The other points I am not sur eof - but my understandin of the collapses was that when the airliner hit it did serious impact damage to the floors it collided with and this damage was sufficient enough to actually destroy the fire escapes in the centre of the building.

The weight of the ruined floors combined with heat cause the structure above to collapses - this weight then caused collapse after collase on each floor as it oculd no longer bare the weight - it basically collapsed from the top down not from the ground up.

I was also under the impression from reports that there was a fault with the steel work that allowed this concertina effect to take place. This was in an article on building structures and fire escapes and that in most buildings the fir escapes are too close together clustered around the central elevator core - if something happens to one there is a good chance the same thing will happen to the other.

Still I am no expert - just htought to share what we have heard down here in Aus.

Cheers

I watched this awhile ago and was like. :shock:

_Nightfire_ Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700°F, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800°F under optimal conditions, and UL certified the steel used to 2,000°F for six hours, the buildings cannot have collapsed due to heat from the fires.[/list]

I'm quite sure the steel never melted. It bent, nothing more. Thing is, the heat hampering material that was supposed to cover the steel-frame was scarce, at best, and completely lacking in the upper sections. The heat from the fires combined with the weight of the buildings should be sufficient to make the steel twist and, in the end, collapse the towers entirely.

Condi Rice is an idiot.

I have a senior seminar paper discussing Al Qaeda's use of a jet airliner in a terrorist attack. It was written in Spring 2001, and inspired by an article by a CIA anti-terrorism expert who said "this will happen before the end of the year."

I need to dig out that paper and slap Condi Rice with it.

Hey Oro would you see if you can find this article? I would be intreasted in reading it

Same.

All I can say is that I view most of this as being as crazy as the things I read in sewer town (to use an in game example) or the Da Vinci code. Possible but unlikely suggestions require amazing evidence and I just haven't seen it. I would like to believe our government is capable enough to pull something like this off but given our history (vietnam, Iraq ect I just can't see it). The middle eastern terrorists would of course love for us to believe they were not responsible but they told us point blank that they had decleared war on us long before and they have done other similar things before. Sorry just don't buy it.

As for the first suggestion (others I don't know enough about to say) the fire wasn't really what brought it down but the incredibly hot fire (plane fuel burns VERY hot much hotter than any other fire that would have occured in a high rise) and the force from a very large object hitting the building at a very high speed (newtons law of motion) that brought it down. As much as I would like to think it isn't, it is that simple.

If I remember correctly, the offical reports stated that the steel didnt melt but that it lost structural integrity. In other words the fire was hot enough to cause the support girders to fail, not turn them into a puddle. I could be wrong but I believe that is what was reported by the engineers. -dholt5

This video has been rebuked many times over.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

I heard someone talking about fireproofing material somewhere back up the thread. As you know, but others may not, that material is the dreaded ASBESTOS! EEK!

When the Towers were being built back in the (don't recall) the big debate over the use of Asbestos was going on. Half-way through the construction, the anti-asbestos side of the debate won out, and asbestos is no longer a legal construction material (so far as I know). Well, half of one of the Towers already had it and they weren't about to strip it all out. So they started up again with a different, less fire-resistant substance.

Now, here I'm not so sure of the eact details because it's been three or four years since this has come up. Bare with me.

When the fires broke out, it did cause structural damage, though as stated, not enough to melt the steel or anything. Keep in mind how a blacksmith works, he doesn't need to melt the iron to make it more pliable, he just makes it red hot. Same idea, except this blacksmith wasn't using a hammer, he was using tons and tons of skyscraper.

The majority of the structure collapsed much faster than what engineers had predicted (an understandably difficult scenario to test). But not the section with asbestos. It held strong an extra 2-3 hours.

This leads back into the "Is asbestos a blessing or a curse?" debate. I'd say it depends entirely on its use. In the WTC it was behind concrete, steel, and other materials. The likeliness of asbestos fibers to float through and get into your lungs? Well, about the odds of a plane crashing through your building.