Information from previous posts:
Something Heavy Going Down, Part I
Frank Dimartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center:
"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting."
Other quotes at were from an article about the February, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center in which the WTC's head structural engineer, John Skilling, was interviewed, Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision; this quote includes some material from that article, which was not in my previous Stop Islamic Conquest posting:
"We looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side," said John Skilling, head structural engineer. "However, back in those days people didn't think about terrorists very much."
Skilling, based in Seattle, is among the world's top structural engineers. He is responsible for much of Seattle's downtown skyline and for several of the world's tallest structures, including the Trade Center.
Concerned because of a case where an airplane hit the Empire State Building, Skilling's people did an analysis that showed the towers would withstand the impact of a Boeing 707.
"Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed," he said. "The building structure would still be there."
Skilling - a recognized expert in tall buildings - doesn't think a single 200-pound car bomb would topple or do major structural damage to a Trade Center tower. The supporting columns are closely spaced and even if several were disabled, the others would carry the load.
"However," he added, "I'm not saying that properly applied explosives - shaped explosives - of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage."
[ ... ]
Although Skilling is not an explosives expert, he says there are people who do know enough about building demolition to bring a structure like the Trade Center down.
"I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that
he could do it."
It is in this context that the following comments from emergency personnel who responded to the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 are interesting. Note the ranks and titles of the personnel being quoted. (I originally posted this at Something Heavy Going Down, Part II; see that posting for further references.)
Battalion Chief Brian Dixon
it actually looked -- the lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because the whole bottom I could see -- I could see two sides of it and the other side -- it just looked like that floor blew out.
Firefighter Christopher Fenyo
At that point a debate began to rage because the perception was that the building looked like it had been taken out with charges.
Battalion Chief Dominick DeRubbio
It was weird how it started to come down. It looked like it was a timed explosion
Paramedic Daniel Rivera
At first thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop"? That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that.
Firefighter Edward Cachia
It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down.
Chief Frank Cruthers
there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.
Firefighter James Curran
everything was getting blown out of the floors before it actually collapsed
Captain Karin Deshore
Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.
Firefighter Kenneth Rogers
One floor under another after another and when it hit about the fifth floor, I figured it was a bomb, because it looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing. I was there in '93.
Firefighter Richard Banaciski
It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.
Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory
You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw.
Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick
My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV.
It seems that after their first failed attempt to bring down the Twin Towers in 1993, the terrorists did their homework. From a Letter to Thomas Kean from Sibel Edmonds, Aug 5, 2004:
In October 2001, approximately one month after the September 11 attack, an agent from a [city name omitted] field office, re-sent a certain document to the FBI Washington Field Office, so that it could be re-translated. This special agent, in light of the [September 11] terrorist attacks, rightfully believed that, considering his target of investigation (the suspect under surveillance), and the issues involved, the original translation might have missed certain information that could prove to be valuable in the investigation of terrorist activities. After this document was received by the FBI Washington Field Office and re-translated verbatim, the field agent's hunch appeared to be correct. The new translation revealed certain information regarding blueprints, pictures, and building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas.
The terrorists acquired the blueprints and other information from some of our skyscrapers, presumably including those of the Twin Towers. They had read the 1993 news reports about their own failed attack. For their next attempt, they knew what they had to do and what it would take to bring the buildings down, and, in particular, they knew that crashing planes into the buildings wouldn't do the trick by itself.
Here, again, are the words of Frank Dimartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center:
"The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting."
The terrorists needed something else; just what could be found in the comments of the WTC's head structural engineer, John Skilling:
"However," he added, "I'm not saying that properly applied explosives - shaped explosives - of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage."
[ ... ]
Although Skilling is not an explosives expert, he says there are people who do know enough about building demolition to bring a structure like the Trade Center down.
"I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that
he could do it."
The terrorists needed the right explosives placed the right way in the right places to destroy those buildings. But, still, why not just blow the Twin Towers up? Why implode them, minimizing damage to the surrounding buildings? Wouldn't their terrorist act be more terr-ific if they maximized collateral damage? And, while many of the terrorists are highly-trained, highly-motivated, highly-experienced Mujahideen, who among them knows how to implode a building -- especially one that size?
The hijackings were a terr-ific diversion, intended to terrorize, intended to distract everyone from a crime that was more important to Bin Laden & Co., and intended to cover that crime up. The actual destruction of the buildings, however, was outsourced to consultants and contractors. It was during the outsourcing that the plan to profit by and during the attacks was perfected. And, the demands of the terrorists' partners in crime had to include minimizing collateral damage to surrounding structures, structures that perhaps contained things valuable to those with whom the terrorists were doing business.
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