Difficult Facts for 9/11 Skeptics to Deny

Originally posted by freight tomsen
*The FAA and NORAD stood down and did not send interceptors for an hour

The FAA was not on a stand down mode as indicated by the fact that FAA operations were normal as noted by the number of aircraft under FAA control prior to the 9/11 terrorist attack that day and security surveillance at NORAD is a 24/7 operation and interceptors are always on a round-the-clock alert.



[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Originally posted by Damocles
well if youve ever looked at the closeups of that or any other cut on that scene you'd see the torch tip marks from an oxyacetalyne torch...wheres the confusion there?

or better yet, too much slag for explosive (which wouldnt leave any) and not enough for thermite even if thermite could cut horizontally (which its never been proven it can cut steel of that thickness horizontally)

UM....what? you mean to tell me someone had the urge to walk in the middle of all that rubble, just to cut a 45 degree angle in a beam? and did i mention thermite at all? no I didn't, that cut is made by placing explosives at a 45 degree angle so that the building shifts into itself instead of sliding outwards. There is no buildings in the history of the world that will topple on top itself without the help of demolition. I live in Las Vegas and I have witnessed many many building implosions. I have worked on thoses sites cleaning up the rubble and I have seen the same exact cuts.

I highly doubt someone would just go hey, I feel like cutting an angle in the supporting beam...just for kicks. Why is it so hard to believe what has happened?

Also you never convinced me on how a building could fall like that on its own. Buildings don't fall straight down unless it was meant to (meaning someone planned it)

[edit on 18-6-2007 by RandomThought]

Originally posted by LightWorker13
Structural steel has a melting point of 3000 degrees, look it up. And even if heat did melt the steel, that wouldnt explain the freefall of the buildings, landing right in its own footprint.

For a steel structure to fail, would not require the structure to be heated to the melting point, just anneal the steel at a much lower temperture and gravity will do the rest, as was the case when a gasoline truck overturned on an overpass in Oakland, CA recently.

The steel and concrete structure collapsed in the same manner as the WTC buildings and this was from much less fuel than was burned within the WTC buildings. Back in the 1980's, not far from that accident, another gasoline truck overturned inside a tunnel near Oakland and the heat was hot enough to melt brass and required the replacement of steel plates that were weakened by the gasoline-fed fire.



[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Originally posted by skyeagle409
For a steel structure to fail, would not require the structure to be heated to the melting point, just anneal the steel at a much lower temperture and gravity will do the rest, as was the case when a gasoline truck overturned on an overpass in Oakland, CA recently.

People keep saying this but there's still no example of a steel skyscraper ever collapsing from fire.

The major problems caused to steel in a fire are from thermal expansion of the steel, not from losing strength. Significant strength isn't lost until you get around 600 C, and can you imagine trying to heat those massive, massive columns in the WTC Towers to 600 C with fires that are barely even that temperature, within 45 minutes? It isn't going to happen.

Originally posted by freight tomsen
-Other steel buildings have burned for over 20 hours without any significant structural damage. -The Empire State building stood after being hit by a B-52 Bomber.

Other steel building were not constructed like the WTC buildings. Also, that was a B-25 that struck the Empire State building, not a B-52.

Investigators discovered Thermite, a demolition material, in the rubble. Also molten metal burned at the base for three weeks (an impossible feat for jet fuel).

To me, it would have been impossible not to find any evidence of thermite reactions within the WTC buidlings, especially since the buildings are contructed of steel and the aircraft of aluminum and thermite reaction requires aluminum and steel oxide. Also, aluminum burns furiously and is the reason why aluminum is a very important component in solid rocket fuels and why the British learned the hard why during the Falkan War why is is not a good practice to construct warships out of aluminum.

-There are visible blast points of bombs igniting early beneath the collapse of WTC 1 and 2

I didn't see anything that to do with any bomb placement.

-There are countless eyewitnesses claiming to hear multiple bombs go off and firefighters describing a chain reaction of bombs layering down from the top in rapid succession.

I wonder how many gas pockets were the result of damaged gas lines within the buildings.

-This building also came down at free-fall speed, yet no plane hit it and no jet fuel burned. It came straight down with a characteristic demolition “kink” creased explosion down the middle.

A steel and concrete overpass in Oakland, CA came straight down after it was damaged by a gasoline-fed fire.

*Where flight 93 supposedly crashed there was absolutely no plane wreckage found (no engines, no indestructible landing gear, nothing).

-All that was found was a relatively small hole in the ground with no plane reminisce and no bodies.

-The coroner assigned to Shanksville is quoted asking why he was sent there if there were no bodies.

How many pieces of the wreckage and bodies can be found here? This is not the crash site of Flight 93, but the crash site of PSA Flight 1771, which crashed in the same manner as Flight 93.

*At the Pentagon there was only one small piece of plane wreckage found (no engines, no wings, no landing gear).

Wreckage from the B-757 that crashed into the Pentagon.

















[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Originally posted by bsbray11
The major problems caused to steel in a fire are from thermal expansion of the steel, not from losing strength. Significant strength isn't lost until you get around 600 C, and can you imagine trying to heat those massive, massive columns in the WTC Towers to 600 C with fires that are barely even that temperature, within 45 minutes? It isn't going to happen.

The burning fuel and aluminum would have seriously weakened the steel structure in a relatively short period of time. I've seen how aluminum burns as I have been a witness to a few aircraft accidents involving Air Force aircraft over my more than 35 years of service for the Air Force.

Originally posted by skyeagle409
The burning fuel and aluminum would have seriously weakened the steel structure in a relatively short period of time.

Ok, you've said it, now back it up.

First it was hydrocarbon fire, now it's apparently burning aluminum that inflicted the damage?

I've seen how aluminum burns as I have been a witness to a few aircraft accidents involving Air Force aircraft over my more than 35 years of service for the Air Force.

Relevance? I don't see the connection, but I'd give you a cookie if I had one I guess.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Ok, you've said it, now back it up.

First it was hydrocarbon fire, now it's apparently burning aluminum that inflicted the damage?

Both aluminum and aircraft fuel were involved in the fires. Add a little breeze and you will get an idea as to why blacksmiths used air bellows in their line of work. I often wondered why investigators haven't focused more on aluminum. After all, aluminum is used as a component in solid rocket fuels.

To give you an idea about how volatile aluminum really is, here's a link to help me out.

...aluminum is so volatile that powdered aluminum is a prime component in rocket fuel. The US Air Force 15,000 BLU-82B bomb contains 12,600 pounds of low-cost GSX slurry (ammonium nitrate, aluminum powder, and polystyrene).

www.g2mil.com...

Originally posted by skyeagle409
I often wondered why investigators haven't focused more on aluminum. After all, aluminum is used as a component in solid rocket fuels.

Not in the same form as it is present in aircraft skin. That's why it says "aluminum powder", which is explosive (but not particularly powerful as an explosive, not a "high" explosive).

Aluminum doesn't even burn until temperatures of around 7000 F (link). That's probably why no one else thinks it's a realistic theory.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Not in the same form as it is present in aircraft skin. That's why it says "aluminum powder", which is explosive (but not particularly powerful as an explosive, not a "high" explosive).

Aluminum will burned furiously regardless, ask the British what happened to their aluminum-contructed ships in wartime conditions. During an accident at Travis AFB, the fire department had a very difficult time putting out the fire of a C-141 and there wasn't much left afterwards.

The collapse of the WTC buidlings were the result of heat, not bombs.

World Trade Center - Some Engineering Aspects

After the initial plane impacts, it appeared to most observers that the structures had been severely damaged, but not necessarily fatally.

It appears likely that the impact of the plane crash destroyed a significant number of perimeter columns on several floors of the building, severely weakening the entire system. Initially this was not enough to cause collapse.

However, as fire raged in the upper floors, the heat would have been gradually affecting the behaviour of the remaining material. As the planes had only recently taken off, the fire would have been initially fuelled by large volumes of jet fuel, which then ignited any combustible material in the building. While the fire would not have been hot enough to melt any of the steel, the strength of the steel drops markedly with prolonged exposure to fire, while the elastic modulus of the steel reduces (stiffness drops), increasing deflections.

Eventually, the loss of strength and stiffness of the materials resulting from the fire, combined with the initial impact damage, would have caused a failure of the truss system supporting a floor, or the remaining perimeter columns, or even the internal core, or some combination. Failure of the flooring system would have subsequently allowed the perimeter columns to buckle outwards. Regardless of which of these possibilities actually occurred, it would have resulted in the complete collapse of at least one complete storey at the level of impact.

Once one storey collapsed all floors above would have begun to fall. The huge mass of falling structure would gain momentum, crushing the structurally intact floors below, resulting in catastrophic failure of the entire structure. While the columns at say level 50 were designed to carry the static load of 50 floors above, once one floor collapsed and the floors above started to fall, the dynamic load of 50 storeys above is very much greater, and the columns at each level were almost instantly destroyed as the huge upper mass fell to the ground.

www.civil.usyd.edu.au...

[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Can you give me a little something more than hearsay? For all I know you could be talking about heat transferring to aluminum and then causing combustion in other materials that require lower temperatures to ignite, which seems much more likely to me than aluminum itself combusting at ambient temperatures of almost 4000 degrees Celsius. That is extreme heat unlike anything recorded at Ground Zero. Molten aluminum, hot aluminum, yes. Burning aluminum, no. And not explosive oxidation but an actual prolonged burn. Temperatures of 4000 C would immediately transcend the molten steel controversy, because those are temperatures could melt steel about three times over.

Any links you can provide that give additional information on what you're saying and anything other than hearsay would be appreciated.


In regards to what you quote above, aside from the implication in it being that the fires alone were the source of the heat, not burning aluminum, the authors of that page did not conduct any tests or anything of the like to support what they state. They report it second-hand, or worse, just from convention. You still have the same problem of fires never causing steel skyscraper collapses, despite numerous cases and even examples of scientific, laboratory studies into those exact phenomena. What the authors of that page are asserting is essentially what they are assuming based on what they saw on TV. I could link you to actual studies, and actual cases of severe steel high-rise fires that contradict it.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by bsbray11
Can you give me a little something more than hearsay? For all I know you could be talking about heat transferring to aluminum and then causing combustion in other materials that require lower temperatures to ignite, which seems much more likely to me than aluminum itself combusting at ambient temperatures of almost 4000 degrees Celsius. That is extreme heat unlike anything recorded at Ground Zero. Molten aluminum, hot aluminum, yes. Burning aluminum, no. And not explosive oxidation but an actual prolonged burn. Temperatures of 4000 C would immediately transcend the molten steel controversy, because those are temperatures could melt steel about three times over.

Any links you can provide that give additional information on what you're saying and anything other than hearsay would be appreciated.

The fire would not have to be taken to the melting point of steel for a steel structure to fail, just annealed by lower heat temperatures. Perhaps, this link should give further insight as to what I am trying to convey.




And, here is what's involved in trying to bring down a steel-contructed building.

Demolishing A Steel Building

Demolishing steel columns is a bit more difficult, as the dense material is much stronger. For buildings with a steel support structure, blasters typically use the specialized explosive material cyclotrimethylenetrinitramine, called RDX for short. RDX-based explosive compounds expand at a very high rate of speed, up to 27,000 feet per second (8,230 meters per second). Instead of disintegrating the entire column, the concentrated, high-velocity pressure slices right through the steel, splitting it in half. Additionally, blasters may ignite dynamite on one side of the column to push it over in a particular direction.

To ignite both RDX and dynamite, you must apply a severe shock. In building demolition, blasters accomplish this with a blasting cap, a small amount of explosive material (called the primer charge) connected to some sort of fuse. The traditional fuse design is a long cord with explosive material inside. When you ignite one end of the cord, the explosive material inside it burns at a steady pace, and the flame travels down the cord to the detonator on the other end. When it reaches this point, it sets off the primary charge.

These days, blasters often use an electrical detonator instead of a traditional fuse. An electrical detonator fuse, called a lead line, is just a long length of electrical wire. At the detonator end, the wire is surrounded by a layer of explosive material. This detonator is attached directly to the primer charge affixed to the main explosives. When you send current through the wire (by hooking it up to a battery, for example), electrical resistance causes the wire to heat up. This heat ignites the flammable substance on the detonator end, which in turn sets off the primer charge, which triggers the main explosives.

To control the explosion sequence, blasters configure the blast caps with simple delay mechanisms, sections of slow-burning material positioned between the fuse and the primer charge. By using a longer or shorter length of delay material, the blasters can adjust how long it takes each explosive to go off. The length of the fuse itself is also a factor, since it will take much longer for the charge to move down a longer fuse than a shorter one. Using these timing devices, the blasters precisely dictate the order of the explosions.

Blasters determine how much explosive material to use based largely on their own experience and the information provided by the architects and engineers who originally built the building. But most of the time, they won't rely on this data alone. To make sure they don't overload or under-load the support structure, the blasters perform a test blast on a few of the columns, which they wrap in a shield for safety. The blasters try out varying degrees of explosive material, and based on the effectiveness of each explosion, they determine the minimum explosive charge needed to demolish the columns. By using only the necessary amount of explosive material, the blasters minimize flying debris, reducing the likelihood of damaging nearby structures.

science.howstuffworks.com...

[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Skyeagle, look at your own source, I read it and I saw alot of vague 'could have, would have, should haves'. I hope you're not trying to debunk anything with stuff like this...

Originally posted by skyeagle409
The collapse of the WTC buidlings were the result of heat, not bombs.

it appeared to...but not necessarily fatally...It appears likely... the heat would have been ...the fire would have been...fire would not have been...would have caused...or some combination. ...would have subsequently allowed the perimeter...Regardless of which of these possibilities actually occurred, it would have resulted
...floors above would have begun to fall....falling structure would gain momentum...is very much greater.

Doesn't sound so impressive once you read between the nouns.

Originally posted by skyeagle409
The fire would not have to be taken to the melting point of steel for a steel structure to fail, just annealed by lower heat temperatures. Perhaps, this link should give further insight as to what I am trying to convey.

This is not what I asked you for. Now you're just going in circles and ignoring what I'm posting.

Originally posted by twitchy
Skyeagle, look at your own source, I read it and I saw alot of vague 'could have, would have, should haves'. I hope you're not trying to debunk anything with stuff like this...

Originally posted by skyeagle409
The collapse of the WTC buidlings were the result of heat, not bombs.

it appeared to...but not necessarily fatally...It appears likely... the heat would have been ...the fire would have been...fire would not have been...would have caused...or some combination. ...would have subsequently allowed the perimeter...Regardless of which of these possibilities actually occurred, it would have resulted
...floors above would have begun to fall....falling structure would gain momentum...is very much greater.

Doesn't sound so impressive once you read between the nouns.

Actually, we can apply what I've posted with an event that happened recently in Oakland, CA.

www.newsvine.com...

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by skyeagle409
The fire would not have to be taken to the melting point of steel for a steel structure to fail, just annealed by lower heat temperatures. Perhaps, this link should give further insight as to what I am trying to convey.

This is not what I asked you for. Now you're just going in circles and ignoring what I'm posting.

I am making a point that should not be ignored.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

Originally posted by bsbray11
In regards to what you quote above, aside from the implication in it being that the fires alone were the source of the heat, not burning aluminum, the authors of that page did not conduct any tests or anything of the like to support what they state.

As in the link I posted before, it shows why it is not practical to construct ships with aluminum and that is based on past experience with aluminum fires during wartime conditions in regards to aluminum warships and ground vehicles, they will burn and burn right down to the water or ground level.

They report it second-hand, or worse, just from convention. You still have the same problem of fires never causing steel skyscraper collapses, despite numerous cases and even examples of scientific, laboratory studies into those exact phenomena.

Those buildings were not subjected to the kind of trama inflicted upon the WTC buildings. Also, explosives were unable to bring down one of the WTC buildings back in 1993.


[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]

From the link:

Heat exceeded 2,750 degrees and caused the steel beams holding up the interchange above to buckle. Bolts holding the structure together also melted, leading to the collapse, California Department of Transportation director Will Kempton said.

You can tell these guys (that reported the story) don't know what they're talking about.

First of all, heat is not measured in degrees. Temperature is. That's enough for me to lose faith in anything else remotely technical that they state.

Secondly, they don't tell you what system of units these "degrees" are in (I'm assuming F). Third, they say the beams buckled but the bolts melted. In all likelihood what happened was that the heat caused the steel to expand and break the bolts out of their places.


Here is an example from a University of Edinburgh study:




This was taken after an intense fire was set in the test structure.

The report they released after these tests states:

The question may now be asked, what about the large deflections seen in real structures? Are those not a clear sign that ‘runaway’ was occuring? Figure 3.36 clearly shows that for temperatures below 300 °C, the deflections for the restrained beam are much larger than that for the simply supported beam, however they have nothing to do with ‘runaway’. These deflections are caused entirely by the increased length of the beam through thermal expansion and are not a sign of loss of ‘strength’ or ‘stiffness’ in the beam until much later. In fact approximately 90% of the defelection at 500°C and 75% at 600°C is explained by thermal expansion alone. Most of the rest is explained by increased strains due to reduced modulus of elasticity. However the behaviour remains stable until about 700°C when the first signs of runaway begin to appear.

The main purpose of the above exercise was to indicate that strength reduction and loads are secondary phenomena when analysing redundant composite structures in fires (assuming realistic maximum temperatures). The response of such structures is overwhelmingly controlled by the displacements imposed by thermal actions of expansion and bowing, and the compatibility of displacements. The degree of restraint (translational and rotational) to displacements determines the forces and moments that will occur in the structure.

Read that! Especially what I bolded and underlined!


What they are saying is that these failures are caused by expansion of the steel and tension this creates between the components, NOT by loss of strength from heating beyond 600 C.

It is the exact same type of failure described for the bridge you reference.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by skyeagle409
As in the link I posted before, it shows why it is not practical to construct ships with aluminum and that is based on past experience with aluminum fires during wartime conditions in regards to aluminum warships and ground vehicles, they will burn and burn right down to the water or ground level.

I've yet to see a link that credibly shows that the actual aluminum, which requires almost 4000 C to ignite, burned on these ships. It will melt before this happens (at only 660 C!), so it would be PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the ships to burn without being destroyed first.

Those buildings were not subjected to the kind of trama inflicted upon the WTC buildings.

This is debatable, but off-topic.

Also, explosives were unable to bring down one of the WTC buildings back in 1993.

I'm not arguing that a single explosion in the basement brought them down, but that's off-topic and I'd rather stay on topic.

[edit on 18-6-2007 by bsbray11]

You are going to get thermal expansion in a steel structure during a fire but the extent depends upon the temperature and that is nothing new, but what I am conveying is that no explosives were responsible for the destruction of the WTC buildings.

As far as thermal expansion is concerned in metal structures, the SR-71 expanded up to several inches during its mach 3 flights, in some cases up to a foot. That is why it had expansion joints built in. To underline my point that explosives did not bring down the WTC buildings, look what happened here when explosives were unable to bring down one of the buildings in 1993.

The terrrorst bragged that next time he would bring it down, but he is now locked up but his uncle was the planner in the WTC attacks. He was the terrorist who had planned to blow up many American airliners over the Pacific but his plan was discovered in the Philippines but not before a dry run was hatched where a passenger was killed by a small bomb placed beneath his seat.

Check out the damage a huge bomb created beneath one the WTC buildings in 1993. No bomb caused the collapse of the WTC buildings. The buildings were brought down by the same method that a gasoline fire brought down an Oakland steel and concrete overpass recently, and that is, from heat by fuel-fed fires.

THE DAMAGE

Reinforced floors almost 30 inches think blasted away on 3 levels below grade, plus a concourse level floor, leaving a crater about 150 feet in diameter at it's largest point.





[edit on 18-6-2007 by skyeagle409]