WTC Collapses

[scott3x]

Well, Stryder hasn't responded for 24 hours regarding my idea of creating a WTC thread and MacGyver said I should give it a go.. so here goes. In a previous post, I listed all the reasons that the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth listed that supported the theory of a controlled demolition for the twin towers and made it clear that the fires could not have been the cause of the collapse. The post I did this is here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2081064&postcount=2159

KennyJC rebutted all but one of the claims. His rebuttal is here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=2081639&postcount=2167

Here is my rebuttal to his rebuttals, and rebuttals to shaman as well:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/911/cd/

 

[MacGyver1968]

I believe a combination of damage from the planes, and the subsequent fires brought down the towers.

 

[scott3x]

I believe a combination of damage from the planes, and the subsequent fires brought down the towers.

Found a good excerpt that refutes the notion that the planes and fires brought down the twin towers:
*************************
The Strength of Steel Frame Structures

For those who want us to imagine that the Towers "collapsed", the assumption that they "fell" on their own is a critical part of the story. But to anyone who is familiar with the performance of modern steel-frame structures, it should be obvious that they cannot simply collapse on their own, with or without an office fire, or even from the impact of a falling portion of the same building. If impacted from above, the Towers might bend or distort, but they wouldn't explode, disintegrate in mid-air, or collapse like a house of cards!

Anyone who's ever played with an Erector Set knows that as long as the structural members remain well-connected, a framework may become twisted and distorted if it falls to the floor, but it will never just collapse into pieces under any scenario involving self-related and self-proportional forces. Buildings that have fallen in earthquakes demonstrate this resistance to disintegration.

*************************
http://www.truememes.com/semantics.html

For a more detailed analysis of why collapses had to have been demolitions, feel free to visit my web page on the subject:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/911/cd/

 

[shaman_]

Do you think that is a refutation?

For those who want us to imagine that the Towers "collapsed", the assumption that they "fell" on their own is a critical part of the story.

Fell on their own? Did they not see the planes flying into them?

But to anyone who is familiar with the performance of modern steel-frame structures, it should be obvious that they cannot simply collapse on their own,

It appears that those who are the most familiar with the performance of steel frame buildings disagree. Hence the peer reviewed documents, which support the official story. Conspiracy theorists want to bring up people like Barnett and Asteneh and their qualifications but ignore the conclusions they reached.

with or without an office fire, or even from the impact of a falling portion of the same building. If impacted from above, the Towers might bend or distort, but they wouldn't explode,

They didn’t explode. Watch a video of the event.

disintegrate in mid-air,

It didn’t disintegrate in mid-air. Explosives would not explain disintegration anyway.

or collapse like a house of cards!

:shrug:

Anyone who's ever played with an Erector Set knows that as long as the structural members remain well-connected, a framework may become twisted and distorted if it falls to the floor, but it will never just collapse into pieces under any scenario involving self-related and self-proportional forces.

Yes an erector set weighing a few hundred grams is pretty much exactly the same as one of the tallest buildings in the world. Exactly the same in fact!

That's even worse that Gage and his boxes.

Buildings that have fallen in earthquakes demonstrate this resistance to disintegration.

Another irrelevant and moronic comparison.

Not a good start to the new thread Scott.

 

[scott3x]

Do you think that is a refutation?

Indeed

Originally Posted by scott3x

For those who want us to imagine that the Towers "collapsed", the assumption that they "fell" on their own is a critical part of the story.

Fell on their own? Did they not see the planes flying into them?

The planes were of negligible effect on the towers. 9/11 Research explains:
********************************
Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, spoke of the resilience of the towers in an interview recorded on January 25, 2001.
The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.

Demartini, who had an office on the 88th floor of the North Tower, has been missing since the 9/11/01 attack, having remained in the North Tower to assist in the evacuation. 6 Demartini had first worked at World Trade Center when Leslie E. Robertson Associates hired him to assess damage from the truck bombing in 1993.
********************************
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html

And ofcourse, WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane at all. It did fall in the classic demolition manner, however, from the bottom up.

Originally Posted by scott3x

But to anyone who is familiar with the performance of modern steel-frame structures, it should be obvious that they cannot simply collapse on their own...

It appears that those who are the most familiar with the performance of steel frame buildings disagree.

You must mean the people the government paid to 'investigate' the case. The same people that Bill Manning, Fire Engineering's editor in chief said were engaged in a 'half-baked farce':
http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/article_display.html?id=131225

Let's see the petition that 526 or so Architects and Engineers have signed:
************************************
Please Take Notice That:

On Behalf of the People of the United States of America, the undersigned Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth and affiliates hereby petition for, and demand, a truly independent investigation with subpoena power in order to uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 - specifically the collapses of the World Trade Center Towers and Building 7. We believe there is sufficient doubt about the official story and therefore the 9/11 investigation must be re-opened and must include a full inquiry into the possible use of explosives that might have been the actual cause of the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers and Building 7.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
************************************
http://www.ae911truth.org/signpetition.php

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

But to anyone who is familiar with the performance of modern steel-frame structures, it should be obvious that they cannot simply collapse on their own...

It appears that those who are the most familiar with the performance of steel frame buildings disagree. Hence the peer reviewed documents, which support the official story. Conspiracy theorists want to bring up people like Barnett and Asteneh and their qualifications but ignore the conclusions they reached.

I have never ignored the conclusions they have reached. Astaneh-Asl's conclusions were tentative, however:
http://web.archive.org/web/20060905...Publications/Astaneh-9ASEC-WTC+Paper+2003.pdf

What's more:
***************************
Astaneh resigned from the investigation team put together by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Society of Civil Engineers because he didn't agree with the group's decision to keep findings secret until the initial inquiry was complete. Without FEMA's backing, the National Science Foundation team was shut out.
***************************
http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/6_APbuilding.html


In the following video, Jonathan Barnett also made it clear that his team was very surprised that WTC 7 collapsed, and also made it clear that the investigation of tower 7 was not business as usual:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgCoV7phKa8

 

[Stryder]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddIgb1nGJ8
This was a quite interesting Modelling of the events, however I don't think their rendering took so much consideration into the explosion being structurally damaging.

Interesting enough:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Teenage_boy_blows_up_the_house_with_deodorant

Obviously in this particular unrelated to 9/11 story the fact is that one aerosol can was enough to blow the roof of the house off. This is due to the fact that aerosol's are of course canisters of compressed air.

While of course the Fuel in an aircraft is not compressed air, the Air-Fuel mix that is necessary to cause combustion can be a problem. You see rather than be starved oxygen is pulled in from the floors or extremities of the building during it's flash explosion, this causes a "breathing" effect where the floors themselves would have been rippling not from the impact but the displacement of the volume of air.

Obviously the building with less floor above the impact lasted longer, because the weight of the floors plus the degrading state of the structure caused by fire would eventually cause a collapse.

It doesn't take much to cause a landslide, however it takes a lot to stop one.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

with or without an office fire, or even from the impact of a falling portion of the same building. If impacted from above, the Towers might bend or distort, but they wouldn't explode,

They didn’t explode. Watch a video of the event.

I've watched several.

Originally Posted by scott3x

disintegrate in mid-air,

It didn’t disintegrate in mid-air.

I disagree and so does the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth site, as well as the 9/11 Research site. The 9/11 Research site goes into more depth on the issue in their "Concrete Pulverization" page:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/collapses/concrete.html

Explosives would not explain disintegration anyway.

Again, I disagree as do many in the 9/11 truth movement.

Originally Posted by scott3x

Anyone who's ever played with an Erector Set knows that as long as the structural members remain well-connected, a framework may become twisted and distorted if it falls to the floor, but it will never just collapse into pieces under any scenario involving self-related and self-proportional forces.

Yes an erector set weighing a few hundred grams is pretty much exactly the same as one of the tallest buildings in the world. Exactly the same in fact!

I agree that it's a bit different. David Ray Griffin has this to say about the issue of scale:
*************************************
If one could somehow create an exact scaled replica of one of the Towers, complete with multi-story miniature steel core columns with their steel beam framing and cross-bracing, high-strength interconnected steel perimeter columns, the floor system with its steel pans and trusses, and all of the other steel framing, welds and bolted connections, it would be much STRONGER than any conceivable Erector Set structure of similar height and proportions.
*************************************
http://www.truememes.com/mackey.html

That's even worse than Gage and his boxes.

Not to fond of his boxes eh? Personally, I'd like to take another look at them, but I -did- manage to find this excellent 30 minute interview that Alex Jones gave to Richard Gage:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?do...&ei=ifcdSdrcBoKM-QH8k5jnBg&q=richard+gage+wtc

Originally Posted by scott3x

Buildings that have fallen in earthquakes demonstrate this resistance to disintegration.

*************************
http://www.truememes.com/semantics.html

Another irrelevant and moronic comparison.

Must you continue with terms like 'moronic'? I understand that Headspin has used such terms, but seriously, I think all it does is sour the mood of the discussion and distract from the arguments and the evidence. When you present arguments, I try to stay away from such terms and instead try to focus on why your arguments are flawed if I believe that they are.

 

[scott3x]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddIgb1nGJ8
This was a quite interesting Modelling of the events, however I don't think their rendering took so much consideration into the explosion being structurally damaging.

I'd seen that video before today, but it doesn't seem to get into what took the buildings down.

Interesting enough:
http://digg.com/tech_news/Teenage_boy_blows_up_the_house_with_deodorant

Obviously in this particular unrelated to 9/11 story the fact is that one aerosol can was enough to blow the roof of the house off. This is due to the fact that aerosol's are of course canisters of compressed air.

While of course the Fuel in an aircraft is not compressed air, the Air-Fuel mix that is necessary to cause combustion can be a problem. You see rather than be starved oxygen is pulled in from the floors or extremities of the building during it's flash explosion, this causes a "breathing" effect where the floors themselves would have been rippling not from the impact but the displacement of the volume of air.

Obviously the building with less floor above the impact lasted longer, because the weight of the floors plus the degrading state of the structure caused by fire would eventually cause a collapse.

What makes you think that this is the case? If you listen to Richard Gage, who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth, you will come to understand that, although fires have raged stronger and longer in other high rise buildings, the only day that not 1, but -3- high rise buildings allegedly collapsed due to fires (with or without planes) was on 9/11. Here is an excellent video interview that he gives to Alex Jones:
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?do...&ei=ifcdSdrcBoKM-QH8k5jnBg&q=richard+gage+wtc

Also, feel free to browse my web page which has all the information that the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth has, plus some rebuttals that have been tailored for arguments made by forum goers here such as KennyJC and shaman:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/911/cd/

It doesn't take much to cause a landslide, however it takes a lot to stop one.

Sure. In fact, there was atleast one case where -part- of a high rise fell off (the madrid tower). So this could be like a 'land slide' if you will. There have been no cases where a high rise simply disintegrated due to fires alone however, whether or not a plane crashed into it before hand.

 

[Stryder]

What makes you think that this is the case? If you listen to Richard Gage, who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth, you will come to understand that, although fires have raged stronger and longer in other high rise buildings, the only day that not 1, but -3- high rise buildings allegedly collapsed due to fires (with or without planes) was on 9/11.

I'm not sure if Richard Gage took into consideration that the Fire Departments at the time were having to deal with more than one Blaze. As you are well aware a lot of firemen lost their lives when the building eventually collapsed and this would have effected dealing with fires not just through manpower but as a moral shock to all those departments, since Living firemen had not time to grieve or succumb to shock.

 

[spidergoat]

Absense of evidence is sometimes evidence of absense. If you have seen any demolitions, the explosions are clearly visible as flashes of light and shock waves. Nothing like that was seen in the videos.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

What makes you think that this is the case? If you listen to Richard Gage, who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth, you will come to understand that, although fires have raged stronger and longer in other high rise buildings, the only day that not 1, but -3- high rise buildings allegedly collapsed due to fires (with or without planes) was on 9/11.

I'm not sure if Richard Gage took into consideration that the Fire Departments at the time were having to deal with more than one Blaze. As you are well aware a lot of firemen lost their lives when the building eventually collapsed and this would have effected dealing with fires not just through manpower but as a moral shock to all those departments, since Living firemen had not time to grieve or succumb to shock.

The arguments on his Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth web site aren't based upon how many firemen were able to put out the WTC 7 fires. Here are the points made for WTC 7 (generally similar to the twin tower collapses, but they do differ a bit):
********************************
As your own eyes witness — WTC Building #7 (a 47-story high-rise not hit by an airplane) exhibits all the characteristics of a classic controlled demolition with explosives: (and some non-standard characteristics)
1. Rapid onset of “collapse”
2. Sounds of explosions at ground floor - a full second prior to collapse
3. Symmetrical “collapse” – through the path of greatest resistance – at nearly free-fall speed — the columns gave no resistance
4. “Collapses” into its own footprint – with the steel skeleton broken up for shipment
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
6. Tons of molten metal found by CDI (Demolition Contractor).
7. Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.
8. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and intergranular melting on structural steel samples
9. Expert corroboration from the top European Controlled Demolition professional
10. Fore-knowledge of “collapse” by media, NYPD, FDNY

And exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e.
1. Slow onset with large visible deformations
2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of momentum would cause a falling, to the side most damaged by the fires)
3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel
4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”.
********************************
http://www.ae911truth.org/

 

[scott3x]

Absence of evidence is sometimes evidence of absense.

Perhaps so. However, in this case, many people, including notable authors, architects, engineers, physicists and scholars believe there is plenty of evidence that WTC 1,2 and 7 were brought down by controlled demolition.

If you have seen any demolitions, the explosions are clearly visible as flashes of light and shock waves. Nothing like that was seen in the videos.

You may want to look more closely. There's actually a wealth of evidence that there was in the case of the twin towers, as I make clear on the following page of my web site:
http://scott3x.tripod.com/911/cd/2.html

I have seen no evidence that this was the case in the case of WTC 7, but because of the rest of the evidence concerning that building, I think it'd be a lot easier to find the explanation for that (perhaps because the demolition material, thermate, is not like normal explosives in this regard) than it would be to explain that it was brought down by the fires alone.

 

[spidergoat]

WTC7 was not a prominent target, there would be no advantage to destroying it on purpose. The obvious explanation is that two huge office buildings collapsed nearby, and that debris could damage a building in a spot that caused catastrophic collapse.

I fail to understand why anyone would anticipate that simply crashing two huge jetliners into NYC's largest buildings (and the Pentagon) would not create the desired effect (whatever that was). It would not be logical to prepare an extremely risky mission to secretly place explosives in ADDITION to jets, since it was certainly possible that any preparations for explosives would be damaged by the crashes and later detected. Explosives do not eliminate the evidence of their existence.

 

[MacGyver1968]

WTC7 was not a prominent target, there would be no advantage to destroying it on purpose. The obvious explanation is that two huge office buildings collapsed nearby, and that debris could damage a building in a spot that caused catastrophic collapse.

I fail to understand why anyone would anticipate that simply crashing two huge jetliners into NYC's largest buildings (and the Pentagon) would not create the desired effect (whatever that was). It would not be logical to prepare an extremely risky mission to secretly place explosives in ADDITION to jets, since it was certainly possible that any preparations for explosives would be damaged by the crashes and later detected. Explosives do not eliminate the evidence of their existence.

Nicely said SG..welcome to the thread.

Ask him about min-nukes.

 

[spidergoat]

I am well prepared to accept that the full story has not been told, but I'm not convinced the funny business is revealed in the details of how the towers fell. It would be more likely to be found in Dick Cheney's secret e-mails.

 

[leopold]

Found a good excerpt that refutes the notion that the planes and fires brought down the twin towers

still can't believe your own eyes, eh?

 

[scott3x]

WTC7 was not a prominent target, there would be no advantage to destroying it on purpose.

You may want to read the following:
**********************************
There had to be a very good reason for [WTC 7] to be rigged for demolition whilst it was still occupied. Did Silverstein, the new World Trade Center owner who wisely invested in insurance against terrorism, have prior knowledge of the attacks?

One thing is for sure, the decision to 'pull' WTC 7 would have delighted many people:

[WTC 7] contained offices of the FBI, Department of Defense, IRS (which contained prodigious amounts of corporate tax fraud, including Enron’s), US Secret Service, Securities & Exchange Commission (with more stock fraud records), and Citibank’s Salomon Smith Barney, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and many other financial institutions. [Online Journal]
The SEC has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed [by the collapse of WTC 7]. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases." [New York Lawyer]


Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center, one of the buildings that collapsed in the aftermath of the attack. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack. [TheStreet]

Inside [WTC 7 was] the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. ..."All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran. [TechTV]

The collapse of WTC 7 also profited Silverstein Properties to the tune of ~$500 million through insurance payments.
**********************************
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/cutter.html

 

[scott3x]

The obvious explanation is that two huge office buildings collapsed nearby, and that debris could damage a building in a spot that caused catastrophic collapse.

Damage is one thing. However, other then 9/11, the only cases where high rise buildings have collapsed straight down have been in controlled demolitions.

I fail to understand why anyone would anticipate that simply crashing two huge jetliners into NYC's largest buildings (and the Pentagon) would not create the desired effect (whatever that was).

Because planes have crashed in high rises before and yet have never had the effect that occured on 9/11. It has been argued that no plane the size of 757s even did so, but the WTC towers were specifically designed to withstand crashes of planes of this size (707s are around the same size as 757s). Frank D. Martini, who was the construction manager for the twin towers at the time of the collapse and died during the collapse, had this to say earlier in 2001 concerning the possibility of jet impacts to the buildings:
**********************************
The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door. This intense grid * and the jet-plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.
**********************************
http://www.911eyewitness.com/samples/demartini.php

It would not be logical to prepare an extremely risky mission to secretly place explosives in ADDITION to jets, since it was certainly possible that any preparations for explosives would be damaged by the crashes and later detected.

Perhaps, but perhaps the possibility was extremely low. I'm not a military demolition expert, so I wouldn't know, but I believe that the evidence that the buildings -were- taken down by controlled demolition is definitive.

Explosives do not eliminate the evidence of their existence.

Indeed they don't:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/theories/thermite.html

 

[spidergoat]

The evidence is certainly far from "definitive". Unless there was residue of explosives at the site, or evidence of explosive related material, the rest of it is pure conjecture.

The towers, if you notice, did not fall straight down, The top section fell on the damaged section and tilted on an angle, then the lower floors pancaked. Demolitions require multiple blast points and usually start from the ground up. But the most obvious evidence against this is the lack of explosive shock waves in the video. Loud sounds don't count.

The buildings were NOT designed for that size of an airplane, and definitely not for the amount of fuel they carried.