Re-posted from 9-16: Palindromedary - I wanted to re-post my comments that include an analysis of why and how the towers cam down, because I posted so late you might have missed it.

Palindromedary - here is a copy of the transcripts from the investigation conducted for Congress by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. You were right about the main support beams and this report explains what happened and what caused the towers to fall. This information was copied from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/world-trade-center-collapse.html This report supports what I believe happened on 9/11 to the twin towers. Ken Ware.

SECTION 1: THE INVESTIGATION

SHAYM SUNDER: I'm Shyam Sunder. I am the lead investigator for the World Trade Center investigation that was conducted by the National Institute of Standards in Technology.

In many typical investigations, you have a partially collapsed building standing there that can be looked at by engineers.

In the case of the World Trade Center towers, the buildings had collapsed. And also there was an immediate need for search and rescue of people who might have been buried under the rubble. So there was also a need to clear the site as quickly as possible. It's very unusual that the evidence is so completely scattered, and that made our investigation a lot more complicated.

We realized that we had to model the complete aircraft impact. We had to model the evolution of the fires over the next hour, or hour and half. We had to model how the steel weakened as a result of the high temperatures. And lastly, we had to model the progression of failures-- local failures in the structure, which then led to the overall initiation of collapse. Each of these stages had very sophisticated models that were validated using the photographic evidence we have, validated using laboratory experiments that we conducted. And validated, ultimately, based on how the buildings actually collapsed using videos.

SECTION 2: IMPACT

Through a fairly sophisticated analysis of the video information, we were able to determine the airplane speed, direction of the airplane, and the orientation of the airplane as each of the airplanes impacted each of the buildings.

The north tower was hit at 8:46 by a 767-200 extended range airplane, between the 93rd and the 99th floor. The airplane was flying at about 550 miles an hour, with a total weight of somewhere on the order of 283,000 pounds.

The second building to be hit, which was hit 16 minutes later, was hit on the south face of the south tower. Again by a 767-200 extended range airplane, but this time between floors 77 and 85.

And one of the questions that comes out from looking at this information is how is it here we have two seemingly similar buildings—they were called Twin Towers—and they were hit by nearly identical airplane, but how come one building lasted for 102 minutes, the other building lasted for 56 minutes, which is nearly a factor of two.

SECTION 3: IMMEDIATE DAMAGE

On the outside of the buildings, on the perimeter, there were about 59 to 60 columns on each face. The first thing that happened as the airplanes went through the dense grid of column is that they got disintegrated by the columns, which acted like knife edges. Pieces of the airplane actually came out from the other end. For example, we had landing gear come out from the south side of building one, and we had an engine component come out from the northeast corner of building two.

The debris that was generated by the airplanes covered nearly between four and six floors of the buildings. Of course, in addition to the debris, we also had jet fuel that was dispersed in that region.

On the interior, in the core of the building, these buildings had 47 columns-- fairly massive columns inside. In the case of building one, six of the columns were severed and three of them were heavily damaged. In the case of building two, 10 of them were severed, and one was heavily damaged.

What is very important to note is that in the case of building two, that damage to the core was heavily in the southeast corner. So, it's like looking at a three or four legged stool, and essentially taking out one leg. Inherently, the second building was a lot more unstable than the first building, and one of the key reasons why the second building collapsed much faster.

SECTION 4: INFERNO

A number of factors contributed to having a very large, multi-floor fire that was uncontrollable. First and foremost, the sprinkler system was not functional, because the water supply to the sprinkler system was damaged by the airplane impacts.

We had dispersion of very large amounts of jet fuel through multiple floors, igniting fires through a large segment of all of those floors, which is very, very unusual.

Most of the jet fuel was burned in a matter of a few minutes-- maybe five or six minutes, but certainly less than ten minutes. Furthermore, about a third of the jet fuel actually burned outside the building, as a result of the fire balls.

So, what really was burning for the next hour or hour and a half was the everyday contents of the buildings. The workstations, the computers, the paper, the carpets and so forth.

In building one, the fires moved from location to location, every 20 minutes, consuming the combustibles in any given location. And as long as the windows kept breaking to provide the air that was needed for combustion, the fire kept propagating. Toward the end of the period when the buildings were about to collapse, the fires were actually on the south side of the building. And it's the south side of the building that played a key role in the collapse.

In the case of building two, a significant amount of the combustible debris was piled up on the east face of the building. And therefore, there was a persisting fire in the same location for a very, very long time. And the second reason for the early collapse of the second building was really this persisting fire on the east face of the building.

SECTION 5: COLLAPSE

The World Trade Center towers would likely not have collapsed under the combined effects of aircraft impact damage, and the extensive multi-floor fires if the fireproofing had not been widely dislodged by the aircraft impact.

What was applied to these buildings was spray-applied fireproofing. And the use of this kind of fireproofing for the floor system, the floor trusses, was very unusual.

When you heat steel up, and particularly when there's no fireproofing, the steel tends to soften, and loses strength and stiffness. It becomes very much like play dough.

In addition to the columns weakening, the floors that were in the vicinity of those faces also weakened. And as a result of that, the floors sagged. And the sagging of the floors actually helped pull the external columns inward. And caused an inward bowing of the external columns. That is captured in photographs.

What then happened after the inward bowing is there was a stage at which a critical amount of inward bowing took place, and the columns snapped. And essentially the columns, once they snapped, the inwardly-bowed columns suddenly sprung back and out. And once that happened, the top mass, that rigid mass of somewhere on the order of 10 to 20 floors just started moving downward.

And the structure below, because of the fracturing of the columns just before it, that had snapped, was unable to withstand the energy that was released.

The primary reason for the collapse was the fact that you had massive airplane damage. A massive amount of fireproofing that was dislodged, and a really huge fire, that all three combined initiated the collapse. There was no one particular event that played a more significant role. It was a combination of events that led to a general system collapse of the building.

SECTION 6: SAFER BUILDINGS

Our investigations are geared toward fact finding, and they're geared toward enhancing safety of buildings in the future. They're not geared toward fault finding. However, what I am able to say is that we did not find a deficiency in the building, in terms of the building being inconsistent with the New York City building codes, in a way that influenced the outcome of 9/11.

We made 30 recommendations as a result of the investigation. Both in the area of structural design, and in the area of evacuation and emergency response, we can make considerable improvements with minimal investment. And the return is going to be exceedingly high for those minimal investments. Particularly since, when we are dealing with tall buildings, we're dealing with the lives of a very large number of people.

Palin - If you Google the Twin Towers you find several more articles that support the findings listed above. I wanted to show how there are people on both sides that have different opinions of how and why the Towers did not withstand the attack from the two airliners crashing into them at full throttle. I respect your theory and it is backed by very educated individuals as is the theory that I posted from the report the N.I.S.T. gave to Congress. Have a good day. K.W.

I truly hope this stupid action with the attempt to kill or harm our elected officials is not the beginning of some, “home grown" terrorists attempt to make a statement using violence. As I have stated earlier, the end result of such actions will just drive our government to become more vigilant in taking away our civil rights in the name of safety. If the Boston bombing and the poison letters are linked, this could be the beginning of senseless violence in our country and will accomplish nothing. When the government feels threatened they have a habit of biting back and innocent people could be bitten in any attempt by the government to protect itself. It is a time for rational minds, not mindless attempts of violence against our people and our government. I can already here the conspiracy theorists begin to see a conspiracy by the government to further tighten its grip on our freedoms. I am not addressing my comment towards Palindromedary, I just want to make that clear that I understand and respect your opinion concerning the terrorist acts that have taken place and I am not pointing my finger at anyone who comments on this blog. K.W. I apologize for posting so many comments on today’s blog by Hartmann. It can get old to see the same person commenting over and over on the same day!

Well, Ken, I'm not going to repost my replies from yesterday. Anyone interested can just go there and read them.

And, I certainly had no need to reread your post from yesterday...that NIST piece is really an attempt to distract people from the truth because it really said nothing useful.

If you want to read useful things go to these web sites. http://www.ae911truth.org
http://pilotsfor911truth.org
http://www.stj911.org/
http://www.911truth.org/

Be sure to read the piece "Another Terror Attack; Another Terror Drill" at http://www.911truth.org

NIST...brought to you by the same government that wants to steal your Social Security! Keep on believin' that dogma, Ken. Whatever makes you feel better.

I thought by now even back woods dumb $hits knew that even mid level exes. don't open their own mail.

Mail to the Pres. and congress is opened by low level postal and F.B.I way away from the Capital.

Is this a governmrnt ploy to grab more control?

Ken Ware wrote ~ " K.W. I apologize for posting so many comments on today’s blog by Hartmann. It can get old to see the same person commenting over and over on the same day!"

Don't apologize Ken! Ha! I for one never get enough of you.

For numbers nuts.

The Iraq Body Count Project that took place over 2003-2012 estimated a total of 172,907 Iraqi casualties in the Iraq war. A war that was the direct result of a conspiracy of the US Government to control Middle Eastern Oil Fields.

It is a known fact that no one in Iraq had anything to do with 9/11.

3,000 innocent American people lost their lives in 9/11.

The total capacity of the Oakland Coliseum during a sold out Raiders game is 53,200.

Therefore the casualties of this bogus war amount to over three sold out Oakland Coliseum Raider's games stacked one on top of the other. The sound of one sold out game of happy Oakland Raider's fans is deafening. Imagine the deafening screaming for justice of over three such sold out coliseums stacked one on top of the other with 172,907 innocent Iraqi casualties of an illegal war.

How do we as Americans justify the loss of 3,000 people and argue about the cause of the event when we know why 172,907 innocent people where slaughtered and do nothing about it?

Are we morally incompetent as well as blood thirsty?

DAnneMarc asks: Why do we do nothing about the 172,907 innocent Iraqi casualties? It's called enthnocentrism on steroids. It was the same characteristic held by slaveholders in the deep south. Dehumanize the situation and moral standards go right out the window. Yes, preemptive war for profit qualifys as being morally incompetent...........but as usual the god almighty power of big money rules.

Palindromedary wrote ~ "Ricin a Roni..the San Francisco treat."

I must say, Palindromedary you kill me. Pardon the pun. But actually, I saw a local news cast that had a close up of the battery held by a reporter that was stationed in front of the "alleged" company that manufactured the battery. They invited us back for an interview where they would ask representatives how they feel after their battery was used in such a manner. I almost fell off my chair laughing at such an inane topic. Our media is so vacuous and pretentious.

DANNEMARC...What if instead of stacking them (3 sold out Raders games), we just put them side by side. I think it would be easier to do structurally!?!? ;)

Most Americans are okay with the blood of innocent lives lost...They accept it as Collateral Damage. Its part of our American Ideology. That is until it happens to us; but even then no one wants to take any real responsability...The kind that takes courage, disapline, and sacrafice...A willingness to die rather than kill. Which in no way implies being suicidal. Quite the opposite.
The immediate days that followed Sept. 11th 2001 our country was in a state of mental chaos and emotional hysteria, and the government via the media capitalized on this. Instead of first taking a moment to take a deep breath and allow the rise of anger and rage to go back down, which is the "rational" thing to do - We allowed impulsive behaviours to take the wheel on the Revenge Band Wagon. Very few Americans every asked the question "What caused this to happen?" Sure many asked Who! looking for someone to blame; and the one that was easiest to accept during such a chaotic moment was "Hate for Americans and our Freedom by a group of Middle Eastern Radicals"...Which, at best, was only a half truth.
There were only a few political/public figures that spoke up...Warning the American public that it would be more devistating than good to seek revenge; that we must not act hastey, but rather it would be better to act Diplomatic and get to the heart of the matter.
Of course anyone talking this way was considered Anti-American...Having sympathy for terrorist...Part of the problem. And with that...Here we are! No more secure than pre 9/11; in fact in many ways we are less secure, in grave debt, and less liked globally.

Personally I feel that our countries problems begin with the disregard to the Natives that occupied this land loooong before any white bread elitist showed up. America's history is stained in blood and our reputation is tarnished with bigotry...How the fuck are we the poster child for Equality, Democracy, Peace!?!? We can't peacefully get along with each other!

I don't think they want government small enough to drown in the bathtub so much as they want government just small enough to fit in your underwear.