Did anyone else notice this in the WTC footage?

[MagicalSilverKey]

I absolutely know that I saw this, but not many I have talked to, have spotted it. Did anyone here see this?

Sep. 11, I saw a shot of the gaping hole where the plane went into one of towers, where it had been burning inside for nearly an hour. It was a tight zoom shot, and I could clearly see that the many of the steel columns inside the hole were literally glowing red-hot.

I haven't seen that particular shot since. (FYI&FWIW: I was watching it all on MSNBC that day)

Please tell me I'm not nuts. If I saw, what I saw, it's no wonder the towers fell.

[Silver Fire]

Well, I didn't see it but you have to remember that the heat from burning fuel was more than 1500°F. That's pretty hot, so you can expect the steel to be red hot. Also, that IS the reason the towers fell. They (basically) melted.

:shrugs:

[Daowajan]

I'm glad someone else saw that. I figured the building was on fire at first.

[vandal]

You're not nuts, MSK. The steel columns were in fact glowing red-hot. Jet fuel burns hot, hotter than usual. The building collapsed not as a result of the impact, but as a result of the weakened columns from the intense heat.

[Liberal]

Does anyone know why the buildings fell straight down, rather than falling over?

[Bluepony]

Very much like a planned building demolition, if the support structures or frame is taken out, then the weight of the building collapses on itself.

[MagicalSilverKey]

Originally posted by Libertarian
Does anyone know why the buildings fell straight down, rather than falling over?

Actually, at least ONE of the towers DID fall over. I have a tv guide with a still of the split second it began to collapse, and the portion above the hole, is clearly toppling at a pretty significant angle.

[dropzone]

Yes, but since gravity is pulling it straight down its overall tendency will be to fall straight down.

[Tranquilis]

Not quite like a controlled demotition. The towers partly "peeled" (like a banana), and partly pancaked. Once the first set of columns collapsed, the floor below couldn't take the load+impact, and pancaked, and so on, progressively and more rapidly. Imagine standing on a stiff board placed between two chairs, one that just holds your weight, but no more than that. Now, jusmp up a little into the air: When you land again, the board will break, allowing you to fall. That's essentially what happened to the floors that pancaked. Because there was no control on the collapse, some of the debris fell out over the side of the building, pulling the outside structure with it. As this mass of debris grew, it expanded outwards, so some debris was propelled away from the building.

Imagine, if you will, a banana with it's top cut flush. Now, place a heavy object on top of it, and hollow-out banana about 2/3 of the way to the top, progressively cutting more skin and flesh away. Eventually, the banana fails, and the object (gravity+mass of building) causes the top 1/3 of the banana to fall a short distance. It isn't strong enough to stop the collapse, and the material has to go somewhere, so, while the peel rolls down the outside of the banana, some of the flesh squashes straight down, and some squishes out to the side. That's a rough analogy of the collapse of the WTC towers. That the top rolled to one side or another isn't terribly surprising, nor is the progressive collapse of the remainder.

[ElvisL1ves]

Both towers fell from the top down. The upper few floors of each fell onto the floors below, and the combined stack fell onto the floors below it, etc. If the planes had hit near the base, and the loss of structural integrity had been concentrated on one side, then you'd have seen them topple. That was the plan in the 1993 bombing, with the truckload of dynamite.

[Esprix]

The way it was explained to me was that the structural support of the building was loaded on the outside vertical beams that wrapped around the building, so they would naturally cave in at their weakest point - the center of the building. It is also my understanding that it would be physically impossible for those buildings to have fallen over, even if hit at the base - shifting their centers of gravity enough to make them completely sway one way or another is simply impossible.

Esprix

[Rilchiam]

Originally posted by Silver Fire
Well, I didn't see it but you have to remember that the heat from burning fuel was more than 1500°F. That's pretty hot, so you can expect the steel to be red hot. Also, that IS the reason the towers fell. They (basically) melted.

:shrugs:

Again, warning: graphic...






















I often wondered, "How horrible could it have been, that people would rather die by jumping rather than at least trying to get to the fire stairs? I guess the route was completely blocked." I wondered this, but I didn't really want an answer. Mr. Rilch's boss, Mr. Tact himself, told us (dunno how he knows this) that the heat was such that people were...uh...melting. I mean, this was not being on fire like the Pakistani flag-burner was; this was...
So the people who had a chance to do so, jumped rather than die that way.
_{I wonder if all the people who claimed to see the man and woman holding hands really did? I know a lot of people were watching, but I wonder how many were able to discern that they were male and female, and hand in hand?}

[JonScribe]

I vaguely recall an interview (might have been NPR) in which one of the construction workers who worked on the towers said that the each floor of the towers basically consisted of metal "plates," which, coupled with the weakened beams, would collapse as a unit and might explain the pancaking.

What I'm wondering is:

Did the terrorists exploit what they knew to be a weakness in the design of the buildings?

Were they certain of the buildings' eventual collapse?

Was information available after the initial WTC bombing a few years earlier about the extent of damage done then that ight have provided them with "useful" information for the Sept. 11 attacks?

[Silver Fire]

Well... The heat was greater than that of a standard cremation chamber. And, as we all know, those who are cremated are reduced to ash. So "Mr. Tact" was right.

Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick now.

[MagicalSilverKey]

Personally, I think one of the most disturbing parts of the whole incident would have been the following: (warning very disturbing)

To be one of the persons who were in the actual impact zones, looking out of the windows, and actually saw the planes coming straight at them!

Dear God, I can't even comprehend how terrifying that would have been. Having witnessed two horrible auto accidents, in my lifetime, things like that always seem to happen in "slow motion" live, and upon recall. Those brief few seconds must have felt like an eternity The above realization bothered me intensely for weeks after Sep 11. It still horrifies me.

[Silver Fire]

THIS IS JUST MY OPINION, I COULD BE WRONG.

I would think that they *did* know the buildings would collapse. First of all, the buildings were made to withstand tremendous amounts of stress. And, should the need arise (and it did), those buildings could hold up against a plane crashing into them. A small plane, DC-10 or so. (And why not? The ESB did it way back in the day... What kind of plane was that again? I don't recall.) Anyway, these people picked HUGE, cross-country bound planes. Huge planes need more fuel. Planes with cross-country destinations need even MORE fuel. More fuel = bigger explosion and longer burning time which = more heat.

The WTC (again, this is my understanding PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong, but I do remember hearing this on MSNBC or some such) could withstand heat up to 1500°F. The heat from these planes (because they had so much fuel) exceeded that, causing the steel to melt and the buildings to fall.

I would think that whoever organized this knew that.

And once again, this is only my opinion.

[Rilchiam]

Originally posted by Silver Fire
Well... The heat was greater than that of a standard cremation chamber. And, as we all know, those who are cremated are reduced to ash. So "Mr. Tact" was right.

Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick now.

I didn't doubt that he was right. You just had to be there when he was telling us. His SO finally had to throw Opus at him to shut him up.

MSK, I think about that too. Especially when I'm trying to get to sleep.

[Tranquilis]

The towers were designed to pancake once they shifted more than a few degrees off center, so, no, they'd not have done a "long splash", no matter where they were hit. The worst (and it would've been very bad, indeed) that would have happened would've been a somewhat "directional" spill, with most debris going straight down, but some splashing more to one side than to the others. Had that happened, in the wrong direction, more than a just a few buildings at ground level would have been wiped out. Had it gone as the bombers planned in '93, the loss of life outside the Towers may very well have been nearly as great as the loss inside, due to a 'tsunami' of debris rolling away from one side of the site.

[casdave]

What I'm wondering is:

Did the terrorists exploit what they knew to be a weakness in the design of the buildings?

Were they certain of the buildings' eventual collapse?

Very likely indeed but not absolutely certain.

This might well indicate further proof of the involvement of Bin Laden, after all, his family fortune was made in the construction industry, his father is (if still alive) a major player in building and one would expect that the young Bin Laden might have been expected to follow in this line, one might expect that he has personal knowledge of building techniques or has access to those who do have this knowledge.

[labradorian]

Originally posted by MagicalSilverKey

Actually, at least ONE of the towers DID fall over. I have a tv guide with a still of the split second it began to collapse, and the portion above the hole, is clearly toppling at a pretty significant angle.

Part of that tower (don't know which one) did topple a bit, but gravity would quickly have taken over and pulled that part of the building back into a fall that was much more vertical than lateral.

It would have to be some wicked smack of force to topple even a short tall building like a tree rather than like a house of cards, and an explosion of that force, well, toppling buildings would be the least of your problems.

[Tranquilis]

Did the terrorists exploit what they knew to be a weakness in the design of the buildings?

Oh, and one other thing: The design wasn't "weak", any more than the fact that ships can be sunk makes it "weak". It's part it's nature. Pancaking was as design choice made deliberately to reduce the threat that one of the towers would do a "long splash" across lower Manhattan. Rather than calling it a "design weakness", it's more accurate to call it an "inherent vulnerability".

[rocking chair]

this month's architectural record deals with many of the things y'all are asking. if i were as good as duck duck goose with links i could provide you with links. what i can do is direct you to http://www.architecturalrecord.com then go to the wtc link. there are articles that deal with struct. integrity, and how the buildings fell. there are diagrams as well in the magazine. then perhaps a link type person could link them for me?

i almost forgot, there is an article on mohammad atta that states he may have been an architect.

[BiblioCat]

Originally posted by MagicalSilverKey
Personally, I think one of the most disturbing parts of the whole incident would have been the following: (warning very disturbing)

To be one of the persons who were in the actual impact zones, looking out of the windows, and actually saw the planes coming straight at them!

Dear God, I can't even comprehend how terrifying that would have been. Having witnessed two horrible auto accidents, in my lifetime, things like that always seem to happen in "slow motion" live, and upon recall. Those brief few seconds must have felt like an eternity The above realization bothered me intensely for weeks after Sep 11. It still horrifies me.

I had the same thought. Just knowing that someone had to have been looking out the window. And in the second tower, they had some knowledge of what happened in the first tower. Did even more people see the second plane coming? At least the end was swift. And the people on the planes. Were they looking out the windows? Did they know the full scale of what was about to happen?
As you said, it's bothered me for weeks. I try not to think about it anymore. It's just too sad.

[tomndebb]

And, should the need arise (and it did), those buildings could hold up against a plane crashing into them. A small plane, DC-10 or so. (And why not? The ESB did it way back in the day... What kind of plane was that again? I don't recall.)

The Empire State Building was hit by a B-25 that was nearly out of fuel (it was heading for, I think, Newark) and carried no bombs and a short crew, so that it weighed far less than its maximum of 35,000 lbs.

A 767 weighs 184,500 lbs. empty and can weigh over 380,000 lbs. fully loaded.

(BTW, I suspect you meant the DC-9 (a twin engine plane with an empty weight of 57,000 lbs.) rather than the DC-10 (a three-engine monster with an empty weight of 267,000 lbs.--maximum, 580,000 lbs.).)

[Ned]

How horrible could it have been, that people would rather die by jumping rather than at least trying to get to the fire stairs? I guess the route was completely blocked

Worse, from 911 calls and theories of the colapse, I imagine that the floors were collapsing into the fire below.

Pancaking was as design choice made deliberately to reduce the threat that one of the towers would do a "long splash" across lower Manhattan. Rather than calling it a "design weakness", it's more accurate to call it an "inherent vulnerability".

I am not sure where you get this from. The buildings were designed to resist enormous lateral presures. No structural problem at the top is going to make the base tip over. That pancaking was inevitable does not imply it was a design choice.