-- Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse except for the three buildings on 9/11, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9/11.
-- The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.
-- WTC-7 was unharmed by an airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.
-- WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.
-- It's difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel (kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.
Despite the numerous apparent holes in the government story, the Bush administration has brushed aside or otherwise ignored any and all opposing theories. Mainstream experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an airplane impact initially weakened each structure and an intense fire further weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below in a plummeting domino effect.
Another expert who supports the official account is Thomas Eager, professor of materials engineering and engineering systems at MIT. He argues that the collapse occurred from the extreme heat from the fires, causing the loss of loading-bearing capacity on the structural frame.
Professor Eagar points out that the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated to the point where it "lost 80 percent of its strength," or around 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. Critics claim his theory is flawed since the fires did not appear to be intense and widespread enough to reach such high temperature.
Other experts supporting the official story claim the impact of the airplanes, not the heat, weakened the entire structural system of the towers, but critics contend that the beams on floors 94-98 did not appear severely weakened, much less the entire structural system.
Unaccounted Seismic 'Spikes' Seismographs at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., 21 miles north of the WTC, recorded strange seismic activity on Sept. 11 that has still not yet been explained. While the aircraft crashes caused minimal earth shaking, significant earthquakes with unusual spikes occurred at the beginning of each collapse.
The Palisades seismic data recorded a 2.1 magnitude earthquake during the 10-second collapse of the South Tower and a 2.3 quake during the 8-second collapse of the North Tower.
However, the Palisades seismic record shows that-as the collapses began-a huge seismic "spike" marked the moment the greatest energy went into the ground. The strongest jolts were all registered at the beginning of the collapses, well before the falling debris struck the Earth. These unexplained "spikes" in the seismic data lend credence to the theory that massive explosions at the base of the towers caused the collapses.
"Sharp spikes of short duration," according to Thorne Lay of University of California at Santa Cruz, adding that such spikes had the attributes of underground nuclear explosion(s). "The two unexplained spikes are more than 20 times the amplitude of the other seismic waves associated with the collapses and occurred in the East-West seismic recording as the buildings began to fall."
Experts cannot explain why the seismic waves peaked before the towers actually hit the ground.
Asked about these spikes, seismologist Arthur Lerner-Lam, director of Columbia University's Center for Hazards and Risk Research said, "This is an element of current research and discussion. It is still being investigated."
Lerner-Lam points out that a 10-fold increase in wave amplitude indicates a 100-fold increase in energy released. These "short-period surface waves," reflect "the interaction between the ground and the building foundation," according to a report from Columbia Earth Institute.
FEMA Arrived Early
Further complicating the matter, hard evidence to fully substantiate either theory is lacking due to FEMA's quick removal of the structural steel before it could be analyzed. Despite the criminal code requirement that crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, FEMA had it destroyed or shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take place.
Much of the structural steel from the WTC was sold to Alan D. Ratner of Metal Management of Newark, N.J., and the New York-based company Hugo Neu Schnitzer East.
Ratner, who heads the New Jersey branch of the Chicago-based company, sold the WTC steel to overseas companies, reportedly selling more than 50,000 tons of steel to a Shanghai steel company known as Baosteel for $120 per ton. Ratner paid about $70 per ton for the steel.
And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since, coincidentally, FEMA officials had arrived the day before the 9/11 attacks to conduct a war game exercise, named "Tripod II."
Notwithstanding FEMA's quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel quite valuable, ordering that every debris truck be tracked on GPS and even firing one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.
In a detailed analysis supporting the controlled demolition theory, Reynolds presents a compelling case:
"First, no steel-framed skyscraper, even engulfed in flames hour after hour, had ever collapsed before. Suddenly, three stunning collapses occur within a few city blocks on the same day, two allegedly hit by aircraft, the third not," said Reynolds. "These extraordinary collapses after short-duration minor fires made it all the more important to preserve the evidence, mostly steel girders, to study what had happened.
"On fire intensity, consider this benchmark: A 1991 FEMA report on Philadelphia's Meridian Plaza fire said that the fire was so energetic that 'beams and girders sagged and twisted, but despite this extraordinary exposure, the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage.' Such an intense fire with consequent sagging and twisting steel beams bears no resemblance to what we observed at the WTC."
After considering both sides of the 9/11 debate and after thoroughly sifting through all the available material, Reynolds concludes the government story regarding all four plane crashes on 9/11 remains "highly suspect."
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