Real World Event Discussions

9/11 Conspiracy Theories

POSTED BY: GreenFaerie
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 15:36
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FLETCH2

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 11:42 AM

A jumbo jet is a 747 not a 707.

The design was to withstand a low speed impact from a 707 not a high speed impact (as I clearly stated above) from a fully loaded 767. Please watch the Anatomy of a disaster video from the Discovery channel who spoke with the principle archetect.

I did some digging and found a reference to the original design criterior. This was what was stated on the Discovery channel program but obviously I cant link that.

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Still, it is amazing that the towers survived the initial impacts at all—even if they were designed to be hit by aircraft—considering the fact that the Boeing 767's involved in the terrorist attack were notably larger and traveling much faster than the 707 considered in the design of the World Trade Center. The 707 was assumed to be coming in for a landing when it would hit one of the skyscrapers (707's were the standard airliner at the time when the World Trade Center was built). This meant that the plane would be traveling at a low rate of speed—about 180 miles per hour—and have minimal fuel. On the other hand, the 767's were carrying enough fuel for transcontinental flights (about 10,000 gallons each) and were flying far faster. The airspeeds of the jets as they impacted the buildings were estimated at about 470 and 590 miles per hour, approximately 2.6 and 3.2 times faster than the 707 (FEMA 1.17). In addition, the 767 is about 25 percent larger than the 707, with a wingspan of 156 feet, a length of 159 feet, and a height of 53 feet (1.19). Considering the size and speed of the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers, it is remarkable that they stood at all.

http://www.rit.edu/~smo5024/papers/wtc/

ROLANDREYNOLDS

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:22 PM

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The tower didn't have a great big hole in it from a plane crash though did it. Apart from that something catastrophic, like a plane crash for instance, does a lot more damage to the structure of a building than the hole it leaves behind. It's fair to say the entire structure would have been weakened by a plane hitting it. There are incidents where planes have hit tower blocks, the buildings haven't fallen, they've sustained the impact but they are condemned afterwards because the structure is weakened.

As I already showed, the Towers were designed to survive having plane sized holes put in them. It is not fair to say that the entire structure (say for instance, the bottom 50 floors) are compromised in any significant way by having a hole in floors 75-80. DeMartini himself uses a 'Mosquito netting' analogy, and he managed the building of the Towers.

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That doesn't mean the remaining supports can be considered as strong as they were pre-crash. There's also a reason why we stay well below stated maximums, in the real world materials never achieve them.

If they weren't compromised in any way, they are just as strong as they were. They may have to bear more weight if other supports are destroyed, but their strength remains constant until compromised. The great majority of columns in the South Tower were not destroyed.

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You can get black smoke from Blast furnaces at 1500c. Black smoke can also indicate WHAT is burning; like for instance black smoke is what you get from burning foams used in furniture, like that which you find in say, an office. Your whole chain of causality is fallacious.

This is entirely possible. However, all I have unfortunately is your word in this post, with no way to verify. It is just one piece of evidence for the low temperature of the fire, though. The Loose Change documentary ( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+c
hange) contains an audio recording of a fire-chief transmitting over his radio that he had reached the 78th floor and was confident that the fire there could be contained.

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Erm no. You don't have to raise the temperature of the entire structure, that's ridiculous. Physics (material and thermal dynamics) are on my side here. You can test it your self, take a metre pipe of steel, cut the end off with an oxyacetylene torch, and then touch the other end. Notice how you can melt the end without noticeably raising the temperature of the entire bar.

The fires in the Towers were not concentrated, high temperature (5000-6000 degrees F) flames like that of an oxyacetylene torch ( http://www.cut-like-plasma.com/info_faqs.htm). A quote from that page:

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The concentrated and hotter flame transfers heat to the steel only in the areas needed to preheat to the cutting temperature not a larger area like a conventional torch which uses 4-6 preheat flames we only use 1 in front of the cutting tip. Separate cutting and flame tips are used with our system.

There were no steel columns sticking up into the air, and subsequently falling over after the towers collapsed (see the Pop. Mech. reply). Everything also came down at near free fall speed. This is why the claim is made that the entire steel structure would have had to have been compromised. Had it not, large sections of steel columns (encased in concrete, which is given props for fire resistance - http://vincentdunn.com/wtc.html) would have remained.

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You get similar effects in homes, you don't need air tight. All you need is restricted airflow (which is a given in a building, whether you have a hole in the side or not) and a demand that outstrips the supply (like with a big damn fire). What you get is a reduced air pressure in comparison to the outside environment, which is what we call a vacuum.

I don't think I have cause to dispute this. I will again point out though that if demand (for air by the fire) outstrips the supply, you will necessarily not have an efficiently burning fire.

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Th

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FLETCH2

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:37 PM

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html

same thing but as a report with numbers

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

ROLANDREYNOLDS

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 12:54 PM

You're right, I mistakenly used the term jumbo-jet where it is not applicable.

I looked around for the Anatomy of Disaster video on the Discovery Channel website, but my hunting has not been successful thus far.

I looked through the link you provided, and noted the following:

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Although the situation never occurred in New York City, the towers were designed to withstand prolonged winds of 150 miles per hour, a thirteen-million-pound force, or the equivalent of being hit by a large ocean freighter

Now, I am going to assume that this force is calculated with the wind over the entire surface area of one face of the building, which is why that number is so huge. Obviously you would need less energy over a smaller surface area to do damage. 1 pound = about 4.08 x 10^13 kilojules, or about 40 trillion kilojules (Google). The kilojule force from the 767 travelling at 530mph is just over 5 million kilojules. I'm fairly certain this isn't really saying anything, I just found it interesting.

You've made a good point though. There is a significant difference between a 767 at 530mph and a 707 at 180mph. I guess the next stage of investigation would be just how much, and what kind of a difference this would be in the overall picture.

Edit: Those links you posted while I was writing look interesting as well. I will go over them.

FLETCH2

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:02 PM

It also depends on how that force is applied. If I hit you with a bat across the ribs I probably impart more energy than low caliber bullet, however while I may damage you it's unlikely I would kill you outright. The bullet would likely kill you...

ROLANDREYNOLDS

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 1:41 PM

I read through the links you provided, and I believe I understand much better the things you have been trying to explain. I am much less skeptical about many things than I was before. I am left with a couple of questions though, maybe you can again direct me to some answers.

Eager and Musso pinpoint the Angle Clips as being a key point of failure. There is a diagram about 3/4 of the way down on this page:

http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html

...that shows how the angle clips hold up the floor joists. In the South Tower, the inner core was not significantly damaged. If it was the angle clips failing under the weight of the floors above, why didn't the floors simply fall down leaving the inner core exposed?

Secondly:

This reasonable explanation for WTC 1 and 2, which names as the key factor the near-instantaneous spread of fire over a large area, cannot be applied to WTC 7. WTC 7 was not struck by a plane and did not have jet fuel spread over a large area in its interior. Why did WTC 7 collapse in an identical manner to towers 1 and 2?

CITIZEN

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 2:13 PM

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Originally posted by RolandReynolds:
As I already showed, the Towers were designed to survive having plane sized holes put in them. It is not fair to say that the entire structure (say for instance, the bottom 50 floors) are compromised in any significant way by having a hole in floors 75-80. DeMartini himself uses a 'Mosquito netting' analogy, and he managed the building of the Towers.

Actually it is fair, the structural integrity of the entire structure is harmed, even if most of the damage is localised. You can't take a structure as a set of closed modules, it's one complete system.

A rather simplified analogy would be an Arch, if the keystone is damaged, the damage may only be localised to that one point, but the entire arch will collapse.

Also I think Fletch has shown that the Towers were not designed to be hit in the way they were.

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If they weren't compromised in any way, they are just as strong as they were. They may have to bear more weight if other supports are destroyed, but their strength remains constant until compromised. The great majority of columns in the South Tower were not destroyed.

They don't have to be. Materials 'strength' is not constant under load, especially with increasing heat. Materials can't stand sudden shock load anywhere near as well as they can withstand constant load. It's disingenuous to assume that because a strut wasn't hit be the plane that it is unharmed by the explosion or its secondary effects.

Now although more columns (damaged undamaged whatever) remained than were completely destroyed since the damage is localised rather than spread through out the building you have a point of failure.

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This is entirely possible. However, all I have unfortunately is your word in this post, with no way to verify. It is just one piece of evidence for the low temperature of the fire, though. The Loose Change documentary ( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5137581991288263801&q=loose+c
hange) contains an audio recording of a fire-chief transmitting over his radio that he had reached the 78th floor and was confident that the fire there could be contained.

Foam used in office and house hold furniture gives off black smoke when burned, regardless of temperature; also plenty of high temperature fires produce black smoke, including the Kuwaiti oil fires of 1991 which had temperatures in excess of 1100 degrees c.

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The fires in the Towers were not concentrated, high temperature (5000-6000 degrees F) flames like that of an oxyacetylene torch ( http://www.cut-like-plasma.com/info_faqs.htm). A quote from that page:

That’s not the point. The point was in order raise the temperature of the steel in the areas of the fire you don’t have to raise the temperature of the entire structure, a point which still stands.

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There were no steel columns sticking up into the air, and subsequently falling over after the towers collapsed (see the Pop. Mech. reply). Everything also came down at near free fall speed. This is why the claim is made that the entire steel structure would have had to have been compromised. Had it not, large sections of steel columns (encased in concrete, which is given props for fire resistance - http://vincentdunn.com/wtc.html) would have remained.

Are you trying to tell me that the entire building collapsing would compromise the structure of the steel structure? Anything left standing could easily be destroyed by falling debris.

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I don't think I have cause to dispute this. I will again point out though that if demand (for air by the fire) outstrips the supply, you will necessarily not have an efficiently burning fire.

You said that you couldn’t get a ‘vacuum’ within the towers, this is incorrect. Furthermore the fire using up oxygen doesn’t prove it’s burning inefficiently at all, I’m not even sure why or how you could come to that conclusion.

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You're right, it didn't fall this way. But the 'experts' are saying that it did.

GREENFAERIE

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:09 PM

SevenPercent wrote:

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I think some people need to feel safe so badly (not just feel safe, I think, but explain why others don't feel the same way- i.e., because others just don't 'see' or 'get' what's happening around them) that they construct wild fantasies using whatever facts they can cobble together out of heresay and speculation.

See, I originally posted these questions about 9/11 theories because I want to believe the official story. I would feel more comfortable if it was true. But now I come to doubt our goverment, and feel less safe.

I would feel more safe knowing that the CIA and FBI are protecting our borders from radical terorists living half way around the world. But if the governement is lying, I feel less safe, because they may have an agenda that points to world unrest, wars to control other nations, loss of personal freedoms, and a fascist state disguised as a democracy.

CHRISISALL

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 4:26 PM

As a confirmed Conspiracy Theorist, I may be shooting myself in the foot with this, but in general, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.
Stupidity and mis-management on the side of the American government; Fanaticism and lack of any enjoyable hobbies on the part of the terrorists.

After all, it ain't all that hard to steer a 747 into a target that big.

Feel better now, GreenFarie?

Chrisisall

Edit: but keep doubting the government...there ARE conspiracies afoot....

FLETCH2

Wednesday, April 12, 2006 9:31 PM

Well if I'm reading what you are asking correctly you wonder why the end point isn't the two sets of steel cores just standing in the air with the resl of the building pancaked around them?

I'm not a structural enginer but he's my take. The WTC was the first to use this "Tube" construction technique where some of the strength is in the perimeter columns and some in the core. The floors hang between them on trusses. These trusses as well as holding the floor up provide lateral support to the columns.

The widespread fire caused truses on multiple floors to fail and fall on lower floors that also fail. This leaves the columns holding the entire weight of the upper sections of the building without lateral support over an extended area. This means it's no longer a rigid structure at that point, I assume that the collumns now start to flex and bow under the sudden unexpected laterial forces and the constant downward pressure. This compunds the problem because the collumns are only supposed to take a downwards load. Columns then fail under the weight and the building starts to fall, pulverising the rest of the structure below it as it falls.