First, a recapitulation. At 8.15 am on the 11th of September 2001, the first report of a series of aircraft hijackings came in. Half an hour later, the 110-floor high North Tower was hit by an aircraft, which tore a gaping hole between the 94th and 98th floors. A fire broke out on these floors. Seventeen minutes later another large aircraft hit the South Tower. Burning jet fuel created a huge fireball that was broadcast live on TV. Most of the jet fuel was consumed within the space of a few seconds, the rest within15 minutes. The fire on the office floors continued but the towers remained standing and the fire services ascended. Almost an hour after the South Tower was hit, it suddenly collapsed and disintegrated in a massive cloud of dust. The same fate befell the North Tower at 10:28 am. The authorities attributed the towers’ collapse to the buildings’ fire-weakened steel infrastructure. If this indeed were the cause, it would be the first time in history that such buildings had collapsed due to fire and/or collision with an aircraft. The probability that a historic precedent was set is hardly increased by the fact that three World Trade Center buildings fell that day. The third building, World Trade Center 7, which collapsed around 5pm was not even hit by an aircraft. When they were constructed, the towers were designed to withstand collision with the largest commercial aircraft in existence.
The hijacked planes which crashed into them on September 11 - Boeing 767-200’s - were only marginally larger. The towers were solidly constructed around a core of 47 central steel box-columns and 240 steel columns in the outer walls, all connected by horizontal steel beams. All three buildings fell straight down and completely symmetrically. The plane crashes and fires were asymmetric and therefore could not cause symmetric damage to the buildings. The symmetrical collapse would suggest that all the steel columns were equally and simultaneously damaged. It took just 15-17 seconds - close to freefall speed - for each of the Twin Towers to collapse. Dust clouds and shards of steel shot out in all directions. The towers disappeared, wrapped in enormous dust clouds that poured out like eruptions from a volcano. The dust was composed of concrete and other non-metallic substances from the towers. The steel infrastructure was not pulverized but fell in discrete sections. When the dust settled the towers were gone. Only rubble and pieces of steel remained at the height of a few floors. The area surrounding the World Trade Center was covered in up to several inches of pulverized - almost flour-like - concrete and gypsum. These descriptions are partly based on high-definition photographs collected by Hufschmid. BUT HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN? Gravity cannot transform falling concrete into powder.
Many were quick to suggest therefore that the towers were demolished by explosives. But can this be proven? The remnants of the steel construction could have provided vital evidence. The debris was collected and transported from the site without undergoing thorough analysis. This took place over three months of clean-up work during which there was no documentation of evidence. The steel was cut up and shipped to China for recycling. Firefighters who had heard explosions before the towers fell, were denied testimony before the 9/11 Commission. A reporter from NBC was also excluded. On September 11th’s morning programme he reported that the fire service’s head of security believed bombs had been planted in the towers - this report was only broadcast once. Many more accounts of explosions were broadcast in the first few hours after the attacks, but were not followed up by the media. Throughout the autumn of 2001, the New York Fire Department collected oral testimonies from 500 firefighters and rescue personnel about their experiences of 9/11. These testimonies were only publicly released after the New York Times and families of the victims requested their publication. It took almost four years of court proceedings to obtain the release of these eye-witness accounts, which were then published in the New York Times on 12 August 2005: Many witnesses had heard more than one explosion before the towers fell.
A firefighter who was in the North Tower, said that they had heard approximately ten explosions from the South Tower and had then realised that the building was about to collapse. Another firefighter who was outside the North Tower, said: “I heard 3 loud explosions. I look up and the north tower is coming down now. At first I thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear "Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop"? That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that.” A third said it looked as if the building was exploding in all four directions: “We actually heard the pops,” and a fourth claimed: “there were definitely bombs in those buildings..many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” Many other testimonies include details which provide grounds to believe a controlled demolition with explosives took place. These statements were taken long before Hufschmid and others reached the same logical conclusion. DURING THE CLEAN-UP, large quantities of molten metal were found in the basement floors under the rubble from the three buildings. It has been well documented that some of this molten metal continued to smoulder for several weeks after the event. The structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center Towers reported that fires in the debris continued to burn 21 days after the attacks and that he saw running streams of molten steel. Another reported the discovery of molten steel in pockets uncovered later that autumn.
The molten metal aroused the interest of Steven E. Jones – a highly respected professor of physics and astronomy at the Brigham Young University in Utah, (see also main article), specialising in metal-catalysed fusion. A colour photograph in the official technical report (FEMA 2002) shows molten metal being removed by a bulldozer from the ruins of the North tower’s basement. This photograph became a vital component of Jones’ investigation. With his metallurgic expertise he was able to determine that the metal’s temperature must have been higher than 1500 degrees Celsius. It is immediately clear that such temperatures that are maintained for weeks could not have been caused by jet fuel or fires in the offices. In fact Professor Jones discovered a number of further indications suggesting the use of thermite-like explosives combined with sulphur. Such a combination can generate temperatures over 2500 degrees Celsius and the chemical reactions can continue long after the actual explosion. Jones presented his findings in a university seminar last autumn and further elaborated upon them in a meeting of Utah’s Science Academy shortly before Easter. Professor Jones believes that the towers were subjected to a controlled demolition with pre-placed explosives. In the controlled demolition of steel reinforced buildings, the explosives are placed in such a way as to cut up the steel structure. This method requires meticulous planning and the kind of expertise possessed only by specialised companies.
Eric Hufschmid. Painful Questions. An Analysis of the September 11th Attack. 2002. Painful Deceptions DVD 2004. http://erichufschmid.net Jim Hoffman. http://www.911research.wtc7.net and http://www.911Review.com http://www.911Review.com continuously updated.
David Ray Griffin. The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot be True. I (eds)
Paul Zarembka. The hidden History of 9-11-2001. Research in Political Economy, vol 23. Elsevier 2006. http://sciencedirect.com/science/bookseries/01617230
Steven E. Jones. Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse, 2005. http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/