Author: Shoestring
Subject: How Did They Know the Twin Towers Would Collapse?
Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 10:23 am (GMT 0)
Here is my new blog entry, in which I describe how a number of emergency responders and skilled professionals apparently knew in advance that the Twin Towers were going to collapse on 9/11. I explain why their predictions of the collapses were so unusual, since their professional knowledge and experience should have led them to expect the Twin Towers to easily withstand the impacts of the planes and the subsequent fires on September 11.
You can read the original article, with links to sources, on my blog, here:
http://shoestring911.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/how-did-some-experts-and-emergency.html
How Did Some Experts and Emergency Responders Know the Twin Towers Were Going to Collapse on 9/11?
A number of individuals who worked in key positions apparently knew that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were going to collapse before the two buildings came down on September 11, 2001. These men talked with colleagues about their concern that the towers might come down, and some of them issued stark warnings about the danger and ordered people to get away from the World Trade Center.
Although their warnings have, in some cases, been credited with saving lives, the behavior of these men is, on closer examination, surprising and quite suspicious. This is because the general opinion before September 11 was that the Twin Towers would survive being hit by planes and the outcomes of previous high-rise fires should have led the men to think the towers would easily endure the fires they suffered on September 11 without collapsing.
Studies, which many firefighters and experts were aware of, had determined that the Twin Towers would withstand being hit by large jet aircraft. Furthermore, no steel-framed high-rise building had ever collapsed due to fire before 9/11. Steel-framed skyscrapers, like the Twin Towers, had survived fires that were larger and burned for longer than those that occurred on September 11. Unsurprisingly, then, it never occurred to most experts and most of the firefighters who responded to the plane crashes at the World Trade Center that the towers were in danger of coming down.
If the collapses of the Twin Towers occurred without the use of explosives, as official accounts have claimed, then these events were unprecedented. Nothing remotely like them had happened before. Why then did some experts and emergency responders warn--sometimes with great conviction--that the towers were going to collapse?
We clearly need to examine why these men predicted that the Twin Towers would come down after the hijacked planes crashed into them on September 11, especially since some of them had specific expertise or professional experience that should have made them less likely than most people to anticipate the collapses.
DID THE MEN WHO PREDICTED THE COLLAPSES HAVE FOREKNOWLEDGE OF 9/11?
Did the men who thought the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing just possess remarkable foresight, such that--unlike their colleagues and many experts--they were able to predict events unlike anything that had ever happened before? Or might some, or all, of them have had at least a degree of foreknowledge of what was going to happen on September 11? Did any of them know that there was going to be a terrorist attack that day, during which the Twin Towers would collapse?
If this was the case, it would surely mean the towers were brought down with explosives that were planted before September 11. And the men who warned that the towers were going to collapse must have known, or learned enough to suspect, that explosives had been planted in the buildings.
If the towers were brought down with explosives, it would mean that the official account of 9/11 is wrong. Secretly preparing the World Trade Center to be demolished would have been a sophisticated and complex operation, way beyond the capabilities of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network. The involvement of powerful, well-placed, and knowledgeable people would be necessary to obtain the materials required for the demolitions, evade security at the Trade Center, and plant the explosives. The plotters must have included rogue individuals in the U.S. military and other government agencies.
We need to consider how the men who warned that the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing might have learned about what was going to happen on September 11. It is plausible that at least some of them knew what was going to happen because they were part of the group that planned the 9/11 attacks. However, since these men appear to have been trying to save lives on the morning of September 11 and, in some cases, put themselves at great risk as they responded to the attacks, this seems unlikely.
Alternatively, the men could have been coerced into helping the perpetrators of 9/11 plan and prepare for the attacks due to their job positions or because of expertise they possessed, and could have gained some knowledge of what was going to happen on September 11 while they were reluctantly giving their assistance.
Or perhaps the men were tricked into assisting the perpetrators without realizing they were helping with the preparations for a terrorist attack. They may, for example, have been invited to help carry out what they thought was a study to examine the vulnerability of the World Trade Center to a terrorist attack. The study, however, could in reality have been intended to help those behind 9/11 plan the attacks. Among other things, it could have helped them work out how to bring down the Twin Towers with explosives and how to evade security so as to plant explosives in the towers.
If this is what happened, the men may suddenly have understood how they had been deceived when they learned that planes had crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11. They may then have realized, based on the content of the study they had been involved with, that the Twin Towers were probably going to be demolished as part of the attacks. And upon this realization, they could have decided to try and save lives by alerting people to the impending collapses.
In this article, I describe the actions of several men who thought the Twin Towers were going to collapse before the buildings came down. I also look at evidence that shows the towers should easily have withstood being hit by planes and suffering major fires. In light of this information, it seems inexplicable that any knowledgeable professional could have confidently predicted they were going to collapse. Indeed, as I reveal, most experts and emergency responders assumed that the towers would remain standing after the hijacked planes crashed into them.
I discuss various ways in which the men who believed the Twin Towers might collapse could have learned what was going to happen on September 11. And I describe the particular knowledge and experience some of them had, which may have prompted those behind 9/11 to seek them out and make use of their expertise when planning the attacks.
SENIOR OFFICIALS AND A DEMOLITIONS EXPERT WARNED ABOUT THE COLLAPSES
At least six men explicitly warned that the Twin Towers were going to--or at least might--collapse before the buildings came down. These were Lieutenant Joseph Torrillo, director of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) Fire Safety Education Unit; an engineer with the New York City Department of Buildings; Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc., a company that specializes in using explosives to make buildings collapse; Captain Anthony Whitaker, the commanding officer at the World Trade Center for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department (PAPD); Peter Guidetti of the FDNY; and Deputy Chief Ray Downey of the FDNY.
DIRECTOR OF FIRE SAFETY EDUCATION WARNED PEOPLE TO GET AWAY FROM THE TWIN TOWERS
Lieutenant Joseph Torrillo, a former firefighter, was, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, director of the FDNY Fire Safety Education Unit, which teaches fire prevention and survival to various establishments, such as schools and senior citizens' centers. His behavior on September 11 is notable for the conviction with which he repeatedly warned people that the Twin Towers were going to collapse and his dogged efforts to get people away from the towers.
On the morning of September 11, Torrillo was at his office at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn when he was informed that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. (That plane, American Airlines Flight 11, hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m.) After seeing the burning North Tower on television, he headed out with three fire cadets and drove toward the Trade Center.
From about an eighth of a mile away from the center, Torrillo could see what appeared to be eight to 10 floors of the North Tower on fire. One of the cadets asked him, "What do you think?" and, with remarkable prescience, he replied: "Everyone on the top of that building is going to die! That building is going to collapse! Today will be like no other day anyone ever remembered about New York City!"
Torrillo drove to his old firehouse, across the street from the Twin Towers. After putting on some firefighting clothing, he ran toward the South Tower, reaching the building as the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashed into it at 9:03 a.m. He then ran toward the North Tower.
"As [I was] running toward the North Tower ... one of [the] things [I was] saying to myself [was] that these buildings [were] going to collapse and that [I had] to let a lot of people know about it," Torrillo recalled. "It was very obvious to me that those buildings were going to collapse. ... I was positive," he said.
Outside the North Tower, Lieutenant Anthony Mancuso, a friend of Torrillo's from the FDNY, pulled up near Torrillo and asked, "What's going on?" Torrillo replied: "Tony, look! Those buildings are going to collapse!" He also said, "We're going to lose all of the water around the Trade Center" and told Mancuso, "Take your engine and go about six blocks north, connect to a hydrant there, and bring the hoses back so we'll have water if we lose it here."
Torrillo then repeated his warning, saying: "Listen to me! These buildings are going to collapse!" Mancuso took Torrillo's advice and moved his unit six blocks north. Perhaps at least partly due to Torrillo's warning, all of Mancuso's crew survived the collapses of the Twin Towers that day.
Torrillo then ran to the corner of Liberty and West Streets, where he stopped ambulances that were heading to the World Trade Center from the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. He again warned that the Twin Towers were going to collapse, telling the drivers of the first two ambulances that the buildings would fall and they should make a U-turn, go back toward the tunnel, and park at the curb. The drivers passed Torrillo's instructions on to the other ambulances.
Ladder Company 113 pulled up by Torrillo and Lieutenant Ray Brown asked, "Joe, what's going on?" After explaining the situation, Torrillo said: "Go back! Go back now!" Brown took Torrillo's advice and moved his ladder company about 100 feet away. All of the crew subsequently survived the collapses of the Twin Towers.
FIRE SAFETY EDUCATION DIRECTOR THREATENED TO DRAG PEOPLE OUT OF THE SOUTH TOWER IF THEY DIDN'T LEAVE
Torrillo then noticed that, against his advice, an ambulance was racing toward the South Tower. He went and confronted the man in charge of it. The man retorted: "You don't have any authority! We don't work for you! We're going to set up a triage center in the lobby of the South Tower!" Torrillo warned him: "That building is going to fall! Get out of this building right now!"
An emergency medical technician angrily said, "No!" and asked, "Who the hell are you?" Torrillo responded, "Either you get out of here or I will drag you out of here!" He instructed the members of the ambulance crew to set up a staging area about three blocks away from the Twin Towers. Finally, the men accepted his advice and drove away. Torrillo may have saved their lives because then, at 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed. [1]
Despite his efforts to warn others, however, Torrillo was caught in the collapse himself and suffered serious injuries from being hit by debris from the tower. [2]
Torrillo has claimed that he thought it would take five or six hours before the Twin Towers came down. [3] He believed any collapse was "going to happen at two or three o'clock in the afternoon," he said. [4] However, if this is true, why did he instruct firefighters and ambulance crew members to get away from the towers immediately? Surely if he thought the towers would remain standing for five or six hours, he would have wanted emergency workers to respond normally while the buildings were stable and when their help at the World Trade Center was most urgently needed. He could have just warned emergency responders that they would need to get away from the towers later on, when, he claimed, he feared the towers were going to collapse.
Torrillo also said he believed only the top floors of the towers--not the entire buildings--would come down. "I knew the amount of the fire would cause the tops of the buildings to twist and buckle," he commented. [5] But if this was the case, surely he could have just told firefighters and other emergency responders that they would need to remain inside the towers, where they could carry out their crucial work while staying safely away from any debris that would fall outside if the top floors came down.
Torrillo's behavior, therefore, indicates that, contrary to what he claimed, Torrillo thought the collapses were imminent and would involve the buildings coming down completely, which would mean he had an accurate idea of what was going to happen that morning.
ENGINEER THOUGHT THERE WAS AN 'IMMINENT DANGER OF COLLAPSE'
An unnamed engineer with the New York City Department of Buildings, like Torrillo, confidently predicted that the Twin Towers were going to collapse. Emergency Medical Service Division Chief John Peruggia recalled being alerted to the danger by this person while he was gathered with other emergency response officials in the lobby of World Trade Center Building 7, about 350 feet north of the Twin Towers.
Sometime after the second hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center, one of these officials--an "engineer-type person" from the Department of Buildings--said that "it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the [Twin] Towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised," Peruggia described. "They felt that the North Tower, which was the first one to be struck, was going to be in imminent danger of collapse," he added. (The North Tower, however, was the second tower to collapse, coming down 29 minutes after the South Tower.)
Peruggia grabbed Richard Zarillo, an emergency medical technician, and instructed him to go to the command post across the street from the North Tower and pass on the engineer's warning to Peter Ganci, the chief of the FDNY. Zarillo was to tell Ganci that "the building integrity is severely compromised and they believe the building is in danger of imminent collapse." [6]
Zarillo went to the command post where he passed on Peruggia's message to Fire Marshal Steve Mosiello, Ganci's executive assistant, and then to Ganci. Although Ganci was surprised at the warning, about 30 seconds after he received it the South Tower started to collapse. [7]
DEMOLITION ENGINEER TRIED PHONING PEOPLE TO WARN THEM ABOUT THE IMMINENT COLLAPSES
Another person who confidently predicted that the Twin Towers were going to collapse was Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc., a company based in Phoenix, Maryland, that specializes in using explosives to bring buildings down.
Loizeaux recalled that when he saw the Twin Towers had been hit by planes, he knew right away they were going to come down. [8] He told his brother, Doug Loizeaux, the vice president of Controlled Demolition Inc., of his concern. "I told Doug immediately that the [North] Tower was coming down and when the second tower was hit, that it would follow," he said. [9] Loizeaux predicted that the South Tower would be the first building to collapse, even though it was hit by a plane 17 minutes after the North Tower was. "The second tower will fall first, because it was hit lower down," he said. [10]
After seeing the second crash on television, the two Loizeaux brothers tried, initially without success, to alert people to the danger. Mark Loizeaux told his colleagues, "Start calling all the cell phones; tell them that the building is going to come down." [11]
He wanted to contact the FDNY to tell it to pull its firefighters out of the Twin Towers. "I picked up the phone, dialed 411, got the number, and tried it," he recalled, but the line was busy. He then tried phoning the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management, in World Trade Center Building 7, but again was unsuccessful. "All circuits were busy; I couldn't get through," he said. [12] He was, though, able to contact a couple of members of the National Research Council committee that was involved in assessing the impact of explosives, to warn them about the impending collapses. [13]
Loizeaux has claimed, since 9/11, that the Twin Towers came down due to the damage they suffered from being hit by planes and the ensuing fires. [14] And yet, if this is what he believed, why did he promptly call members of a committee that was involved in assessing the impact of explosives, following the crashes at the World Trade Center? Might it have been because, in truth, he thought there were explosives in the towers that were going to be used to bring the buildings down?
POLICE CAPTAIN TOLD HIS MEN TO STAY OUT OF THE TWIN TOWERS, AS THEY COULD COLLAPSE
Captain Anthony Whitaker of the PAPD was one of several high-ranking officials who thought the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing on September 11. As the commanding officer at the World Trade Center, he was responsible for all PAPD officers assigned to the center. [15]
Two PAPD officers, Sergeant Quentin DeMarco and Daniel McCarthy, recalled Whitaker telling them the Twin Towers might collapse. DeMarco encountered Whitaker at the PAPD mobile command post, across the street from the North Tower, shortly before the first tower--the South Tower--came down. Whitaker told him that "no one is to enter the buildings," he said, because "they were structurally compromised and could collapse." [16]
McCarthy was also at the mobile command post at the time. He recalled that Whitaker arrived "and advised all members of the department who were present not to enter the building." Whitaker told his men: "That building is not stable. I don't want any more of our guys going in there." McCarthy commented that he "strongly" believed Whitaker "was instrumental in saving the lives of approximately 40 more police officers" by issuing this warning. [17]
After the South Tower came down, at 9:59 a.m., Whitaker warned people that the North Tower was also going to collapse. Joseph Morris, another senior PAPD officer, recalled that after the South Tower collapsed, Whitaker told his colleagues at the mobile command post, which was still parked across the street from the North Tower, "We have to get out of here." Morris asked, "Why?" and Whitaker replied, "The first tower came down and this [i.e. the North Tower] is going to come down too." [18]
Whitaker may have warned that the North Tower was going to collapse because he believed that since it was enduring the conditions--damage from a plane crash and fires--that apparently caused the South Tower to come down, the North Tower would likely suffer the same fate as the South Tower. But it is also possible that he issued the warning because he had foreknowledge that the North Tower was going to collapse.
POLICE CAPTAIN PROMPTLY ORDERED THE EVACUATION OF THE ENTIRE COMPLEX
Whitaker also exhibited considerable foresight by ordering the evacuation of every building in the World Trade Center complex in the time between Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower and Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower. This meant evacuating not just the Twin Towers, but also the five other buildings throughout the 16-acre complex.
Transcripts of PAPD radio channel communications show that Whitaker ordered an evacuation at 9:00 a.m., three minutes before Flight 175 hit the South Tower. He said over his radio, "Let's begin an evacuation of the entire complex." [19] But Whitaker has said he ordered the evacuation of the entire complex twice before the South Tower was hit. He first ordered an evacuation, according to his recollections, very shortly after the North Tower was hit--apparently around 8:48 a.m.
Whitaker was in the shopping mall beneath the Twin Towers when Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower, at 8:46 a.m. [20] He heard a "strange roar" and saw a "gigantic fireball" coming out of the lobby of the tower. He had "no idea what had just happened," he recalled, but he "knew it was bad." Although he was unaware that a plane had hit the North Tower, he promptly ordered an evacuation. He radioed the PAPD desk, in Building 5 of the World Trade Center, and "ordered the cop at the desk to begin a full-scale evacuation of the entire complex," he said. [21]
Whitaker recalled that shortly before the South Tower was hit, while he was standing outside the North Tower and assessing the scene, he contacted the PAPD desk again and ordered "for the second time to evacuate the entire complex." [22] (He was presumably describing issuing the order that transcripts of radio communications show him giving at 9:00 a.m.)
Although there were clearly exceptional circumstances at the time Whitaker ordered the evacuation of the World Trade Center complex, there are reasons to find Whitaker's actions unusual. To begin with, the order appears to have been quite a drastic measure. It meant evacuating "the mercantile exchange, offices of major investment banking concerns, and government agencies, including the FBI, the Secret Service, and the CIA," according to New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. "The consequences of such a decision would surely rattle through the highest levels of government and of the American free-market system," they wrote and commented, "Closing the Trade Center was not something anyone would dare order casually." [23]
Additionally, when Whitaker gave the order, it was unclear whether the crash at the North Tower was part of a terrorist attack or due to something else, such as an accident. And at the time, Whitaker had received no information suggesting there would be additional attacks in New York. Furthermore, according to Dwyer and Flynn, "The authority to order an evacuation during a fire normally rests with the [New York] Fire Department, acting through the building's fire safety directors." [24] This suggests that Whitaker may have been going against protocol when he ordered the evacuation of the complex.
Whitaker's astute and remarkably prompt decision to order the evacuation and thereby get people away from the vicinity of the Twin Towers may have been based simply on caution in an unprecedented crisis. It is worth considering, however, whether Whitaker made the decision because he knew the towers were going to be brought down that morning and he wanted to reduce how many people would be killed or injured when this happened.
It certainly appears that some people were surprised that he ordered the evacuation of the entire World Trade Center complex so soon after the first crash. "After 9/11, I was repeatedly asked, 'Why did you give that order to evacuate at that particular time?'" Whitaker recalled. His rather vague explanation was: "It just occurred to me that whatever was going on--and I still didn't know what that was--was beyond my ability as a commanding officer of that facility to do anything about it. So it seemed to me that the only prudent thing to do was start a full-scale evacuation and get everybody out of there." [25]
FIRE DEPARTMENT DRIVER ORDERED MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC TO GET AWAY FROM THE TWIN TOWERS
Peter Guidetti of the FDNY warned people, with conviction, that the Twin Towers were going to collapse before they came down. Although he was not himself a high-ranking official, Guidetti was the driver and personal aide of First Deputy Commissioner William Feehan, the second-highest official in the FDNY.
Guidetti was at FDNY headquarters when he was informed that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. He was soon required to drive Feehan and three other FDNY officials to the Trade Center. He parked a couple of blocks away from the North Tower. Then, while Feehan and the other officials set off toward the Trade Center, he stayed with their car.
Guidetti noticed members of the public around him who, he recalled, "just wanted to watch" the burning North Tower. He called out to them: "This building is coming down! Get out of here!" He later claimed he was unsure why he issued this warning. "Why I said that, I don't know," he commented. "I just really felt strongly about it."
Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower a short time later. Guidetti subsequently set off to try and find Feehan, so he could stay by his side and provide assistance if necessary. As he got nearer to the World Trade Center, he looked up at the burning South Tower. He recalled that he immediately thought the building was, like the North Tower, going to collapse. "Don't go any further," he said to himself. "This * building is coming down." Seconds later, the South Tower began to collapse.
Guidetti did not expect the Twin Towers to collapse completely, he has claimed. Instead, he said, he thought that "whatever was left above the plane crash in either tower would just give way and go this way, and come down into the street." [26]
FIRE CHIEF SAID, 'THESE BUILDINGS CAN COLLAPSE'
Deputy Chief Ray Downey was another member of the FDNY who warned that the Twin Towers might collapse. Thomas Von Essen, the New York City fire commissioner, recalled that when be passed Downey in the lobby of the North Tower, reportedly at around 9:20 a.m. on September 11, Downey turned to him and matter-of-factly said, "You know, these buildings can collapse." [27] Downey in fact issued this warning "to several people," according to FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon. [28]
However, whereas other people who warned that the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing have at least given the impression that they thought the buildings would come down due to the damage caused by the plane crashes and the ensuing fires, it appears that Downey suspected there were explosives in the towers that would be used to bring the buildings down. According to a book written by his nephew, before he encountered Von Essen, he checked in with the fire chiefs who were in charge at the World Trade Center and told them he was "worried about secondary devices in the towers, explosive devices that could hurt the firemen." [29] And Father John Delendick, an FDNY chaplain, recalled that when he met him after the South Tower collapsed, Downey said that "at that point he thought there were bombs up there [in the South Tower], because [its collapse] was too even." [30]
Downey, who was greatly respected by his colleagues in the FDNY, was tragically killed when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m. [31]
SENIOR FIREFIGHTERS DISCUSSED THE POSSIBILITY OF THE NORTH TOWER COLLAPSING
At least three senior firefighters who went to the lobby of the North Tower in response to the first crash discussed among themselves the possibility that the North Tower could collapse. However, these men reportedly only thought the upper floors of the tower--presumably the floors above where the plane hit--might collapse and they apparently did not issue any explicit warnings about the possible danger. It is therefore harder to assess whether their concern indicates that any of them had foreknowledge of the collapses of the Twin Towers.
Deputy Chief Peter Hayden, who had authority for the area of Manhattan in which the World Trade Center was located, helped set up and then presided over the command post in the lobby of the North Tower after Flight 11 crashed into the tower. [32] At the command post, he discussed the possibility of the North Tower collapsing with other senior firefighters. "We had a number of conferences with the staff chiefs about the possibility of collapse," he recalled. [33] "We discussed how much time we might have before the collapse and the amount of fire we had up there," he said. [34]
Assistant Chief Joseph Callan, the citywide tour commander, arrived in the lobby shortly after Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower and took command of operations in the North Tower. [35] At some point after he arrived, he asked Hayden if the senior firefighters in the lobby were "thinking of collapse." (Hayden replied: "Yeah, we have to. A plane just struck the building.") [36]
Callan recalled that subsequently, at around 9:30 a.m., he "made a decision that the building was no longer safe" and so he gave the order over radio for all fire department units to get out of the North Tower. [37] Among his reasons for giving the order, he said, "most importantly" was the fact that before he entered the lobby of the North Tower, he'd had "a good look at the plane crash damage and the extent of the fire on the upper floors," and he consequently "knew the building could collapse." [38]
Deputy Assistant Chief Albert Turi, the FDNY chief of safety, arrived in the lobby shortly after the second crash. After arriving, "he discussed his concern about collapse," according to Hayden. [39] Turi recalled that, shortly before the South Tower came down, he thought there was a danger of a collapse occurring in the North Tower. [40]
Hayden, Callan, and Turi were apparently only concerned about a localized or partial collapse occurring in the North Tower, rather than the entire building coming down. Hayden said the firefighters envisioned "a very limited type of collapse--the top 15 or 20 floors all folding in." [41] He said they believed there would be "a gradual collapse after a couple of hours of burning." [42] Turi, similarly, said he thought that "we would probably have some type of localized collapse up on the upper floors, especially in the core area of the building." He did not think there was any immediate danger. "I thought we would be pretty good for about three hours," he said. [43]
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stated, based on interviews with firefighters, that none of the FDNY officials in the lobby of the North Tower "envisioned the magnitude or the type of collapse that occurred" and added, "There was no discussion of a total collapse of the WTC buildings." [44] "I don't think anybody anticipated a total cataclysmic collapse like the one that occurred," Hayden commented. [45]
POLICE OFFICERS SAID THE TOWERS WERE GOING TO COLLAPSE
A few other emergency responders warned their colleagues or members of the public that the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing. However, due to the lack of detail in the accounts of their actions, it is sometimes difficult to assess whether these individuals might have had foreknowledge of the collapses.
Firefighter Richard Carletti arrived near the World Trade Center at around 9:15 a.m. on September 11 and noticed "a good 20 floors of fire in the South Tower." He turned to a colleague and told him, "This building is in danger of collapse." When he arrived at the command post a short time later, he told the fire chief there: "I think this building is in dire need. It's going to collapse." "In my opinion, I didn't think there was going to be a catastrophic collapse," Carletti has commented, "but from the fire load, there was no way." [46]
Sergeant Joseph Poland of the PAPD promptly headed to the World Trade Center after being informed that it had been hit by a plane. As he approached it, he looked up at the North Tower. He then told a superior who was with him that the tower "was missing the whole northeast corner" and "looks like it is going to collapse." [47]
Sergeant William Ross, another PAPD officer, was sent to the World Trade Center after the first crash. He arrived there at around 9:30 a.m. and saw both of the Twin Towers on fire. He recalled that a colleague of his, Sergeant Anthony Parlato, subsequently came up to him and the two men "started to discuss the possibility that the towers could come down." [48] Lieutenant John Murphy, also of the PAPD, went to the World Trade Center with Ross. Shortly before the South Tower collapsed, Ross said to him, "It's coming down." Murphy asked what was coming down and Ross replied, "The building." [49]
Two people recalled police officers warning members of the public that the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing. Shanthy Nambiar, a reporter, and Father James Nieckarz, a Catholic priest, were standing outside World Trade Center Building 7 shortly before the South Tower came down. "A couple of policemen came along," Nieckarz described. They were shouting to the people on the street: "Everyone run to the north. The tower is shaking and may come down." Nambiar recalled apparently the same incident, stating, "Police officers ordered people to start fleeing the area, saying the towers were in danger of collapse." [50] The New York Times described what appears to have been the same event. Before the South Tower collapsed, it reported, "Police officers warned people in the vicinity [of the Twin Towers] to move north, that the buildings could fall." [51] Whether the police officers who issued the warning belonged to the New York City Police Department or the PAPD is unstated.
HIGH-RISES SUFFERED MAJOR FIRES BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11 WITHOUT COLLAPSING
The foresight displayed by the experts and emergency responders who thought the Twin Towers were going to collapse before the buildings came down is particularly curious because there was a significant amount of information, which was well known, that clearly indicated that the towers should have withstood the plane crashes and the fires they suffered on September 11.
To begin with, steel-framed skyscrapers, like the Twin Towers, had previously suffered major fires without collapsing. In fact, as the New York Times reported, before 9/11, "no ... modern, steel-reinforced high-rise had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire." [52] This fact would surely have been known to many firefighters and experts. "[A]ny experienced fire chief knew that no high-rise had ever collapsed from fire in the United States" before September 11, Newsweek commented. [53]
Major high-rise fires before 9/11 included a fire in May 1988 at the First Interstate Bank building in Los Angeles--a 62-story high-rise--that burned for three and a half hours. [54] More than 120 firefighters responded to the incident and five of the building's floors sustained major fire damage. [55] All the same, the building remained standing.
And in February 1991, One Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia--a 38-story high-rise--suffered a fire that lasted 19 hours. [56] Over 300 firefighters responded to the incident and nine of the building's floors were burned out by the fire. [57] It was "one of the worst high-rise fires in history," according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. [58] But, again, the building remained standing.
A report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency noted that during these two fires, the buildings' steel columns "remained intact and sustained their load-carrying ability." [59] NIST described the two incidents as examples of "excellent overall structural integrity under adverse fire conditions." [60]
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER SURVIVED A MAJOR FIRE IN 1975
The World Trade Center in fact suffered a major fire before 9/11 without any floors collapsing. The fire started late on the night of February 13, 1975, on the 11th floor of the North Tower. It spread through unprotected floor openings in the utility closets down to the 9th floor and up to the 19th floor. [61]
A total of 132 firefighters fought the blaze and it took them three hours to put the fire out. [62] (In contrast, the fires in the Twin Towers on September 11 burned for 56 minutes and 1 hour 42 minutes before the buildings collapsed.) It was "a hot and stubborn fire to extinguish," W. Robert Powers, an investigator for the New York Board of Fire Underwriters, commented. [63] One firefighter said tackling it was "like fighting a blowtorch." [64]
While the damage to most of the floors affected by the fire was confined to the utility closets, about 9,000 square feet of the contents on the 11th floor were destroyed or damaged. This was around 21 percent of the total area of the floor. [65] And yet the fire caused only minor structural damage. Specifically, four of the large steel trusses that supported the concrete floor were slightly buckled. [66] "There was no threat that the building would collapse," the New York Times noted. [67]
THE TWIN TOWERS WERE DESIGNED TO WITHSTAND BEING HIT BY A LARGE AIRLINER
Not only should the Twin Towers have survived the fires they endured on September 11, they should also have withstood being hit by the planes that crashed into them. Engineers conducted two studies while the towers were being designed, which both concluded that the buildings would survive being hit by a Boeing 707--the largest commercial aircraft in operation at the time--without collapsing.
The studies were performed by Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, the engineering firm that designed the Twin Towers. The first of them, conducted sometime before February 3, 1964, when its results were published in a white paper, considered the possible damage a Boeing 707 flying into one of the towers at 600 miles per hour would cause. The white paper reported: "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." The study in fact determined that the tower would have "a huge margin of reserve strength to help [it] survive the initial impact" of the plane, New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton wrote. [68]
The study found that the tightly spaced columns above the damage, connected to each other by spandrel plates, would spontaneously form an arch over the hole created by the plane. This arch would be so effective at strengthening the damaged structure that, according to Glanz and Lipton, "all the columns on one side of a tower could be cut, as well as the two corners and several columns on the adjacent sides, and the tower would still be strong enough to withstand 100-mile-per-hour winds." [69]
The second study was carried out by Leslie Robertson, the lead structural engineer of the Twin Towers, who worked for Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, and is believed to have been conducted shortly after August 1964. Robertson calculated the effect of a Boeing 707 crashing into one of the towers at 180 miles per hour. He determined that the building would remain standing despite the force of the impact and the hole that would be created. [70]
The Boeing 707 is only slightly smaller than the Boeing 767--the type of aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11. It is 153 feet long and has a wingspan of 146 feet, whereas the Boeing 767 is 159 feet long and has a wingspan of 156 feet. [71] Flight 11 and Flight 175 crashed into the Twin Towers at around 440 miles per hour and 540 miles per hour, respectively, according to NIST--faster than the speed used in the second study but slower than the speed used in the first. [72]
EXPERTS SAID THE TWIN TOWERS WOULD SURVIVE BEING HIT BY A PLANE
John Skilling, the partner in charge at Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, discussed his firm's studies in an interview in 1993. "Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel [from the plane] would dump into the building," he said. "There would be a horrendous fire; a lot of people would be killed." But, he said, "The building structure would still be there." [73]
Leslie Robertson mentioned the findings of the studies at an event that took place in the week before 9/11. During a question-and-answer session at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, he was asked what he had done to protect the Twin Towers from terrorist attacks. "I designed [the World Trade Center] for a 707 to smash into it," he answered. [74]
Other experts made comments consistent with the findings of the studies. Architect Frank De Martini, the construction manager of the World Trade Center, when interviewed in January 2001 for a documentary about the Twin Towers, said, "The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it." Furthermore, he said: "I believe that the [Twin Towers] probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners, because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door--this intense grid--and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting." [75] De Martini's wife has commented, "One of [Frank De Martini's] most repeated sayings about the towers is that they were built to take the impact of a light airplane." [76]
De Martini's opinion is notable because De Martini had an exceptional knowledge of the World Trade Center. He "loved the [World Trade Center] and he knew it like no one else," Rick Zottola, a structural engineer who knew him, commented. [77] According to the New Yorker, "[F]ew people knew the [Twin Towers'] strength and resilience" better than De Martini did. [78] His brother recalled that he "would go into great detail about how the building was designed, its history ... to the slightest nuances of its architecture and strengths." [79]
Charles Thornton, described by the New York Times as one of "the world's most renowned engineers," said the Twin Towers would be able to survive being hit by a Boeing 747--a plane two and a half times bigger than a Boeing 707. Interviewed for a television documentary, he said, "The largest aircraft flying today, at least commercially, the 747, fully loaded, is on the order of 300 tons." He continued: "So if you think about a 300-ton element crashing into a building that's been designed to carry 13,000 tons, you can see that an aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center would probably not do anything to the major building. It could affect localized structural elements, could knock out a column, and there could be some damage. But as far as a plane knocking a building over of that type, that would not happen." [80]
FIREFIGHTERS BELIEVED THE TOWERS WOULD SURVIVE BEING HIT BY A PLANE
It is curious that some members of the FDNY thought the Twin Towers were in danger of collapsing on September 11, since many New York firefighters knew the towers had been designed to withstand being hit by a large airliner. John Peruggia recalled, "We were all told years ago [that] it was made to be hit by an airplane." He had attended presentations after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in which he was told about the strength of the towers. At the presentations, he said: "We were always told by everyone, the experts, that these buildings could withstand direct hits from airplanes. That's the way they were designed." [81]
Evidence suggests that other emergency responders in New York, such as members of the PAPD, may also have been told the towers had been designed to withstand being hit by a large aircraft. Specifically, Joseph Poland of the PAPD recalled that as he was approaching the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, his colleague, Inspector Anthony Infante, told him the Twin Towers "would withstand a plane crashing into them and the [North Tower] would never collapse." [82]
Even members of the public could learn this information. Britain's Daily Telegraph reported in September 2001, "Sightseers at the [Twin Towers] over the past few years would have seen a reassuring information panel at the top floor visitors' center, explaining how they should not worry about plane crashes as the building was made to withstand them." [83]
MOST ENGINEERS THOUGHT THE TWIN TOWERS WOULD REMAIN STANDING ON SEPTEMBER 11
It is also curious that a few men with relevant expertise, like Mark Loizeaux, thought the Twin Towers were going to collapse, since it appears that most experts were sure that the buildings would remain standing after they saw the towers had been hit by planes on the morning of September 11. "In the first moments after the attacks, engineers confidently predicted that the towers would stand because of their tightly bunched perimeter columns," Knight Ridder reported. "The notion was that several columns could be lost but that the structures would remain standing." [84] "Perhaps no eyewitnesses were more shocked [at the collapses] than the engineers who understood the structural details that made the buildings nigh invincible," one reporter commented. [85]
Charles Thornton, who was in downtown Manhattan when the 9/11 attacks occurred, recalled that when he saw a plane had crashed into one of the Twin Towers, his first thought had been: "It isn't so bad. It's only the top 12 floors." When he saw the towers collapse, he "couldn't believe it," he said. [86] Joseph Burns, a partner at Thornton's firm, Thornton-Tomasetti Engineers, said on September 11: "I'm in absolute shock over the whole thing. [The Twin Towers] just came straight down. I've seen buildings collapse like that, but they are buildings set for demolition." [87]
Leslie Robertson--a man who helped design the Twin Towers--was in Hong Kong when the attacks occurred and followed events on television. "I didn't think the towers would fall," he has commented. "As designed, the weight of the floors above where the planes had hit was being transferred around the holes to the columns below." [88] Richard Garlock, a structural engineer at Robertson's firm, Leslie E. Robertson Associates, was standing outside the towers after the second hijacked plane crashed and looked up to assess the damage. "My immediate thoughts were that [the World Trade Center] was heavily damaged but that it was still standing," he recalled. "At that point in time, I did not feel that it was going to collapse," he said. [89]
Jon Magnusson, who worked for John Skilling's engineering firm and was "one of the nation's top experts on tall buildings," according to the Seattle Times, recalled that after the first hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center, "about 20 engineers gathered in a conference room in the firm's office to watch the catastrophe unfold." Among the engineers in the room, Magnusson said, "nobody predicted the buildings would collapse." [90]
Architect Roger Morse, who investigated the fireproofing in the Twin Towers between the early 1990s and June 2000, said that he "never imagined the buildings would collapse" on September 11. [91] Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials engineering and engineering systems, was asked in an interview: "After the planes struck [the World Trade Center] and you saw those raging fires, did you think the towers would collapse?" He replied: "No. In fact, I was surprised. So were most structural engineers." [92]
A reporter with the New Yorker, while conducting research for an article about the World Trade Center, talked to "dozens of people ... who are experts in the construction of tall buildings." Out of these people, the reporter wrote, "only one said that he knew immediately, upon learning from TV of the planes hitting the buildings, that the towers were going to fall." That person was Mark Loizeaux, whose anomalous response to the crashes is described in this article. All the other experts presumably assumed the Twin Towers would remain standing. [93]
(Continued in next post.)
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