no evidence of explosives was found,
Documentation please
In the PBS documentary
America Rebuilds, which aired in September 2002,
Larry Silverstein, the owner of 7 WTC and leaseholder and insurance policy holder for the remainder of the WTC complex, recalled a discussion with the fire department in which doubts about containing the fires were expressed. Silverstein recalled saying, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it". "They made that decision to pull", he recalled, "and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein issued a statement that it was the firefighting team, not the building, that was to be pulled.
[66][71][72]
NIST report[edit]
In 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) began a general investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center but soon made a decision to focus first on the collapse of the Twin Towers.
[73] A draft version of its final report on the collapse of 7 WTC was released in August 2008. The agency has blamed the slowness of this investigation on the complexity of the computer model it used, which simulated the collapse from the moment it begins all the way to the ground; and NIST says the time taken on the investigation into 7 WTC is comparable to the time taken to investigate an aircraft crash.
[73] The agency also says another 80 boxes of documents related to 7 WTC were found and had to be analyzed. These delays fueled suspicion[
who?] the agency was struggling to come up with a plausible conclusion.
[72]
NIST released its final report on the collapse of 7 World Trade Center on November 20, 2008.
[74] Investigators used videos, photographs and building design documents to come to their conclusions. The investigation could not include physical evidence as the materials from the building lacked characteristics allowing them to be positively identified and were therefore disposed of prior to the initiation of the investigation.
[73][75] The report concluded that the building's collapse was due to the effects of the fires which burned for almost seven hours. The fatal blow to the building came when the 13th floor collapsed, weakening a critical steel support column that led to catastrophic failure, and extreme heat caused some steel beams to lose strength, causing further failures throughout the buildings until the entire structure succumbed. Also cited as a factor was the collapse of the nearby towers, which broke the city water main, leaving the sprinkler system in the bottom half of the building without water.
NIST considered the possibility that 7 WTC was brought down with explosives and concluded that a blast event did not occur, that the "use of thermite [...] to sever columns in 7 WTC on 9/11/01 was unlikely".
[73] The investigation cited as evidence the claim that no blast was audible on recordings of the collapse and that no blast was reported by witnesses, stating that it would have been audible at a level of 130-140 decibels at a distance of half a mile. Demolition proponents say eyewitnesses repeatedly reported explosions happening before the collapse of the towers, and have published videos obtained from NIST, together with indications about when such explosions could be heard in support of the sounds of explosions before collapse.
[52]
World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
NIST also concluded that it is unlikely that the quantities of thermite needed could have been carried into the building undetected. Demolition advocates have responded that they do not claim that thermite was used, but rather that
nano-thermite, far more powerful than thermite, was used. Finally, the theory that fires from the large amount of diesel fuel stored in the building caused the collapse was also investigated and ruled out.
[73]
Reactions[edit]
The structural engineering community rejects the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory. Its consensus is that the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings was a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse, an explanation that does not involve the use of explosives.
[2][76][
page needed]
The
American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering Institute issued a statement calling for further discussion of NIST's recommendations,
[77] and Britain's
Institution of Structural Engineers published a statement in May 2002 welcoming the FEMA report, noting that the report expressed similar views to those held by its group of professionals.
[78]
Following the publication of Jones' paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?"
[6] Brigham Young University responded to Jones' "increasingly speculative and accusatory" statements by placing him on paid leave, and thereby stripping him of two classes, in September 2006, pending a review of his statements and research. Six weeks later, Jones retired from the university.
[21] The structural engineering faculty at the university issued a statement which said that they "do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones".
[3][22] On September 22, 2005, Jones gave a seminar on his hypotheses to a group of his colleagues from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at BYU. According to Jones, all but one of his colleagues agreed after the seminar that an investigation was in order and the lone dissenter came to agreement with Jones' suggestions the next day.
[22]
Northwestern University Professor of
Civil Engineering Zdeněk Bažant, who was the first to offer a published peer-reviewed theory of the collapses, wrote "a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives" as an exception.
[79] Bažant and Verdure trace such "strange ideas" to a "mistaken impression" that safety margins in design would make the collapses impossible. One of the effects of a more detailed modeling of the progressive collapse, they say, could be to "dispel the myth of planted explosives". Indeed, Bažant and Verdure have proposed examining data from controlled demolitions in order to better model the progressive collapse of the towers, suggesting that progressive collapse and controlled demolition are not two separate modes of failure (as the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory assumes).
[2]
Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials science and engineering at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also dismissed the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory.
[3] Eagar remarked, "These people (in the 9/11 truth movement) use the 'reverse
scientific method.' They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion."
[80]
Regarding Jones' theory that
nanothermite was used to bring down the towers, and the assertion that
thermite and
nanothermite composites were found in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which was concluded to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings,
[6][7][8][12] Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America",
[81] states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also stated that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites.
[82] Dave Thomas of
Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermitic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas stated that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when
Jesse Ventura hired
New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal position.
[83]
Preparing a building for a controlled demolition takes considerable time and effort.
[84] The tower walls would have had to be opened on dozens of floors.
[6] Thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms would need to be sneaked past security and placed in the towers
[6][85] without the tens of thousands of people working in the World Trade Center noticing.
[1][49][84][85][86][87] Referring to a conversation with Stuart Vyse, a professor of psychology, an article in the
Hartford Advocate asks, "How many hundreds of people would you need to acquire the explosives, plant them in the buildings, arrange for the airplanes to crash [...] and, perhaps most implausibly of all, never breathe a single word of this conspiracy?"
[88]
World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein said, "Hopefully this thorough report puts to rest the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, which dishonor the men and women who lost their lives on that terrible day." Upon presentation of the NIST's detailed report on the failure of Bldg. 7, Richard Gage, leader of the group
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth said, "How much longer do we have to endure the coverup of how Building 7 was destroyed?" in which Dr. S. Shyam Sunder, the lead NIST investigator said he could not explain why the skepticism would not die. “I am really not a psychologist,” he said. “Our job was to come up with the best science.”
[35] James Quintiere, professor of
fire protection engineering at the
University of Maryland, who does not believe explosives brought down the towers, questioned how the agency came to its conclusions, remarking, "They don't have the expertise on explosives," though he adds that NIST wasted time employing outside experts to consider it.
[89]
See also[edit]
