I have some fairly significant questions with the events of 9/11. I've never liked the explanations given and I've never been impressed with the investigative process that both took so long to enact and failed so completely to treat this building collapse like the mechanical failure it was.
Join the club
It's a big one.
I'm going to ignore the towers for the time being, other than to say, asymmetrical damage is highly unlikely to lead to symmetrical failure, particularly within an asymmetrical system.
A point raised many times and usually countered with something along the lines of 'lots of unusual things happened that day'... I cant disagree with that one. Also 'it may be that the odds are against it but that can be said of winning the lottery... but people do it all the time'. Ok
WTC7. Also fell as nearly perfectly and symmetrically as I've ever seen a building come down. I worked my way through school as a contractor and I grew up in a family that owned and operated a major construction firm, we both erected and demolished steel framed structures regularly. My chores as a kid was sometimes to collate papers on some of the largest projects on the east coast. I won't go into a list of buildings I've worked on, but I"m very familiar with high rise construction and particularly steel framed structures.
Ah... so your not an expert then... just someone who knows a bit about stuff, much like those people at ae911
The first thing that should be noted with building 7 is that the blue prints are unavailable.
I didn't know that. Any reason given? National security or wot not?
So any special construction that may have been used is pure conjecture, and cannot be verified as far as I know. I could always be wrong on this one and if so feel free to provide the structural prints, but as of yet no one has ever coughed up the prints.
I think some experts at NIST proved it all but they won't give out any data that they used, even to designers and engineers, because there are loads of other buildings that could be demolished by someone starting a fire or something like that.
There are conflicting reports of explosions within the building, there are also conflicting reports of just how extensive the fires were in the building. Therefor I think its necessary to simply ignore that area of evidence due to its tenuous nature.
Yes I think ae911 folks took a similar stance but NIST ruled out use of explosives for some reason.
From what I can see there were minor fires that at no time encompassed more than say 25% of any one floor at a time.
I don't think anyone will challenge that now but it has been challenged in the past on this forum.
There are reports of diesel fuel in the buildings, but I see no evidence of a large fuel fed fire erupting in a manor consistent with fuel tank eruptions. So I'm inclined to ignore that evidence as well,
NIST's first report suggested there were massive fires fuelled by the diesel from the Con Ed but they retracted that, although Popular Mechanics still maintains that was the case.
also diesel fuel has a life span, it looses a significant portion of its energetic characteristics over a relatively short period of time, about 30% in 6 months if I remember. Its also an organic molecule, so it is subject to growing all kinds of contaminants over time, unless it is constantly polished and periodically treated with chemical preservatives and extenders.
That's interesting but not germaine.
I think its safe to say that the visual evidence is about the most reliable source of evidence we've got to go with. From what I can see, the fires were relatively minor, and certainly not of the character I would expect outside of the normal office building fire. Therefor I have no reason to believe the fires where in any way hotter than a normal office building fire. The fires were also extremely asymmetrical in nature, at no time were all four corners of the building alight and at no time was there any significant structural deformation evident that might lead me to believe that temperatures had reached a critical state that might be effecting the structural integrity of the building.
Totally agree.
I've yet to see a single picture of building 7 that showed any major structural damage due to falling debris from the towers plane impacts. I've seem smoke filled pictures that show a few broken windows and I've seen a small gash in one corner of the building, all other corners of the building were completely intact. I'd also estimate the total damage to the building, based on the visual evidence, to be minor, IE less than 5~10% of the whole, and asymmetrical in nature.
Agree again.
Yet the building came down, all four corners at once and at free fall speed. Oh and no, I'm not going to time it from the first window that blew out, nor am I going to time it from the symmetrical collapse of the pent house, which disappeared from view previous to the measurable area of building displaying free fall symmetrical collapse.
You and I and a billion others may well view it that way, but you get the slightest deviation, even by a few inches and debunkers will argue til the cows come home that it wasn't 'symmetrical'. Similarly, you get a few seconds above 'freefall' and "it wasn't free fall". And yet again, you get the odd speck of dust or a girder outside of the footprint and "it didn't collapse in it's own footprint". But debunkers really don't like to get into semantics.
Barring all opinion based evidence as well as conflicting eye witness accounts, and instead going with only film and still picture data, I don't see how it couldn't have been manufactured collapse. Asymmetrical damage does not yield symmetrical results.
I'm all ears and I'm open to altering my opinion, however, other than some extremely tenuous eye witness accounts, some of which may have a vested interest in not offending the departments which they depend for there lively hood, there is little to no evidence that the buildings symmetrical reaction to minor asymmetrical fires was not a manufactured event.
IE
someone wanted that building in a nice neat pile on the ground.
Agreed again.
I'd also point out that any of the collapses that day could have been easily reconstructed by merely recording the fall pattern of the structural members. Something that would have been done and has been done in virtually all major transportation disasters and something that is commonly done in bridge collapses. Every single piece of steel in that frame is coded and even a cursory look at the prints will show exactly where it was in the building. Recording the pattern of collapse is about the easiest and least time consuming element of demolition, its also the kinda study companies who do explosive demolitions conduct regularly so as to minimize the amount of explosives used. There is zero excuse for carting all the debris off without making this kinda study, as the pieces are cut away from the wreckage, guaranteed the guy with the torch had more than enough time to notice the field marks on the beams.
I didn't know about the markings being so specific but that is a great point.
Shame they sent the steel off to China... they certainly missed a great investigative opportunity there didn't they.
I'm inclined to think either the level of incompetence was so desperately high that no one thought to conduct such a study or that someone didn't want to conduct such a study. Given the resistance field investigators met when trying to access the sight, I'm far more inclined to believe the latter than the former.
In a nut shell I've yet to hear a rational explanation as to how bldg 7 could have possible fell in the manor it did under the circumstances evident in the film record.
Conjecture but I totally agree.
I'm not really a conspiracy nut but having worked my way through college in this exact field, I'm really not impressed with the party line on this one.
Don't worry, you're on your way... disagreeing with 'the experts' is a sure sign.
Occams razor in this case is leaning towards something very very fishy.
I think it is herrings... red ones.