Interesting Video.

[[GSV]Trig]

Right, the one main question thats not answered by the PM article..

Why do both of the buildings fall down on themselves..

Now, you've got a building, that building has a reinforced steel core.
A plane hits the outside of the building, and, according to the PM article causes some of the protective covering on the steel to be knocked off whic would allow it to heat and loose its structural intergrity.
So, you have a tower that has a section of weak metal supporting its weight, now, surely this would cause it to lean in the direction of the weakened metal, not collapse in on itself.

[[GSV]Trig]

Every tower design is different - some are more vunerable to things than others.
A 767 is pretty much the biggest plane to ever hit a skyscraper. They have a max take off weight of 193 tonnes - couple that with a speed of between 500 and 600mph at impact, and the sheer amount of fuel that could have been on board, and it is really an unparallelled collision.

A B52 has a max take off weight of 220 Tonnes.
What its take off weight and what its actual weight were at the time of impact are kinda irrelivant I think.

I could take a while explaining this...

Think of the weight placed on the structural beams during collapse, and in the events leading up to it. Weak points would have developed, and result in violent stress fractures. Under the heat of the fire, the steel would expand, beyond it's limits, and burst free from it's concrete surrounds - showering concrete out from the building. Some floors also "pancaked" - collapsed. Get a book and sprinkle flour on it. Then drop another book on top. Not only will it make a loud "bang", it will also shoot the flour (or rubble) out of the sides (or windows) due to the air.


Thats just my beliefs above - feel free to question or disprove anything that I have said, or to PM me for my MSN address if anyone wishes to discuss it further.

I'm not arguing the debris being shot out of the sides of the building, thats a given for the reasons you've stated.

What I want to know is why 2 buildings, both hit on there outer edges collapse down on themselves in a similar and rather controlled looking method?

[Jonny]

OK. Hard to explain, but this is why the building would collapse in on itself - and fall straight down, not at an angle.

The impace generated a weak point on one side of the building. This, over time, cased a collapse on that side, ABOVE the point of impact. This essential gave a tower which was upright for the first 80 floors, and "bent over" at the top. The top section was indeed at an angle, but there was no reason for the lower part of the tower to change from an upright position. If the damage was on, say, floor 10, the situation would be different.
Once one side of the top part had collapsed, the full force was switched over to the opposite side - which proved to be too massive a strain, and the force of the top 20 storeis collapsing was enough of a shock to trigger the rest of the tower to collapse. This picture should give you an idea of what I mean.



See how the top section has indeed collapsed at an angle, but there was no uneven forces on the section below to cause the whole building to tilt.

Sorry for the poor explanation, I'm often not too good with words!

[joshwa]

I think WTC 7 was deliberately demolished for an insurance claim. Hence the guy who owns it adding additional insurance for the building - he gained something like $500 million dollars from insurance from WTC7. FEMA's study into it could not explain why it would collapse from the fires. Does Diesel burn hot enough to melt metal structures and collapse buildings? Hot enough to collapse WTC7?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_World_Trade_Center

[Bazzlad]

NIST has released video and still photo analysis of Building 7 prior to its collapse that appears to indicate a greater degree of structural damage from falling debris than originally assumed by FEMA. Specifically, a large 10-story gash existed on the south facade, extending 1/3 accross the face of the building and approximately 1/4 of the way into the interior. A unique aspect of WTC 7's design meant that each outer structural column was responsible for supporting 2,000 square feet of floor space, meaning that removal of several or more columns (in the manner that appears to have occured), resulted in a severely compromised structure. In keeping with this assesment, news footage shows clearly visible cracking and bowing of the building's east wall immediately prior to the collapse, which started from the penthouse floors.

No major firefighting activities were attempted in the evacuated building, as personnel were diverted to assist in search and rescue at the main World Trade Center site. This meant that several fires burned out of control in the building, including one large conflagration on the fifth floor fed by a pressurized fuel line linked to a large diesel tank in the basement.

[silent ben]

I've always questioned the collapse of the towers, probably because of the complete surreality of the whole situation. After watching 911 Loose change (available on google video i believe), there was one thing that stuck in my mind:

"In all the videos of the collapsing towers, explosions can be seen bursting from the buildings, 20 to 30 stories below the demolition wave"

[[GSV]Trig]

Its possible that these "puffs" could be pressure being kicked out of the windows caused by pressure from the floors falling above.

Its unlikely there demo charges as they dont seem to follow a pattern.

[Bazzlad]

They don't look like explosions to me. At all.

All these conspiracy theories make one or two very clever people rich at the expense of idiots. I bet Al Quida are in hysterics when they see Americans and Brits debating if it was all set up.

This is why I don't believe it. At all.

Get a hobby.

[silent ben]

There was a better video where you could see windows blowing out every 10 floors or so for a 1/5 the height of the tower, but it ran too quickly for me to get good screenshots.

If the windows are blowing out due to pressure, why aren't the windows on floors nearer the collapsing floors blowing out where the pressure would be greater?

If the explosions were occuring on the central support column, then not all the windows would be blown out, but serious damage to the buildings support structure would have occured.

[Bazzlad]

No you're right. Because the American Government realised that crashing the biggest plane into a tower wouldn't topple it fully and thus (because it would only kill hundreds of innocent civilians - which wouldn't help their cause) they decided to send in a squad of Marines, in full stealth mode, to sneak in and plant explosives in one of the biggest buildings in the world to make sure it collapsed properly.

Yet they didn't count on 2 students with a Mac and some video editing software.

I would have got away with it, if it wasn't for you pesky kids....

[silent ben]

Nice arguement, why dont you just hold your breath like a 4 year old?

[Bazzlad]

I don't need to, because it's obvious I'm right. Anyone who thinks long and hard, AND researches both sides (like I did) will agree that what happened happened. And we landed on the Moon.

[silent ben]

then please come up for counter-arguements rather than personal attacks on others opinions.

Also please explain how a plane punched a nice round hole through the pentagon without leaving any damage from the wings, or leaving the wings outside of the building?

[Bazzlad]

Hahah. My personal favourite. You really HAVEN'T done any research have you?
Not being nasty, but if you're going to be pomp at least have the courtesy to research BOTH sides here goes:

FACT: When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon's exterior wall, Ring E, it created a hole approximately 75 ft. wide, according to the ASCE Pentagon Building Performance Report. The exterior facade collapsed about 20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged. Computer simulations confirmed the findings.

Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 757's 124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the behavior of concrete buildings. What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. "If you expected the entire wing to cut into the building," Sozen tells PM, "it didn't happen."

The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft. wide--not 16 ft. ASCE concludes it was made by the jet's landing gear, not by the fuselage.


HOLE TRUTH: Flight 77’s landing gear punched a 12-ft. hole into the Pentagon’s Ring C.

These people take half facts, team it up with half knowledge and then make a LOT of money. 2+2 really can equal 5.

[Ben_]

everyone knows michael moore is the real terrorist

[Bazzlad]

Agreed. The orignial Stupid American. It's his type that give them such a bad profile.