The official story expects us to believe that these alleged nineteen on-board hijackers (acting with military coordination and precision) overpowered the flight attendants (with nothing more than boxcutters and shouted commands), forced their way into the cabin (were all eight official pilots absorbed in contemplation of the clouds?), overpowered the pilots (apparently none of them, some ex-military, could offer any resistance to hijackers armed only with boxcutters), took command of the planes, having acquired the necessary flying skills from training courses and flight manuals, flew them expertly to their targets (good navigators, those Arabs; and flying with the skill of a trained military pilot in the case of the jet which, allegedly, hit the Pentagon), met absolutely no opposition from the U.S. authorities (including the U.S. Air Force) responsible for safeguarding America's airspace (despite the fact that the Pentagon jet was in the air for nearly an hour after the first impact), hit those targets and killed themselves. Sure. And pigs can fly. - Anyone who would believe this story (after thinking about it) obviously has nothing between their ears.
Clearly the towers did not collapse because of the plane impacts alone, because both towers stood for 45 to 90 minutes after impact. The official explanation, parroted faithfully by the mainstream media, is that the towers collapsed because burning jet fuel caused the steel girders supporting them to melt. Let us examine this hypothesis as to its credibility.
Much (perhaps, in the case of the second impact, as much as two-thirds) of the jet fuel was consumed immediately in the fireballs which erupted when the planes hit the towers. Furthermore, according to one FEMA investigator (Jonathan Barnett), most of the jet fuel which managed to enter the towers was consumed within ten minutes.
The Twin Towers were giving off a lot of black sooty smoke, but there was little fire visible. But to melt steel you need the high temperature produced by, e.g., an oxy-acetylene torch. Jet fuel burning in air (especially in an enclosed space within a building, where there is much smoke and little available oxygen) just won't do it. And if the steel columns had melted, would this have produced the implosive collapse observed? If the columns had melted it is unlikely that the resulting structural weakness would be completely symmetrical (as required when a building collapses upon itself in a controlled demolition). Irregularity in an uncontrolled collapse would have produced the kind of collapse in which concrete and steel girders would have rained down over a wide area (causing huge damage to the surrounding buildings in lower Manhattan and many fatalities among their occupants). This did not happen. These considerations (and others, given below, concerning the probable maximum temperature of the fire) show that the claim that thousands of liters of burning jet fuel produced a raging inferno and caused the steel columns to melt is extremely dubious, and does not account for the collapse of the towers.
Examination of the times of the events of September 11th provides further evidence that it was not the fires that caused the Twin Towers to collapse. The North Tower was hit first, at 8:45 a.m. The plane (or some object, not necessarily a large passenger jet) hit the tower directly, in the center, and a huge explosion immediately followed the impact. Then at 9:03 a.m. the South Tower was hit, but whoever was controlling the plane did not manage a direct hit; rather the plane hit the tower toward a corner and at a shallow angle, and comparatively little of the jet fuel entered the building, most being consumed in the fireball (click on the image at left for further photographic evidence).
Since the plane and its fuel initially shared a common trajectory, after impact the metallic components of the plane followed much the same path as the jet fuel. This path was through one corner of the South Tower. The steel beams bearing most of the load were located in the center of the tower, and thus most of the metal from the plane would not have hit the central steel beams, which would thus have remained largely undamaged by the impact.
Thus neither the plane impact nor the fire damaged the South Tower sufficiently to account for its collapse, so the South Tower collapsed from some other cause.
The fire in the South Tower was thus less intense than that in the North Tower. But the South Tower collapsed first, at 9:59 a.m., 56 minutes after impact, whereas the North Tower collapsed at 10:29 a.m., 1 hour and 44 minutes after impact. Had the fires been the cause of the collapse then the North Tower, with its more intense fire, would have collapsed first. Or, put another way, had the fires been the cause of the collapse then the South Tower, hit after the North Tower, and subjected to a less intense fire, would have collapsed after (not before) the North Tower collapsed.
Examination of the times of the events of September 11th provides further evidence that it was not the fires that caused the Twin Towers to collapse. The North Tower was hit first, at 8:45 a.m. The plane (or some object, not necessarily a large passenger jet) hit the tower directly, in the center, and a huge explosion immediately followed the impact. Then at 9:03 a.m. the South Tower was hit, but whoever was controlling the plane did not manage a direct hit; rather the plane hit the tower toward a corner and at a shallow angle, and comparatively little of the jet fuel entered the building, most being consumed in the fireball (click on the image at left for further photographic evidence).
Since the plane and its fuel initially shared a common trajectory, after impact the metallic components of the plane followed much the same path as the jet fuel. This path was through one corner of the South Tower. The steel beams bearing most of the load were located in the center of the tower, and thus most of the metal from the plane would not have hit the central steel beams, which would thus have remained largely undamaged by the impact.
Thus neither the plane impact nor the fire damaged the South Tower sufficiently to account for its collapse, so the South Tower collapsed from some other cause.
The fire in the South Tower was thus less intense than that in the North Tower. But the South Tower collapsed first, at 9:59 a.m., 56 minutes after impact, whereas the North Tower collapsed at 10:29 a.m., 1 hour and 44 minutes after impact. Had the fires been the cause of the collapse then the North Tower, with its more intense fire, would have collapsed first. Or, put another way, had the fires been the cause of the collapse then the South Tower, hit after the North Tower, and subjected to a less intense fire, would have collapsed after (not before) the North Tower collapsed.
Cont ...