Fetzer’s Folly: WTC-7

I had earlier thought that the silliest move made by any editor was Professor’s Fetzer’s decision to include in his book on the Zapruder film photographs of the rain sensors in Dealey Plaza. One of Fetzer’s partners in paranoia, John Costella, claimed these were “listening devices” installed by a shadowy intelligence agency to clandestinely spy on Fetzer and his pals as they prowled Dealey Plaza. Inquiries with the Dallas Department of Parks and Recreations disclosed that these were in fact what they appeared to be... rain sensors to turn off the sprinkling system if it rained. Dallas citizens would not have been happy to see a central area being sprinkled during a downpour thus wasting precious water!

I thought this was the silliest move any editor could make until I plunked down my money for Fetzer’s latest tome, The 9/11 Conspiracy: The Scamming of America. In Jack White’s photo section, Fetzer publishes a photograph of World Trade Center 7 along with the following caption, “WTC-7, above right, during the attack on the Twin Towers, appears undamaged except for a modest fire at street level.” I’m the lead investigator for the plaintiffs in an $800 million dollar lawsuit against Silverstein Properties, the NYNJ Port Authority and Citigroup which charges negligence in the collapse of the building. When I looked at the photo, I immediately saw that the photo of the undamaged WTC-7 was taken months, if not years, before the attack. Why? Because the south face of the building was shredded with debris from the collapse of the North Tower at 10:29 that morning. What about “the modest fire at street level?” Well, that turns out to be a colorful modernist sculpture in bright orange, yellow and red that had been placed there on the mezzanine level years before 9/11.

Further along on the same page additional non-facts are purported: “The official story claims that diesel fuel reservoirs in the building exploded, resulting in fires that brought the building down, even though there is no recorded case of the fire-induced collapse of a large steel-protected building; and only small fires were burning when WTC-7 “collapsed.” No one, official or not, has ever claimed that the diesel fuel in the building “exploded.” There were 43,000 gallons of diesel fuel either in or under the building. What is clear from eyewitness reports and photos is that fuel fed fires erupted to make of the building an inferno.

For years, Fetzer has been trading on the interview Larry Silverstein gave a few months after 9/11. In this interview, Silverstein said he talked to “the fire commander” on the afternoon of 9/11. Given the massive loss of life earlier that day, Silverstien said he told the fire commander “to pull it.” Fetzer misinterprets “pull it” to be a term of art in demolition circles meaning “bring down the building with controlled demolitions.” As countless internet sites have already shown, “pull it” in demolition-speak means what you would think it would mean: “attach a cable to a supporting beam and pull it.”
Chief of Department Ganci was killed in the collapse of the North Tower. Daniel Nigro took over as Chief of Department and was “the fire commander” at the scene. I’ve talked with Chief Nigro numerous times and knew the claim that he talked to Larry Silverstein was nonsense. I was pleased recently to find that Chief Nigro’s patience was finally exhausted and that he issued a public statement about this. Here it is:

Release date: September 23, 2007
Regarding WTC 7: The long-awaited US Government NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) report on the collapse of WTC 7 is due to be published at the end of this year (although it has been delayed already a few times [ adding fuel to the conspiracy theorists fires!]). That report should explain the cause and mechanics of the collapse in great detail. Early on the afternoon of September 11th 2001, following the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, I feared a collapse of WTC 7 (as did many on my staff).

The reasons are as follows:

1. Although prior to that day high-rise structures had never collapsed, The collapse of WTC 1 & 2 showed that certain high-rise structures subjected to damage from impact and from fire will collapse.
2. The collapse of WTC 1 damaged portions of the lower floors of WTC 7.
3. WTC 7, we knew, was built on a small number of large columns providing an open Atrium on the lower levels.
4. Numerous fires on many floors of WTC 7 burned without sufficient water supply to attack them.

For these reasons I made the decision (without consulting the owner, the mayor or anyone else - as ranking fire officer, that decision was my responsibility) to clear a collapse zone surrounding the building and to stop all activity within that zone. Approximately three hours after that order was given, WTC 7 collapsed.

Conspiracy theories abound and I believe firmly that all of them are without merit.

Regards, Dan Nigro
Chief of Department FDNY (retired) <www.911guide.googlepages.com/danielnigro>

Fetzer cites again and again the fact that videotapes of the collapse of WTC-7 look like videotapes of controlled demolitions. He’s right. They do. But why? If demolition specialists wanted to bring down WTC-7 into its footprint, they would have placed cutting charges in the center of the building. These charges would drop out the center of the building and the sides would fold in. This is precisely what we see in videotapes of WTC-7's collapse. First, the structures on the roof drop down with the center and then a global collapse begins four to five seconds later. Why? Because it is clear to all the engineers who have studied the collapse (FEMA, NIST and private parties) that the collapse started in the center of the building. Column 79 on building plans is the point of initial collapse. The fires low-down on the building caused this initial drop and the design of the building turned it into a progressive collapse of the whole structure.

There is not a shred of evidence that anything else happened. There were no explosions in the building prior to the collapse and, yes, the OEM office evacuated with everyone else at about 9:30 AM.

Ron Ecker urged me to post something here and I am grateful to him for his suggestion.

Josiah Thompson

Yo! Tink,

Glad to see you are keeping a full court press on Uncle Fetzer.

Do you think you could keep up with Bugloisi, Esq., and take it to another level?

Thanks,

BK

Thanks Bill. I think Bugliosi is best handled by some new research on the physical evidence in the Kennedy assassination. And that I'm working on.

Tink

Visit http://www.youtube.com/911scholars and view "This is an Orange".

Well, Professor, you reach a new high of hilarity in Fetzering? Do you really mean to insult the intelligence of all of us by replying to a post about WTC-7 with a clip that never mentions WTC-7?

My first point, Professor: Did you really publish in your book a photo of WTC-7 taken months or years before 9/11 with the caption: “WTC-7, above right, during the attack on the Twin Towers, appears undamaged except for a modest fire at street level?” Is the “modest fire at street level” not really a modern sculpture erected on the mezzanine level years earlier?

I would include a scan of the photo from page 78 of Fetzer's book as well as an aerial photo taken in 1999 showing the sculpture on the mezzanine level. However, I am limited in attachment space because 953.36 K of my attachment space is listed as used. Why? I haven't posted anything in months. Can anyone tell me what I can do to get more attachment space? Thanks in advance.

How did they correctly guess that Building 7 would collapse when other buildings sustained more damage and had more intense fires and didn't collapse? What are the odds that the BBC would announce that the building had already fallen, twenty minutes before it did, if it really did fall due to random events? And, it is hard to believe that the building was designed to collapse just like a demolition if one of it's collumn's load bearing capacity was compromised. Why did it take the NIST team almost seven years to make this astonishing discovery if it were so self evident? I am no engineer, but it sounds like bull to me.

Brian,

Have a read of this material, and see if it changes your mind.

I will check it out more thoroughly this weekend when I have more time. From my initial perusal, it looks like a lot of intentional framing of debate through distortion and omission. Quite a bit of ad hominem too.

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/%22pull%22...htersfromdanger

In the references cited at the above link, how many times are forms of the verb "to pull" followed by the pronoun "it"?

Other than in Silverstein's comment, that is: "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it."

The answer: zero.

My mind is open; show me examples of common usage of the term "pull it" to reference the removal of emergency personnel from a dangerous environment. I can imagine that such usage might take place when referencing a group/team/squadron, but Silverstein gives no indication of which I'm aware that he is doing so.

As it stands, the "argument" posted on the referenced wtc7lies link seems rather disingenuous -- to be charitable.

On the other hand: Can any of our correspondents document common, term-of-art usage of "pull it" to mean bring down a building by controlled demolition? The wtc7lies writer(s) claim to have found no such examples, but their polemic cannot possibly be described as reflecting fair and impartial perspectives.

I did a web study of the use of the term “to pull” a couple of years ago. Without going back and digging up the references and links, the following is a summation of what I found.

The term “to pull” has been used even by experts in conjunction with controlled demolition, even though it is not technically correct. In almost all cases, demolitions people quoted as using “pull” are referring to pulling down buildings with cables (or possibly other means). But in the Pacific Palisades description the term “to pull” is expressly used in describing controlled demolition: “The weight of the structure will begin to pull the building down in a controlled direction.” There is also a “pull” quote about cables being used inside during a controlled demolition (“to pull the structure in on itself in the implosion”). This shows that the term can be loosely used (incorrectly used, if you will) in reference to controlled demolition even within the demolition industry.

IMO this reinforces the likelihood that Silverstein loosely or “incorrectly” used the term in reference to controlled demolition. Silverstein is a real estate mogul, not a demolitions man, but given his line of work I'm sure he may have heard the term "pull" used in demolishing buildings. So Silverstein may have used the term incorrectly, but the indisputable fact is that he used it. And he did not use it as in "pull them," "pull them out," or "pull them from the building," if that was his intent, but he said "pull IT." His statement also gives the impression that the building came down right after the decision was made to "pull it." We know from the witness statements that the firefighters were pulled (oops, I said pulled!) from the building hours before it collapsed. But regardless of the time frame, the meaning of Silverstein's statement seems clear to me. He quoted himself as saying, “We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.” Then he said, “And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse.” To me that can clearly be translated as "They made that decision to pull and then we watched the result of that decision" (i.e. they made the building collapse).

I couldn't have said it better. If Silverstein intended to say that he thought it would be best to remove the firefighters, then he would have said - "Maybe the smartest thing to do would be pull them" or - "...pull them out". And he certainly seems to be saying that the building collapsed as a direct result of their decision to "pull it". Why would Silverstein or officials of the NYFD expect (correctly, if the official explanation is true) the building to collapse due to removing the firefighters? I have heard that the building was "creaking" or otherwise showing signs of having it's structural integrity severely compromised. I can recall only one or two witnesses making this claim. If this was in fact the case, it is incumbent on the NIST and FEMA teams to provide adequate verification. It all looks extremely suspicious to me. I also can't shake the impression that Silverstein was deliberately ambiguous in his video statement. It's almost as if he wants to admit that they intentionally brought the building down, while leaving it open to interpretation that the building fell because they pulled the fire fighters out. If he only mean't to say that they made the decision to remove the fire fighters, then why use such a vague term as "pull it", and why use that term in such a way that suggests that the building collapsed as a result of the decision to "pull it"? It's all very odd to say the least.

One more comment -- but first many thanks to Ron Ecker for his invaluable clarification.

I no longer harbor any doubt that the intent of the wtc7lies author(s) responsible for the "pull" material was to mislead readers.

Accordingly, those defenders of the official United States government 9-11 conspiracy theory are revealed to be Liars -- as opposed to Truthers, of course.

We might also note that the name they chose for their website neatly describes the content that originates with them and their minions.

Fun doing business with you.

UPI, “Tinkering with the official fictions,” 4 July 2008, p.1:

The justification for Paul starting a new thread rather than posting on the other one would seem to be his own vanity. His dribble (and mine and any subsequent replies) should be moved to Tink's thread so as not to split the discussion.

Paul I missed where Tink'conceded that Larry Silverstein did indeed mean “collapse the tower deliberately” when he remarked “pull it”' and made some other supposed gaff. Oh great one please enlighten mere mortals like me who don't share your great brilliance! and explain what you where talking about.

Professor Fetzer has not chosen to reply to my claim that he published a photo in his latest book which was taken months or years before 9/11 with a caption claiming to show that it was taken during the attack on the Twin Towers." The caption to a photo of WTC-7 to be found on page 78 of his book reads: "WTC-7, above right, during the attack on the Twin Towers, appears undamaged except for a modest fire at ground level." The "modest fire at ground level" is in fact a modern sculpture on the promenade level installed years before 9/11. Thanks to a suggestion from Len Colby I've learned how to post photos on "photobucket.com." I hope this works. Below you will find (1) a photo of the page from Fetzer's book, (2) a close-up of the photo of WTC-7 which he published on that page, and (3) an aerial photo taken in 1999 which shows clearly that that he calls "a modest fire at ground level" is really the modern sculpture I mentioned above.

http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk351/J...on/scan0003.jpg
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk351/J...on/scan0005.jpg
http://i308.photobucket.com/albums/kk351/J...ompson/scan.jpg

Since the point is so obvious, it would be expected that Professor Fetzer would admit the error or offer some kind of defense.

Josiah Thompson

"How did they correctly guess that Building 7 would collapse when other buildings sustained more damage and had more intense fires and didn't collapse?"

You ask a very good question. For example, 90 West Street burned ferociously through most of the day and did not collapse. The Deutsche Bank building suffered far more impact damage than WTC7 and did not collapse.

Chief Dan Nigro touched on his reasons in his public statement that I quoted. He mentioned that WTC7 had an open atrium which meant that the building was supported by its central core and four corners. Nigro had been in the building to attend meetings at OEM and distrusted this modern construction. Involved in his decision and that of his command staff not to fight fires in the building that day were other factors: (1) at this time in the day they believed they had lost up to a thousand firemen in the collapse of the towers. (2) the building was empty; all people had been successfully evacuated early in the day. (3) With the rupture of a 20 inch main on Vesey Street, Nigro had no water to fight a fire in a high-rise building. (Water pumped from fireboats in the Hudson could not produce the pressure required to fight a high-rise fire). You are right to call it a "guess" on Nigro's part. No one could know the building would collapse. The decision not to fight fires in the building was based on a cost/benefit analysis.... FDNY had already lost hundreds of firefighters; no one was in the building; they lacked the water they needed to do the job.

Had Nigro known what we know now about the building's construction and the 40,000+ gallons of diesel fuel stored in or under it, he would have had all the more reason to choose not to fight fires in the building and establish a "pull-back" or collapse zone around it. But all Nigro knew was that he didn't trust the construction of the building, didn't want to risk more of his firemen's lives and had no water to fight a fire in it.

If you want me to answer why WTC7 collapsed and other buildings like 90 West and Deutsche Bank didn't collapse, I'll be pleased to do that. But that question you didn't raise. You did, however, say, "And, it is hard to believe that the building was designed to collapse just like a demolition if one of it's collumn's load bearing capacity was compromised."

Let me try to answer your concern here. The building was not designed to collapse this way. The fact that no redundancy was built into its design was a design weakness. By "no redundancy," I mean the fact that the failure of a major structural component would lead to progressive collapse. This is an elementary fact about the design of this building. Why was it designed this way?

In the late 60s, the ConEd substation was constructed on the site to provide power to the towers. It was known that the air rights to the site would be sold and that a building would be constructed over the substation. Huge caissons were drilled down to bedrock and constructed through the substation to support any eventual building. However, when WTC7 was built fifteen years later, the footprint of the building was expanded by over 30% to squeeze the last square inch of office space out of the site. The load from the increased size of the building had to be carried back into the original caissons. This was done by the erection of three massive cantilever trusses located on the 5th to 7th floors. If one of these trusses was weakened by fire, the result would be the progressive collapse of the building. This design is illegal in Europe but, oddly enough, is legal in New York City. This design flaw plus the increased span between columns permitted by a change in the building code in 1978 meant that the building was rather delicate. Given unabated fires on many floors plus the diesel fuel load in the lower floors finally brought the building down at 5:21 PM. The failure of a truss made the building collapse in the manner it did and prompted your question. This was not desired but it was a consequence of the design of the building.

I have no idea why the BBC reported what it did. NIST has taken such a long time because of the difficulties of computer modeling the complexity of the collapse.

The "fault" if any is mine. Jim asked me to do the photo section on a very rush
basis after the book was already typeset, and the publisher insisted on a photo
section. I hurriedly put together the eight page section. The WTC 7 image I chose
was one I had saved several years earlier from a website which had described
the red at the bottom of the building as a fire. There are many similar photos
showing a small fire in the same location, and I hurriedly made the assumption
that the site I saved the image from was correct. The red object is a sculpture
by Alexander Calder (see image). Either the text or photo will be modified in the
next printing, if any. I will notify Jim of the change.

If this is the ONLY fault Professor Thompson can find in Jim's excellent book,
we are in good shape indeed, since this is a minor error of the nit-picky kind.
I must assume that Professor Thompson could find no errors of greater magnitude
than this.

Jack

"What about “the modest fire at street level?” Well, that turns out to be a colorful modernist sculpture in bright orange, yellow and red that had been placed there on the mezzanine level years before 9/11." The photographs showing this to be the case are posted on the other thread from which you drew this quote. Do you still disagree that this is the case?

Your familiar nasty tone does not disguise the fact that you just don't get the point: Larry Silverstein never talked to "the fire commander" on 9/11. How do we know this? Because the "fire commander," Chief Daniel Nigro, said he never talked to Silverstein. Why did Silverstein say what he said? I don't know but I can guess. Here's my guess.

Nigro and his command staff made the decision not to fight fires in the building in the early afternoon. At that point, Nigro established a "pull-back" or collapse zone around WTC7. Nigro never communicated with Silverstein and would not be expected to. My bet is that someone back at FDNY Headquarters at Metrotech in Brooklyn thought it might be a good idea to tell the owner what was going on. That person communicated to Silverstein that a "pull-back" order had been given and somehow this all gets translated into what Silverstein said.

Your silly-ass comments reported from a "Langley veteran" and "veteran CIA observer" are just drivel, the usual attempt at character assassination practiced by you and your pal Fetzer when you have no facts to cite.

Josiah Thompson

I’m sure if one thinks about it long and hard enough they can figure the connection between a fire department ending their efforts to put out a building fire and the building collapsing. No one in the FD indicated however said the building would collapse because they pulled the fire fighters. It was the other way round they removed the fire fighters because they feared the building would collapse




If you take a look at the wtc7lies site you'll see that the author quotes numerous menbers of the FD who were there saying they though the building would collapse not only because of the noises it was making but do to:

• the severity of the fires they didn't have water to fight
• large holes in thew south facade
• observing that the building was bulging or leaning to the south

These quotes have been posted to this forum numerous times. I don't remember any of the CD proponents having an explanation for them. For those short on time a les extensive compilation of such quotes can be found on the page linked below. They start about 1/4 of the way down starting with this quote

"They told us to get out of there because they were worried about 7 World Trade Center, which is right behind it, coming down. We were up on the upper floors of the Verizon building looking at it. You could just see the whole bottom corner of the building was gone. We could look right out over to where the Trade Centers were because we were that high up. Looking over the smaller buildings. I just remember it was tremendous, tremendous fires going on. Finally they pulled us out...."

http://debunking911.com/pull.htm

Jack if one pays minimal attention to the photo they can see that the supposed flame isn't even in the building! This is is of course only the most recent embarrassing blunder on your part to come to light. Previous ones were misidentifying the Pentagon impact point, calling the WFC Winter Garden a toppled over building, calling reflections of WFC 3 in the windows of WTC 6 flames and saying that an engine part that was obviously in front of a trash basket was actually inside it.

Interesting, Jack. Thanks for letting me know. For more interesting discussion of WTC-7,
try http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008...racies_iii.html . I must admit that, over
the years, I have found his posts so repetitive and boring that I find it difficult to read them.

"I couldn't have said it better. If Silverstein intended to say that he thought it would be best to remove the firefighters, then he would have said - "Maybe the smartest thing to do would be pull [i]them" or - "...pull them out". And he certainly seems to be saying that the building collapsed as a direct result of their decision to "pull it". Why would Silverstein or officials of the NYFD expect (correctly, if the official explanation is true) the building to collapse due to removing the firefighters? I have heard that the building was "creaking" or otherwise showing signs of having it's structural integrity severely compromised. I can recall only one or two witnesses making this claim. If this was in fact the case, it is incumbent on the NIST and FEMA teams to provide adequate verification. It all looks extremely suspicious to me. I also can't shake the impression that Silverstein was deliberately ambiguous in his video statement. It's almost as if he wants to admit that they intentionally brought the building down, while leaving it open to interpretation that the building fell because they pulled the fire fighters out. If he only mean't to say that they made the decision to remove the fire fighters, then why use such a vague term as "pull it", and why use that term in such a way that suggests that the building collapsed as a result of the decision to "pull it"? It's all very odd to say the least."[/i]

With all due respect, Charles Drago, I don't think you get the point. Larry Silverstein never talked to "the fire commander" on 9/11. How do we know this? Because the "fire commander," Chief Daniel Nigro, said he never talked to Silverstein. Why did Silverstein say what he said? I don't know but I can guess. Here's my guess.

Nigro and his command staff made the decision not to fight fires in the building in the early afternoon. At that point, Nigro established a "pull-back" or collapse zone around WTC7. Nigro never communicated with Silverstein and would not be expected to. My bet is that someone back at FDNY Headquarters at Metrotech in Brooklyn thought it might be a good idea to tell the owner what was going on. That person communicated to Silverstein that a "pull-back" order had been given and somehow this all gets translated into what Silverstein said.

But all this nit-picking about what "pull" means misses the silliness of the basic claim. That claim is: Larry Silverstein and the Fire Department of the City of New York conspired together to bring down WTC7 with controlled demolitions. This is not just silly but preposterous... about as likely as a herd of reindeer stampeded into the lobby of WTC7 with dynamite in their antlers which then exploded and brought the building down. Rather than worrying details of what Larry Silverstein meant or didn't mean isn't it more useful to look at the basic facts concerning the collapse of this building? Those facts include a modern design which made possible long spans of open office space, a truss system to carry a 30% larger footprint for the building than was initially envisaged, 40,000+ gallons of diesel fuel either in or under the building and fires which grew in intensity and extent over seven and one-half hours.

Why WTC7 collapsed is a question to be answered largely by engineers and fire science professionals. The broad outlines of their answer is contained in the extremely sophisticated reports that are already part of the public record. If one wants to believe that the Bush administration conspired with others to bring this building down, one can believe that. However, it is a kind of belief based on faith and not facts. One doesn't have to be an apologist for the Bush administration to disagree with such a conspiracy theory. One need only be someone who looks for reasonable answers to reasonable questions. I'd always thought that you would count yourself as one of those people.

I just sent Dr. Fetzer a different photo showing a small fire on the ninth floor.
It will replace the other photo in the next printing, expected in the near future.

I trust that with the correction of this minor error, the book will now be error-free.
If so, this endorsement by Dr. Thompson is extraordinary. Thanks.

Jack

My bet is you're thinking of a fire on the 12th floor. If you want to send it to me, I'll tell you if you got it right this time.

Actually, there's very little in the book about WTC-7 and what's there is wrong. Mostly the book is filled with windage of a social-political sort. Apparently, you missed the fact that in another of your captions you claim that "the official story claims that the diesel fuel reservoirs in the building exploded" when no one... official or not... ever claimed this. I corrected this error of yours in my first post but you either missed it or chose to ignore it. And I could go on... and on... and on. Why do you and Fetzer continue to produce such sloppy work?

Numerous websites mention DIESEL TANK EXPLOSIONS...for instance this one:

..........

What Caused Building 7's Collapse?

This question would appear to be the greatest in engineering history. In over 100 years of experience with steel-framed buildings, fires have never caused the collapse of a single one, even though many were ravaged by severe fires. Indeed, fires have never caused the total collapse of any permanent steel structure.

What was done to answer this most important question? The only official body that admits to having investigated the curious collapse of Building 7 is FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT), which blamed fires for the collapse but admitted to being clueless about how fires caused the collapse.

People who have seen buildings implode in controlled demolitions are unlikely to be as challenged as FEMA's team in understanding the cause of Building 7's collapse. They will notice, upon watching the videos, that Building 7's collapse showed all of the essential features of a controlled demolition.

Despite having the appearance of a controlled demolition, is it possible that Building 7 could have been destroyed by some combination of damage from tower debris, fuel tank explosions, and fires? Let's consider the possible scenarios.

NIST released a photograph in 2005 showing a large gouge in the lower portion of the southwest corner of Building 7, and its collapse scenario deviates significantly from FEMA's in emphasizing alleged structural damage from the collapse of the North Tower. That photograph is notable for its lack of corroboration, and NIST's claims of other regions of damage to the building's south face lack substantiating evidence. Even if NIST's claims about structural damage from North Tower debris were true, it would not begin to explain the precipitous, symmetrical manner in which Building 7 collapsed. Structural damage to the south side -- particularly to the lower stories -- would have made any kind of vertical collapse all the more unlikely.

The idea that diesel fuel stored in Building 7 is to blame for the collapse was promoted by The New York Times in late 2001 and by FEMA's 2002 Building Performance Study. 1 This idea is also untenable. Fires were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building fires. Let's imagine, contrary to the evidence, that debris from the tower collapses damaged Building 7's structure, that diesel fuel tanks exploded, and that incredibly intense fires raged through large parts of the building. Could such events have caused the building to collapse? Not in the manner observed. The reason is that simultaneous and symmetric damage is needed to produce a collapse with the precise symmetry of the vertical fall of building 7. This building had 58 perimeter columns and 25 core columns. In order to cause the building to sink into its footprint, all of the core columns and all of the perimeter columns would have to be broken in the same split-second.

Any debris from the towers impacting Building 7 would have hit its south side, and any columns damaged by it would almost certainly be perimeter columns on its south side. Any fuel tank explosion would only be able to damage nearby structure. The rapid fall-off of blast pressures with distance from the source would preclude any such event from breaking all of the columns in the building.

Building 7 was about 5 times as tall as it was deep. (Furthermore the very idea of a tank of diesel fuel exploding taxes the imagination, since diesel fuel does not even begin to boil below 320º F. 2 ) Fires have never been known to damage steel columns in high-rise buildings, but if they could, the damage would be produced gradually and would be localized to the areas where the fire was the most intense.

No combination of debris damage, fuel-tank explosions, and fires could inflict the kind of simultaneous damage to all the building's columns required to make the building implode. The precision of such damage required to bring Building 7 down into its footprint was especially great, given the ratio of its height to its width and depth. Any asymmetry in the extent and timing of the damage would cause such a building to topple.

References

1. Engineers are Baffled Over the Collapse of 7 WTC, New York Times, 11/29/01 [cached]
2. DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS PIERCE TRANSIT DIESEL FUEL, ptbus.pierce.wa.us, [cached]

page last modified: 2007-01-25
VERSION 1.64 2007-11-28 ------------- Copyright 2003-07, WTC7.net ------------- fair use notice

Your caption reads, "The official story claims that diesel fuel reservoirs in the building exploded, resulting in fires that brought the building down.." Sorry but that statement is simply, irrevocably wrong! That some unnamed web site lists "fuel tank explosion" as a possible cause only to reject it just doesn't pass muster. Why not just say, "Gee, I guess that was another error. Thanks for telling me about it."? Why again and again do you insist on defending the indefensible instead of simply admitting you were wrong?

And the fire you think was on the 9th floor? Want to send it to me for checking or take the chance on being wrong a third time?



quote name='Jack White' date='Jul 5 2008, 05:58 AM' post='149060']
Numerous websites mention DIESEL TANK EXPLOSIONS...for instance this one:

..........

What Caused Building 7's Collapse?

This question would appear to be the greatest in engineering history. In over 100 years of experience with steel-framed buildings, fires have never caused the collapse of a single one, even though many were ravaged by severe fires. Indeed, fires have never caused the total collapse of any permanent steel structure.

What was done to answer this most important question? The only official body that admits to having investigated the curious collapse of Building 7 is FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT), which blamed fires for the collapse but admitted to being clueless about how fires caused the collapse.

People who have seen buildings implode in controlled demolitions are unlikely to be as challenged as FEMA's team in understanding the cause of Building 7's collapse. They will notice, upon watching the videos, that Building 7's collapse showed all of the essential features of a controlled demolition.

Despite having the appearance of a controlled demolition, is it possible that Building 7 could have been destroyed by some combination of damage from tower debris, fuel tank explosions, and fires? Let's consider the possible scenarios.

NIST released a photograph in 2005 showing a large gouge in the lower portion of the southwest corner of Building 7, and its collapse scenario deviates significantly from FEMA's in emphasizing alleged structural damage from the collapse of the North Tower. That photograph is notable for its lack of corroboration, and NIST's claims of other regions of damage to the building's south face lack substantiating evidence. Even if NIST's claims about structural damage from North Tower debris were true, it would not begin to explain the precipitous, symmetrical manner in which Building 7 collapsed. Structural damage to the south side -- particularly to the lower stories -- would have made any kind of vertical collapse all the more unlikely.

The idea that diesel fuel stored in Building 7 is to blame for the collapse was promoted by The New York Times in late 2001 and by FEMA's 2002 Building Performance Study. 1 This idea is also untenable. Fires were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building fires. Let's imagine, contrary to the evidence, that debris from the tower collapses damaged Building 7's structure, that diesel fuel tanks exploded, and that incredibly intense fires raged through large parts of the building. Could such events have caused the building to collapse? Not in the manner observed. The reason is that simultaneous and symmetric damage is needed to produce a collapse with the precise symmetry of the vertical fall of building 7. This building had 58 perimeter columns and 25 core columns. In order to cause the building to sink into its footprint, all of the core columns and all of the perimeter columns would have to be broken in the same split-second.

Any debris from the towers impacting Building 7 would have hit its south side, and any columns damaged by it would almost certainly be perimeter columns on its south side. Any fuel tank explosion would only be able to damage nearby structure. The rapid fall-off of blast pressures with distance from the source would preclude any such event from breaking all of the columns in the building.

Building 7 was about 5 times as tall as it was deep. (Furthermore the very idea of a tank of diesel fuel exploding taxes the imagination, since diesel fuel does not even begin to boil below 320º F. 2 ) Fires have never been known to damage steel columns in high-rise buildings, but if they could, the damage would be produced gradually and would be localized to the areas where the fire was the most intense.

No combination of debris damage, fuel-tank explosions, and fires could inflict the kind of simultaneous damage to all the building's columns required to make the building implode. The precision of such damage required to bring Building 7 down into its footprint was especially great, given the ratio of its height to its width and depth. Any asymmetry in the extent and timing of the damage would cause such a building to topple.

References

1. Engineers are Baffled Over the Collapse of 7 WTC, New York Times, 11/29/01 [cached]
2. DETAILED SPECIFICATIONS PIERCE TRANSIT DIESEL FUEL, ptbus.pierce.wa.us, [cached]

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So, the mystery of the erroneous photo is solved. Clearly, it was such a large error no one could have thought that Fetzer or anyone else had meant it to be a photo of the fire[s] in WTC7. Errors happen in books - sometimes by the authors [didn't you recently admit to one on this forum Mr. Thompson re: your book Six Seconds In Dallas?] and often by the publisher. [Joan Mellen's, IMO great book, had its notes section mangled by the publisher, for example]. The question is about the larger issues. Ron has clearly shown, what many of us believe, tha Silverstein's wording was about pulling down the building by some kind of demolition [he likely knew not the terminology and my guess had  heard it once or twice that day before]. The fires in WTC7 were not large nor many nor long-burning; but even if they had it would still have been one of only 3 steel-frame highrises to EVER collapse due to fire - the others being its neighbors that exploded [yes exploded] and collapsed shortly before. What a coincidence. You, like so many of the supporters of the official conspiracy theory seem to be seearching very hard for those selected bits that support, however weakly, your explanation of how the building could collapse: as predicted; in its own footprint; with a crimp and squibs; when explosions had been heard; at nearly free-fall speeds; just like its neighbors [also owned by Silverstein]; the emergency command center abandoned; etc.... And just like in Dallas no real independant, uncontrolled investigation was done [and what little phony one[s] was/were done was only after great delay and footdragging]. Any reasonable person, IMO, could easily question the offical theory and almost all of its component parts. WTC7 is a good way to make a point about the other 'story' components as it was not hit by any planes nor major pieces of debris. Buildings hit by much greater debris did not fail. The very manner of the collapse is suspicious, as are the statements by Silverstein and the prophetic broadcast by the oracle of the BBC.

I'm not aware of anyone saying the NYPD did bring down [or even could have brought down] any building. Some few might have known or been warned of impending collapse by those who knew 'why' and 'how' - or it could have been a very strange guess, based on the fact that no such building had EVER collapsed due to fire. If the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition the charges would have had to have been set over a long period, very carefully and in the weeks prior, or some such.

Sad that you chose to look at the facts of Dallas in detail, but seem to look at the gestalt of coincidences presented in the offical version of 911. [Yes, I see you are taking some individual issues and argueing them, but the more important details and questions IMO remain unexplained and unexplainable with the offiicial conspiracy fiction and you don't shake the doubts.] What is needed is a look at the gestalt of the details and questions presented by them. That leads me and many others to NOT believe the major parts of the official version [though parts of it may be true, as with Dallas]. We are seeking the answers, again as citizen researchers, as the 'officials' have once again failed us and I'm afraid once again [some few] have been complicit and [many] covering-up. Same old, same old. From Dallas to 911. Connect the dots.......for WTC7: six seconds in New York.

Not the PD the FD. Silverstein said "They [i.e. the FDNY] made that decision to pull" so if your interpretation of his words that he meant 'pull the building' rather than 'pull the operation' it follows that he meant "[the FDNY] made the decision to pull [down 7 WTC]". "Truthers other than Alex Jones and his minions refuse to deal with this inconvenient fact. As a link I posted in a thread shows the repulsive Austian does take this notion to its logical conclusion and on several occasions has accused the FDNY of bringing down building 7. Jason Bemas from Loose Change doesn't go quite so far, he only accuses tem of complicity after the fact.

If you had bothered to look at the contrary evidence (which you never seem to do) you would have sen the FDNY had been predicting for hours the building would collapse for reasons Tink, Evan, others and I have brought to the forums attention ad infinium on this thread and others

Dear Dr. Thompson,

Please know that since, as a young teenager, I read the "Look" magazine number in which Six Seconds in Dallas was excerpted, I have harbored the utmost respect for your groundbreaking work on the assassination of JFK.

In regard to the issue at hand, I would make two simple points.

1. My two previous posts on this thread were not written in support of any WTC7 collapse theory. Nor did they address or otherwise seek to confirm, deny, or analyze any conversations or statements with and by Larry Silverstein other than the taped interview in which he makes the "pull it" comment.

Thus the relevance to my argument of a Silverstein/Nigro exchange is nil.

The focus of my attention was the wtc7lies website page on which are found what I am forced to conclude are intentionally disingenuous "analyses" of the use of the verb to pull when made within the context of controlled demolition terms of art.

Period.

If your reading of the web page in question differs from mine, by all means share your thoughts.

2. The positioning of the above-reproduced paragraphs from your post gives the erroneous impression that I am the source of the quotation that makes up your initial paragraph. (This other-than-artful construction likely accounts for your confusion regarding my relatively narrowly focused posts.)

In fact you are quoting Brian Smith.

Regards,

Charles

These are excellent comments that appear to be "right on target"! Jack has found a replacement photograph that we will use in the second
printing of THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY. Thanks to Tink for noticing. But that does not turn modest fires into major infernos nor a controlled
demolition into anything else. Take another look at "This is an Orange" if you have any doubts. He's practicing his special brand of fakery.

Dear Charles Drago,

Thank you so very much for straigtening me out! I apologize for confusing what were really the words of Brian Smith with your own very narrowly focused remarks. Given your gracious remarks about "Six Seconds" it is nit-picking of the silliest sort to point out that "Six Seconds" was condensed not in "Look" but in the "Saturday Evening Post."

I'd be most interested in your own views on the continuing controversy over what brought the towers down and in particular what brought WTC7 down. I recognize that not everyone has an interest in these matters. After all, I make my living by investigating such things. None the less, I'd be most interested in your own views.

Thank you again for clearing up my confusion.

Regards,

Josiah Thompson

Dear Josiah,

You are absolutely right to correct my error. I thank you for doing so. The record must be protected, and every mistake, no matter how slight, must be rectified.

I am not an engineer or a demolition expert. In re 9-11: As is so often the case when laymen would consider highly technical subjects in which they enjoy not the slightest meaningful expertise (another example: the medical evidence in the JFK case), I am forced to read as many sober, professional analyses of how the WTC buildings fell as I'm able to access, investigate their respective authors with an eye toward discerning bias, and otherwise utilize whatever skills and instincts I've been able to develop over years of broadly related study (in this case, of deep political phenomena) to process the data and reach conclusions (tentative or otherwise).

As I type these words, I am of the informed opinion that the attacks of 9-11 were planned and staged by those powerful political entities who sought a replacement for the Cold War and its revenue streams and control functionalities.

Three of the world-historic attacks on political targets which we study on this Forum and elsewhere share a component that, for me, gives the game away. Immediately prior to their respective destructions, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the WTC were stripped of commonly applied security which in all likelihood would have been sufficent to repel the attackers.

(Either WTC security was stripped to facilitate the buildings' destruction, or Bin Laden is one lucky S.O.B. to have timed his attack so fortuitously as to coincide with air defense exercises scheduled for that day.)

I have argued, most often to no avail, that before we can identify those responsible for these acts, we must first determine how the attacks were effected. To put it simply: We needn't identify the gunmen in Dealey Plaza to prove that there were multiple gunmen in Dealey Plaza. We needn't identify those who ordered presidential security stripped in Dallas to prove that security was stripped from the Kennedy motorcade.

Once these facts are established, we then can begin processes of elimination and otherwise reverse-engineer the events so as to narrow the list of suspects.

(Could LCN have made the JFK motorcade uniquely insecure? Could Al Queda have scheduled NORAD training exercises on 9-11-01?)

Another shared aspect of the JFK and the WTC hits: The "best evidence" in both cases was tampered with and given inadequate examinations producing conflicting conclusions which in turn confuse well-meaning investigators, prolong investigations, and give aid and comfort to the perpetrators.

Thanks for indulging me to this point.

To answer your question: I don't know how WTC 1, 2, and 7 were felled. I have no independent means to verify the thermite/thermate "discoveries" of Dr. Jones or the official USG pancake collapse theory as graphically illustrated in the PBS documentary of a few years ago. If bias toward some sort of controlled demolition as insurance that the buildings would fall after jetliner impacts is to be discerned in my thoughts, it is based upon my contextualizing of the main event within the deep political analyses of Peter Dale Scott (primarily; his COG material is persuasive) and others.

As for WTC7: Absent definitive, trustworthy investigation, I simply cannot say. But to my knowledge there is nothing other than an argument from false authority to commend the official USG theory over that of controlled demolition.

I hope this is helpful.

Best,

Charles

Dear Charles Drago,

Thank you for taking the time to articulate your views on the collapse of WTC 1, 2 and 7. I appreciate your position.

With regard to the collapse of WTC7, there is no official government position. FEMA issued a report several years ago which was tentative in the extreme. NIST said it would issue a final report by December 2007 but none was forthcoming. My bet is that NIST is finding the computer modeling of the event to be gigantic in terms of both money and computing power. That's what our own engineers have told us. What this means is that that many parameters of the event are known but establishing details within these parameters may be beyond the capabilities of NIST or any government body.

Since litigation concerning the cause and mechanism of collapse has been running for five or six years, additional private resources of considerable size have been brought to the table. If there was any possibility of showing controlled demolition brought down the building, I'd jump on it in a minute. If I could prove anything like that, I would immediately become the hero of the case. But I can't. The hypothesis is not only preposterous but it runs directly counter to all the evidence (both photographic and eyewitness) that we've painstakingly gathered over the years.

Again, I appreciate you taking the trouble to offer your always cogent remarks.

Regards,

Josiah Thompson