. Note: Requirements vary slightly from state to state. The requirements listed below are based on the requirements of the State of New York. Only when all requirements have been met can an individual be considered a Licensed Professional Engineer. Becoming a Licensed Professional Engineer requires at least 12 years of acceptable education/experience credit. Some of this is often obtained through four years of college study, although there are other ways of obtaining the required credit. After obtaining six years of acceptable education/experience credit, the candidate takes the Fundamentals of Engineering exam. After passing the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, and obtaining at least 12 years of acceptable engineering/education experience, the engineer must pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam. Only when all requirements have been met can an individual be considered a Licensed Professional Engineer. ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!! Your guy was not licensed and could not sign or stamp a damn thing in 1964, and you said at BAC #35, "The design of the major structural elements of the towers surely had to have been completed by February 1964." Damn. Just Damn!!!! Ohhhh... my side thingEYs
Which just proves you don't really know what you are talking about, Paul. First of all, Van Romero retracted his statement just a short while later. That fact was carried in the Albuquerque Journal, too. He said he changed his mind after looking at more detailed videos and the rest of the information that was gathered. Futhermore, Romero is NOT an demolition expert. Here is his resume: ************* http://infohost.nmt.edu/~red/van.html "Van D. Romero, Ph.D. ... snip ... Current Employment Since 1997: Vice President for Research and Economic Development, New Mexico Tech., Serves as chief official of the Research and Economic Development Division responsible for the encouragement, leadership, and support of research at the Institute and for the administrative and policy making activities of the division; offers dynamic research and administrative leadership to stimulate, coordinate, and provide support for the research at New Mexico Tech; acts as advocate for research within the Institute; serves as director of the Geophysical Research Center; manages the research support functions of the Research Division; serves as the Institute's representative and on-campus administrator for the Waste-Management Education and Research Consortium; acts as an external advocate and representative for New Mexico Tech's research activities; serves as mentor to new faculty to help them establish their research programs at the Institute; strongly encourages diversity and affirmative action; identifies research opportunities and actively encourages development of interdisciplinary research at the institute; ensures that high quality proposals are submitted by the Institute." Previous Experience 1995-1997: Director, Energetic Materials Research & Testing Center, Direct and manage a multi-disciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and staff involved in RDT&E programs in energetic materials. EMRTC provides a working laboratory for conducting research in support of both government and commercial programs in the areas of ordnance, explosives, propellants and other energetic materials. Facilities include over 30 separate test sites, gun ranges and research labs located within a 32 square mile field laboratory. Developed and implemented counter-terrorist program that benefits research and academic programs. 1994 - 1995: Senior Member Technical Staff, Sandia National Lab, Albuquerque, NM. Conducted Environmental Impact Assessment for Medical Isotope Production program. Program consisted of converting weapons program facility to produce radio-isotopes for medical usage. 1993 - 1994: Deputy Director of Environmental, Safety and Health Oversight; Manager, Hazardous Waste Programs, Superconducting Super Collider, Dallas, TX. Developed and implemented radiation protection policies compatible with DOE orders and CFR regulations, performed liaison activities with DOE, and provided technical direction to radiation and hazardous waste program. Responsible for the development and review of radiation transport calculations, shielding design, health physics procedures, mixed waste procedures, and environmental monitoring activities. Served as Chairman of the Laboratory's ALARA committee and member of DOE's R&D Laboratory Working Group (RADWG) Health Physics Procedures Committee. Responsible for RCRA compliance during project closure. 1979 - 1993: Manager, Thermal Hydraulic Programs, General Electric Knolls Atomic Power Lab, Schenectady, NY. Responsible for both the technical and personnel management of the group. Key participant in the long term planning and direction of both the research and the facilities construction and maintenance. Group responsibilities included thermodynamic and materials testing and analysis of fuel channels, steam generators, and in-core materials. This work determined the thermodynamic limits for the nuclear reactor which will power the next generation submarine scheduled for delivery at the turn of the century. In previous work as Lead Engineer, was responsible for the experimental fluid mechanics effort and developed LASER instrumentation and techniques for flow visualization and quantitative flow measurements. Additional experience includes the development, execution, and analysis of environmental impact testing of nuclear sub marines which includes radiation transport analysis, neutron detection, and gamma ray spectroscopy." Current Funded Research Activities * Experimental verification of the alpha-omega effect for galaxy formation with Los Alamos National Laboratories. Courses Taught * Graduate and undergraduate courses in Solid State Physics and Particle Physics for the Physics Department Patents Held * Procedure to study Bubble Evolution by correcting scattered LASER light and dynamic pressure signals ********** At the time of 9/11 he wasn't even working in the field of explosives. For ONLY 2 or 3 years he ran a group that focused on ordnance, explosives and energetic materials ... and not so much the effects of them on structures but the characteristics of the explosives themselves. Certainly there is no mention of him working on explosive demolition of structures or buildings. And we learn that prior to 1995, he conducted Environmental Impact Assessments, implemented radiation protection policies and investigated thermodynamic limits for the nuclear reactors. That's hardly the resume of the explosives, demolition and structures *expert* you present. In fact, take a look at his publications. You won't find one word about demolition or structures in those titles. And hardly a mention of explosives. You seem to live in a world of misinformation, Paul. Not a good foundation for finding the truth.
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SPAM is not substance. His SPAM IS without substance all right... His link in response #154 is invalid - it doesn't work - it leads to nothing. And at least 1 of the "links" in his #157 produced the same results... It's impossible for me to tell what side of the fence he's truly on (ignorant as that may sound). Let me explain. (As an aside - I find the NORAD stand-down to be of key significance in bearing forth the "official 9/11 lie"... When famed golfer Payne Stewart's charter flight went off course and started going north from the Panhandle of Florida, within 20 minutes NORAD had 2 fighters scrambled and on that situation like flies on shit. They were looking into the cockpit of the charter flight and reporting that the crew was unconscious - and stayed with that flight until it crashed. Yet for some reason, on 9/11 NORAD cannot manage to get even one fighter scrambled when 4 commercial airliners are flying off course for over an hour and a half - AND headed towards some of the most highly restricted airspace in the world????? BULLSHIT!!!!! Yet this is a topic BAC adamantly avoids.) For the sake of argument, lets pretend the collapses occurring on 9/11 happened exactly for the reasons given in the "official story" and for no other reason. That still does NOT explain any of the other "serious questions" such as those I posed to him in the link above. And his refusal to address ANY of them speaks volumes. That is why I say it's hard to tell what side of the fence he's on. Based upon the fact that he ONLY wants to discuss the collapses, and tries to divert everything else to that subject (and touts the "official story of it) - the most logical conclusion would have to be that he's a shill... One thing is certain: the ONLY way a person can successfully be a liar is to always tell a mix of lies with truth. If someone only tells truth, then we know what they say is true. If someone only tells lies, then we always know what truth is (the opposite of what they say). But when lies are mixed with truth - we're always left guessing. And that's exactly where BushCo and the likes of BAC leave us. From this, one other thing can be gathered: If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man. Albert Einstein
You said ONE, Douche bag. You don't get to prattle on and on to try to change that. Oh, and I didn't read your post, so I'm glad you wasted all that time and energy on it.
http://physics911.net/kevinryan Propping Up the War on Terror: Lies about the WTC by NIST and Underwriters Laboratories This paper appeared in 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out, ed. David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott (Northampton: Interlink Books, 2006). Propping Up the War on Terror: Lies about the WTC by NIST and Underwriters Laboratories Kevin Ryan “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of events that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.”- Shankar Nair, as quoted in the Chicago Tribune September 19, 2001 Turn on C-Span, or “Meet The Press,” or any other media program presenting federal officials. Whatever the issue, it always comes back to the same thing. Our government really has nothing else to offer us but protection from another 9/11. It uses this painful story to cut public services, eliminate our basic rights, and plunder the national coffers. But for many of us, it is not entirely clear from whom we most need protection.[1] As our debt explodes and our freedoms diminish, it would be wise to maintain focus on the origins of our War on Terror. No matter where this war leads us, we will need to keep the beginning in mind if we ever hope to see an end. The Point of Origin: The Collapse of the WTC Many have found that the 9/11 Commission not only failed to help us understand what happened; it also omitted or distorted most of the facts.[2] But if we really want to zero in on the exact turning point around which we plunged into chaos, we need to focus in particular on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings. This is where our hearts were wrenched and our minds were made ready for never-ending war, torture, and apparently the end of everything that was American. If we are ever to emerge from this insanity, we need to know how three tall buildings collapsed due to fire, all on the same day, when no such thing has ever happened before. The Twin Towers and Why They Fell It would help to begin with an accurate description of the WTC towers in terms of quality of design and construction. In July of 1971, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) presented a national award judging the buildings to be “the engineering project that demonstrates the greatest engineering skills and represents the greatest contribution to engineering progress and mankind.”[3] Others noted that “the World Trade Center towers would have an inherent capacity to resist unforeseen calamities.” This capacity stemmed from the use of special high-strength steels. In particular, the perimeter columns were designed with tremendous reserve strength whereby “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”[4] One would expect that any explanation for the destruction of such buildings would need to be very solid as well. Four years after 9/11, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finally did give us their version of “why and how” two of the buildings collapsed, but its explanation may be even less effective than the 9/11 Commission report.[5] Now that the official story has been given, however, we can see just how weak and ill-defined our basis for this War on Terror has been all along. Additionally, we can track the evolution of official comments about collapse and see who was involved. Selling the Official Story: Some Key Players Shankar Nair, whose statement quoted above is quite telling, was one of those “experts” on whom the government depended to support what turned out to be an ever-changing, but always flimsy, story. Many of the scientists involved in the investigation were asked to examine ancillary issues, like escape routes and other emergency response factors. But those few who attempted to explain what really needed explaining, the unique events of fire-induced collapse, appear to have engaged in what can only be called anti-science. That is, they started with their conclusions and worked backward to some “leading hypotheses.” Not surprisingly, many of the contractors who contributed to the NIST investigation, like the company for which Nair works, just happen to depend on good relationships with the government in order to earn their living. What may be a surprise is just how lucrative these relationships can be. For example, Nair’s company, Teng & Associates, boasts of Indefinite Quantity Contracts, long-term relationships with federal government agencies, and federal projects worth in excess of $40 million.[6] Others who worked so hard to maintain the official story included Gene Corley, a concrete construction expert listed by the National Directory of Expert Witnesses as a source for litigation testimony.[7] Corley was more than just a witness, however. He had led the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and then was asked to lead the initial ASCE investigation into the WTC disaster. Perhaps someone else, with less experience in bombings and more experience in fires, would have been a better choice. But without authority to save samples or even obtain blueprints, the ASCE investigation was ineffective anyway. Corley himself ended up being a very versatile resource, however, providing testimony supporting the pre-determined conclusions many times, and even posing as a reporter during an NIST media session.[8] There was really no need for phony media coverage. As with The 9/11 Commission Report and the lead-up to the Iraq War, the major media simply parroted any explanations, or non-explanations, given in support of the official story. One example is from a television program called “The Anatomy of September 11th,” which aired on the History Channel. Corley took the lead on this one as well, but James Glanz, a New York Times reporter, was also interviewed and helped to spread what is probably the worst excuse for collapse given. He told us that the fires heated the steel columns so much (the video suggested 2500 F) that they were turned into “licorice.” Other self-proclaimed experts have been heard promoting similar theories.[9] They will probably come to regret it. This is because the results of physical tests performed by NIST’s own Frank Gayle proved this theory to be a ridiculous exaggeration, as some people already knew. The temperatures seen by the few steel samples saved, only about 500 F, were far too low to soften, let alone melt, even un-fireproofed steel. Of course that result could have been calculated, knowing that 4,000 gallons of jet fuel[10]-not 24,000 gallons or 10,000 gallons, as some reports have claimed-were sprayed into an open-air environment over several floors, each comprised of more than 1,000 metric tons of concrete and steel. Another expert who served on NIST’s advisory committee was Charles Thornton, of the engineering firm Thornton and Tomasetti. Thornton’s partner, Richard Tomasetti, was reported to be behind the unprecedented and widely criticized decision to destroy most of the steel evidence.[11] Early on Thornton said: “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” He was talking to Karl Koch, whose company erected the WTC steel. Koch attempted to clarify as follows. “I could see it in my mind’s eye: The fire burned until the steel was weakened and the floors above collapsed, starting a chain reaction of gravity, floor falling upon floor upon floor, clunk - clunk - clunk, the load gaining weight and momentum by the nanosecond, unstoppable. Once enough floors collapsed, the exterior walls and the core columns were no longer laterally supported and folded in.”[12] This is a description of what was called the Pancake Theory, the most widely accepted version of what happened. The Pancake Theory was promoted by an influential 2002 NOVA video called “Why the Towers Fell,” in which Corley (yet again) and Thornton were the primary commentators. Both of them talked about the floors collapsing, and Thornton described how the perimeter columns buckled outward, not inward as Koch had described. The video made a number of false claims, including exaggeration of the temperatures (2000 F), remarks about melting steel, and the incredible statement that two-thirds of the columns in WTC1 (the North Tower) were completely severed. NIST’s report now indicates that only about 14% of the columns in WTC1 were severed, and in some photos we can count most of these for ourselves.[13] NIST and Underwriters Laboratories In August 2004, Underwriters Laboratories evaluated the Pancake Theory by testing models of the floor assemblies used in the WTC buildings. Despite all the previous expert testimony, the floor models did not collapse. NIST reported this in its October 2004 update, in a table of results that clearly showed that the floors did not fail and that, therefore, pancaking was not possible.[14] NIST more succinctly stated this again in its June 2005 draft report, saying: “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”[15] At the time of the floor tests, I worked for Underwriters Laboratories (UL). I was very interested in the progress of these tests, having already asked some sensitive questions. My interest began when UL’s CEO, Loring Knoblauch, a very experienced executive with a law degree from Harvard, surprised us at the company’s South Bend location, just a few weeks after 9/11, by saying that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC buildings. Knoblauch told us that we should all be proud that the buildings had stood for so long under such intense conditions. In retrospect it is clear that all of us, including Knoblauch, were ignorant of many important facts surrounding 9/11 and did not, therefore, see his statements as particularly important. Over the next two years, however, I learned more about the issues, like the unprecedented destruction of the steel evidence and the fact that no tall steel-frame buildings have ever collapsed due to fire. And I saw video of the owner of the buildings, stating publicly that he and the fire department made the decision to “pull”-that is, to demolish-WTC7 that day,[16] even though demolition requires many weeks of planning and preparation. Perhaps most compelling for me were the words of a genuine expert on the WTC. This was John Skilling, the structural engineer responsible for designing the towers.[17] (The NOVA video, incidentally, gave this credit to Leslie Robertson. But Robertson, who never claimed to have originated the design, was only a junior member of the firm [Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson], and Skilling was known at the time to be the engineer in charge.) In 1993, five years before his death, Skilling said that he had performed an analysis on jet plane crashes and the ensuing fires and that “the building structure would still be there.”[18] By 2003, all of this information was available to anyone who cared. The details were, without a doubt, difficult to reconcile with testimony from officials, reporters, and scientists who were supporting the official story. But in November of that year, I felt that answers from UL were needed. If, as our CEO had suggested, our company had tested samples of steel components and listed the results in the UL Fire Resistance Directory almost forty years ago, Mr. Skilling would have depended on these results to ensure that the buildings were sufficiently fire resistant. So I sent a formal written message to our chief executive, outlining my thoughts and asking what he was doing to protect our reputation. Knoblauch’s written response contained several points. He wrote: “We test to the code requirements, and the steel clearly met those requirements and exceeded them.” He pointed to the NYC code used at the time of the WTC construction, which required fire resistance times of 3 hours for building columns, and 2 hours for floors. From the start, his answers were not helping to explain fire-induced collapse in 56 minutes (the time it took WTC2, the South Tower, to come down). But he did give a better explanation of UL’s involvement in testing the WTC steel, even talking about the quality of the sample and how well it did. “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on,” he wrote, “and it did beautifully.”[19] This response was copied to several UL executives, including Tom Chapin, the manager of UL’s Fire Protection division. Chapin reminded me that UL was the “leader in fire research testing,” but he clearly did not want to make any commitments on the issue. He talked about the floor assemblies, how these had not been UL tested, and he made the misleading claim that UL does not certify structural steel. But even an introductory textbook lists UL as one of the few important organizations supporting codes and specifications because they “produce a Fire Resistance Index with hourly ratings for beams, columns, floors, roofs, walls and partitions tested in accordance with ASTM Standard E119.”[20] He went on to clarify that UL tests assemblies of which steel is a component. This is a bit like saying “we don’t crash test the car door, we crash test the whole car.” In any case, Chapin suggested that we be patient and wait for the report from NIST, because the investigation into the “collapse of WTC buildings 1, 2, and 783; was an ongoing process and that “UL is right in the middle of these activities.”[21] For the most part, I did wait, although I shared my concerns with Chapin again at UL’s Leadership Summit in January 2004. I encouraged him to ask for a company news release on our position, but this did not happen and I never heard from him again. By the time UL tested the floor assembly models in August of that year, I had been promoted to the top management job in my division, Environmental Health Laboratories, overseeing all company functions. Two months later, NIST released an official update that included the floor test results, as well as Frank Gayle’s results, in which steel temperatures were predicted. These results clearly invalidated the major theories of collapse, because pancaking could not occur without floor collapse and steel does not turn to licorice at the temperatures discussed. After reviewing this update, I sent a letter directly to Dr. Gayle at NIST. In this letter, I referred to my experiences at UL and asked for more information on the WTC investigation and NIST’s soon-to-be-published conclusions. NIST had planned at the time to release its final report in December, with time allowed for public comment. After I allowed my letter to become public,[22] this date was moved to January 2005, and then nothing was heard from NIST for several months. Other than UL’s involvement in testing the steel components, the facts I stated had all been reported publicly, but when I put them together plainly, they were considered outrageous. Five days after I sent my letter, I was fired by UL for doing so. The company made a few brief statements in an attempt to discredit me, then quickly began to make it clear that its relationship with the government, perhaps due to its tax-exempt status, was more important than its commitment to public safety. For example, in spite of Tom Chapin’s previous statements, UL suggested that it had played only a “limited” role in the investigation. Despite what our CEO, Loring Knoblauch, had written and copied to several executives, UL said there was “no evidence” that any firm had tested the steel used in the WTC buildings.[23] In doing so, UL implied that its CEO not only had fabricated this story about testing the WTC steel but had also spoken and written about it for several years without anyone in the company correcting him. As I see it, the only other option was that the company claiming to be our “Public Safety Guardian” was lying to us about the most important safety issue of our lives. My experiences give a taste for the delicate nature of our critical turning point. But to keep our focus, we should examine what NIST did with the results of its physical tests, which had failed to support its conclusions. Did NIST perform more tests, at least to prove its key argument that much of the fireproofing on the steel in the Twin Towers popped off due to the impact of the airliners? No, it did not. Instead, NIST put together a black box computer model that would spit out the right answers. This black box model was driven by initial parameters that could be tweaked. When the parameters that had initially been considered “realistic” did not generate results that “compared to observed events,” NIST scientists performed their final analysis using another set of parameters they called “more severe.”[24] When they were finished, their model produced video graphics that would enable anyone to see the buildings collapse without having to follow a train of logic to get there. Tom Chapin of UL was one of those doomed to make public comments in support of NIST’s final report. His comments were innocuous enough but he did hint at something of value. “The effect of scale of test assemblies…,” Chapin said, “requires more investigation.”[25] This may be the closest thing to a straightforward statement that we will ever see from UL on the matter. But it seems clear enough that results showing zero floor collapse, when scaled-up from the floor panels to a few floors, would still result in zero floor collapse. Perhaps a more direct version of Chapin’s comment might be that test results negating predetermined conclusions should not be used to prove them. Other than the video, NIST left us with only some vague statements about a few sagging floors suddenly destroying two hundred super-strong perimeter columns and forty core columns. But since sagging floors do not weigh more than non-sagging floors, it is difficult to see how this might occur, especially so uniformly. NIST claimed the perimeter columns saw increased loads of between 0 and 25% due to the damage, but it never reconciled this with the original claim that these columns could resist 2000% increases in live load. And the outward-buckling theory, suggested by Thornton, was changed again to inward buckling-apparently the forces involved were never well defined. Additionally, NIST suggested that the documents that would support testing of the steel components, along with documents containing Skilling’s jet-fuel-fire analysis, could not be found.[26] Ultimately, NIST failed to give any explanation for the dynamics of the towers as they fell, about how and why they dropped like rocks in free-fall. For both buildings, NIST simply stated that “once the upper building section began to move downwards . . ., global collapse ensued,” as if just saying so was enough.[27] As for WTC7, NIST as of yet has not elaborated on its “working collapse hypothesis,” which was vaguely presented in June 2004.[28] The bottom line is that, after more than four years, it is still impossible for the government even to begin to explain the primary events that drive this War on Terrorism. So much has been sacrificed, and so much has been invested in this story, that we all have a need for supportive answers. But when we look for those answers, all our “mind’s eye” can see is this smoky black box, where scientific results are reversed to support politically correct, pre-determined conclusions. That critical point of divergence, where our lives were turned upside down and all logic followed, has always been too painful to imagine. But now, without expert accounts of pancaking floors and licorice steel, it cannot be imagined at all. Some of us remain hopeful that we can still achieve a critical mass awareness of the need for truth, and in doing so pull the support out from under what John McMurtry calls “the 9/11 Wars.”[29] But if we cannot, even as the hopes for peace fade and the number of 9/11 families continues to grow, we should remember how we got this story and how it was propped up despite all the evidence against it. Because whatever happens next, after the smoke clears, our children may have a need to know. [1] Richard Heinberg, “Götterdämmerung,” Museletter, No.144, March 2004 (http://www.museletter.com/archive/144.html). [2] David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton: Interlink Books, 2005). Griffin summarizes the omissions and distortions in “The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie,” 911 Visibility Project, May 22, 2005 (http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2005-05-22-571pglie.php). [3] Angus K. Gillespie, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s World Trade Center (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press 1999), 117. [4] “How Columns Will Be Designed for 110-Story Buildings,” Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964: 48-49. [5] Jim Hoffman, “Building a Better Mirage: NIST’s 3-Year $20,000,000 Cover-Up of the Crime of the Century,” http://911Research.wtc7.net, December 8, 2005 (http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/nist/index.html). [6] Website for Teng & Associates (http://www.teng.com/teng2k3/mainframe.asp). [7] Website for National Directory of Expert Witnesses (http://national-experts.com/members2/witness.asp?d_memnum=07572&d_lnum=2). [8] Archived webcast video of NIST press briefing, NIST News Release website, June 23, 2005 (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_briefing_june2305.htm), 01:15:10. [9] Sheila Barter, “How the World Trade Center Fell,” BBC News, September 13, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1540044.stm). [10] Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” May 2005, Chapter 2. [11] James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (New York: Times Books, 2003), 330. [12] Karl Koch III with Richard Firstman, Men of Steel: The Story of the Family that Built the World Trade Center (New York: Crown Publishers, 2002), 365. [13] Eric Hufschmid, Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack (Goleta, Calif.: Endpoint Software, 2002), 27. [14] Table of results from Underwriters Laboratories August 2004 floor model tests, as presented by NIST in October 2004 (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P6StandardFireTestsforWeb.pdf), 25. [15] NIST, Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers(Draft) (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1draft.pdf), 195. [16] Silverstein’s statement is contained in “America Rebuilds,” PBS documentary, 2002 http://(www.pbs.org/americarebuilds). It can be viewed http://(www.infowars.com/Video/911/wtc7_pbs.WMV) or heard on audio file (http://VestigialConscience.com/PullIt.mp3). [17] “Structures Can Be Beautiful, World’s Tallest Buildings Pose Esthetic and Structural Challenge to John Skilling,” Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964: 124. [18] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, 138. [19] Underwriters Laboratories email correspondence, December 1, 2003. [20] Samuel H. Marcus, Basics of Structural Steel (Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing 1977), 20. [21] Underwriters Laboratories email correspondence, December 1, 2003. [22] Kevin Ryan, “The Collapse of the WTC,” 911 Visibility Project, November 11, 2004 (http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2004-11-11-ryan.php). [23] John Dobberstein, “Area Man Stirs Debate on WTC Collapse,” South Bend Tribune, November 22, 2004 (http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041124095100856). [24] NIST, Final Report, 196. [25] Comments from Underwriters Laboratories on NIST WTC report, NIST website (http://wtc.nist.gov/comments/ULI_Ganesh_Rao_8-5-05.pdf). [26] Archived webcast video of NIST press briefing, NIST News Release website, June 23, 2005 (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_briefing_june2305.htm), 01:18:50. [27] NIST, Final Report, 197. [28] NIST presentation on WTC7 collapse investigation, NIST website (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/June2004WTC7StructuralFire&CollapseAnalysisPrint.pdf). [29] John McMurtry, “9/11 and the 9/11 Wars: Understanding the Supreme Crimes.” In David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, eds., 9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out (Northampton: Interlink Books, 2006). My present essay will also appear in this volume.
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc05-07-03.htm NIST has been unable to locate any fire endurance tests conducted on the WTC floor system to determine its fire rating. The Architect of Record and the Structural Engineer of Record stated in 1966 and 1975, respectively, that the fire rating of the floor system of the WTC towers could not be determined without testing. Transcript of NIST Public Meeting in New York City - February 12, 2004 68 Dr. Hill: Thank you, Roger. Next we'll hear from Leonard Crisci, FDNY family member. Is Leonard here? Leonard Crisci: Yes. Dr. Hill: Okay. L. Crisci: Thank you. John Napolitano: I’m standing here with Leonard. Everybody has their bag of logs to tote, and Lenny has me. L. Crisci: My brother, as you remember from before, is Lt. John Crisci from the Hazardous Material Unit who perished at the World Trade Center. But what I would like to bring - just throw this out. I'm not an architect nor am I an engineer, but I'm a reasonable man. And I use that as a way of doing life. What a reasonable man would think and do. And part of it is this. When you look at the World Trade Center as a whole, this - the Port Authority and it’s construction, and you read about it and you look into it, you see that what happened here, what occurred, was that the Port Authority took a - and the word is bad, conspiracy, because then everybody puts their head down. But they conspired to build this building using unorthodox ways. And here, follow me, Yama, the architect, a small guy in a Midwest city who never had a big project, yet he is the one who sought out to build the Trade Center. He gets the job. Skilling, an engineer, again from a small firm out west, out on the west coast, he gets the job to be the engineer. And he brings in a guy by the name of Leslie Robertson, who’s a college graduate, but at the time is not an engineer. Yet he designs the structure of the outer walls with the interior walls, the thin construction. [nc note: Mr. Crisci should have said "not a licensed Professional Engineer."] Then you watch what happens. Where do you get the steel to build this building? Well, you get it from United States Steel or Bethlehem Steel, the two number one in the world at that time. Remember, we were dealing in the 1960s. Japan and Korea were not a factor then. Yet, they go out and get bids from those two giants of steel are turned down because they say excessive. Yet they go out and get ten smaller companies, each one fractured all throughout the country, from Texas, to Seattle, to New York. They build the Trade Centers and they compartmentalize the building of the Trade Center. A Pullman coach, who builds railroad cars, builds part of the World Trade Center. They get the contract. They build it. Now you’ve gone and you find the erector, Koch. Koch erects the building. When they bid out the process for the erecting, Koch is the only bidder. Why? Because no one else wanted to - they knew they couldn't get involved in it. Plus they were a small company with a lot of good background in the erecting business. They go on and erect the building. It was a foregone conclusion that they were going to go bankrupt, and which they did. They - well at least not totally, later on they went bankrupt. But they built the building. The Trade Center was constructed at 60% of the steel in the first 12 floors. If you’re getting paid by the tonnage, your money is gone by the time you reach the 13th floor. The next 100 floors were built with only 40% of the steel. The steel gets progressively thinner, up to a quarter of an inch when it reached the 110th floor. Then you bring this innovative - if you went out to buy a washing machine today, and the salesman told you that it's innovative, never tried before, never done before, you’d probably walk out of the store. You don’t want to buy it. Yet everything in the World Trade Center was innovative, never done before, new concept, excellent idea. The bottom line was that the Port Authority made a concerted effort to go and get small companies that were dependent upon the Trade Center either for their fame, fortune, or glory. That's how these guys - because everyone who was involved in it, except the big guys, Skilling and Leslie Robertson, they all went bankrupt. In the book, "Men of Steel," by Koch, he brings out a very, very pointed story. He's in the business 100 years erecting steel. He brings his grandfather into the topping out ceremony. They pull his 90-year-old grandfather in a wheelchair out onto one of the floors in the mid building. This 90-year-old man who’s been erecting steel for all of his life looks around and says to his son, “Where’s the steel? Where is it?” And then the son explains, Dad - you know, Grandpa, it’s on the outside and the inside. There's no steel in this building. What's holding it up? Well, what’s holding it up was this innovative idea of truss floors, spanning 60 feet across, held onto by 5/8-inch bolts. This is what our loved ones were standing on and doing business on. That's why we're here. J. Napolitano: No dedicated fire escapes. No cement. No concrete. Sheet rock walls to stop an airplane. L. Crisci: You build a structure with high-speed elevators; encase them in sheet rock. Sure, it was a great - my thing has always been that if Robertson was a student at MIT, and he designed the World Trade Center as his Masters for his graduation class, he would have got an A from his professor. And he would have said, this is great. One of the best ideas I’ve ever seen. But on the bottom it would have said, it ain’t gonna work. It’s not gonna work. It can’t happen. J. Napolitano: And it didn't work. L. Crisci: And you know what, it didn’t work, because they murdered our family members by putting them in a building that they couldn't get out of when it came. By the way, everybody who went and built that World Trade Center, all the contractors, nobody made money. The only ones who made money were the Port Authority. And why did they make it? Because they gave their tenants beautiful views with wide open, 209 feet of open views. They gave them - when that fire - when that plane hit, that plane, there was nothing to stop the spread of that fuel. It went across the floors. It ignited. It ignited everything on it. Nothing was done to help us. When they built those stairwells, you know, they didn't give you a way out. They gave you 3, but no way out. You were dead if something cut off one of those stairwells. And they died. They died horribly. J. Napolitano: The steel had a two-hour fire rating that they felt that it wouldn’t fail and the building would stay up. But they knew from 1993, that it took over ten hours to evacuate. Do the math. And they sent first responders up there, and give them a window of two hours to get up 80, 90 floors to try to rescue people and get them out. All within two hours. L. Crisci: What I ask you sir, and I know you’re not investigating, you’re not a criminal liability, but I say this to you. This was a - Austin Tobin, he designed this with the full intent, knowing what was going to happen. He did it economically then the Port Authority went with him. Those buildings should have never been inhabited out there. All of our people who were - and you have to say that when it comes down. All these icons of industry, they gotta know. Because if - just think of the magnitude of that building. Why wasn’t it full of New York architects and New York engineers? Why did they have to go out of town to get these people? Because those are the only people that could be brow beaten by the developers. They did what they had to do because that’s what made them famous. And that has to be said. Dr. Hill: Len? Okay, Leonard. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate it. L. Crisci: Thank you for letting me have my comments. John Napolitano: Thank you very much. I just want to say something really brief. My son was a first responder. He was with Rescue Two, Lieutenant John P. Napolitano. He was a husband, a father; two little girls. Lenny, his brother, John Crisci, Lieutenant with HazMat, also a father; three sons. On the morning of September 12 Lenny and I got down there to search for our loved ones and some of the loved ones of you people here in this room today, and we never found them. At what they were calling “ground zero” at a triage area, I wrote a message in the ashes to my son. I thought if he was hurt and they brought him there that he’d see it and he’d know we were there. I just simply wrote "Rescue Two, John Napolitano, I'm here and I love you, Dad." I'm sure he saw it. Well, I’m here today on his behalf and his name, because if he could be here, he’d be saying what I'm saying today and what Lenny’s saying today. Gentlemen, listen, we know the buildings failed. There was a lot of expert testimony here. We know what we saw. We saw the buildings come down. The question is, was it an honest mistake on how they were made or was it criminal? And that's the question that has to be asked. Thank you. Dr. Hill: Thank you.
That's false. But you continue with your circus act, NC. Go ahead, continue with your circus act, NC. New York allowed a licensed Professional Engineer in California to legally practice in New York. Ever hear of "comity"? Apparently not. So you claim. Prove it. With a source we can both believe. And do something more than quote CURRENT regulation and rules, NC. Quote the regulations as they stood back in 1964. You can do that, can't you? Or perhaps all those organizations I listed who state that Robertson was the lead structural engineer on the project actually know something that you do not.
--------------------------------------------------------- Aren't you lucky. You get to receive one of the 15 posts I'm allowed each day.
Hey BAC, does your standard of 'proof' apply to Dr. Rokke and the DU issue? Well ...... C'mon asshole, you can't have it both ways! Oh, other than third-party citation, what were the professional qualifications of your engineer guy, relative to 1964? Hey BAC, you asshole, I'm talking to you!
Go ahead, continue with your circus act, NC. New York allowed a licensed Professional Engineer in California to legally practice in New York. Ever hear of "comity"? Apparently not. So you claim. Prove it. With a source we can both believe. And do something more than quote CURRENT regulation and rules, NC. Quote the regulations as they stood back in 1964. You can do that, can't you? Or perhaps all those organizations I listed who state that Robertson was the lead structural engineer on the project actually know something that you do not. http://www.lera.com/robertson.htm Education University of California at Berkeley, B.Sc., 1952 Professional Licenses Structural Engineer - California http://www.cee.princeton.edu/people/e21/robertson/profile.html BS, University of California at Berkeley, 1952 Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1986 http://www.heimer.com/pe/index.html Note: Requirements vary slightly from state to state. The requirements listed below are based on the requirements of the State of New York. Only when all requirements have been met can an individual be considered a Licensed Professional Engineer. Becoming a Licensed Professional Engineer requires at least 12 years of acceptable education/experience credit. Some of this is often obtained through four years of college study, although there are other ways of obtaining the required credit. After obtaining six years of acceptable education/experience credit, the candidate takes the Fundamentals of Engineering exam. After passing the Fundamentals of Engineering exam, and obtaining at least 12 years of acceptable engineering/education experience, the engineer must pass the Principles and Practice of Engineering exam. Only when all requirements have been met can an individual be considered a Licensed Professional Engineer. Source: New York State Education Department http://www.nysed.gov/coms/op001/opscr2?profcd=16&plicno=034360 Name : ROBERTSON LESLIE E http://www.nysed.gov/coms/op001/opscr2?profcd=16&plicno=039286 Name : SKILLING JOHN B
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest After a specified period of time following construction, the statute of repose will cut off a cause of action against an architect or engineer for product liability.
THAT is WHY the actions regarding the WTC will not be brought against the architect or engineer for product liability. I suggest that beachy read about the statute of repose and learn why his purported cause of action is impossible.
#130. To: BeAChooser, nolu_chan, RickyJ, THE SKYDRIFTER, christine, robin, faithful fans of our saga... (#129)
Prove that it is MANDATORY (by law) that design calculations be kept any length of time (such as 40 years). Because that's the issue that started this little exchange. Don't take us off on another spam-filled detour. Prove what Ricky claimed. Say ... I notice he's left the thread. Wonder why?
#131. To: BeAChooser, bluedogtxn, RickyJ, THE SKYDRIFTER, christine, robin (#129)
#132. To: BeAChooser, bluedogtxn, RickyJ, THE SKYDRIFTER, christine, robin (#129)
[BAC-side #129] As far as negligence is concerned, just how is the builder or owner of the WTC negligent with regards to whether or not the towers were designed or analyzed in 1963-64 for a plane crash or plane crash induced fire?
http://www.envinfo.com/webcasts/toxic-tort/gar-hof.pdf
FOR CONSTRUCTION-RELATED ASBESTOS EXPOSURE
IN NEW YORK
Melinda E. Hofmann
New York
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
#133. To: BeAChooser, bluedogtxn, RickyJ, THE SKYDRIFTER, christine, robin (#129)
[BAC-side #129] But I pointed out that in cases of personal injury, NY state law has allowed (at least until recently) an indefinite period before the injury takes place before starting the clock on the statute of repose. You apparently overlooked that fact.
http://www.aia.org/static/state_local_resources/liabilityreform/Repose-AIA%20NY%20.pdf
Limits the ability to bring third party suits against architects, professional engineers, and landscape architects after a period of ten years has elapsed from the time of their design. Acknowledges in statute that the design professionals do deserve some consideration to limit their perpetual exposure.
An owner/client claim based on breach of contract is governed by a six year statute of limitations and the cause of action accrues upon completion of the contractual duties.
http://www.aiaarchitect.net/site/news/05/03/neverending.htm
#134. To: BeAChooser, bluedogtxn, RickyJ, THE SKYDRIFTER, christine, robin (#129)
You misunderstood, NC (although its difficult to see how). I said all along that the statute of repose would normally (in most states) prevent an action for product liability against the builders.
http://www.aiaarchitect.net/site/news/05/03/neverending.htm
But I pointed out that in cases of personal injury, NY state law has allowed (at least until recently) an indefinite period before the injury takes place before starting the clock on the statute of repose. You apparently overlooked that fact.
Now for New York the statute of limitations/repose on product liability is 3 years, however, personal injury cases currently have an indefinite liability in that for three years after an injury the building builder/owners can be sued. However, that has been successfully contested in court cases recently and architects in New York are currently trying to get a maximum 10 year repose statute passed for personal liability cases.
You do not seriously purport that there is a product liability issue, do you?
You are claiming the building was designed for plane impact and fire so it shouldn't have collapsed. If it was, then yes, this would be a product liability issue.
yet another BAC-side . I said all along that the statute of repose would normally (in most states) prevent an action for product liability against the builders.
#135. To: BeAChooser (#129)
#136. To: nolu_chan, beachooser, Christine, Jethro Tull, Robin, Minerva, Honway, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, Eoghan, tom007, lodwick, Arator, IndieTX, Mekons4, Critter (#134)
#137. To: SKYDRIFTER, BeAChooser (#136)
BAC is one huge LIE. His queerness thinks he's something 'special,' on the planet.
#138. To: Minerva (#135)
To: BeAChooser
#139. To: nolu_chan (#137)
Documenting his nonsense can be entertaining. From the positive point of view, if I make him waste 20-30% of his post quota with me, he has that much less opportunity to be a pest elsewhere.
#140. To: nolu_chan, RickyJ, ALL (#131)
For my part, I would presume that the design calculations, if any existed, would have been retained by the corporate entity and not by the employee of the corporate entity. It may be that that particular corporate entity no longer exists.
[BAC-side #129] Say ... I notice he's left the thread. Wonder why?
RickyJ posted on 4/22 (#55) and on 4/24 (#102 #106 #107 #108).
Let us review to remind you how you got this started.
-----
[nc #86] ROBERTSON now claims he cannot find the ROBERTSON study analysis report.
-----
[BAC-side #87] It's been 40 years. Do you keep everything you've ever written, Nolu? Really?
-----
[nc #101] Had I done an analysis 40 years ago proving that the WTC, the most important project of my lifetime, could withstand a hit by a Boeing 707 traveling at 600 mph,
#141. To: nolu_chan, RickyJ, ALL (#134)
[BAC-side #129] As far as negligence is concerned, just how is the builder or owner of the WTC negligent with regards to whether or not the towers were designed or analyzed in 1963-64 for a plane crash or plane crash induced fire?
Well, duhhhhhh, the owner is "liable for injuries caused by foreseeable dangerous conditions on their property.
Considering the White Paper and the Robertson analysis, and the New York Times newspaper article from 1964, one might argue that the dangerous condition was not only foreseeable but was actually foreseen and the people were given assurances that the buildings would be safe in the event of the foreseen condition.
[BAC-side #129] But I pointed out that in cases of personal injury, NY state law has allowed (at least until recently) an indefinite period before the injury takes place before starting the clock on the statute of repose. You apparently overlooked that fact.
Upon further review, it appears that your "Statute of Repose" does not truly exist, and that New York has a 3-year Statute of Limitations which is merely strengthened somewhat by Chapter 682 of the Laws of 1996 which is not a pure Statute of Repose.
CURRENT NEW YORK STATE STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS
* Three-year statute of limitations.
In an action brought by an owner/client against a design professional or contractor for damages resulting from a personal injury based on negligence, a three year statute of limitations applies and the cause of action accrues at the time of injury.
Third party suits, however, where the design professional has never had a contract with or contact with the third party, is the real issue of why we have perpetual liability. Under current law, a cause of action grounded on a theory of simple negligence brought by a third party (not an owner of building or structure) against a design professional or contractor is governed by a three year statute of limitations and the cause of action does not accrue until the injury takes place -- even if the plaintiff is injured 20, 30, 50 or 100 years after the design professional has completed work on the building or structure. As a result, design professionals or contractors are answerable to alleged negligence claims commenced indefinitely after project completion.
Limits the ability to bring third party suits against architects, professional engineers, and landscape architects after a period of ten years has elapsed from the time of their design. Acknowledges in statute that the design professionals do deserve some consideration to limit their perpetual exposure.
Within those 90 days, the claimant has to demonstrate to a court that there is a substantial basis of evidence showing negligence on the part of the design professional and that that negligence is also a proximate cause of the injury.
Cases of personal injury are not cases of product liability.
It is manifestly clear that cases of personal injury are being brought and are being processed by the courts as we speak.
#142. To: BeAChooser, RickyJ (#140)
[BAC]
The plane exploded within the building. There were five or six seconds - I was tottering on my feet trying to keep my balance - and three-quarters of the office was instantaneously consumed in this sheet of flame. One man was standing inside the flame. I could see him. It was a co-worker, Joe Fountain. His whole body was on fire. I kept calling to him, "Come on, Joe; come on, Joe." He walked out of it.
#143. To: BeAChooser (#141)
Well then go ahead, NC ... bring it to court and see how far you get. ROTFLOL!
7 -7756, -7757, -7758, -7760, -7761, -7778, -7782, -7784, -7785, -7786,
8 -7789, -9157, -9163, -9165, -9167, -9173, -9175, -9177, -9183, -9187,
9 -9193, -9195
13 LAVERY, JOSEPH ARIOLA, COLLEEN ARIOLA, JAMES BLAKE, JOHN M
14 DENEAU, LISA DENEAU, JOSEPH HEALY, JANET HEALY, GEORGE
15 LAMOREAUX, INGRID LAMOREAUX, THOMAS MAGEE, PATRICK
16 MALLOY, LORI MALLOY, JON J MCGILLICK, ARLENE MCGILLICK,
17 MICHAEL SPILLER, LEAH SPILLER, TIMOTHY VILLARI, MARIA
18 VILLARI, ANTHONY R LAROSA, ANGELA LAROSA, ROGER DANVERS,
19 JAMES MASCARELLA, JOHN F TAGGART, and THERESA TAGGART,
21 Appellants,
23 SAMAROO, TERESA HARTEY, EDWARD GALANEK, ROBERT
24 ESPOSITO, DENISE ESPOSITO, JAMES MELENDEZ, MAUREEN MCCUE,
25 JOSEPH BERARDI, JOHN BAIANO, JACK BIGGS, JOHN BONVICINO,
26 JOHN BOU, KEVIN BRANNICK, WAYNE BROWN, ROBERT
27 CARANNANTE, VICTOR CARPENTIER, ALAN CESERANO, MICHAEL
28 CONLON, PHYLISS COSTARELLA, GERALD DAMITZ, ANTHONY
29 DELBIANCO, LENNY DINOTTE, DANIEL DONOVAN, ROY EDWARDS,
30 JOSEPH FALCONE, NELSON GARCIA, ANTHONY GIORDANO, ROBERT
31 GOFFREDO, MICHAEL GUIDICIPIETRO, RAFAEL GUTIERREZ, OTTO
2 KEENAN, KEVIN KEMPTON, OMAR MALAVE, DANIEL MALDONADO,
3 JOHN MENONI, MARTIN MULLANEY, MICKEY NARDIELLO, FRANK
4 OZELLO, JOHN PANKEY, NICHOLAS PARASCANDOLA, VINCENT
5 PARISE, THOMAS PERRY, JERRY PIZZARELLO, JUAN RULLAN,
6 RAYMOND RUSSO, JOHN SALOMONE, GEORGE SNYDER, ALEXIS
7 SOLOMON, CHRISTIAN TREMBONE, CLINTON BEYER, JOAN BEYER,
8 PETER BLAKE, SHARON BLAKE, and JASON MAKSIMOWICH,
12 CITY OF NEW YORK,
14 Appellees,
16 PROPERTIES,
18 _________________________________________________________
#144. To: BeAChooser (#141)
[BAC #141]
Third party suits, however, where the design professional has never had a contract with or contact with the third party, is the real issue of why we have perpetual liability.
#145. To: BeAChooser (#141)
[BAC] Call it what you want. Like I said, in cases of personal injury, NY allows folks to sue within that 3 years of injury no matter how long ago the structure was built. However, there have been recent NY court cases that overuled that and architects are working to establish a firm 10 year Statute of Repose.
#146. To: beachooser, Christine, Jethro Tull, nolu_chan, Robin, Minerva, Honway, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#140)
#147. To: BeAChooser (#141)
[BAC] In any case, there doesn't appear to be a legal requirement that design documents be retained during that period or any period. One is wise to do so but I've yet to see any proof that it is legally mandated. So Ricky is just plain wrong.
I have yet to see you provide anything whatever besides hot air.
#148. To: SKYDRIFTER, beachooser, Christine, Jethro Tull, nolu_chan, Robin, Minerva, Honway, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala (#146)
The forum deserves much more than you and your damned spamming!
#149. To: nolu_chan (#143)
Just last year, New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle flew into
a building between the 39th and 40th floor.
And who could forget the
story of Stephen Baltz who initially survived the midair collision which
crashed one jetliner in Staten Island and the other in Brooklyn. That was in
1960 and would have been bright in the memories of all New Yorkers in 1964.
Well then go ahead, NC ... bring it to court and see how far
you get. ROTFLOL!
ROTFLOLPIMP!!!!!
You do it. The line is too long for me.
There's thousands of cases, such as:
#150. To: BeAChooser (#149)
(Edited)
#151. To: BeAChooser (#141)
http://www.aiaarchitect.net/site/news/05/03/neverending.htm
#152. To: beachooser, Jethro Tull, Christine, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#149)
#153. To: BeAChooser (#149)
NONE of them assert the designers should have designed the towers to survive and protect their occupants from a high speed impact by a commercial jet.
The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707 - DC 8) travelling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.
#154. To: nolu_chan (#153)
The Chief Engineer wrote a White Paper that said it.
#155. To: BeAChooser (#154)
He was NOT the chief engineer. Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer of record.
#156. To: BeAChooser (#154)
[BAC] The White Paper contained ONLY that statement. Nothing else to back it up. That they would have looked at a 600mph crash as a design load is ridiculous. They didn't really have the tools back in 1963 to confidently determine what would happen in that case.
#157. To: nolu_chan (#155)
If Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer "of record,"
produce that record.
#158. To: BeAChooser (#157)
#159. To: Paul Revere (#158)
Explain a symmetric collapse of a building with asymmetric
damage.
It cannot be done without
explosives to make it happen.
#160. To: BeAChooser, all (#159)
Then you should have no trouble naming structural engineers and demolitions experts who agree with you that the WTC towers were brought down by explosives.
#161. To: BeAChooser, Jethro Tull, Christine, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, honway, SKYDRIFTER, Critter, innieway, Paul Revere, Ferret Mike, RickyJ, bluedogtxn (#157)
http://www.heimer.com/frameset/offsite.asp?url=http://www.op.nysed.gov/profengb.htm
http://www.heimer.com/pe/index.html
#162. To: Paul Revere, ALL (#160)
Only because it serves my purpose to hoist you on your own retard, I'll give you one, Beach hoser: Van Romero.
* Develop groundwater activation model that can be used to optimize the design for acceleration production of tritium with DOE.
* Seismic source investigation, modeling and characterization of currently deployed explosive sources, design and computational testing of improved explosive sources, experimental verification and validation of improved sources - Western Geophysical (students - recruiting, post-doc and graduate in Geophysics).
* Resusable blast test fixture, investigate explosive impact on wide-body aircraft with FAA.
* Course in Explosives Surety for the Chemical Engineering Department
#163. To: nolu_chan (#161)
Looking at your non-response SPAM, I accept that you CANNOT produce any actual record showing that Robertson was the Lead Structural Engineer "of record."
On the surface, it clearly seems he's a BushCo/government shill as evidenced by his undying support of the "official story" of the 9/11 tragedy, and subsequent "war on terror". HOWEVER, he READILY admits that there are SERIOUS UNANSWERED QUESTIONS concerning the "entirety" of the event (aside from the actual building collapses). I posed some of these "serious questions" to him in this reply, (along with some common sense logic and reasoning raising doubts about the "official collapse story"); and he totally REFUSES to answer or even ATTEMPT to answer any ONE of them. This can only be construed as an admission to himself (if nothing else) that there is something seriously wrong with the "official story of 9/11"...
BushCo/BAC are children of Satan...
John 8:44 Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
#164. To: BeAChooser (#162)
#165. To: BeAChooser (#157)
#166. To: BeAChooser (#157)
#167. To: nolu_chan, all (#161)
NONE of the links you provided goes to a web page that says anything about Robertson or his being the Lead Structural Engineer of record.
He is not now, nor has he ever been, a licensed Structural Engineer in New York. There is no such thing as a licensed Structural Engineer in the state of New York. Robertson is a licensed Professional Engineer in New York.
However, in 1964, John B. Skilling WAS a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of New York. In 1964, of the two, ONLY John Skilling could have been the Engineer of record.
#168. To: beachooser, nolu_chan, Robin, Minerva, Christine, Honway, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, All (#157)
#169. To: BeAChooser, Jethro Tull, Christine, Honway, Robin, Aristeides, Red Jones, Diana, Kamala, honway, SKYDRIFTER, Critter, innieway, Paul Revere, Ferret Mike, RickyJ, bluedogtxn (#167)
[BAC #167]
However, in 1964, John B. Skilling WAS a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of New York. In 1964, of the two, ONLY John Skilling could have been the Engineer of record.
Source: Leslie E. Robertson Associates (LERA)
Professional Engineer - New York. Licensed or eligible in all 50 states. N.C.E.E.
Civil Engineer - California. Licensed or eligible in all 50 states.
First Class Architect and Professional Engineer, Japan
Honorary degree, Doctor of Science, University of Western Ontario, 1989
Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, Lehigh University, 1991
Honorary degree, Doctor of Engineering, Notre Dame University, 2003
Office of the Professions
License Information
04/29/2007
Address : NEW YORK NY
Profession : PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING
License No: 034360
Date of Licensure : 01/06/
Additional Qualification :
Status : REGISTERED
Registered through last day of : 01/09
Address :
Profession : PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERING
License No: 039286
Date of Licensure : 06/08/62
Additional Qualification :
Status : DECEASED 03/05/98
Registered through last day of :
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