Collapse of World Trade Center building 7 that led to Sept. 11 conspiracy theories solved?

Collapse of World Trade Center building 7 that led to Sept. 11 conspiracy theories solved

August 21, 2008Recommend (2)

FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Federal investigators said Thursday they have solved a mystery of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks: the collapse of World Trade Center building 7, a source of long-running conspiracy theories.

The 47-story trapezoid-shaped building sat north of the World Trade Center towers, across Vesey Street in lower Manhattan. On Sept. 11, it was set on fire by falling debris from the burning towers, but skeptics have long argued that fire and debris alone should not have brought down such a big steel-and-concrete structure.

Scientists with the National Institute of Standards and Technology say their three-year investigation of the collapse determined the demise of WTC 7 was actually the first time in the world a fire caused the total failure of a skyscraper.

‘‘The reason for the collapse of World Trade Center 7 is no longer a mystery,’’ said Dr. Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator on the NIST team.

Investigators also concluded that the collapse of the nearby towers broke the city water main, leaving the sprinkler system in the bottom half of the building without water.

The building has been the subject of a wide range of conspiracy theories for the last seven years, partly because the collapse occurred about seven hours after the twin towers came down. That fueled suspicion that someone intentionally blew up the building in a controlled demolition.

Critics like Mike Berger of the group 9/11 Truth said he wasn’t buying the government’s explanation.

‘‘Their explanation simply isn’t sufficient. We’re being lied to,’’ he said, arguing that there is other evidence suggesting explosives were used on the building.

Sunder said his team investigated the possibility that an explosion inside the building brought it down, but found there was no large boom or other noise that would have occurred with such a detonation. Investigators also created a giant computer model of the collapse, based partly on news footage from CBS News, that they say shows internal column failure brought down the building.

Investigators also ruled out the possibility that the collapse was caused by fires from a substantial amount of diesel fuel that was stored in the building, most of it for generators for the city’s emergency operations command center.

The 77-page report concluded that the fatal blow to the building came when the 13th floor collapsed, weakening a critical steel support column that led to catastrophic failure.

‘‘When this critical column buckled due to lack of floor supports, it was the first domino in the chain,’’ said Sunder.

The NIST investigators issued more than a dozen building recommendations as a result of their inquiry, most of which repeat earlier recommendations from their investigation into the collapse of the two large towers.

In both instances, investigators concluded that extreme heat caused some steel beams to lose strength, causing further failures throughout the buildings until the entire structure succumbed.

The recommendations include building skyscrapers with stronger connections and framing systems to resist the effects of thermal expansion, and structural systems designed to prevent damage to one part of a building from spreading to other parts.

A spokeswoman for the leaseholder of the World Trade Center, developer Larry Silverstein, praised the government’s work.

‘‘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,’’ said Silverstein spokeswoman Dara McQuillen.

In discussing the findings, the investigator Sunder acknowledged that some may still not be convinced, but insisted the science behind their findings is ‘‘incredibly conclusive.’’

‘‘The public should really recognize the science is really behind what we have said,’’ he said, adding: ‘‘The obvious stares you in the face.’’

In other news, the FBI was about to catch the Anthrax killer when he took his own life!

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Of course, I'm a Liberal! I'm an American, damn it!

This country was founded on the premise of Liberty and Justice for ALL...remember?

My wallet is STILL on hiatus!

I'm sure the tinfoil hat brigade out there still thinks it was Saddam Hussein.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

So this is the B.S. story that we are supposed to believe? Wow.

I'm just going to throw this out there, now try to keep an open mind. Maybe, just maybe it collapsed because a GIANT FUCKING BUILDING FELL ON IT.

Exactly, the friggin building was damaged, and burning also. But that is never mentioned, most people think it was just standing there in the sunlight and boom it fell because someone blew it up. Can we just end this nonsense already, we got HIT, face it, i know we like to believe that 19 schmos with box cutters and instructions written on gum wrappers couldnt take down a whole country, well they did, face it, deal with it! Now on to the bigger JOKE, as a new yorker, i am amazed that we have built 2 baseball statdiums in 3 years and yet in 7 years we havent even broke ground on ground zero, all because of "theories" .

Mars23 said:

Lammastide said:

Tremolina said:

And Jesus was born of a virgin.

http://killtown.911review...gguns.html

"Think inside out."

Snap said:

I find it interesting that the 1,000 or so companies under SEC investigation just so happen 2 be in this building. The investigation centered around ENRON type structures of these companies.

Mars23 said:

Snap said:

Tremolina said:

Wait! Did one of the towers fell on WTC 7?

Nope.








[Edited 8/22/08 2:21am]

Most (if not all) of the conspiracy theories images show the building collapsing from the opposite side of where the attacks took place

Here is WTC7 before the attack



Watch as debri from the other towers fall on WTC7



Here is a view of damage from debri
Notice that huge gash down the center of the building







and finally the giant bite taken out of the corner

scotmann said:

Most (if not all) of the conspiracy theories images show the building collapsing from the opposite side of where the attacks took place

Here is WTC7 before the attack
and finally the giant bite taken out of the corner

great pictures.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Maya Angelou

http://www.myspace.com/butterfli25

http://www.debunking911.com/pull.htm


Once you understand what "pull" means to a firefighter vs what it means in demolition, the argument really becomes comical.

The best part of all of it is that a couple buildings were demolished that day by "pulling" and it has nothing to do with explosives!

Of course the best for me is a photo that has nothing to do with 9/11. To believe the explosive demolition theory, you have to be able to explain how no-one noticed this when they went to work that day:

Mars23 said:

Tremolina said:

Tremolina said:

Mars23 said:

Mars23 said:

NIST completely fails to address prior knowledge of the building’s collapse, including why news outlets like the BBC and CNN reported that the building had collapsed an hour before it actually fell, as well as firefighters on the scene who are heard on video saying, “Keep your eye on that building, it’ll be coming down soon.”

If the collapse of WTC 7 came as a result of a “new phenomenon” and an “extraordinary event” that had never happened before in the history of building collapses, then why did news stations and ground zero workers know it was about to happen a hour or more in advance?

This on its own completely destroys the very foundation of NIST’s assertion that a “new phenomenon” was responsible for the collapse.

Which is the more likely scenario - that ground zero officials and media outlets got word that the building was going to be “pulled” - or that they employed clairvoyant powers of deduction that enabled them to foresee an event that had never happened before in history to a building that was structurally reinforced and had suffered limited fires?

NIST claims that the collapse of Building 7 is “The first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building”.

We are actually being asked to believe the impossible - that WTC 7 was the only building in history to have defied all precedent and suffered a complete and almost instantaneous collapse from fire damage alone, despite this being an impossibility if one accepts the basic laws of physics as accurate.

The issue of molten metal, which was discovered under both the twin towers and WTC 7, suggesting an extremely hot burning agent was used in the demolition process, is completely ignored in NIST’s report, despite it being acknowledged in Appendix C of FEMA’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study, which stated:

Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel… The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.

Speaking during a press conference that was called to counter NIST, Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and a member of the American Institute of Architects, dismissed the report.

“Tons of [molten metal] was found 21 days after the attack,” said Gage in an interview with a Vancouver, Canada television station. “Steel doesn’t begin to melt until 2,700 degrees, which is much hotter than what these fires could have caused.”

“There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through,” he added, citing NIST’s claim that no evidence suggested loud explosive booms accompanied the collapse of the building by reminding that Thermite, a steel cutting agent, makes no explosive sound.

Even aside from this argument, there were numerous close proximity eyewitnesses who reported loud explosions, including NYPD officer Craig Bartmer and ground zero first responder Kevin McPadden (who also experienced the countdown before the building fell), but this fact was again simply ignored by NIST.

“FEMA found it,” said Gage. “Dr. Steven Jones found it, in the dust that landed in the entire area of lower Manhattan. And he finds it in the chunks of previously molten metal [from the towers].”

The core of NIST’s explanation, that an “extraordinary event” called “thermal expansion” was to blame for the sudden total collapse of the building is of course on the face of it a fraud when one considers the innumerable number of buildings that have suffered roaring fires across the majority of their floors and remained standing, whereas WTC 7 suffered limited fire damage across a handful of floors.

NIST also claims that the building only fell at 40% free fall speed, as if this isn’t suspicious in itself. Remember that this 47-story behemoth took just 7 seconds to completely collapse within its own footprint falling through the path of most resistance.




As the George Washington blog points out, “NIST said that WTC 7 fell at 40% slower than free fall speed. But it collapsed a lot faster than it would have if the structural supports were not all blown away at the same instant. 40% slower isn’t very impressive — that’s like arguing that a rock falling through concrete 40% slower than a rock falling through the air is perfectly normal.”

The George Washington blog has compiled a list of experts in structural engineering and demolition who have all questioned NIST’s conclusion. None of these individuals were approached by NIST to partake in their final report.

• The former head of the Fire Science Division of the government agency which claims that the World Trade Centers collapsed due to fire (the National Institute of Standards and Technology), who is one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering (Dr. James Quintiere), called for an independent review of the World Trade Center Twin Tower collapse investigation. “I wish that there would be a peer review of this,” he said, referring to the NIST investigation. “I think all the records that NIST has assembled should be archived. I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they’ve done; both structurally and from a fire point of view. … I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable.

• Two professors of structural engineering at a prestigious Swiss university (Dr. Joerg Schneider and Dr. Hugo Bachmann) said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here).

• Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley, of Fremont, California, says:

“Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition”

• Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis, of Novato California, writes:

“Why would all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven seconds… ? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three collapses including the surviving steel samples and the composition of the dust.”

• Graham John Inman, structural engineer, of London, England, points out:

“WTC 7 Building could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and external debris. NO plane hit this building. This is the only case of a steel frame building collapsing through fire in the world. The fire on this building was small & localized therefore what is the cause?”

• A Dutch demolition expert (Danny Jowenko) stated that WTC 7 was imploded

• A prominent physicist with 33 years of service for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC (Dr. David L. Griscom) said that the official theory for why the Twin Towers and world trade center building 7 collapsed “does not match the available facts” and supports the theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition

To claim that the collapse of WTC 7 is “no longer a mystery,” as chief NIST investigator Dr. Shyam Sunder stated yesterday smacks of a desperate attempt to proclaim the authority of the official story by mere words alone, when in reality NIST’s laughable “new phenomenon” claim, the latest in a long line of changing explanations for the obvious demolition of Building 7, only heaps more embarrassment on NIST and makes the official 9/11 story look more untrustworthy than ever before.

so the problem is with how it fell, collapsed as opposed to falling over? and in 7 seconds as opposed to more time?

you know I remember that day wondering why that building fell, I just figured that since it was right next to the towers that all the shaking that resulted from the towers collapsing brought it down, kinda of like an earthquake.

this is interesting..

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.
Maya Angelou

http://www.myspace.com/butterfli25

thepope2the9s said:

Did you see those photos I posted?..
The ones that show before and after, with damage from debri included.

I make sure to post them anytime a thread about the untouched building #7 comes up.

But they are usually ignored,

and most conspiracy guys would rather talk about the little video of building #7, shot blocks away, from the vantage point away from where the damage took place... awesome...

Hypothetically... Do you think that damage that can be seen in the pics (clearly a bite out of the side, a gash through the middle of the building, and much more damage) ... do you think that would have caused any problems for a perfect demolition... do you think that the damage seen in the pics would have screwed up some of the timed or chained charges that might have been used... maybe a fuse or a wire snipped..



The damage would have screwed up this setup. it would have also screwed up any secret bomb rigs as well

...the before and after pics show the damage that brought down the building .