Something Heavy Going Down -- Remix

From Something Heavy Going Down, Part I:

From an article entitled February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It:

In the wake of the WTC bombing, the Seattle Times interviews John Skilling who was one of the two structural engineers responsible for designing the Trade Center. Skilling recounts his people having carried out an analysis which found the twin towers could withstand the impact of a Boeing 707. He says, "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." But, he says, "The building structure would still be there." [Seattle Times, 2/27/1993] The analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964, described its findings: "The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact."

[snip]

Here are excerpts from the February 27, 1993, Seattle Times article (cited as a source in the first quote) Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision; the article was written in the wake of the first terrorist attack on the WTC:

Engineers had to consider every peril they could imagine when they designed the World Trade Center three decades ago because, at the time, the twin towers were of unprecedented size for structures made of steel and glass.

"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."

The article says "Skilling ... is among the world's top structural engineers." Because of a previous incident where an aircraft collided with the Empire State Building, the design team considered the possibility of an airliner crashing into the twin towers. As mentioned in a previous quote, it was believed the buildings would survive. In a comment about the February, 1993 WTC bombing, the article states:

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."

Chillingly, the article concludes:

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."

From Nine-Eleven Remix (see also Something Heavy Going Down, Part II):

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.

From Cracking the Case: An Interview With Sibel Edmonds by Scott Horton, August 22, 2005:

SE: This informant provided very specific information about the attacks. The other had to do with certain information the FBI had in July and August 2001, where blueprints and building composites of certain skyscrapers were being sent to certain Middle Eastern countries, and many more information was just omitted.

From the comments to Nine-Eleven Remix:

Russet Shadows said...
I had no idea that you were a "truther". Take me off your blogroll immediately, because by the time you read this, you will be off mine.

September 11, 2007 3:42 PM

____________________

I stand on principle, not on politics or popularity.

I think for myself.

The government is lying -- Republicans and Democrats, the Bush Administration and Congress, the 9/11 Commission -- the whole Washington crowd is lying.


And I know why.


From 'The Stakes Are Too High for Us to Stop Fighting Now' An interview with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds by Christopher Deliso August 15, 2005:

CD: You think they [the government] know who they are, the top guys, and where?

SE: Oh yeah, they know.

CD: So why don't they get them?

SE: It's like I told you before -- this would upset "certain foreign relations." But it would also expose certain of our elected officials, who have significant connections with high-level drugs- and weapons-smuggling -- and thus with the criminal underground, even with the terrorists themselves.