Thread: No conspiracy to blow-up WTC 7

Well, it's official. According to the Feds, it was fire, and not explosives, that caused building 7 to collapse, making it the first skyscrapper ever to behave that way. Here's the article from the New York Times. I don't accept it and I'm wondering what other people think.

If I remember correctly, WTC7 was missing one corner which was bearing a significant load.
And as I said before about the collapse of the WTC towers themselves: the fire doesn't have to be hot enough to melt the steel in order to make the building collapse.
It just has to be hot enough that the metal starts to give away to the increased stresses of an unbalanced load. Once it starts to give, the stresses will increase and there is only 1 outcome.

yep bruno! Worked a bit with a team of engineers who did a mockup of the whole thing in CAD it pretty much happened as you describe.

Edit: here is an article that talks about it.

Originally Posted by Bruno

If I remember correctly, WTC7 was missing one corner which was bearing a significant load.
And as I said before about the collapse of the WTC towers themselves: the fire doesn't have to be hot enough to melt the steel in order to make the building collapse.
It just has to be hot enough that the metal starts to give away to the increased stresses of an unbalanced load. Once it starts to give, the stresses will increase and there is only 1 outcome.

Then how come no skyscraper has ever collapsed after fire damage except for the three that fell on 9/11?

Maybe because no skyscraper had ever had the added impact of an airplane hitting it? I think that a large part of the problem was the forces of the plane hitting it and adding it's weight+speed to the outcome. Afterall in order to get airborne don't those things fly over 300 km/h? and don't they weigh thousands of kilos?

That's a pretty hefty blow. It could smash away part of the carrying structure and send a shock throughout the building that causes the rest to give way.


Offcourse I'm not an engineer so I don't know for sure, neither do I know the right equations to let loose on it.

But I'm sure someone will chime in soon.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

Maybe because no skyscraper had ever had the added impact of an airplane hitting it?

The Empire State Building was hit by a bomber in the 1940s. There was a fire but it didn't collapse. I saw the documentary "Loose Change" and several others and a WTC architect said that they had allowed for a plane hitting the towers. There was also a clip of Larry Silverstein saying that they had decided to "pull" WTC 7. When I look at the video of WTC, I see a controlled demolition. It seems to me that people who don't want to admit the obvious will cling to any straw to avoid having to deal with the consequences of acknowledging what really happened.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

The Empire State Building was hit by a bomber in the 1940s. There was a fire but it didn't collapse. I saw the documentary "Loose Change" and several others and a WTC architect said that they had allowed for a plane hitting the towers. There was also a clip of Larry Silverstein saying that they had decided to "pull" WTC 7. When I look at the video of WTC, I see a controlled demolition. It seems to me that people who don't want to admit the obvious will cling to any straw to avoid having to deal with the consequences of acknowledging what really happened.

Sorry but if that was a controlled demolition it was really the worst one ever done. Not to mention the whole fact that demolishing from x stories high (which wouldn't be done in a controlled demolition) and making the planes fly into that same level, would be quite tough... and lots of other stuff.

Don't get me wrong I'm a great proponent of skepticism; but in this case there's not much grounds for it.

Originally Posted by Nickelking

Sorry but if that was a controlled demolition it was really the worst one ever done.

That's true of the two towers hit by airplanes but the collapse of WTC 7 is a textbook example of a controlled demolition.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

Then how come no skyscraper has ever collapsed after fire damage except for the three that fell on 9/11?

Remember: WTC7 was already missing one of its 4 corner structures and was under an incredible amount of internal stresses.

Originally Posted by Chimensch

That's true of the two towers hit by airplanes but the collapse of WTC 7 is a textbook example of a controlled demolition.

But a controlled destruction uses the same principles: knock out the main structural support and let the building collapse unto itself.
So if the main structural support is knocked over, and the added heat weakens the rest, it would be normal to look like a controlled destruction because both work the same way in this particular case.