|
The NIST Report on the World Trade Center Collapse one year
later:
Still Dead On Arrival
A note to the reader: In December 2006
Mark H. Gaffney posted a scathing critique of the US
government’s official report about the WTC collapse on
9/11. One year later, the case is stronger than ever.
* *
01/04/08 "ICH
" -- - -In August 2002 the US Congress
authorized the National Institute for Safety and
Transportation (NIST) to investigate the collapse of the
World Trade Center on 9/11. The official instruction was not
limited to conducting a building performance study, as some
have claimed.[1] The primary stated objective of the
investigation was to determine the cause of the
collapse–––no less.[2]
When
NIST released its final report in September 2005, critics
charged that the agency had ignored evidence of explosions
in the towers. The agency responded by asserting its
scientific laurels. NIST insisted that its “200 technical
experts” had conducted “an extremely thorough
investigation.” NIST boasted that its staff “reviewed tens
of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000
people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000
photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage,
performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer
simulations,” yet, found “no corroborating evidence for a
controlled demolition.” NIST also claimed that it had
considered “a number of hypotheses for the collapse of the
towers.”[3]
No
doubt, many Americans were persuaded by this snow-job. Sad
to say, few of our countrymen (or women) bother to read
official reports, especially when they run to 10,000 pages.
The persistent individuals who do, however, know that there
are sound reasons to question all of the above; because a
close reading of the NIST report shows that the agency
assumed from the beginning that the Boeing 767 impacts and
subsequent fires were responsible for the collapse of the
twin towers. The report gives no consideration whatsoever to
alternative hypotheses, including the possible use of
explosives, the leading candidate. Far from exploring other
scenarios, NIST simply took it for granted that the impacts
set in motion a chain of events leading to a catastrophic
structural failure. Working backwards, NIST scientists
searched for evidence that supported their predetermined
conclusion. Everything else was ignored or excluded. If it
is not already evident to the reader, this is no way to
conduct a scientific investigation. NIST then had the
audacity to imply that it arrived at its favored collapse
model through an exhaustive process of elimination. Most
readers who merely browsed NIST’s 2005 Executive Summary
probably were not aware that NIST’s stated conclusion was
really an assumption. Consider this passage, for
example:
“The
tragic consequences of the September 11, 2001 attacks were
directly attributable to the fact that terrorists flew large
jet-fuel laden commercial airliners into the WTC towers.
Buildings for use by the general population are not designed
to withstand attacks of such severity; building codes do not
require building designs to consider aircraft impact.”[4]
The
above comment about building codes is deceptive–––NIST
readily concedes in its report that the towers survived the
initial impacts. In fact, John Skilling, the structural
engineer who designed the WTC, always claimed that they
would. The towers survived, despite serious damage, because
they were hugely overbuilt, redundant by design. Although
the WTC’s soaring lines gave the impression of a relatively
light frame, in fact, the twin towers were extremely rugged
buildings, engineered to withstand hurricane-force winds and
even a direct hit by a Boeing 707, the largest commercial
jetliner of the day. Some have argued that the newer Boeing
767s caused much more damage because of their larger size,
but in fact, the two Boeings are comparable. Although
slightly smaller, the 707 has a greater cruise speed of 600
mph (as compared with 530 mph for a Boeing 767). Assuming
both were to crash at this speed, the 707 would actually
have greater kinetic energy.[5]
After
the Boeing 767 impacts on 9/11 the severed steel columns
simply transferred the weight of the building to other
undamaged columns. The NIST report even states that the
towers would probably have stood indefinitely, if the
impacts had not dislodged the fireproofing material that
protected the steel from fire-generated
heat.[6] Construction-grade steel begins to lose strength
at 425°C (~800°F) and is only about half as strong at 650°C
(1,202°F). NIST argues in its report that the crashed
jetliners damaged or dislodged 100% of the protective
insulation within the impact zone, while also spilling many
thousands of gallons of jet fuel over multiple floors. The
resulting 800-1,000°C (1,440-1,800°F ) blaze–––the report
claims–––seriously weakened the now-exposed steel, leading
to a global structural failure. In order to understand the
official story, however, and why it fails to explain the WTC
collapse, it is necessary to know more about the World Trade
Center and how it was built.
A
State-of-the-Art Design
Upon
its completion in 1970 the north tower of the Trade Center
soared 1,368 feet tall–––100 feet higher than the Empire
State Building. In addition to being the world’s tallest
skyscraper, it was a state-of-the-art achievement of
high-rise construction.[7] Designed by architect Minoru
Yamasaki, the WTC was one of the first skyscrapers to
feature large expanses of unobstructed floor space within a
steel-frame building. Although commonplace today, this was a
novel idea in the 1960s, as it required doing away with the
forest of columns so typical of the skyscrapers of former
years. Chief engineer John Skilling achieved the objective
of open space with a double support system: the first
so-called tubular design, consisting of a dense array of 240
columns around the outer wall or perimeter, and a network of
47 huge columns at the core. The core columns supported
about 53% of the weight of each building, and were massive,
up to 52 inches wide.[8] The steel in these monster columns
was seven inches thick at the base.[9]
The
core columns were of two types: box columns at the foot of
the buildings, gradually transitioning to rolled wide-flange
beams (“I” beams) higher up. The core of each tower,
including the elevators and stairwells. was surrounded by
expansive office space. The perimeter wall supported 47% of
the weight and also resisted the force of the wind. These
exterior columns were reinforced with broad steel plates
known as “spandrels,” which girdled the building, like ribs,
at every floor. Although the core columns gradually
increased in size from top to bottom, for aesthetic reasons
the external dimensions of the perimeter columns had to be
the same all the way down, hence, required the use of
heat-treated steel. For this reason Skilling’s new tubular
concept only became possible with the introduction of
high-strength steels in the 1960s. Prefabrication and a
modular design were other innovations that kept costs down
and allowed for speedy construction.
Both
inner and outer sets of columns were joined together by an
innovative system of lightweight steel trusses. Each floor
consisted of a truss assembly, over which was laid a
corrugated steel deck–––the bed for a poured four-inch slab
of concrete. Although lightweight, the floor design was so
sound that it easily supported the weight of libraries, file
rooms, and heavy safes without the need for additional
strengthening.[10] The lightweight truss assemblies
were vulnerable to fire damage, however, because they
consisted of rather thin steel members. For this reason, at
the time of construction the trusses were spray-coated with
protective insulation, 0.75 inch thick, and this was later
upgraded to an average thickness of more than two
inches.[11] (The technical term for this insulation is
Spray-applied Fire Resistant Material = SFRM) The core
columns had a fire-barrier of gypsum wallboard.
NIST argues that the Boeing impacts jarred loose this
protective insulation from the steel trusses and columns.
The subsequent fires then weakened the exposed trusses,
causing them to sag. This, in turn, pulled the perimeter
columns inward. The fires also weakened both sets of columns
and at a critical point the perimeter wall buckled.
NIST makes the claim that its investigation showed
conclusively that the initiation occurred in the perimeter
wall, triggering a global collapse.[12] Did the agency prove
its case? In a moment I will explore this question. Before I
do, however, it is important to understand what NIST did
not investigate.
What NIST failed to investigate
Despite its broad charge to investigate the WTC collapse,
NIST limited the scope of its investigation to the sequence
of events from the first plane impacts to the onset of
collapse. This means, of course, that NIST failed to study
the collapse itself. This narrow focus–––some would call it
sleight-of-hand–––allowed NIST to side-step a number of
important issues. No doubt, this was the intent, since
investigating them would surely have led NIST scientists to
very different conclusions. The first and foremost of these
issues was the near free-fall speed of the collapse. Videos
filmed on 9/11 confirm that the towers plummeted as if there
was no resistance whatsoever. But how can this be, given the
enormous inertial mass of the building itself, which should
have resisted and slowed the fall considerably? Even if we
assume that the columns in the impact zone failed, the rest
of the columns in the towers were untouched by the plane
impacts and fires, therefor, suffered no loss of strength.
These stone-cold columns should have resisted the fall.
Although the exact time of the collapse of WTC 1 and 2
cannot be determined with precision because of the growing
dust cloud, each collapse took approximately 10-12 seconds,
only 1-2 seconds slower than the time for a billiard ball to
free-fall from the WTC roof to the plaza. But how can this
be? By what special dispensation did the collapsing WTC
violate the laws of physics? The reader will search the NIST
report in vain for any discussion of this important anomaly.
Why not? Obviously. because agency officials made a
political decision not to go there.
No
less puzzling was the fact that the collapses were total and
nearly symmetrical. This means, of course, that when the
collapses began all of the columns on that floor failed at
precisely the same moment. But, again, how could this
happen? Even if we assume that the plane impacts severed or
damaged a number of columns in the impact zone, and even if
we also assume that the fires weakened a number of other
nearby columns, the majority of columns in the buildings and
even on the affected floors were still at full strength at
the moment of collapse. The collapses were also total. The
rubble from the buildings fell through the plaza level and
piled up in the basements. Photos by Joel Meyerowitz and
others show that the piles of wreckage were about six
stories high, as evidenced by surviving portions of the
perimeter wall. The wreckage reached the level of the column
tree–––a convenient reference point–––where the larger
exterior columns around the base divided into three smaller
columns above. The totality of the collapse is hard to
explain because, as noted, the largest and strongest columns
were in the lower part of the buildings. The towers
encountered increasing mass, i.e., resistance, as they fell.
For this reason, at least one engineer has argued that the
WTC collapse should at some point have
self-arrested.[13] Other experts hotly dispute this,
however, and the matter remains controversial.[14] Engineers
clearly are fascinated by this question. Although a more
detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this article, it
is evident that media coverage has often served to confuse
the issue rather than clarify. In a recent 9/11 documentary
on the History Channel, for example, a debunker
glibly described the events at Ground Zero as a “classic
progressive collapse,” as if this were a well-known or
frequent phenomenon.[15] But this is plainly false. As
noted–––and I must emphasize it again–––no steel-frame
skyscraper had ever collapsed before 9/11, nor has any
since.
By the
way, there is an excellent reason why they do not fall down.
Structural steel happens to be an extremely tough and
forgiving substance–––the reason it is the pre-eminent
building material used in high-rise construction. As the
9/11 Commission Report concedes, none of the NYFD chiefs
anticipated a catastrophic structural failure on 9/11,
despite the fires and impacts.[16] Had they believed a
general collapse was possible, the chiefs would not have
established their emergency command posts in the lobbies of
the stricken towers. Nor would they have ordered hundreds of
New York City firemen to begin the long climb up the
stairwells to aid the victims and assist with the
evacuation. As we know, 343 of them perished. According to
the official report, at least one of the fire chiefs did
express concern about the danger of a partial collapse on
the upper floors.[17] No doubt, this individual was as
shocked as everyone else by the totality and near-perfect
symmetry of the collapses that ensued–––both standard
features of controlled demolitions and virtually unknown in
random fire events. After I posted a critique of the NIST
report in December 2006, I received a letter from a retired
fireman who informed me that over the course of his
twenty-odd years of service he had fought many types of
fires, involving residential, commercial and industrial
structures, including high-rise buildings. He explained that
on a number of occasions, when his crew lost the battle to
save a structure “some of the times the building would
collapse…. in a random, haphazard, piecemeal fashion. Not
once,” he wrote, “did I personally witness one of those
structures collapsing in the rather controlled...fashion as
the WTC towers and Building 7.”[18]
Another anomaly was the pulverization of material. Through
history, concrete buildings have been known to collapse
during powerful earthquakes, and when this occurs they
typically fold up like an accordion, leaving a succession of
concrete slabs, one piled on top of another, each plainly
discernible in the rubble. But nothing like this occurred on
9/11. Photos of the mountain of wreckage at Ground Zero show
very few, if any, large chunks of concrete. The rubble pile
consisted almost exclusively of twisted steel. The
conspicuous absence of concrete is remarkable, since
concrete was the main constituent of the 500,000 ton towers.
As noted, each floor of the 110-story building, roughly an
acre in size, consisted of a slab of poured concrete, most
of which was pulverized during the collapse into small
pieces and fine dust. Some have attributed this to the force
of gravity, but videos of the collapse dispute this. The
buildings were not pulverized as they hit the ground, they
disintegrated in midair. As the south tower started to
collapse, for example, the entire upper section tipped as a
unit, then inexplicably turned to dust before our eyes. Much
of this dust settled a foot deep on the sixteen-acre WTC
site. The rest was deposited across lower Manhattan. Nor was
the pulverization limited to concrete. Other construction
materials also disappeared without a trace, including glass,
office furniture and tens of thousands of computers, not to
mention the many victims. It’s a fact that less than 300
corpses were recovered. Most of the victims were identified
solely from body parts. Strangely, when workmen began to
dismantle the badly damaged Deutsch Bank on December 8,
2006, they found more than 700 slivers of bone on the roof
and within the structure.[19] This bizarre report has never
been explained.
And
there were other anomalies. The video record plainly shows
that during the WTC collapse, perimeter columns weighing
twenty tons or more were hurled as far as 500-600 feet from
the towers. One remarkable photo of Ground Zero taken from
above shows that entire sections of WTC-1’s western
perimeter wall were thrown 500+ feet toward the Winter
Garden.[20] Could a gravitational collapse do this?
Doubtful. The NIST report not only fails to address any of
these issues, it doesn’t even try. The report makes
reference to the “global collapse” of the towers, but we
never learn precisely what this means because NIST never
informs us. By limiting the scope of its inquiry NIST rendered the
truth unobtainable–––an effective way to neuter an
investigation.
With
all of this in mind, let us now explore what NIST did
investigate.
The
Special Projects
The
NIST investigation was comprised of eight separate projects,
which all together produced 43 volumes of supporting
documentation. The projects included metallurgical studies,
an impact analysis, an attempt to reconstruct the fires, and
a computer model of the probable sequence of events leading
to the collapse of each tower. Some of the agency’s research
was of excellent quality–––some was not. But the main
problem is that none of it lends credence to NIST’s official
conclusions.
Probably the most serious obstacle NIST investigators faced
was a lack of information about the dynamic conditions that
existed in the core of the towers on 9/11.[21] To be sure,
thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of videotape
made it possible to study in detail the damage to the WTC
exterior, and to gain a reasonable understanding about
conditions in the outer offices. Fires were often visible
through the windows, despite dense smoke, and structural
damage in the impact zone, such as collapsed floors, was
also discernible. However, as the NIST report states, “Fires
deeper than a few meters inside the building could not be
seen because of the smoke obscuration [sic] and the steep
viewing angle of nearly all the photographs.”[22] This is an
important admission, and one that NIST repeats a number of
times. For example, in one of the supplementary documents
NIST scientists qualify their analysis of the effects of the
fire upon the steel with the following caveat:
“As
conditions within the building core could not be determined
from the photographic database, it was unknown what
environment the recovered core columns may have
experienced.”[23]
As we
will see, this candid statement haunts the entire report. In
fact, the only physical evidence NIST had about the actual
conditions at the core was the data it was able to glean
from 236 steel columns, panels, trusses, and other smaller
samples recovered from the WTC ruin.[24] Metallurgical
testing of these steel samples was probably the most
important work NIST carried out, because this was the
foundation for the rest of the investigation.
The
Metallurgical Studies
Thanks
to the original labeling system used during the construction
of the WTC, NIST was able to identify many of the samples it
had gathered, and to determine with precision their
locations in the WTC. As it happened, a number of the
columns were from the impact and fire zones.[25] Although
the collection represented only 0.25 - 0.5 % of the 180,000
total tons of structural steel used in the two towers, NIST
scientists believed their sampling was adequate to determine
the quality of the steel and to evaluate its performance on
911.[26]
The
metallurgical findings decisively refuted the pancake theory
of collapse widely reported in the media after 9/11. The
pancake enthusiasts had argued that the weak link in the WTC
was the point of attachment where the trusses connected with
the inner and outer columns. These junctions, referred to as
angle-clips, were made of relatively lightweight steel and
were secured by steel bolts. During a 2002 NOVA television
special MIT engineer Thomas Eagar explained the pancake
model and why in his opinion the trusses had failed:
“...the steel had plenty of strength, until it reached
temperatures of 1,100º to 1,300ºF. In this range, the steel
started losing a lot of strength, and the bending became
greater. Eventually the steel lost 80 percent of its
strength, because of this fire that consumed the whole
floor....then you got this domino effect. Once you started
to get angle-clips to fail in one area, it put extra load on
other angle-clips, and then it unzipped around the building
on that floor in a matter of seconds. If you look at the
whole structure, they are the smallest piece of steel. As
everything begins to distort, the smallest piece is going to
become the weak link in the chain. They were plenty strong
for holding up one truss, but when you lost several trusses,
the trusses adjacent to those had to hold two or three times
what they were expected to hold.”[27]
According to the pancake theory, when one floor collapsed it
set in motion a chain reaction. Although this initially
seemed plausible, it turned out that Eager seriously
underestimated the robustness of the World Trade Center. The
earlier FEMA study found no indication of substandard
materials or construction. On the contrary, FEMA found that
“many structural and fire protection features of the design
and construction were….superior to the minimum code
requirements.”[28] The NIST investigation bore this out. For
example, NIST confirmed that the truss assemblies were not
only bolted to the outer perimeter wall, they were also
welded, hence, were considerably stronger than
expected–––not prone to pancaking.[29] Nor could the pancake
model explain the failure of the core columns.
The
WTC steel turned out to be significantly stronger than
expected. Tests showed that the yield strengths of 87% of
all steel tested exceeded the original specifications. For
instance, the perimeter columns exceeded their
specifications by more than 10%. The strength of the steel
in the truss assemblies was also much higher than required.
In many of the trusses, 50 ksi steel was used, even though
the specifications called for only 36 ksi.”[30] (1 ksi =
1,000 lb/per square inch) NIST also tested a number of
recovered bolts, and found that these too were stronger than
expected, based on reports from the contemporaneous
literature.[31] While all of these findings refuted the
pancake theory, notice, they also failed to support NIST’s
own preferred collapse model. One need not be a rocket
scientist to see that the stronger the steel the less likely
it was to fail on 9/11.
The
Fire Tests:
Core Weakening?
In
another series of tests NIST sought to address the alleged
weakening of the WTC support columns. During a first-run,
investigators placed an uninsulated steel column in a
furnace where temperatures reached 1,100ºC (2,012ºF). During
the test the surface temperature of the exposed column
reached 600ºC in just 13 minutes–––the temperature range
where significant loss of strength occurs. When the test was
repeated with a column treated with SFRM insulation, the
steel did not reach 600ºC even after ten hours. NIST
concluded that “the fires in WTC-1 and WTC-2 would not be
able to significantly weaken….insulated.…columns within the
102 minutes and 56 minutes, respectively, after impact and
prior to collapse.”[32] NIST interpreted these results as
validating its theory that the critical factor on 9/11
leading to the global failure was the damage to and removal
of the SFRM fireproofing insulation caused by the Boeing 767
impacts. But was this an unwarranted leap? Let us now
explore this question.
NIST
scientists developed a novel way to evaluate the impact of
the fire on the WTC steel. According to the report, the
approach was “easy to implement and robust enough to examine
the entire component in the field.”[33] They found that the
original primer paint used on the steel beams and columns
was altered by high heat. This made it possible to determine
the level of exposure by analyzing the paint on the
samples.[34] But the results were surprising. NIST found no
evidence that any of the steel samples, including those from
the impact areas and fire-damaged floors, had reached
temperatures exceeding 1,110ºF (600ºC).[35] Sixteen
recovered perimeter columns showed evidence of having been
exposed to fire, but even so, out of 170 areas examined on
these columns only three locations had reached temperatures
in excess of 250ºC (450ºF).[36] Moreover, NIST found no
evidence that any of the recovered core columns had reached
even this minimal temperature.[37] The startling fact is
that NIST’s own data failed to support its conclusion that
the fires of 9/11 heated up the steel columns, causing them
to weaken and buckle.
How
might we explain this absence of evidence? Shyam Sunder,
NIST’s lead scientist, probably offered a partial answer
when he admitted that “the jet fuel....burned out in less
than ten minutes.”[38] Also, the actual amount of
combustibles in the WTC turned out to be less than
expected–––considerably less. In its 2002 report FEMA had
noted that
“fuel
loads in office-type occupancies typically range from about
4-12 psf [pounds per square foot], with the mean slightly
less than 8 psf….At the burning rate necessary to yield
these fires, a fuel load of about 5 psf would be required to
maintain the fire at full force for an hour...”[39]
Yet,
when NIST scientists crunched the numbers they found that a
typical floor of the WTC did not even have this minimum
level of combustibles. The average was only about 4 psf.[40]
The shocking fact is that the twin towers were fuel-poor,
compared with other office buildings: a finding, notice,
that does not support the frequent depictions in the media
of a ferocious inferno raging beyond anything in human
experience. More importantly, neither does it support NIST’s
favored collapse scenario. The spillage of jet fuel ignited
the combustibles, spreading the fires at a faster rate than
would otherwise have occurred. Yet, for this same reason the
fires also burned out sooner, because the fuel load was so
low. Indeed, NIST scientists estimated that on average the
WTC fires burned through the available combustibles at
maximum temperatures (1,000ºC) in only about 15-20
minutes.[41] After which, the fires began to subside. To
make matters worse for the official collapse theory, NIST
also found that “the fuel loading in the core areas....was
negligible.”[42] It’s easy to understand why all of these
facts are downplayed in the NIST summary report. Taken
together, they are fatal to NIST’s collapse model, which
requires that high temperatures be sustained. Fires that
subside after only 15-20 minutes simply cannot weaken
enormous steel columns and cause them to buckle.
I
searched the NIST report in vain for any acknowledgment that
the fire conditions in the laboratory furnace were
substantially different from the actual conditions on 9/11.
This fact, which is undeniable, calls into question NIST’s
conclusion that damaged SFRM insulation was the critical
factor. Although NIST took the position that “temperatures
and stresses were high in the core area,”[43] on what basis
did they reach this conclusion? As I’ve noted, NIST suffered
from a persistent lack of information about the actual
conditions in the core of the towers.
Surely, it is safe to conclude that the crashed Boeing 767s
damaged and/or stripped away a substantial portion of the
protective SFRM insulation from the steel beams and trusses
in the impact zone. Exactly how much is not knowable. NIST
acknowledges in its report that it had no hard evidence
about the amount of protective insulation damaged or
dislodged during the impacts.[44] Incredibly, however, the
agency then assumes that all structural members in the
debris path at the time of impact suffered 100% loss of
insulation.[45]
The
only physical evidence NIST presents in its report in
support of this conclusion is a series of photos of the
exterior of the towers. The photos do show that within
the impact zone much of the SFRM foam insulation is indeed
missing from the perimeter columns.[46] In places the
original anti-rust paint is clearly visible on the exposed
columns, indicating that the insulation is gone from these
areas. NIST is also probably correct that the loss occurred
during the impacts. But it does not follow on this basis
that all of the insulation in the impact zone was
similarly lost. In fact, not only does the photographic
evidence in the report not prove this, the photos
show decisively that at least some of the insulation
remained in place. NIST even acknowledges this in its
discussion of the photos. The report states, for example,
that one photo “shows the absence of at least some, if not
most SFRM from the center region of the outer web of the
column.” Here, “the absence of at least some” of the
insulation can only mean that some of it also remained in
place. The next passage goes on to describe one column in
the same area on which the SFRM was “nearly intact.”[47] In
another section the report explicitly mentions that some of
the insulation had apparently been treated with a special
sealant, which “prevented the loss of SFRM in a great many
locations where the SFRM was knocked off both above and
below this location.”[48] In short, NIST flatly contradicts
itself regarding the disposition of the SFRM; and this is
crucial because it means NIST’s own data fails to support
its conclusions.
For
the sake of argument, however, let us for the moment ignore
this glaring problem and assume that NIST’s estimated total
loss of SFRM was correct. As I will now show, even in this
worst case scenario there is virtually no chance that the
fires on 9/11 weakened the WTC’s core and perimeter columns
within the allotted span of time.
A Vast
Heat Sink
The
reason is acknowledged nowhere in the NIST report, but ought
to be self-evident. The WTC’s support columns did not exist
in isolation. The WTC was no laboratory furnace. The columns
in each tower were part of an interconnected steel framework
that weighed some 90,000 tons; and because steel is known to
be at least a fair conductor of heat, on 9/11 this massive
steel superstructure functioned as an enormous energy sink.
The total volume of the steel framework was vast compared
with the relatively small area of exposed steel, and would
have wicked away much of the fire-generated heat. Anyone who
has repaired a copper water pipe with a propane torch is
familiar with the principle. One must sit and wait patiently
for the pipe temperature to rise to the point where the
copper finally draws the solder into the fitting. While it
is true that copper is several times more conductive than
steel, the fact that only three steel samples showed
exposure to temperatures above 250ºC indicates that the
steel superstructure was indeed behaving as a heat sink. The
fires on 9/11 would have taken many hours, in any event,
much longer than the relatively brief allotted span of
56/102 minutes, respectively, to slowly raise the
temperature of the steel framework as a whole to the point
of weakening even a few exposed members.
And
there are other problems. Since in a global collapse all of
the columns by definition must fail at once, this implies a
more or less constant blaze across a wide area. But such was
not the case on 9/11. As I’ve already noted, NIST found that
the unexpectedly light fuel load in any given area of the
WTC was mostly consumed in about 15-20 minutes. At no time
on 9/11 did the fires rage through an entire floor of the
WTC–––as Thomas Eagar implied in his interview. The fires
were not sustained, on the contrary, they were
transient.[49] This was especially true in WTC-1. The fires
flared up in a given area, reached a maximum intensity
within about 10 minutes, then gradually died down as the
fire front moved on to consume combustibles in other areas.
But notice what this also means: As the fires moved away
from the impact zone into areas with little or no damage to
the SFRM fireproofing, the heating of the steel columns and
trusses in those areas would have been inconsequential. The
NIST’s own data showed that, overall, the fires on floor
96–––where the collapse supposedly began–––reached a peak
30-45 minutes after the impact and waned thereafter.
Temperatures were actually cooling across most of floor 96,
including the core, at the moment of the collapse. But
if this is correct, the central piers at that point were not
losing strength but regaining it.[50] How, then, did they
collapse? Moreover, NIST’s assertion that “temperatures and
stresses were high in the core area” is not supported by its
finding that the fuel load in the core was
negligible.[51] On this point NIST again contradicts itself.
For all of these reasons, NIST fails to explain in its
report how transient fires weakened WTC-1’s enormous core
columns and perimeter columns in the allotted span,
triggering a global collapse.
The
Fires in the South Tower
NIST
determined that the fire behavior in the south tower was
substantially different: more continuous rather than
transient, at least, on the east side of the building where
the remains of Flight 175 supposedly came to rest. This, in
addition to more extensive impact damage, NIST informs us,
explains why WTC-2 collapsed first, even though it was hit
after WTC-1. It is now known, however, that NIST ignored
important evidence that calls into question its assertion
that fires were gravely weakening the core of WTC-2. An
audio-tape released in August 2002 by the Port Authority of
New York, which apparently was lost or neglected for more
than a year, is the only known recording of firefighters
inside the towers. When city fire officials belatedly
listened to it they were surprised to discover that two NYC
firemen actually reached the impact/fire zone of the south
tower about fourteen minutes before it collapsed. The long
climb up the stairs was so arduous that most of the NYC
firemen, heavily burdened with equipment, were exhausted
before they reached the 20th floor. However, these two,
Battalion Chief Orlo J. Palmer and Fire Marshall Ronald P.
Bucca, were in excellent physical condition. Palmer,
reportedly, was a marathon runner. On reaching the 78th
floor sky lobby they found many dead or seriously injured
people; but no raging inferno. Palmer’s radio exchange with
another fireman shows no hint of panic or fear, as the
following transcript shows:
Battalion Seven Chief (Palmer): "Battalion Seven ... Ladder
15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be
able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor
numerous 10-45 Code Ones.
Ladder
15: "Chief, what stair you in?"
Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."
Ladder
15: "Floor 78?"
Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we
gonna need two engines up here."
Battalion Seven Chief: "Tower one. Battalion Seven to Ladder
15."
Battalion Seven Chief: "I'm going to need two of your
firefighters Adam stairway to knock down two fires. We have
a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock
it down, okay."
Ladder
15: "Alright ten-four, we're coming up the stairs. We're on
77 now in the B stair, I'll be right to you."
Battalion Seven Operations Tower One: "Battalion Seven
Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor
above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay."
Battalion Nine: "Alright, I'm on my way up, Orlo."[52]
Here,
Battalion Chief Palmer calls for more men and water to put
out the isolated fires. His expression “10-45 Code Ones”
refers to dead bodies, of which apparently there were many.
The tape shows that the two firemen were not turned back by
heat, smoke, or a wall of flames. They were able to function
within the fire zone and were prepared to help the injured
and combat the few isolated fires they found. Palmer even
mentions that the stairway up to the next level, i.e., floor
79, was passable. Minutes later the building came down on
their heads.
NIST
knew about this testimony. The NIST report briefly mentions
that firemen reached the 78th floor of WTC-2.[53]
Inexplicably, however, the matter is simply dropped, as if
it had no bearing on the status of the fire in the core. The
omission is conspicuous, because, as I’ve stressed, NIST
suffered from a persistent lack of information about the
dynamic conditions in the interior of the
buildings.[54] Here was a real-time eyewitness account by
trained professionals who were on the scene. Yet, NIST
ignored it. Why? Well, obviously, because their testimony
does not support the official story. Curiously, the 9/11
Commission Report also briefly mentions this episode,
but, likewise, fails to discuss its possible significance,
no doubt, for the same reason.[55]
According to NIST, the 78th floor of WTC-2 had fewer
combustibles than other floors because it was a sky lobby,
and on this basis the report leads us to believe that much
more intense fires were raging several floors above the two
brave firemen–––fires that did cause fatal weakening
of the columns. The problem for NIST, however, is that
survivors from these higher floors tell a very different
story. As we know, WTC-2 was unlike WTC-1 in that a number
of individuals in the south tower did manage to escape the
impact zone via stairwell “A,” which luckily remained
passable. (In his radio message Orlo Palmer refers to it as
“south stairway Adam.”) One of these survivors was Stanley
Praimnath, an employee of Fuji Bank who was on the 81st
floor when Flight 175 crashed into the south tower. In fact,
the wing of the plane reportedly passed within twenty feet
from him. Yet, Praimnath escaped without serious burns and
in his testimony mentions nothing about a raging
inferno.[56] Brian Clark, another survivor, was an executive
vice-president of Euro Brokers, based on the 84th floor. As
Clark descended the stairs, he heard someone crying out for
help. It was Praimnath, who at the time was still trapped on
the 81st floor in the rubble. Clark found and freed the man,
whereupon, the two escaped together down the stairs. These
two survivors are living proof that the official story
cannot be right. Both were in the fire zone during and
immediately after the impact, when the fires were most
intense due to the spilled jet fuel. If the temperatures in
the core were 1,000ºC or higher, as NIST would have us
believe, the two men would have died within minutes. Yet,
both survived, and here is Clark’s description of the fire:
"You could see through the wall and the cracks and see
flames just, just licking up, not a roaring inferno,
just quiet flames licking up and smoke sort of eking through
the wall."[57] [my emphasis] Quiet flames. No roaring
inferno. It is not surprising that NIST chose to ignore the
testimony of these survivors.
I’ve
shown that the known accounts of eyewitnesses do not support
the official story regarding conditions at the core of
WTC-2–––testimonials that NIST likely excluded from
consideration for this reason. But what about empirical
evidence? Among the steel samples that NIST investigators
recovered from WTC-2 were two core columns (C-88a and C-88b)
from the impact zone. Actually, they were two different
members from the same column (801). The NIST pinpointed
their location on floors 80 and 81, several floors above the
firemen, very near the path of Flight 175. Both samples had
been physically damaged, yet, NIST found no evidence of the
kinds of distortion, i.e., buckling, bowing, slumping, or
sagging, that would be expected in cases of heat-weakened
steel. Furthermore, although the samples came from within
the fire zone, NIST was unable to show that the steel had
been exposed to high temperatures.[58] This finding is so
astonishing it bears repeating: The NIST report presents no
physical evidence whatsoever that the fires in the core of
WTC-2 were raging infernos. On what, then, does the agency
base its conclusion that “Dire structural changes were
occurring in the building interior”?[59] The answer,
apparently, is the following strange hedge:
“Note
that these core columns represent less than 1 percent of the
core columns on floors involved with fire and cannot be
considered representative of any other core columns.”[60]
In
other words, we are supposed to accept NIST’s theory about
the fire solely on the basis of its opinion that a larger
sampling of columns would have enabled NIST to prove its
case. But this is hogwash! It simply is not the way science
is done. Indeed, the paucity of evidence, if anything, calls
into question NIST’s earlier assertion that its sampling was
adequate.
What
is even more amazing is that NIST’s own computer simulations
of the WTC fires tend to bear this out. Any curious reader
who invests the time to review the relevant NIST document
(i.e., CSTAR 1-5) will find page after page of color-coded
graphic diagrams of these simulations, one set for each
floor in the fire zone. Nearly all of them show that the
core remained cool throughout the fires. The burden of proof
was on NIST to demonstrate how the fires weakened the core
columns in the allotted time; and the only reasonable
conclusion one can draw is that the agency fails to present
even a minimal case. This also means, of course, that NIST
likewise fails to explain the global collapse.
For
the sake of argument, however, in order to show just how
weak the official collapse model is, let us assume that the
fires did burn hot enough and were sustained long
enough, and caused numerous exposed columns in the impact
zone to lose roughly half of their strength. As I will now
show, even if this did occur it still fails to account for
the global collapse of either tower.
The
Issue of Reserve Capacity
As
the NIST report states,
“both
towers had considerable reserve capacity. This was
confirmed by analysis of the post-impact vibration of WTC-2,
the more severely damaged building, where the damaged tower
oscillated at a period nearly equal to the first mode period
calculated for the undamaged structure.” [61] [my emphasis]
The
above passage informs us that WTC-2 gave no sign of
instability after the impact of Flight 175. Unfortunately,
although NIST’s summary report provides a wealth of
information about how the World Trade Center was constructed
it fails to clarify the important matter of the WTC’s
“considerable reserve capacity.” At any rate, I scoured the
report in vain for a clear discussion of the issue. In
frustration, I finally called NIST for assistance and was
guided to several of the project reports and supplementary
documents. I also consulted with Gary Nichols, an expert at
the International Code Council (ICC), and with Ron
Hamburger, a leading structural engineer. These
conversations were an education. I learned that estimating
the overall reserve capacity of a steel structure is by no
means a simple matter. Numerous factors are involved.
Moreover, there are different ways to approach the problem.
Perhaps the simplest measure of reserve capacity are the
standards for the material components of a building. In the
late 1960s when the WTC was constructed the applicable
standard was the New York City Building Code, which required
a builder to execute computations for the various structural
members to show that they met the specified requirements.
However, the code also allowed for actual testing of members
in the event that computations were impractical. The testing
standards applicable in 1968 give a reasonable idea of the
required level of reserve strength in the steel columns and
other materials used in the WTC. For example, in the most
stringent test a steel member had to withstand 250% of the
design load, plus half again its own weight, for a period of
a week, without collapse.[62]
Factor
of Safety
Another widely used measure of reserve capacity is the so
called “factor of safety.” This varies for different
structural elements, but for steel columns and beams
typically ranges from 1.75 - 2.0.[63] The NIST report
actually breaks down this more general figure into two
separate and slightly different measurements for stress:
yielding strength (1.67) and buckling (1.92).[64] For our
purposes, however, the more general figure is adequate. So,
for example, a steel column with a factor of safety of 1.75
must support 1.75 times the anticipated design load before
it begins to incur damage. While this value is typical of
steel beams in general, the actual reserve strength of the
steel columns in the WTC was higher. When NIST crunched the
numbers for the 47 core columns of WTC-1 (in the impact
zone, between the 93rd and 98th floors) it calculated that
the factor of safety ranged from 1.6 to 2.8, the mean value
being 2.1.[65] This means that the average core column in
the impact zone of WTC-1 could support more than twice its
design load before reaching the yield strength, i.e., the
point where damage may begin to occur. My grateful thanks to
the NIST investigative team for helping me locate these
numbers, which were buried in the report.
It is
important to realize that the factor of safety is not a
threshold for collapse, but a value beyond which permanent
damage may begin to occur. As the NIST report admits, even
“after reaching the yield strength, structural steel
components continue to possess considerable reserve
capacity.”[66] This is why steel beams and columns typically
do not fail in sudden fashion. The loss of strength is
gradual. No doubt, this helps to explain why, although fires
have ravaged many steel frame buildings over history, none
had ever collapsed–––until 9/11–––nor has any since. What
all of this means, of course, is that even in the most
improbable worst case, in which many or all WTC core columns
lost half of their strength, there was still sufficient
reserve capacity to support the building.
The
Perimeter Wall
With
regard to the WTC’s perimeter columns, the factor of safety
fluctuated from day to day and even from hour to hour,
because, in addition to supporting 47% of the WTC’s gravity
load, the perimeter wall also had to withstand the lateral
force of the wind, which is highly variable given the whims
of Mother Nature. A single face of the WTC presented an
enormous “sail” to the elements, for which reason John
Skilling vastly overbuilt this part of the structure.
According to the NIST report, the outer wall’s factor of
safety against wind shear on 9/11 was extraordinary, i.e.,
in the 10-11 range.[67] Why so high? The answer is simple:
On the day of the attack there was essentially no wind, only
a slight breeze.[68] For this same reason nearly all of the
perimeter wall’s design capacity was available to help
support the gravity load. As the NIST report states, “On
September 11, 2001 the wind loads were minimal, thus
providing significantly more reserve for the exterior
walls.”[69] When NIST crunched the numbers for a
representative perimeter column in WTC-1 (column 151,
between the 93rd and 98th floors), they arrived at a factor
of safety of 5.7.[70] Assuming this average figure is a
typical value we arrive at a reasonable estimate of the
perimeter wall’s amazing reserve capacity. Even if we
subtract those columns severed/damaged by the impact of
Flight 175, and the lost capacity due to the alleged (but
unproven) buckling along the eastern perimeter wall, there
was still a wide margin of safety, more than enough by
several times over to support the outer wall’s share of the
gravity load, with plenty to spare.[71]
The
WTC’s tremendous reserve capacity was no secret. In 1964,
four years before the start of construction, an article
about the planned WTC appeared in the Engineering
News-Record. The article declared that “live loads on
these [perimeter] columns can be increased more than 2,000
percent before failure occurs.”[72] A careful reading of the
piece also gives insight into why the plane impacts were not
fatal to the integrity of the outer wall. The reason is
simple: the perimeter columns were designed to function
together as an enormous truss, specifically, a Vierendeel
truss. The wall was inherently stable. After the plane
impacts it behaved like an arch, simply transferring the
load to the surrounding columns. As the 1964 article states,
“the
WTC towers will have an inherent capacity to resist
unforeseen calamities. This capacity stems from its
Vierendeel wall system and is enhanced through the use of
high-strength steels.”[73]
In
short, NIST’s own data fails to support its conclusions
about the cause of the WTC collapse. The official theory
requires the fatal weakening of both sets of columns, and
NIST came up short on both counts due to insufficient
evidence. Indeed, I would call it woefully insufficient.
Today,
more than two years after NIST released its report, it is
increasingly obvious that NIST attempted to overcome the
lack of physical evidence by resorting to computer
simulations. This was problematic, however, because computer
models are no better than the quality of input and the
accuracy of the programmer’s assumptions. Architect Eric
Douglas identified another issue in his 2006 analysis of the
NIST report: “a fundamental problem with....computer
simulation is the overwhelming temptation to manipulate the
input data until one achieves the desired results.”[74] Did
NIST investigators fall prey to this tendency? Or were they
somehow able to overcome the absence of physical evidence? I
must ask the reader to bear with me a little longer while we
explore these important questions.
NIST’s
Global Impact/Collapse Analyses
The
purpose of NIST’s global impact analysis (NCSTAR 1-2) was to
estimate the structural damage to the WTC caused by the
Boeing 767s. In this project NIST considered three different
scenarios, ranging from less damage to extreme damage, with
a moderate alternative (described as “the base”) in the
middle. As it happened, all three accurately predicted the
impact damage to the WTC exterior at the point of entry;
although with regard to WTC-1 the moderate case was a
slightly better match.[75] The three differed greatly,
however, in predicting the number of severed columns at the
WTC core, a datum that was obviously of great importance. In
the case of WTC-1 the lesser alternative predicted only one
severed core column, the moderate alternative predicted
three, while the extreme alternative predicted five to six.
In the case of WTC-2 the disparity was even greater: The
lesser alternative predicted three severed columns, the
moderate five, and the extreme case no less than
ten.[76] Although NIST never satisfactorily resolved these
differences, it immediately threw out the less severe
alternatives, citing two reasons in the summary report:
first, because they failed to predict observable damage to
the far exterior walls; and second, because they did not
lead to a global collapse.[77]
On
September 11, 2001 the north tower sustained visible damage
to the wall opposite the impact of Flight 11. This was
caused by an errant landing gear and by a piece of the
fuselage, which passed through the tower and came out the
other side. Both parts were later recovered. During the
second impact (of Flight 175) the same phenomenon was
repeated: A jet engine was seen exiting WTC-2’s opposite
wall at high speed and was later found on Murray Street,
several blocks northeast of the WTC. In its summary report,
NIST leads us to believe that the observable damage to the
far walls caused by these ejected Boeing 767 parts validated
its simulations. Yet, in one of its supplementary documents
NIST admits that “because of [computer] model size
constraints, the panels on the south side of WTC-1 were
modeled with a coarse resolution...[and for this reason] The
model....underestimates the damage to the tower on this
face.”[78] But, notice, this means that none of the
three alternatives accurately predicted the exit damage.[79]
This
admission, deeply buried in the 43-volume report, is fatal
to NIST’s first rationale for rejecting the lesser
alternative, since it was no less accurate than the moderate
and extreme cases. (Or, put differently: It was no more
inaccurate.) Which, of course, means that the NIST rejected
the lesser alternative for one reason only: because it
failed to predict a global collapse. The simulations for
WTC-2 suffered from the same modeling defect. Once again,
NIST rejected the lesser alternative, even though “none
of the three WTC-2 global impact simulations resulted
in a large engine fragment exiting the tower.” [80] [my
emphasis]
We
can thank researcher Eric Douglas for digging deeper than
the summary report. Otherwise, this flaw, tantamount to the
devil lurking in the fine print, might never have come to
light.
But
the NIST was undeterred by its own biased reasoning. Later,
it also tossed out the moderate (base) alternatives, and
ultimately adopted the most extreme scenarios in its
subsequent global collapse analysis, even though, as noted,
the moderate alternatives were just as accurate, from a
predictive standpoint, as the extreme cases. In fact, with
regard to predicting the entry damage to WTC-1, as noted,
the moderate alternative was actually a better match. The
NIST report offers no scientific rationale for this
decision, only the pithy comment that the moderate
alternatives “were discarded after the structural response
analysis of major subsystems were compared with observed
events.”[81] Here, of course, “observed events” refers to
the ultimate collapse of the towers. Things get worse.
It
would appear that NIST nearly failed to generate a collapse
even with the extreme alternatives, which required further
tinkering. The report informs us that “Complete sets of
simulations were then performed for cases B and D [the
extreme alternatives]. To the extent that the simulations
deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness
reports, the investigators adjusted the input, but only
within the range of physical reality.”[82] [my emphasis] In
other words, NIST scientists, working backwards from the
collapse, tweaked the extreme alternatives until their
computer model spat out the desired result, consistent with
their original assumption that the 767 impacts and fires
were responsible for the collapses on 9/11. Needless to say,
the NIST report fails to give specifics about the
“additional inputs.” We are left to use our imagination.
The
late Princeton astronomer Carl Sagan used to say that
“extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” By this
tough but reasonable standard, the official explanation
about the collapse of the WTC on September 11, 2001 was
without question an extraordinary claim, because there were
no historical precedents. I will say it once again: No
steel-frame skyscraper had ever collapsed due to
fire-weakened columns. By this standard the official account
required an extraordinary level of proof. Yet, as I have
just shown, NIST failed to muster even a minimal evidentiary
case. From the start, NIST’s investigation was biased,
hence, unscientific. Indeed, its report is “a triumph” of
circular reasoning. The report actually left me slightly
agog, in a state of mild shock at the disparity between
NIST’s research and its conclusions. NIST never overcame the
lack of hard data about actual conditions at the WTC core,
certainly not by resorting to computer models. Had its
program been robust enough to properly characterize the far
walls, investigators might have utilized the known exterior
damage to those far walls to discriminate between the three
alternatives and, thusly, to select the best choice,
validating the model. Failing this, the NIST had no sound
basis for rejecting the lesser and moderate alternatives.
Both were at least as plausible as the extreme case. Why
were they not given equal weight? The answer is obvious:
That would have compelled NIST investigators to entertain
the unthinkable, i.e., the possibility that some other
causative agent was responsible for the WTC collapse.
It is
high time that Americans face the shocking reality that
explosives were used to bring down the World Trade Center on
9/11.
Mark
H. Gaffney’s first book was a pioneering 1989 study of
Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Dimona: the Third
Temple? Mark’s latest, Gnostic Secrets of the
Naassenes, was a finalist for the 2004 Narcissus Book
Award. His forthcoming book, The 911 Mystery Plane and
the Vanishing of America, is scheduled for release in
September 2008. Visit Mark’s website at
www.gnosticsecrets.com
Mark can be reached for comment at
markhgaffney@earthlink.net
NOTES
1 Ryan Mackey, “Examining Dr.
David Ray Griffin’s Latest Criticism of the NIST World Trade
Center Investigation, August 31, 2007.
2 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full Summary
Report, WTC Investigation, Preface, xxxi.
3 Answers to Frequently Asked
Questions, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World
Trade Center Disaster, see question two, posted at
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
4 NIST NCSTAR, Executive Summary,
p. xlvii.
5 After the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center Skilling was asked if the towers were
vulnerable to a terrorist attack. He replied that he designed
them to withstand the impact of a Boeing 707, the largest
commercial jet liner of the day. In 1993 Skilling evidently saw
no reason to revise his original opinion in light of the more
recent Boeing 767s, which are slightly larger: "Our analysis
indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the
fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There
would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed. The
building structure would still be there." Eric Nalder, “Twin
Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision,” Seattle Times,
February 27, 1993. Interestingly, one week before the
September 11 attack, Skilling’s partner, Leslie Robertson, spoke
at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany. When asked what he had
done to protect the towers from terrorism, Robertson confirmed
Skilling: “I designed it for a 707 to smash into it.” “Towers
Build to Withstand Jet Impact.” Chicago Tribune,
September 12, 2001.
6 NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC
Investigation, p. xlviii; also see NCSTAR 1-6, WTC
Investigation, p. lxiv.
7 In July 1971 the WTC won a
national award when the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) named it “the engineering project that demonstrates the
greatest engineering skills and represents the greatest
contribution to engineering progress and mankind.” in Angus K.
Gillespie, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City’s World Trade
Center, New Brunswick, Rutger’s University Press, 1999, p. 117.
8 Curiously, the NIST report
gives two different (and conflicting) figures regarding the load
distribution. NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, WTC Investigation, p. 3, asserts
that the WTC core columns supported 60% of the load, and the
perimeter columns 40%, while NIST NCSTAR 1-2A, WTC
Investigation, p. 87 gives the figures cited in my paper.
9 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, p. 10.
10 “How Columns Will Be Designed
for 110-Story Buildings,” Engineering News Record, April
2, 1964.
11 NIST NCSTAR 1-6 p. lxxi.
12 Answers to Frequently Asked
Questions, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World
Trade Center Disaster, see question two, posted at
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
13 Gordon Ross, “Momentum
Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC
1,” Journal of 911 Studies, June 2006. Posed at
http://www.journalof911studies.com/
14 On the sixth anniversary of
the September 11, 2001 attack Cambridge University engineer
Dr.Keith Steffen fold BBC that his calculations showed that the
WTC’s progressive collapse on 9/11 was a “very ordinary thing.”
His paper will appear in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics
in February 2008. “9/11 demolition theory challenged,” BBC
News, September 11, 2007.
15 The statement was made by a
spokesperson for the official story. “The 9/11 Conspiracies:
Fact or Fiction,” A & E television networks, cat # AAE 103790,
2007.
16 The 9/11 Commission Report,
W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, p. 302.
17 Ibid.
18 email from Greg Bacon.
February 25, 2007.
19 This strange development
came to light in July 2006, long after the cleanup of the
Deutsche Bank had supposedly been completed. The
announcement prompted a sharp letter of protest from the
attorney representing the families of the victims. For more
details go to
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=906
21 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation, p. 118; also see NIST
NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
22 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation, p. 124.
23 NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, WTC
Investigation, p. 217.
24 The NIST recovered 12 core
columns from the WTC, but only one (in two separate pieces)
from WTC 2 turned out to be from the area affected by the
impacts/fires. A number of flanges from the core were also
recovered. See Table 5-2 in NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation, p. 35.
25 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation, p. 39.`
26 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation p. 39.
28 FEMA: Executive Summary: WTC
Building Performance Study, p, 2.
29 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation,
p. 10; also see p.23.
30 NIST NCSTAR 1, NCSTAR 1-3,
WTC Investigation, p.115.
31 NIST NCSTAR 1, NCSTAR 1-3,
WTC Investigation,
p.116.
32 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation p. 130.
33 NIST NCSTAR 1-3C , WTC
Investigation, p. 218.
34 Ibid.
35 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation p. 88.
36 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation, p. 101.
37 Ibid.
38 Andy Field, “A Look
Inside a Radical new Theory of the WTC Collapse,”
Fire/Rescue News, February 7, 2004. Sunder made a similar
statement during an October 19, 2004 presentation. See
“World Trade Center Investigation Status,” S. Shyam Sunder,
lead investigator, Building and Fire Research Laboratory,
NIST. This paper can be downloaded as a pdf file at
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/agenda_oct192004.htm
39 FEMA: World Trade Center
Building Performance Study, Chapter Two: WTC 1 & 2, 2002, p. 22.
40 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full Summary
Report, WTC Investigation, p. 76.
41 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full Summary
Report, WTC Investigation p. 127.
42 The NIST makes this
important point in two separate places in the text. NIST
NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, pp. 49 and 51.
43 NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC
Investigation, p. lxvix.
44 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
45 NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC
Investigation, p. xliv.
46 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation, see photos and discussion pp. 49-55.
47 Ibid.
48 NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, WTC
Investigation, p. 24.
49 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation, p. 126-127.
50 NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC
Investigation, p. 121.
51 NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC
Investigation, p. lxvix; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC
Investigation, p. 51.
52 Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn,
102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive
Inside the Twin Towers, Times Books, 2005, p. 206; also
see Jim Dwyer and Ford Fessenden, “Lost Voices of
Firefighters, Some on 78th Floor,” New York Times,
August 4, 2002; also see Christopher Bollyn, “Feds Withhold
Crucial WTC Evidence,” American Free Press, August 8,
2002.
53 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full Summary
Report, WTC Investigation, p. 44.
54 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 5.
55 The 9/11 Commission Report,
W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, p. 301.
56 Praimnath’s testimony is
posted at
http://www.ambassadorspeakers.com/ACP/speakers.aspx?name=STANLEY%20PRAIMNATH&speaker=375
57 “The Fall of the World Trade
Center,” BBC Two, Thursday, March 7, 2002, posted at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2001/worldtradecentertrans.shtml
58 NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC
Investigation, p. 95.
59 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation, p. 43.
60 NIST NCSTAR 1-3 WTC
Investigation p. 95.
61 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation p. 144.
62 In the code his was
sub-article 1002.0, adequacy of the structural design. See
NIST NCSTAR 1-1A, WTC Investigation, p. 32.
63 Conversation with Ron
Hamburger, structural engineer, Dec 7, 2006.
64 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 66.
65 In the NIST report the
reserve capacity data is expressed in the form of
demand/capacity ratios, which is simply another way of
expressing the factor of safety. I use the latter because I
feel it’s more comprehensible to the average lay person.
Personal communication, December 14, 2006. See NIST NCSTAR
WTC Investigation 1-6, Figure 8-9, p. 233.
66 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 66.
67 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. cxii; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 84.
68 The NIST report states:
“on the day of the attack the towers were subjected to
in-service live loads (a fraction of the design live loads)
and minimal wind loads.” NIST NCSTAR 1-2 WTC Investigation,
p. liv.
69 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 66.
70 I received clarification
about this from the NIST WTC Investigation Team. Personal
communication, December 14, 2006. The number 5.7 is derived
from values presented in Figure 4-35, NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC
Investigation, p. 101.
71 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. 66.
72 “How Columns Will Be Designed
for 110-Story Buildings,” Engineering News-Record, April
2, 1964.
73 Ibid.
74 Eric Douglas, R.A., “The
NIST WTC Investigation -- How Real Was The Simulation?”, A
review of NIST NCSTAR 1, Journal of 9/11 Studies,
December 2006, p. 8. Posted at
http://www.journalof911studies.com/
75 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, Executive Summary, p. lxxxvii. The NIST also
admitted this in its global impact study., which states “in
terms of structural damage condition in exterior columns,
Case Ai and Case Bi and similarly Case Ci and Case Di
damage sets were identical.” NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC
Investigation, p. 10.
76 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, Executive Summary, p. lxxv.
77 NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC
Investigation, p. lxxv.
78 NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC
Investigation, p. 344.
79 NIST NCSTAR 1-2B , WTC
Investigation, p. 345.
80 NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC
Investigation, p. 353.
81 NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC
Investigation, p. 142; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC
Investigation, pp. 131, 174, 150 and 239.
82 NIST NCSTAR 1, Full
Summary Report, WTC Investigation, p. 142
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