9/11: The Black Boxes at Ground Zero

[Left-Field]

My spidey sense is tingling. Or is that my BS detector? So they extracted the black boxes from the rubble and pressed the "Play" button right there for him to hear the recording? Please.

No. No one stated anything of the like. As I mentioned about the episode, Bellone claimed he had people who heard the tapes willing to discuss the issue with Jesse Vetura. Once Ventura and the cameras showed up though, Bellone claimed these people changed their minds. He says they did so because they are in fear of their lives due to the government tracking them and making sure they don't discuss what they have heard.

While I saw nearly all of the episode, there were some parts I didn't catch. As to exactly how Bellone knows anything about what was on these tapes I'm not certain, but I believe he says it was relayed to him from these other sources.

I will need to watch the rebroadcast of the episode in order to catch the parts I missed that will clue me in as to how Bellone states he is aware of what is on the recordings. It's not as far fetched as you make it out to be.

As more of a general statement though, it never fails to amaze me how many people are not only willing to blindly accept what the government tells them is truth, but they than go as far as to defend them as if the government can do no wrong. I don't understand why people believe the government has our best interests in mind - the time has long passed since that's been true.

[Farmer77]

No, you are looking at an aircraft incident in isolation. You had an airliner crash into a building. Easily possible that many light items survived, perhaps even blown clear. Then you have two massive buildings collapse; that is what can lead to the destruction of FDRs / CVRs. What little survived the crush may have been in rubble that was removed.

It is far from uncommon for objects to survive aerospace incidents. Look what was recovered from the CHALLENGER and COLUMBIA disasters. Have a look through some detailed aircraft accident reports.

It seems strange because you don't have experience in the area. I'm sure you could relate aspects of your profession which seem counterintuitive.

While I am not an NTSB investigator aviation actually is my profession, with 12 years of experience, education and training. What you postulate is certainly possible, however in my estimation very unlikely. It, in my opinion, stretches the limits of credibility that the hijackers passports would have survived the impact and resultant fireball and raging inferno hot enough to melt steel , then survived the collapsing buildings on top of them and THEN after surviving all of that they just happened to be found. While at the same time the FDR's ,designed to withstand the most brutal punishment imaginable, simply disintegrated under the exact same stressors and ceased to be found by a team of trained professionals who were searching specifically for them.

Edited December 11, 2009 by bigtroutak

[Obviousman]

While I am not an NTSB investigator aviation actually is my profession, with 12 years of experience, education and training. What you postulate is certainly possible, however in my estimation very unlikely. It, in my opinion, stretches the limits of credibility that the hijackers passports would have survived the impact and resultant fireball and raging inferno hot enough to melt steel , then survived the collapsing buildings on top of them and THEN after surviving all of that they just happened to be found. While at the same time the FDR's ,designed to withstand the most brutal punishment imaginable, simply disintegrated under the exact same stressors and ceased to be found by a team of trained professionals who were searching specifically for them.

You're not thinking it through.

For instance, where was the passport found?

[Farmer77]

You're not thinking it through.

For instance, where was the passport found?

I know that Atta's passport was found two blocks from ground zero. The fact that you're not throwing out insults has me intrigued, so I gotta know where you're going with this!

[Torgo]

* begins speculation *

Hmmm... The hijackers were in the cockpit, at the front of the plane. Pieces of the front of the plane would have been most likely to punch all the way through the building rather than be buried inside it and exposed to the inferno. Perhaps the passport (along with a few other pieces of the cockpit and its inhabitants) punched all the way through the building and came to rest a few blocks away?

[Obviousman]

Right - it was 2 blocks from the site. So it is entirely possible the passport was thrown clear before the building collapse, right?

[Left-Field]

Right - it was 2 blocks from the site. So it is entirely possible the passport was thrown clear before the building collapse, right?

And where would the passport have been at the time of impact? If it was on the terrorist's person (in his pocket for example), then wouldn't the terrorist's body (or parts of it) have had to been thrown two blocks away as well?

If it was in his luggage, then isn't it likely it would have been destroyed with all the other luggage?

Was this passport found by itself, or was it found within something (a wallet, briefcase, luggage, clothing, etc)?

And as for the black boxes, I don't think people would question that they could have been damaged, but the official version states that nothing at all relating to them was found - not one thing relating to 4 black boxes found in the wreckage that was combed through so finely that materials as small as fingernail clippings were being used to identify victims by their DNA. That doesn't seem reasonable.

And if people are then going to state the boxes have been thrown out amongst the debris that was removed, that only further goes to show how terribly the government handled the aftermath of the crime scene that they would remove evidence so carelessly.

Whichever stance you prefer to have on the situation, it still amounts to things being done improperly.

Edited December 12, 2009 by Broken Arrow

[tfk]

And where would the passport have been at the time of impact? If it was on the terrorist's person (in his pocket for example), then wouldn't the terrorist's body (or parts of it) have had to been thrown two blocks away as well?

...

Whichever stance you prefer to have on the situation, it still amounts to things being done improperly.

Broken Arrow,

Hi. Nice to meet you. I hope that, by the end of this post, you can feel the same.

I'm not interested in getting into a flame war with anyone. I'll point out what I believe to be some germane observations. You may interpret them to be harsh, or rude, at first. Please don't. I am an old-school (57 years old) experienced project (mechanical) engineer. We are trained, & accustomed, to being direct.

1. What is your experience in airplane crash investigation?

2. How familiar are you with the construction & performance of "black boxes"?

3. How many building collapse clean-ups have you participated in?

Your posts suggest to me that the answers are "none", "not familiar at all" & "none".

As for black boxes: They are not "indestructible". Here's a link to one brand's specs:

http://www.sagemavionics.com/ProdFiles/Brochures/FlightDataManagement/SSFDR.pdf

Note:

- Resistance to penetration: an impact of 225 kg falling from height of 3 meters

- Fire test: 1100°C flames for 30 min, on entire surface

- Fire test: 260°C - 10 hours

That's 500 lbs, 9 foot drop. Sound like the WTC collapse to you?

Here's a picture of a recovered FDR: http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/images/BlackBox.jpg

You'll notice the wall thickness of the exterior (steel) box: about 0.050" thick.

You can also see that, where the box has been smashed, the orange PAINT is gone. Paint does that.

Here's what's left of a "bright orange, indestructible" CVR from AA77:

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091401pentagonblackboxes#a091401pentagonblackboxes

Bright orange? Nope.

Indestructible? Hardly.

It wasn't the crash. They were designed to withstand that. It was the collapse of the towers that NO electronics box has ever been designed to survive.

What's more, it is egregiously misleading to say "the black boxes were, for the first time, never found".

The fact is that, to all intents, 99% of the entire two planes were never found.

For the first time, the FAA knows exactly where a plane crashed on land, and 99% of the plane was never found or identified. Virtually all the parts that were identified were parts that passed thru, & out of, the building during impact. These parts included an engine core, landing gear, a strut, some of the fuselage, and yes, that passport.

Here are photos: http://www.911myths.com/index.php/United_Airlines_Flight_175_Crash_Evidence#Wreckage

Bone fragments were found specifically because they are easy to distinguish from the the crushed, shredded wreckage of metal desks, metal filing cabinets, metal trusses & floor pans, metal columns & beams, concrete floors & the other parts & contents of those buildings. It is pertinent that they only found about 1% or less of those 2900 people lost in those towers.

The 4 crushed, shredded, no-longer-orange (after passing thru a 1000' long, 500,000 ton, waring blender of a collapse) were not found because they were indistinguishable from the other 400,000 or so crushed, shredded & unrecognizable electronics boxes in the rubble.

The passport survival is no surprise. Paper is, by far, the most common intact survivor of plane crashes. Flexible, light weight, low inertia. Every plane crash is surrounded by paper.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff7h7Ll8Dl4

PSA flight 1771

Read the description. It sounds exactly like Shanksville. & paper everywhere,

Again, I am not looking to bust your chops. I don't think that you are a traitor for questioning the gov't or anyone else. I do think that you are short-changing your personal intellectual development by listening to a bunch of abject amateurs.

Don't listen to amateurs. Listen to experts. ONLY when they are speaking within their own field of expertise. (Big hint here: particle physicists don't know Jack about structural engineering.)

BTW, the location of the victims in the Pentagon crash says that your assumption about the body position of the pilots is backwards. The passport was likely in a carry on bag or luggage.

Hope I wasn't too hard on you. Just trying to be informative.

Regards,

Tom

[tfk]

BTW, the Flight Deck Door on AA77 was never monitored. It WAS opened during that flight.

The guy saying that it proves that the door was never opened is Rob Balsamo at Pilots for 911 Truth. (really? Not opened once during 12 flights? Not once many maintenance checks, when the door is rarely closed? Not once during re-positioning & gate clearance?). Unfortunately, he is a charlatan, who knows that he's lying about this and many other issues.

It is a real shame that those who have legitimate questions end up tarnished by the blatantly unethical behavior of the charlatans in the Truth Movement. Some of whom wouldn't recognize the truth if it sat on their lap & called them "mommy".

Tom

[Left-Field]

Broken Arrow, Hi. Nice to meet you. I hope that, by the end of this post, you can feel the same.

I'm not interested in getting into a flame war with anyone. I'll point out what I believe to be some germane observations. You may interpret them to be harsh, or rude, at first. Please don't. I am an old-school (57 years old) experienced project (mechanical) engineer. We are trained, & accustomed, to being direct.

No worries. As long as I'm learning something truthful, I'm all for it. If someone's being rude about it, I just won't pay attention or I'll simply see it as a negative reflection upon themselves. I'm all for gaining knowledge though.

1. What is your experience in airplane crash investigation?

2. How familiar are you with the construction & performance of "black boxes"?

3. How many building collapse clean-ups have you participated in?

1. None

2. Not all that familar.

3. None

As for black boxes: They are not "indestructible".

I don't think they are indestructable, but I have been of the impression they are meant to withstand the destruction typically caused upon a flight that crashes (and yes, I realize the response to that would be that what occurred on 9/11 was not your "typical" crash).

Bright orange? Nope.

Indestructible? Hardly.

Again, I don't believe I've stated they are indestructable, but best I know they shouldn't completely vanish. As for them being bright orange, I have not commented on that. Others have, but not me. I'm not claiming they would still be bright orange, although according to Mike Bellone, who claims he saw one of them, he states it was an orange box with white stripes.

It wasn't the crash. They were designed to withstand that. It was the collapse of the towers that NO electronics box has ever been designed to survive.

Well, the cause of the collpase of the towers themselves still brings up many questions that don't seem to have an agreed upon answer. One thing I've been puzzled by, is that if heat rises, and the buildings were struck more than half way up their height - why would structure below the impact points collapse so completely with virtually no resistance?

I'm no expert - far from it - but it would seem to me that even if the heat was hot enough to cause the columns and what not to melt, that the area below the impact shouldn't have been effected by this heat and should have been able to withstand, or at least show some resistance, to the upper part of the building once it began to collapse. Instead the whole building came down at nearly free fall speed.

For the first time, the FAA knows exactly where a plane crashed on land, and 99% of the plane was never found or identified. Virtually all the parts that were identified were parts that passed thru, & out of, the building during impact. These parts included an engine core, landing gear, a strut, some of the fuselage, and yes, that passport.

Well, I think that "for the first time" bit is part of the issue. It seems that there were too many things that happened "for the first time" in regards to 9/11.

Bone fragments were found specifically because they are easy to distinguish from the the crushed, shredded wreckage of metal desks, metal filing cabinets, metal trusses & floor pans, metal columns & beams, concrete floors & the other parts & contents of those buildings. It is pertinent that they only found about 1% or less of those 2900 people lost in those towers.

Fair enough.

The 4 crushed, shredded, no-longer-orange (after passing thru a 1000' long, 500,000 ton, waring blender of a collapse) were not found because they were indistinguishable from the other 400,000 or so crushed, shredded & unrecognizable electronics boxes in the rubble.

Perhaps, but again, there are two people claiming they witnessed these boxes having been recovered. Could they be lying? Sure. Is it just as possible that the government is lying though? I tend to believe so.

The passport survival is no surprise. Paper is, by far, the most common intact survivor of plane crashes. Flexible, light weight, low inertia. Every plane crash is surrounded by paper.

I understand that. I wouldn't say it's all that stunning. I understand the reasons why something like that could survive the crash. My question though is where was this passport located at the time of impact that it was able to fly out of whatever it was in and come to rest where it had?

I doubt the terrorist was holding it in his hand at the time of impact. If it was encased in something, I'm just wondering how it managed to find its way to its final resting place by itself.

Again, I am not looking to bust your chops. I don't think that you are a traitor for questioning the gov't or anyone else. I do think that you are short-changing your personal intellectual development by listening to a bunch of abject amateurs.

Don't listen to amateurs. Listen to experts. ONLY when they are speaking within their own field of expertise. (Big hint here: particle physicists don't know Jack about structural engineering.)

I don't consider myself a "traitor" either because I question certain aspects of the government. Hell, some will tell you that's what a patriot is supposed to do - not that I consider myself a patriot either. But anyways, I'm not concerned with someone getting into what a traitor is or isn't at the moment. That's beside the point.

As for listening to experts, it seems it has become muddled as to what an expert is anymore in regards to certain things - especially on a topic such as this. In the "Conspiracy Theory" episode I referred to at the beginning of this thread, the person who claimed it's a near impossibility that black boxes wouldn't be retrievable from a plane crash was presented as an expert.

I don't recall his name, but they made statements along the lines of him being an expert in regards to black boxes and their construction and other things of the like. I'd have to see the episode again to recall exactly how it was presented.

Now is he an expert? I don't know. But am I to believe that you are also an expert in regards to any of this? And what makes one "expert" any more right or wrong when they happen to come to differing conclusions about the same topic? It just seems like if one wants to they will find an "expert" somewhere that presents a scenario that matches up with the beliefs they choose to have.

BTW, the location of the victims in the Pentagon crash says that your assumption about the body position of the pilots is backwards. The passport was likely in a carry on bag or luggage.

I don't believe I made any assumptions about the body positions of anyone on board any of the flights. You might be confusing me with a post made by someone else.

Regarding the passport though, if it was in luggage or a carry-on bag, was there any other luggage type items that survived the impact? Anybody elses license or other form of identification found amongst the debris? Or is this terrorist's passport the only type of identification that survived the catastrophe? If it is, it seems somewhat peculiar.

Hope I wasn't too hard on you. Just trying to be informative.

Not at all. I had no problem with how you responded to anything. As long as people are respectful of others in expressing their views or information they may have, I'm all for listening to it and responding in kind. I'd much rather learn things so I can distinguish what is more likely to be the truth and what is more likely to be nonsense.

Thank you for responding.

[Farmer77]

Broken Arrow,

Hi. Nice to meet you. I hope that, by the end of this post, you can feel the same.

I'm not interested in getting into a flame war with anyone. I'll point out what I believe to be some germane observations. You may interpret them to be harsh, or rude, at first. Please don't. I am an old-school (57 years old) experienced project (mechanical) engineer. We are trained, & accustomed, to being direct.

1. What is your experience in airplane crash investigation?

2. How familiar are you with the construction & performance of "black boxes"?

3. How many building collapse clean-ups have you participated in?

Your posts suggest to me that the answers are "none", "not familiar at all" & "none".

As for black boxes: They are not "indestructible". Here's a link to one brand's specs:

http://www.sagemavionics.com/ProdFiles/Brochures/FlightDataManagement/SSFDR.pdf

Note:

- Resistance to penetration: an impact of 225 kg falling from height of 3 meters

- Fire test: 1100°C flames for 30 min, on entire surface

- Fire test: 260°C - 10 hours

That's 500 lbs, 9 foot drop. Sound like the WTC collapse to you?

Here's a picture of a recovered FDR: http://www.thealarmclock.com/euro/images/BlackBox.jpg

You'll notice the wall thickness of the exterior (steel) box: about 0.050" thick.

You can also see that, where the box has been smashed, the orange PAINT is gone. Paint does that.

Here's what's left of a "bright orange, indestructible" CVR from AA77:

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091401pentagonblackboxes#a091401pentagonblackboxes

Bright orange? Nope.

Indestructible? Hardly.

It wasn't the crash. They were designed to withstand that. It was the collapse of the towers that NO electronics box has ever been designed to survive.

What's more, it is egregiously misleading to say "the black boxes were, for the first time, never found".

The fact is that, to all intents, 99% of the entire two planes were never found.

For the first time, the FAA knows exactly where a plane crashed on land, and 99% of the plane was never found or identified. Virtually all the parts that were identified were parts that passed thru, & out of, the building during impact. These parts included an engine core, landing gear, a strut, some of the fuselage, and yes, that passport.

Here are photos: http://www.911myths.com/index.php/United_Airlines_Flight_175_Crash_Evidence#Wreckage

Bone fragments were found specifically because they are easy to distinguish from the the crushed, shredded wreckage of metal desks, metal filing cabinets, metal trusses & floor pans, metal columns & beams, concrete floors & the other parts & contents of those buildings. It is pertinent that they only found about 1% or less of those 2900 people lost in those towers.

The 4 crushed, shredded, no-longer-orange (after passing thru a 1000' long, 500,000 ton, waring blender of a collapse) were not found because they were indistinguishable from the other 400,000 or so crushed, shredded & unrecognizable electronics boxes in the rubble.

The passport survival is no surprise. Paper is, by far, the most common intact survivor of plane crashes. Flexible, light weight, low inertia. Every plane crash is surrounded by paper.

Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff7h7Ll8Dl4

PSA flight 1771

Read the description. It sounds exactly like Shanksville. & paper everywhere,

Again, I am not looking to bust your chops. I don't think that you are a traitor for questioning the gov't or anyone else. I do think that you are short-changing your personal intellectual development by listening to a bunch of abject amateurs.

Don't listen to amateurs. Listen to experts. ONLY when they are speaking within their own field of expertise. (Big hint here: particle physicists don't know Jack about structural engineering.)

BTW, the location of the victims in the Pentagon crash says that your assumption about the body position of the pilots is backwards. The passport was likely in a carry on bag or luggage.

Hope I wasn't too hard on you. Just trying to be informative.

Regards,

Tom

Thank you for the civil post. I am curious as to how many other pieces of paper, confirmed to be from the aircraft, were discovered after 9/11. I am also curious as to what the official reasoning for the destruction of the FDR's is. As far as the theory of the paper being thrown clear before the building collapse, that is a possibility, although It seems a bit of a stretch that a single (unbelievably important) piece of paper survived the aircraft striking the building and resultant fireball, then passed through the building intact to land two blocks away.

In and of itself the fate of the black boxes seems to be mildly explainable, as does the passport discovery, a mere bit of bizarre happenstance perhaps. Where the credibility limit seems to be met is when you try and tell the story of 9/11, from start to finish, and you realize that in order to believe the government's official story you must believe that 9/11/01 was a magical day when those strange bits of happenstance, in one way or another repeated themselves over and over again;

An untrained pilot manages to angle an airliner perfectly into the pentagon without so much as scraping the ground (This area I am an expert in)

4 aircraft full of grown adults allowed 19 men with box cutters to take over

uncontrolled fires so hot they melted or bent steel (See the UL report released post 9/11 and what happened to the author of that report)

Buildings specifically designed to withstand an aircraft's impact collapsed from an aircrafts impact

Local seismograph readings

Eyewitness reports of explosions in the basement of the WTC

News reports from the scene, of explosions in the buildings

Firefighter reports of having the fires nearly extinguished prior to the collapse

The fact that the government will not release any of the videos from the area surrounding the pentagon

WTC 7 ( seriously???)

Passenger list inconsistencies

The CLE incident

The physics surrounding the actual collapse of the WTC

Lack of wreckage at the pentagon

Extreme temperatures at ground zero for weeks following 9/11

Unexplained possible physical anomalies on the aircraft in NY

Removal of bomb sniffing dogs from WTC just days prior to 9/11 followed by a power outage which evacuated the building

Insider trading on 9/10 prior to attacks (delta and united put option sales skyrocketed on 9/10)

Eyewitness reports around shanksville crash site.

Eyewitness and radar reports from the pentagon identifying the aircraft as being equivalent in size and maneuverability to a small commuter or private jet.

news footage from the lobby of WTC1 showing a completely bombed out lobby

The items on the above list can probably all be addressed to one degree or another (much like the passport and FDR's) and its a little unfair to list all these things as I do not expect you to answer all or any of them, that was not my point for posting them. The point is there are so many anomalous events surrounding 9/11 that for anyone with a critical mind the government's story at a minimum has to be questioned. The above list i'm sure is far from comprehensive, those were just the things i remembered off the top of my head. And I am open to the idea that maybe that day was just a magnificent, mystical collaboration of bizarre circumstances all rolled into one giant s***ball. I'm just not sure I can accept that explanation as being a logical one.

[el midgetron]

I haven't seen the episode but will be watching it in about 2 hours when it re-broadcasts.

reveals that the terrorists were in the cockpit before the flight had taken off

If memory serves me right, that is the official stance in atleast one of the 911 hijackings. Atleast one of the hijackers posed as a pilot and "hitched" a ride in the cockpit (a common practice pre-911). I don't know if that is all thats being suggested or if something more is.

As more of a general statement though, it never fails to amaze me how many people are not only willing to blindly accept what the government tells them is truth, but they than go as far as to defend them as if the government can do no wrong. I don't understand why people believe the government has our best interests in mind - the time has long passed since that's been true.

I agree. Its sad but all to true.

[Czero 101]

An untrained pilot manages to angle an airliner perfectly into the pentagon without so much as scraping the ground (This area I am an expert in)

(emphasis mine)

While the aircraft did not strike the ground first (or at least, it is not known conclusively that it did), it is rather naive to say that the aircraft was flown "perfectly" into the Pentagon, especially given the following documented evidence:

Generator on the lawn in front of the Pentagon was struck by the aircraft.

Low retaining wall surrounding a ventilation system in front of the Pentagon shows obvious damage from being struck by the aircraft's engine pod (indicated by the arrow).

While neither of these are what can be correctly classified as a "ground strike", the fact that the low retaining wall is only approximately 1 - 2 feet above ground level indicates that the aircraft was not necessarily flown "perfectly".

Cz

[Obviousman]

I'd like to get back on the track, and take you through the thought process.

It's possible - not likely, not certain, etc, but possible - that the passport was thrown clear prior to the collapse. We can agree upon that.

So the question now is: is it possible for a passport to have survived the initial impact? Let's look at that.

Firstly, where was the passport at the time of impact? On his person, or in luggage? My own opinion is that it would be on his person but we can't be sure. So let's just keep that in mind and move on.

Was the passport undamaged? Not quite but it was in remarkably good condition.

So once again: is it possible for the passport to have survived the impact in such good condition? Well, has something similar ever happened before, something we can judge the likelihood of a passport surviving? The answer is yes: Pan Am 103, the Lockerbie bombing. There a Toshiba cassette radio manual, which was likely in the same suitcase as the explosive, was found almost entirely intact.

Also consider: the passport would NOT have been in a sustained fire; at most it would have been in a brief fireball (the impact) and then thrown clear. And it would not necessarily have been exposed to the fireball; it may have been protected in clothing, in a case and then subsequently have become dislodged.

So now we have conceivable circumstances and a precedent where similar things have happened.

[merril]

Th chaos began when the obvious individuals opened their carry-ons and fumbled through for their weapons- the same kind Atta had purchased in Switzerland-

"Box Cutters"

Later, some New York residents were on their way to a radio station, but found themselves helping at Ground Zero for three days.

[sinewave]

tfk, czero101, and Obviousman Great posts! Tfk, that is a well presented argument. One of the best I have seen here.

[merril]

Link for the video-

[frenat]

Regarding the passport though, if it was in luggage or a carry-on bag, was there any other luggage type items that survived the impact? Anybody elses license or other form of identification found amongst the debris? Or is this terrorist's passport the only type of identification that survived the catastrophe? If it is, it seems somewhat peculiar.

Far from the only type of identification recovered that day. Also found from the crash sites were a drivers licence and luggage tag, jewelry, photos, credit cards, purses and their contents, shoes, a wallet and currency, and some mail that was later delivered.

http://www.911myths.com/html/passport_recovered.html

[frenat]

4 aircraft full of grown adults allowed 19 men with box cutters to take over

Grown adults that know that in every previous hijacking the hijackers have some demands to be met and usually want to fly somewhere, NOT kill as many people as possible and damned whoever gets in the way

The fact that the government will not release any of the videos from the area surrounding the pentagon

Have you been living under a rock? Two videos from the Pentagon were released years ago. A video from the gas station has been released as well as one from a hotel (I seem to remember another but the location escapes me). How dare they keep them until the trial was over to avoid unduly influencing the jury! Screw due process!

Passenger list inconsistencies

You mean the "passenger lists" that didn't show the hijackers? The ones that were actually "victims" lists and labled as such?

http://www.911myths.com/html/no_hijackers_on_the_manifests.html

Removal of bomb sniffing dogs from WTC just days prior to 9/11 followed by a power outage which evacuated the building

A "removal" that only returned it to normal levels after being heightened. They were NOT completely removed. One of the dogs died in the collapse.

http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_bomb_sniffing_dogs.html

A power outage menioned by only one person that seems to have evidence against it.

http://www.911myths.com/html/wtc_power_down.html

Insider trading on 9/10 prior to attacks (delta and united put option sales skyrocketed on 9/10)

Trading that wasn't as high as some previous times on airlines that had both recently had bad news and could be expected to have their stock drop.

http://www.911myths.com/html/put_options.html

[flyingswan]

Buildings specifically designed to withstand an aircraft's impact collapsed from an aircrafts impact

Buildings withstood the impacts but collapsed due to the subsequent fires which they were not designed to withstand

Local seismograph readings

What is the problem with these?

Eyewitness reports of explosions in the basement of the WTC

Blastwaves down the liftshafts

News reports from the scene, of explosions in the buildings

Not uncommon in burning buildings

Firefighter reports of having the fires nearly extinguished prior to the collapse

Other firefighters at different locations report differently

WTC 7 ( seriously???)

Yes, explained to the satisfaction of structural engineers

The physics surrounding the actual collapse of the WTC

No problems, explained

Extreme temperatures at ground zero for weeks following 9/11

Not unusual after a building fire, and the bigger the debris pile, the longer it takes to cool

news footage from the lobby of WTC1 showing a completely bombed out lobby

As before, blastwaves down the liftshafts

All covered in excrutiating detail on other threads of this forum, try the search function.

[Q24]

Buildings withstood the impacts but collapsed due to the subsequent fires which they were not designed to withstand

John Skilling, head structural engineer for the Twin Towers, carried out an analysis that showed they would withstand the impact of a Boeing 707: -

“Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed,”

he said.

“The building structure would still be there.”

Source: Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision

Interestingly, the NIST investigation corroborated the earlier study in that when best estimates were input to their computer simulations for the impacts including fires, neither WTC1 or WTC2 collapsed.

[tfk]

A little off topic...

I'd like to offer my perspective on an interesting engineering legend (myth) that I've seen quoted here.

My background is a Mechanical Engineer with about 34 years experience. The reason that number is significant is that my career spans the two eras in which the proper answer to the question:

"Can engineers design an office building to withstand an impact from a full sized jet liner?"

shifted from: "What are you, stupid?" to just: "No, that's not possible."

In the early era (up to about the 1980s), engineering was done with slide rules (thru early 70s), calculators (after 70s) & tables of "empirical equations". Roarke's Equations of Stress & Strain was the "bible" of mechanical & structural engineers during that time. a

The 2nd era was the development of Finite Element Analysis (FEA), which allowed real shapes, real designs to be done in many cases. However, there are serious limitations to the complexity of the models that can be run. Models as complex as the WTC towers cannot, even today, be implemented without an ENORMOUS budget of time & money.

The tools required - high power modern supercomputers and Finite Element Software - that allows one to do such calculations did not exist in the early 1960s. The very first FEA programs (NASTRAN) were developed in the late '60s, but the modules necessary to analyze an impact like this (nonlinear, CFD, Thermodynamics, etc) did not exist until the '80s and later. These were, not accidentally, developed concurrently with the computers that were powerful enough to run them. Attempting to do any sort of a MEANINGFUL analysis with a slide rule is the stuff of Hollywood fantasy.

It is simply not possible - even today with immensely more powerful analytic tools - to perform this design in any building in which anyone would wish to work. That is, in an office building with windows, open floor plans. It is ESPECIALLY not possible in a skyscraper where the upper stories have to be made relatively light so that they don't crush the lower stories.

It IS done in nuclear power plants, where the building is a small, reinforced concrete dome. Note that a dome structure can be made FAR stronger than a box structure and is much easier to analyze.

The FEA model that NIST & others have constructed, at enormous cost, was "What happened in THIS crash?"

The only reason that they were able to pin down hundreds of uncertain variables was that, tragically, the experiment had been done, and they were able to adjust those variables to match observed results. Without this confirmation, the results would have been just slightly better than educated, & incredibly expensive, guesswork.

BTW, with that video confirmation, the results are reliable. People unfamiliar with mechanics or computer modeling suspect that modelers are "cheating" when they adjust parameters to match observed results. They are wrong.

But answering the question: "What will happen in ANY plane crash, from any angle, in any location?" in an enormously bigger challenge.

Nobody can answer that question. Even today. Nobody with a background in mechanical design or computer simulations would ever TRY to answer that question in the fashion that the uninformed are bantering it around: i.e., "the building was designed to withstand a plane crash."

So where did the Public Mythology - that "the towers were designed to withstand an impact" - originate?

I was mystified by the claims reported in the press. Some of them by people like DeMartini, who should have known better. The answers are provided in James Glanz's book "City in the Sky". In the strange, capricious way that real history occurs, if it were not for the WTC project's WORST enemy, Lawrence Wien, it is unlikely that this myth would ever have seen the light of day. Much less become a foundational myth associated with the towers.

For anyone interested in the story, you can read about it here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0805074287/ref=sib_dp_pt#

Do a search for "Levy", and read pages 131 thru about 139.

The cast of characters:

John Skilling: the Chief Structural Engineer on the project.

Leslie Robertson: a young (34 at the start), very bright engineer who worked for Skilling. When the towers were designed, Robertson didn't have an engineering degree, but a BA in Science. He later got his degree in Structural Engineering.

I've seen some people refer to Robertson as the "Chief Structural Engineer" on this project. I do not believe that this is true. This was the "Project of a Lifetime" for everyone involved. The Chief Engineer - Skilling, in his prime - had a team of first rate structural engineers working on this project.

Malvin Levy: The crusty, obnoxious project manager for the Port Authority, whose job was to ram the project thru.

Lawrence Wien: Owner of the Empire State Building, who was trying to stop the project because it threatened to glut the rental office space market. And the horrible thought that the WTC would be taller then his ESB.

Lee Jaffe: The Port Authority's PR front person on the project.

Richard Roth: One of the partners of Emery Roth & Sons & Sons, the NYC architectural firm hired by the Port Authority to interface with the Principal Architect on the firm, Minoru Yamasaki.

___

The Studies:

Since the collision of the B25 with the ESB is famous in NYC architectural history, the question "what would happen if a plane collided with one of the towers?" had naturally occurred to the Port Authority. They asked Skilling to look into it. Skilling had done a VERY crude study on the issue.

Wien was trying to stop the project, and suggested that the building would not withstand a plane strike like the ESB had. He didn't care whether it would or not. He simply was tossing every impediment he could think of to derail the project.

Levy & Jaffe retaliated by releasing a statement to the press on the letterhead of Roth's letterhead that claimed that the Skilling had done a study showing that the building would survive the impact. This was a ludicrous interpretation of the calculations actually done.

The actual calculation was meaningless in terms of answering the question implied.

The calculation was incredibly crude. It considered only two things: would the crash of a 707 traveling at 600 kts "tip the building?" And "Would the exterior columns removed cause the building to collapse?"

The way that he did them was also very crude & very brief. They took, at most, a couple of days. Compare that to NIST's modeling efforts: years of model development & months of supercomputer run time to get an answer for each case. And now think about the engineering analysis tools that they had in 1963. They did not have 4 function calculators. They had adding machines. The really spiffy ones had just moved from a mechanical lever actuated to electrical. Everything engineering was done with slide rules, although there were a few computers around the country to which they had access. Monster computers, that were about as powerful as an old IBM 286 or a Mac Plus.

I know that, later on, Robinson has said that he performed some additional studies, although no record of these studies has ever been found.

Nonetheless, Skilling's initial Back of the Envelope, 1 day calculations, were presented at a press conference as an "engineering study that the towers were designed to withstand ... blah, blah, blah."

And an Urban Myth was born. And, like all myths, as time passed, the myth, uh, "matured".

Lots of people without an engineering background simply bought this myth, lock, stock & barrel. And continue to repeat it uncritically.

JMO.

Tom

PS. I have zero interest in defaming Mr. DiMartini, the WTC Project Manager who weighed in on this issue. He is a genuine American hero for his selfless actions on 9/11 that cost him his life. However he did not know squat about structural engineering. His (in)famous comments about a plane poking its way harmlessly thru the outer wall "like a pencil thru a screen door" are simply ludicrous.

I will reconsider my statement as soon as someone shows me "structural screen door netting". That is loaded in massive amounts of compression to support building loads.

Edited December 13, 2009 by tfk

[CheetoMan2009]

"I'm not the best speller, which further proves one of the points i make."

The problem i see with ask the experts is, if you don't know them on a personal level, you can't really trust them because they say there an expert. I would suggest that many experts should be asked, not a handful. People always over look the simple fact that so many odd things took place on the same day.

Is there an expert here in millitary basses? I thought there was like a 2 mile no fly range for the pentagon, once you cross this line jets are scrabled, if you refuse to change course or not respond it dosent matter if its a plane full of kids, they shoot it down. If you manage to actually get to the 1 mile marker, they have Ground to air missiles they use to gun you down, if the jets haven't managed to.

Now, i am no expert for sure, but i'm not an idiot either. While i could say, it would be hard for the government to do something like this and get away with it, with the number of people that would have to be involved, i could also state that maybe most of the people envolved aren't aware that they where envolved. If you want to pass examples along, look at the many examples of governments lieing to people and attacking people to gain yet more power, get more funding for wars and on and on. Just look whats happening to this country, does it seem our government is out to guide us to better our lives, or harm us and gain complete controll over us?

I only see more laws being made, more freedoms took away, education droping to near nothing, the value of the dollar droping to a near 0 with one of the most bull acts ever passed, the federal reserve act, and yes, i read the constitution, it clearly states that congress does not have the power to give anyone else the power to make our money. Legal tender is also not allowed by the constitution, as legal tender is a bill of credit, it clearly states that only gold and silver can be used as currency in the USA.

These and many more reasons is why i don't give to much credit to the older ones, because you all let this rediculas **** happen, your the reason that my private trades(Work) is taxable when first ment not to be by our founding farthers. Your the reason we have a system that is set up to send us into nothing but debt, this is the system. Our government gets the federal reserve(A private bank) to print money for us, with interest attached. This interest is supose to be paid back by us, the people, with money we earn for our private trades(Work). While many people think that income tax goes to schools and roads and all that, there just wrong, the income tax we pay is the profit that the FED Reserve(Private Bank) makes for simply stealing our gold and giving us bills of credit.

Well, i got off topic big time, my point is some people could view some of this information(9/11) and make things up, stretch truth and all that, but also governments can lie, and a big government like our who is proved to be very skilled at manipulation and war tactics to gain power, could most certainly pull this off(saying inside job), and if they did, i would expect it to play out just like this, extrems on both sides, both sides making **** up to so called prove there point. Then you have the people in the middle who don't know what to believe, but if you look at the bigger of history, to mee i tend to believe its more than likely truth that the government wants to over power us because to me it seem obvious, why else would education be dropping so much? Why is there so much crime? How do all these drugs get in out country, you try flying drugs in here without a millitary pass, you may get away with it a few times, depending on how much your trying to move, but then again, would you even make it happen one time? Aren't we supose to have good security? Could someone just fly a plane over here with a nuclear weapon and boom? I wouldn't think so, really, look at how much drugs are imported into USA, how are they making it happen without government pass?

[tfk]

bigt,

Thank you for the civil post.

You're welcome. I don't know about you guys, but I am personally done with the animosity that seems to permeate these discussions.

I am curious as to how many other pieces of paper, confirmed to be from the aircraft, were discovered after 9/11. ...

As far as the theory of the paper being thrown clear before the building collapse, that is a possibility, although It seems a bit of a stretch that a single (unbelievably important) piece of paper survived the aircraft striking the building and resultant fireball, then passed through the building intact to land two blocks away.

Here is a point that we can agree on. If there was no other debris that floated down to the street from the planes, then the passport would be HIGHLY suspicious. If there was very little debris, then it would be somewhat suspicious. The more debris, the less suspicious.

So, rather than just "being curious", why don't you take the initiative to do a little search & see what you can find out about this. And then let us know.

I am also curious as to what the official reasoning for the destruction of the FDR's is.

"A building fell on it"??

It doesn't seem likely that there is "an official story" for every separate event of that day.

... in order to believe the government's official story you must believe that 9/11/01 was a magical day when those strange bits of happenstance, in one way or another repeated themselves over and over again;

Too vague, too diffuse to be any use. Ask precise, concise, thoughtful questions to get meaningful answers. Asking the right question brings you 90% of the way to getting the right & important answer.

An untrained pilot manages to angle an airliner perfectly into the pentagon without so much as scraping the ground (This area I am an expert in)

What is your expertise? TT? Type?

"Angled perfectly?? He hit 5 light poles. one tree, one generator, one fence, and yes did scrape the ground when he hit a curb just before impact.

These amateur pilots did it 3 times out of 3. First try.

4 aircraft full of grown adults allowed 19 men with box cutters to take over

I thought you said you knew about flying.

What was the official policy of every airline in the case of hijacking prior to 9/11?

uncontrolled fires so hot they melted or bent steel (See the UL report released post 9/11 and what happened to the author of that report)

The fires did not melt the steel. The fires did not bend the steel. It does not seem that you've read the conclusions of (no, not the gov't) the incredibly qualified structural engineers who put together the NIST report.

What do you think that they say caused the collapse?

Buildings specifically designed to withstand an aircraft's impact collapsed from an aircrafts impact

This is a myth. I just explained it over here.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=170737&view=findpost&p=3206393

Local seismograph readings

Seismic readings were recorded in Manhattan that day by a demolitions company that happened to be on a job. Their recordings prove beyond any doubt that no explosives were used in any building. If they had been used, they could not possibly have escaped detection by these recorders.

See: http://www.implosionworld.com/Article-WTC%20STUDY%208-06%20w%20clarif%20as%20of%209-8-06%20.pdf

"Protec technicians were operating portable field seismographs at several construction sites in Manhattan on 9/11. These seismographs recorded the events at Ground Zero, including the collapse of all three structures. These measurements, combined with seismic and airblast data recorded by other independent entities, provide an unfiltered, purely scientific view of each event. "

Results? NO explosives.

I could go thru the rest of your list with the same results.

50 pieces of fluff that do not stand up to scrutiny do NOT equal one solid piece of evidence.

Why don't you produce your one or two best, strongest, most ironclad pieces of evidence. Something that we can verify.

Meanwhile, please tell me what it would take for you to change your mind. If the answer is "nothing will change it", then I won't waste my time.

Tom

[Obviousman]

The problem i see with ask the experts is, if you don't know them on a personal level, you can't really trust them because they say there an expert. I would suggest that many experts should be asked, not a handful. People always over look the simple fact that so many odd things took place on the same day.

That is excellent advice and shows why no society of professional pilots, structural engineers, firemen, etc, endorse the claims made by these 9-11 groups. Even if you do accept that the groups are made up of professionals as they claim (something that is often not true) you'll find that their opinions represent less than 1% of people in that profession.

Is there an expert here in millitary basses? I thought there was like a 2 mile no fly range for the pentagon, once you cross this line jets are scrabled, if you refuse to change course or not respond it dosent matter if its a plane full of kids, they shoot it down. If you manage to actually get to the 1 mile marker, they have Ground to air missiles they use to gun you down, if the jets haven't managed to.

I'm not an expert in the US military but I have extensive experience in military aviation in another country.

Firstly, the Pentagon does not have any missile defence systems or similar. That is a claim made up by some truthers. You will not find any evidence anywhere to support that claim.

Secondly, there is a prohibited area around the White House but not the Pentagon. The Pentagon is right next door to the approach path to a major airport.

Lastly, you can keep a fighter jet on Alert 5 for an hour or so before you'd need to do a crew change; it burns through your crew resources rapidly. Alert 5 means it takes up to 5 mins from the scramble to being airborne. An average jet would fly at about 240 knots; that's 4 miles a minute. So 5 min alert times 4 miles a minute means they'd need to be alerted at 20 miles in order to intercept them as they took off!

Think about that.

Edited December 14, 2009 by Obviousman