Why was WTC7 brought down by explosives?

[G-Man]

My theory / conclusion

Something they have overlooked is the fact that a air plane weights 60tons many heavy metal parts. The Vast majority of the air craft debris would have ended up INSIDE the Towers. That an additional 20-40 TONS of extra weight that the building is supporting.

Iam guessing the central core was what absorded the impact. the Aircraft slamming into the building and collides with the core. Thats why so little debris actually flew out of the exit wound of the building. The weight itself not fire or heat bent the metal. Engineers will tell you weight of a building is distrubuted. With so much weight pressing onto a small portion it collapsed the floor and core steel rods.

If you accept this "debris weight" theory it then raises question about Flight 77 wreckage which hit the pentagon

1. The WTC buildings held over 750 thousand tons each. 20-30 tons, on any part of the building, would go unnoticed. Also, by the time it had collapsed, the fire had consumed a lot more than this weight, so the building actually had less weight to carry.
2. If the weight was the reason, the buildings would've collapsed on one side, then drag the rest of the building. However they clearly collapsed not to the side, but to the middle - the core, which was capable of holding hundreds of thousands of tons, was weakened. It isn't something that would've happened because of 20-30 tons - I greatly doubt that it would've happened by a weight of 1,000 tons.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Let me see if I understand correctly: According to this particular theory, the 9/11 event was orchestrated by the government so it could do things like the Patriot Act and embark on a never ending war against terrorism? The WTC complex was already rigged with explosives in advance of 9/11 and Silverstein was in on the plot? Am I correct so far? If this were true, why would Silverstein make comments to the media that could let the cat out of the bag? Also, if the government wanted to do something like this for the reasons stated above, would they really have attacked the Pentagon as well?

 

[CurtSibling]

Another theory is that a group of manaics was paid to do it.

Maniacs that had been part of the 1993 plot - Who were familiar with the CIA and various shady characters.

 

[Chaos_BF1942]

But the attack also would be more effective in daylight.

If a dramatic display without too many casualties, but maximum effect is what the 'attackers' wanted...

Yeah, but if I remember right the attacks was surrpose to be much bigger like having 10 planes on both coasts.

Somehow I doubt it - The guy was in NY at the WTC.
Unless he had incredible hearing to hear explosions in DC.

You mis-read my post, I said he may of heard something he didn't, and I was saying there was reports of Carbombs in DC that didn't happen.

 

[CurtSibling]

Yeah, but if I remember right the attacks was surrpose to be much bigger like having 10 planes on both coasts.

Sounds like a Ramzi Yousef plot, wouldn't you agree?

You mis-read my post, I said he may of heard something he didn't, and I was saying there was reports of Carbombs in DC that didn't happen.

I say he was at the scene and knows a controlled detonation from a random explosion and mayhem.

 

[Speedo]

Honestly Curt, have you ever touched the controls of a real aircraft? An Airbus, 747, 737, Cessna, whatever- they all fly the same way. The aircraft was already in the air and already trimmed for flight. Anything that would have been even remotely difficult was already done for them. All they had to worry about was basic flight controls- stick, rudder, throttle. Exactly the same as any other aircraft.

And for crying out loud, hitting a building the size of the WTC is no "spectacular and difficult" feat. Finding NYC would be the hardest part of the flight, and anyone with basic navigation training can do that...

 

[CurtSibling]

Honestly, Speedo!
My Uncle is a Wing Commander of the RAF.

And if you ask him, he will tell you his current Hercules four-engine transport plane flies a tad
different from the Phantoms he trained with, or a GR1 Tornado, Eurofighter or the F15 Eagle.

Are you going to argue with a pilot with 20+ years military and civil flying experience, Mr 'I-flew-twice'?

Whatever you are aiming at here, with your argument - It is not going to shift me!

I know my planes!

 

[CurtSibling]

PS seeing as NYC is a massive metropolis, it should be quite easy to spot.

And navigational skills to the target are not the issue here, it is the flying of a huge plane.

But that said, indeed the hijacker/pilots could hit a massive target like the WTC in a light craft without too much trouble.

But with a huge airbus?

I am not too convinced - Unless you argue they got lucky.

 

[G-Man]

I don't think it should be so hard to do. The hijackers only had to control the plane for a short while, as most of the way could've been done by the pilots. Also, slamming into a building isn't too hard, when you don't care too much about the exact speed, angle or altitude of the hit.

 

[Speedo]

But that said, indeed the hijacker/pilots could hit a massive target like the WTC in a light craft without too much trouble.

But with a huge airbus?

I am not too convinced - Unless you argue they got lucky.

You have yet to explain what's so difficult about it. I'm sure the towers could easily been seen from 10+ miles away depending on altitude. If that's not long enough for you to line up on them, you're a pitiful pilot.

I'm basing my opinion on personal flight experience (which is quite a bit, though I've had only 2 were "official" lessons) and discussions with an uncle who has been a pilot for over 40 years and an airline pilot for 25 years. Take it or leave it.

 

[yoshi74]

A big airplane reacts much slower than a small plane. The time from steering in a way till the time the plane has already reacted takes some time. Without experience its very easy to oversteer, trying to counter steer - again too much and so on.

 

[Joey_Ramone]

Silverstien said they had explosives in the buidling. The man had a 99-year lease for the complex just six weeks before the attacks. As I posted in post #1, he himself said they destroyed it. That's the proof.

That Silverstein guy got screwed out of a lot of money because his insurance was only enough to cover one building. So you're theory doesn't wash. Besides that, you're twisting his words, that's not what he said.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

[*]The WTC7 had been exploded with dynamites because the basements have been so fragile it would have collapsed sooner or later.[/list]I haven't read this thread so I don't know which one interests you, but I don't see anything wrong in both scenarios.

ICBM is just trying to find a way to blame the Jews.

I also don't find anything wrong with either of your options.

 

[FriendlyFire]

1. The WTC buildings held over 750 thousand tons each. 20-30 tons, on any part of the building, would go unnoticed. Also, by the time it had collapsed, the fire had consumed a lot more than this weight, so the building actually had less weight to carry.
2. If the weight was the reason, the buildings would've collapsed on one side, then drag the rest of the building. However they clearly collapsed not to the side, but to the middle - the core, which was capable of holding hundreds of thousands of tons, was weakened. It isn't something that would've happened because of 20-30 tons - I greatly doubt that it would've happened by a weight of 1,000 tons.

Thats why we need an investigation.
Engineers, firefighters, architechs and so on all argue that the WTC couldnt have collapsed. The way it collapsed was also in dispute. Shouldnt the central steel columns not have collapsed ? when the building came down.

--------------
anyway Flight 177 flight path was extremely strange
You have very experienced pilots comming out and say that in order to succesfully fly the airplane to hit the pentagon would have required an extremly skilled pilot.

 

[cgannon64]

Why were there no witnesses to the trucks that would have blown up the building?

Perhaps because EVERYONE WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE AREA.

 

[cgannon64]

Glass breaks at 1292 degrees fahrenheit. With that information, we can conclude that the fire didn't even reach glass-breaking temperatures as evident from all the pictures (like the one you provided) that show that windows as close as one or two stories to the impact area are intact. Yet we are supposed to believe it somehow reached steel-weakening temperatures?

The World Trade Center had extremely narrow windows. Extremely. I've seen them, many times. You can hardly fit a person through them.

From the pictures I've seen, I can't tell whether the windows are intact or not. In fact, that's why some people hated those buildings: They look like they are all steel, no windows at all.

 

[Joey_Ramone]

Thats why we need an investigation.
Engineers, firefighters, architechs and so on all argue that the WTC couldnt have collapsed.

That's funny, cause I have quite a few friends who are firefighters and my dad's an engineer and none of them think so. The only people who think there's some giant conspiracy here are some crazies on the web and anti-American Muslims.

 

[ICBM]

G-Man, if fires caused Building 7 to collapse, why didn't the other examples of buildings on fire collapse as well? It takes hours for a fire to cause the collapse of non-steel buildings let alone expertly designed steel superstuctures.

I don't see how the size of the fire is relevant.

I don't know for sure, but I would be willing to bet that WTC7 had fire sprinklers. The smaller the fire the more likely it was contained by the sprinklers system.

If this were true, why would Silverstein make comments to the media that could let the cat out of the bag?

It wasn't a widely publicized statment. Besides, isn't the #1 argument against conspiracy theories that the people involved don't slip up enough? The fact of the matter is that they do slip up; like when Tony Blair said Iraq was about weapons of mass distractions. It's just that these errors never reach the masses.

Why were there no witnesses to the trucks that would have blown up the building?

Perhaps because EVERYONE WAS RUNNING AWAY FROM THE AREA.

Someone should have seen the demolition trucks driving to the scene. If not the people feeing the scene then firemen, but someone would have seen them. And if thats all that happen that happend why is the official story that fire burned it down?

That's funny, cause I have quite a few friends who are firefighters and my dad's an engineer and none of them think so.

Why don't you get your dad to give an example of a modern steel superstructure collapsing due to nothing else but fire.

 

[ICBM]

The World Trade Center had extremely narrow windows. Extremely. I've seen them, many times. You can hardly fit a person through them.

From the pictures I've seen, I can't tell whether the windows are intact or not. In fact, that's why some people hated those buildings: They look like they are all steel, no windows at all.

Look at these two pictures:

Intact windows are clearly seen in both pictures.

The people shown standing in those photos also help to prove FriendlyFires's point:

Any fire fighters here ? What normally kills people in fires ? Smoke right ? The people who jumped to there deaths were almost certin doing so to escape slow exfixilation so they jumped.

 

[bigfatron]

Lord knows I am no fan of the current US administration, but this conspiracy theory makes the Diana murder ones sound sensible!

Let's take a few facts - the WTC was built with the bulk of the support provided through the external frame, rather than using an internal supporting core as is done more commonly these days.

Through that external frame were inserted - at high speeds - 60,000 gallons or so of jet fuel, 60-70 tons of aluminium (an intense fire accelerant above certain temperatures IIRC) and a metaphorical match, inserted in such a way as to damage about 1/8th of the support perimeter.

Now, take a tube (you can try this at home with a bog roll if you like!), see how much weight it can take on its end - it should be quite strong as it has structural inegrity. Now cut a 1/8 circumference slit in the side and see how much weight it can take - much less, right?

As soon as any single floor was weakened enough on any side to fail to take the weight of those above it, it would give, and the impact of its collapse would give the floor below no chance, hence the deck of cards effect we all saw to our horror.

As for WTC 7, I have worked in that building a few weeks, it seemed like an ordinary office block - other than that I can't comment.