What are the most glaring flaws in the Popular Mechanics "debunking" of 9/11?

Some people on another message board have challenged me to explain, specifically, why I think the Popular Mechanics hit piece was not valid. It's been such a long time since I've delved into the matter that I almost feel like I can't articulate it as well as I'd like to. So I'm putting the question to you:

What do you feel are the biggest problems with Popular Mechanics' grand debunking effort?

I remember there being a lot of stuff they ignored, and a lot of instances where they misrepresented the claims of people in the 9/11 truth movement. So help me out here, people! Jog my memory, if you will, and please cite what you think are the most egregious examples.

Thank you.

EDIT:
After double checking, it seems that the ntsb report being referred to does indeed mix EDT and CDT in its timestamps.

Thank you backinblack for the correction.

reply to post by LordBucket

Popular mechanics claims an hour and 22 minutes. They're blatantly incorrect.

I'd check that if I were you..
I heard something about the plane crossing a timezone so an hour needed to be added for correct time..
At least that's what I read,,\ So 1 hour 22 mins would be right...

Thanks, Lord Bucket! I actually hadn't been aware of that one.

reply to post by flightsuit


Western Florida (panhandle) is Central Time Zone. Plane took off from Miami in Eastern Time which is
1 hour later. As plane crossed into Central Time would have to add 1 hour to local time to get elasped time.

reply to post by thedman

Plane took off from Miami in Eastern Time which is 1 hour later. As plane crossed into
Central Time would have to add 1 hour to local time to get elasped time.

If you look at the report it specifies that:

About 0952 CDT,7 a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.8

About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet,9 the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response.

About 1000 CDT, the test pilot began a visual inspection of N47BA.

Timezones are included in the timestamps.

So, change my previous assertion that they got their facts wrong to simply that they're phrasing things misleadingly. It did not take an hour and 22 minutes for the fighter to intercept. It took an hour and 21 minutes between loss of radio contact and a fighter being in visual range. It appears to have taken 8 minutes between orders being issued and a visual inspection taking place.

Initial loss of radio contact --> fighter in visual range

...is not the same as...

Fighter ordered to intercept --> fighter in visual range

When I watched it, two REALLY obvious flaws came to mind but I only remember one at the moment...

They argue that it was the HEIGHT (elevation) of the plane that people say is why the cell phone calls couldn't have been made, then they point out cell towers go up to 50,000 feet or so, "proving" the cell phones could have been used... they completely ignored the FACT that the issue with keeping a call connected, in 2001, didn't actually have to do with elevation at all, it had to do with traveling at that speed, because the cell phone would not be able to find the next tower in time to keep the call connected.

Originally posted by flightsuit
Some people on another message board have challenged me to explain, specifically, why I think the Popular Mechanics hit piece was not valid. It's been such a long time since I've delved into the matter that I almost feel like I can't articulate it as well as I'd like to. So I'm putting the question to you:

What do you feel are the biggest problems with Popular Mechanics' grand debunking effort?

I remember there being a lot of stuff they ignored, and a lot of instances where they misrepresented the claims of people in the 9/11 truth movement. So help me out here, people! Jog my memory, if you will, and please cite what you think are the most egregious examples.

Thank you.

Hold it right there! Are you saying that you're dismissing the Popular Mechanics report as being full of flaws but you don't even know what the flaws even are? That's like saying you hate someone's song without ever actually hearing it.

Please explain to me how this is "denying ignorance".

I read the Popular Mechanics report when it came out, and I saw a Popular Mechanics editor on TV debating one of those "Loose Change" guys. In both cases, it struck me that Popular Mechanics had completely failed to address a lot of very important questions. I just don't recall, specifically, which things had jumped out at me as being glaring for their omission. It's been a while.

Originally posted by flightsuit
it struck me that Popular Mechanics had completely failed to address a lot of very important questions

Such as what exactly - you must know to claim it is flawed, unless....

They don't mention anything about the free fall of WTC 7.

Originally posted by cLOUDDEAD
They don't mention anything about the free fall of WTC 7.

Or that it landed mostly in its own footprint, as evidenced in post collapse pictures that all four outer walls landed on top of the collapsed building as in a classic implosion demolition.

Sometimes, though, a building is surrounded by structures that must be preserved. In this case, the blasters proceed with a true implosion, demolishing the building so that it collapses straight down into its own footprint (the total area at the base of the building). This feat requires such skill that only a handful of demolition companies in the world will attempt it.

Blasters approach each project a little differently, but the basic idea is to think of the building as a collection of separate towers. The blasters set the explosives so that each "tower" falls toward the center of the building, in roughly the same way that they would set the explosives to topple a single structure to the side. When the explosives are detonated in the right order, the toppling towers crash against each other, and all of the rubble collects at the center of the building. Another option is to detonate the columns at the center of the building before the other columns so that the building's sides fall inward.

science.howstuffworks.com...

Thank you, ANOK! Keep 'em coming, people!

Originally posted by ANOK
Or that it landed mostly in its own footprint

The reason they do not mention that lie is because it is not true.

debris caused substantial damage and contamination to the Borough of Manhattan Community College's Fiterman Hall building, located adjacent at 30 West Broadway, to the extent that the building was not salvageable.

Why do you ignore that fact, to push a lie?

Not to mention that that is not four complete walls, it is only a portion, and there is no way to tell which walls they are just from the picture.

Not that it matters, since there was no loud booms like you would find with traditional demolition.....And the fact that those type of things don't play well with fires......(among other fatal flaws)

reply to post by flightsuit


I haven't read the Popular Mechanics piece, but I have put a lot of time into debunking the fire myth.

The NTSB report is pretty clear that fire did not cause the sagging beams and uniform collapse. This info is taken directly from data in their own report. The fire was mostly office furniture, papers, paint, etc. Everything in the building had to pass fire rating codes to be used in a high rise. The accelerant was only Jet Fuel-A (kerosene) which burns at a very low temperature. The black smoke indicates the fire was severely "damped" and not burning efficiently which would lower the temperature even more.

The "double pass" fire ratings of the steel were almost 4 times the highest temperature the fire ever reached, and almost 8 times the sustained temperature the fire maintained. The mangled steel recovered showed no signs of elasticity damage or performance below its rated standards. The bolt holes show no unusual tearing or ripping beyond the joints engineered to intentionally slide or rip. Similarly constructed buildings have withstood many hours of chemical fires up to 10x hotter than this fire without collapsing, and in fact the ratings of the steel and masonry involved are required to withstand many hours of a hot chemical fire. Fire ratings are scaled according to occupancy of the building and "population density" of the surrounding area. Typical high-rise buildings in typical urban settings would require that building to withstand over 8 hours of the hottest possible chemical fire. Since this was the Largest building, in the most highly dense area in the country, its fire code requirements would have been significantly higher than a typical high rise. It is safe to assume that no amount of low temperature Jet Fuel-A (kerosene) fire and office furniture would be capable of plasticizing the steel in any amount of time, and certainly not in just a couple of hours.

Even if we concede a dozen implausible what-if scenarios, the uniform collapse is still a problem. There were literally hundreds of beams at differing distances from the main fire. The majority of those beams had no impact damage. If a dozen implausible, worst-case scenarios happened, we would still have gotten a slow torqueing movement, some beams would have remained intact, the building would have twisted, slide, and shifted as beams gave way one by one, and it would have been an agonizingly slow collapse of the upper few floors until the damaged portion fell off. The "pancake collapse" theory is ridiculous.

Originally posted by ANOK

Or that it landed mostly in its own footprint, as evidenced in post collapse pictures that all four outer walls landed on top of the collapsed building as in a classic implosion demolition.

...and as it's already been pointed out to you many times before, WTC 7 collapsed from the inside out, with the penthouse falling down into the interior six seconds before the exterior of the structure did. No other controlled demolitions job on the planet has ever demolished a building in this way.

You of course know this, but it's obvious you want these conspiracy stories of yours to be real so you simply pretend you don't see it. This stunt may work on an ATS discussion board but you have to know you're going to get severely spanked if you try to bring this absurdity to any future investigation board.

reply to post by GoodOlDave


The penthouse collapsed six seconds before

Sounds like another truster lie !

Wow a building just disintegrates into a tidy pile and collapses for some reason from the inside out because of tiny bits of damage and small fires, but of course this is all highly reasonable.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
I haven't read the Popular Mechanics piece, but I have put a lot of time into debunking the fire myth.

The NTSB

Not that it matters, but the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) had nothing to do with it. But, I understand what you were trying to say was the NIST.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
report is pretty clear that fire did not cause the sagging beams and uniform collapse. This info is taken directly from data in their own report. The fire was mostly office furniture, papers, paint, etc. Everything in the building had to pass fire rating codes to be used in a high rise.

Correct, but all furnitire manufactured for use in the USA meets this requirement, and is regulated by the CPSC under Flammable Fabrics Act.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The accelerant was only Jet Fuel-A (kerosene) which burns at a very low temperature.

In a controlled system, correct. An open-air, free burning system such as what we saw on 9/11, it freeburns. NatGeo showed that flames within a burning pool of JetA will reach 2000 deg. f. within 4 minutes. And that is in open air.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The black smoke indicates the fire was severely "damped" and not burning efficiently which would lower the temperature even more.

Incorrect. Black smoke indicates an incomplete combustion of the materials. It has NOTHING to do with the temperature of the flames themself.

Black smoke is indicitive of a hydrocarbon fire burning. Plastics, foams, etc.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The "double pass" fire ratings of the steel were almost 4 times the highest temperature the fire ever reached, and almost 8 times the sustained temperature the fire maintained.

I have never heard of this "double pass" fire rating. Is that a US standard? If so, would you mind linking to it being used by NFPA/UL/ASTM/CPSC?

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The mangled steel recovered showed no signs of elasticity damage or performance below its rated standards. The bolt holes show no unusual tearing or ripping beyond the joints engineered to intentionally slide or rip.

Ok, not sure what that has to do with the price of tea in China, or what you are referring to, but ok, we'll go with it.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Similarly constructed buildings have withstood many hours of chemical fires up to 10x hotter than this fire without collapsing, and in fact the ratings of the steel and masonry involved are required to withstand many hours of a hot chemical fire.

Incorrect. The SFRM that is used in highrise buildings is ONLY rated (recently) up to 4 hours.


sfrm.com...

This is a major supplier here in the US of all kinds of SFRM. Notice the MAX is 4 hours for even their BEST product.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Fire ratings are scaled according to occupancy of the building and "population density" of the surrounding area. Typical high-rise buildings in typical urban settings would require that building to withstand over 8 hours of the hottest possible chemical fire.

Citation needed. And no, it would never be considered a chemical fire, since the WTC buildings were office/commercial, and as such, large quantities of flameable chemicals would have not been allowed by NYC code regulations.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Since this was the Largest building, in the most highly dense area in the country, its fire code requirements would have been significantly higher than a typical high rise. It is safe to assume that no amount of low temperature Jet Fuel-A (kerosene) fire and office furniture would be capable of plasticizing the steel in any amount of time, and certainly not in just a couple of hours.

The Cardington Fire Tests disagree with that.

Not to mention....Citation needed.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
Even if we concede a dozen implausible what-if scenarios, the uniform collapse is still a problem. There were literally hundreds of beams at differing distances from the main fire. The majority of those beams had no impact damage. If a dozen implausible, worst-case scenarios happened, we would still have gotten a slow torqueing movement, some beams would have remained intact, the building would have twisted, slide, and shifted as beams gave way one by one, and it would have been an agonizingly slow collapse of the upper few floors until the damaged portion fell off. The "pancake collapse" theory is ridiculous.

Bazant et al. seem to disagree with you. Maybe you could write a discussion to the ASCE JoM and prove Bazant wrong? You'll be the first to do so.

reply to post by FDNY343


I'll look for my post with citations. This one was just a recount of my many previous posts in other threads. The OP wanted some fodder for his conversation in another board, so I supplied the basics.

I will attempt to find some of my older posts that quote the actual NIST (thanks for correcting that) findings. It was their findings that the fire never reached anywhere near 2000 deg. If I remember correctly it was only about 800 degrees at its hottest, and the sustained temperature was 250 to 400 degrees. That is just my memory though, I haven't searched yet.

As you say, the black smoke is not an indicator of temperature, but it is an indicator of efficiency of the fire, and this fire was not "open air" it was severely damped. Therefore it was burning very inefficiently, and therefore the temperature was somewhat controlled, and the smoke was just one of the indicators of that.

Here is the UL Code for fire ratings

I am off to look for my previous posts that quoted the NIST and provided more specific requirements of the WTC.