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Empire State Building VS WTC


ZELDAR

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So I was reading an article about the Empire State Building having bedbugs in its basement. I noticed it said it withstood a B-52 Bomber crashing into it at 200 mph. So, how could a building built in 1931 be made to take a hit from a plane, and the World Trade Centers went down after 56 minutes? All of these buildings (WTC) were built between 1975 and 1981. Surely the architects would have built it with the ability to withstand multiple plane crashes at over 200 mph and more weight. I mean... it was almost 50 years later. If this doesn't prove that there were explosives in the damn buildings, and that this was an inside job. WTF does? Also don't know if this should be posted here but it seems like a modern mystery to me.

Edited by ZELDAR
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The plane that hit the Empire State Buildng wasn't a Boeing 757 (correct me if I'm wrong about the number) and not going at high fast speed. And the building was still unoccupied. The plane didn't have the fuel like the planes that hit the towers. Not to mention that the plane was much MUCH smaller than the two 9/11 planes.

When the towers went up, no one thought THAT could happen. It's not like people could see the future or anything.

Edited by Moon Princess
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So I was reading an article about the Empire State Building having bedbugs in its basement. I noticed it said it withstood a B-52 Bomber crashing into it at 200 mph. So, how could a building built in 1931 be made to take a hit from a plane, and the World Trade Centers went down after 56 minutes? All of these buildings (WTC) were built between 1975 and 1981. Surely the architects would have built it with the ability to withstand multiple plane crashes at over 200 mph and more weight. I mean... it was almost 50 years later. If this doesn't prove that there were explosives in the damn buildings, and that this was an inside job. WTF.

Yup, someone probably planted a bomb set to go off when the planes hit at the same time, Bush knew about the destruction of the Towers before hand, he caused it all. The Government covered it all up, by saying it was terrorist, radical Muslims. Bush was in control of the whole operation. I just know it!

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The plane that hit the Empire State Buildng wasn't a Boeing 757 (correct me if I'm wrong about the number) and not going at high fast speed. And the building was still unoccupied. The plane didn't have the fuel like the planes that hit the towers. Not to mention that the plane was much MUCH smaller than the two 9/11 planes.

When the towers went up, no one thought THAT could happen. It's not like people could see the future or anything.

The building WAS occupied, here is a link to the story: bomber crash . After that happened you would have to expect it to happen again. That should have been an eye opener to architects everywhere. What if it did fall down? You must make sure it never happens. Plus this is 50 years later, that is years and years of structural advances. When you build a skyscraper, it's in the sky. Where the planes are. Gotta expect the worse.

Also to SupermanFan, I believe the owner of all the WTC buildings is behind it. Why would you demolish WTC7 on the same day for no reason? The have to demolish all other WTC buildings. Wikipedia it, the WTC complex was fully demolished. The guy was covered by billions of insurance and those buildings going down would make him rich. He demolished the complex to build BIGGER skyscrapers. Bigger buildings = more business = more money.

Edited by ZELDAR
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The building WAS occupied, here is a link to the story: bomber crash . After that happened you would have to expect it to happen again. That should have been an eye opener to architects everywhere. What if it did fall down? You must make sure it never happens. Plus this is 50 years later, that is years and years of structural advances. When you build a skyscraper, it's in the sky. Where the planes are. Gotta expect the worse.

Not as occupied the towers were.

I saw a documentary regarding the event. That incident was an complete and total accident. It wasn't on purpose.

The two incidents are totally different.

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Not as occupied the towers were.

I saw a documentary regarding the event. That incident was an complete and total accident. It wasn't on purpose.

The two incidents are totally different.

Just because one was an accident and one wasn't doesn't make them different. A plane hit the ESB, and a plane hit the WTC. SAME THING. The 50 year advancement of structural integrity is the point. The amount of people in the building has no relevance at this time. What i'm trying to get across is that the WTCs had to be made to withstand all types of hits. Especially being built 50 years after a plane smashed into the Empire State Building. Also the fuel in the planes that hit the WTC's don't burn hot enough to burn through the supports.

Edited by ZELDAR
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It depends on the type of fuel, the plane weight, height,width and what is made of

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It depends on the type of fuel, the plane weight, height,width and what is made of

I saw a video of some tests done with the fuel from the planes and it was about 1000 degrees TOO COLD to burn the supports, I'll try to find the video. If anyone has it please post it. Also, the beams looked like they were cut with wire explosives, used by demolition teams. the beams sticking up looked like this /|

Edited by ZELDAR
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I don't have any facts to back me up, but I presume the Empire State Building was probably better built than the WTC. The ESB is built of 60 thousands tons of steel, 10 million bricks, 62 thousand cubic yard of concrete, 200 thousand cubic feet of limestone and granite, 10 thousand square feet of marble. (Plus, it was designed to be beautiful and elegant, unlike the WTC.) Just an aside.

How all this would stand up to two Boeing 767's at 575mph and 450 mph and a combined 20 thousands gallons of jet fuel I don't know. I think the two impacts were enough without bombs being placed in the building to accomplish the task.

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The plane that hit the Empire State Buildng wasn't a Boeing 757 (correct me if I'm wrong about the number) and not going at high fast speed. And the building was still unoccupied. The plane didn't have the fuel like the planes that hit the towers. Not to mention that the plane was much MUCH smaller than the two 9/11 planes.

When the towers went up, no one thought THAT could happen. It's not like people could see the future or anything.

the rest of the reason is because the empire state building was built with cubes. in cube would have to be taken out to destroy the building.

the towers were too tall for the cube idea to work so they basically built a tree trunk with the floors being built on branches. i am keeping it simple.

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I have absolutely no idea why ZELDAR thought that the Modern Mysteries, New Age and 2012 forum was the correct place for this.

I'm moving it to the Conspiracies & Secret Societies forum, with the dozens of other threads on this subject.

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The building WAS occupied, here is a link to the story: bomber crash . After that happened you would have to expect it to happen again. That should have been an eye opener to architects everywhere. What if it did fall down? You must make sure it never happens. Plus this is 50 years later, that is years and years of structural advances. When you build a skyscraper, it's in the sky. Where the planes are. Gotta expect the worse.

Also to SupermanFan, I believe the owner of all the WTC buildings is behind it. Why would you demolish WTC7 on the same day for no reason? The have to demolish all other WTC buildings. Wikipedia it, the WTC complex was fully demolished. The guy was covered by billions of insurance and those buildings going down would make him rich. He demolished the complex to build BIGGER skyscrapers. Bigger buildings = more business = more money.

It was a B-25 that hit the Empire State building not a B-52 as you first said. It was lost in fog trying to land, so moving much slower, with less fuel and much less mass. The energy of the crash is magnitudes less. Since then instrument approaches have become more common and more precise. A pilot flying an instrument approach will not come near a building. They also have approach radar to watch and warn planes.

If Silverstein was involved then why, when he bought the insurance, did he try to buy far less than he could have and have to be talked UP to the amount he ended up with (still less than recommended)?

From here

http://www.forbes.com/2003/09/11/cx_da_0911silverstein.html

In its court papers, Swiss Re shows how Silverstein first tried to buy just $1.5 billion in property damage and business-interruption coverage. When his lenders objected, he discussed buying a $5 billion policy. Ultimately, he settled on the $3.5 billion figure, which was less than the likely cost of rebuilding.

Edited by frenat
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Indeed, the B-25 that hit the Empire State Building might have been doing about 150 knots, and weighted about 25000 pounds. The 767s that hit the WTC towers were around 450,000 pounds doing around 500 kts. The energies involved are many magnitudes different.

That's the difference in the two events.

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As well as all the aforementioned, it was interesting to note that one of the engines from the B-25 when through the building and landing on the street on the opposite side of the building.

regarding the B-25, here is a breakdown of the impact forces involved:

http://www.eng.uab.edu/cee/faculty/ndelatte/case_studies_project/Bomber.htm

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Also, the beams looked like they were cut with wire explosives, used by demolition teams. the beams sticking up looked like this /|

I'm sure the photograph you saw was taken during the dismantling of the remaining structure after the collapse. That's how they cut down the standing pieces, many days after the collapses.

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Well, it was B-25, (maximum takeoff weight about 20 tons), rather than a 767 (767-200 about 140 tons), and was flying a lot slower (about 200 as against about 500 mph).

A plane hit the ESB, and a plane hit the WTC. SAME THING.

it's not, as i hope is clear from the above figures, anything remotely like the same thing.

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Just to put a number to it, the Empire State B-25 had about 1% of the kinetic energy of a WTC 767.

The aircraft impact hazard was considered in the design of WTC, and the towers did indeed withstand the impacts. However, the additional effect of the fires was beyond what was considered in the design of the buildings. Here's a link:

http://www.lera.com/sep11.htm

We designed the towers to resist the accidental impact of a Boeing 707, perhaps lost in the fog while seeking to land. The impact of the Boeing 767s, commandeered by the terrorists, even though larger and flying much faster, was still unable to bring down the towers. The fire-resistive systems, however, did not and could not have contemplated the subsequent fire fueled by thousands of gallons of jet fuel.

Edited by flyingswan
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The plane that hit the Empire State Buildng wasn't a Boeing 757 (correct me if I'm wrong about the number) and not going at high fast speed. And the building was still unoccupied. The plane didn't have the fuel like the planes that hit the towers. Not to mention that the plane was much MUCH smaller than the two 9/11 planes.

When the towers went up, no one thought THAT could happen. It's not like people could see the future or anything.

The WTC builders did think it could happen. The towers shouldn't have collapsed at all, much less in the way they did.

Edited by MysticStrummer
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The aircraft impact hazard was considered in the design of WTC, and the towers did indeed withstand the impacts. However, the additional effect of the fires was beyond what was considered in the design of the buildings. Here's a link:

http://www.lera.com/sep11.htm

We designed the towers to resist the accidental impact of a Boeing 707, perhaps lost in the fog while seeking to land. The impact of the Boeing 767s, commandeered by the terrorists, even though larger and flying much faster, was still unable to bring down the towers. The fire-resistive systems, however, did not and could not have contemplated the subsequent fire fueled by thousands of gallons of jet fuel.

Please see the message board rules, “2d. Accuracy: Do not post material that is knowingly or intentionally false, inaccurate or misleading.”

When you continue to state, “the additional effect of the fires was beyond what was considered in the design of the buildings” despite being corrected numerous times, you are knowingly breaking the above rule. As is clearly documented and you are aware, the head structural engineer for the WTC, John Skilling, absolutely did consider the possibility of a plane impact and resulting fire.

As he has stated on record: -

“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, the building structure would still be there.”

It’s worth reading the whole of the above short article.

If you want to argue your personal opinion that accurate prediction of the fire outcome was not achievable in the 60s, that is fine. But please don’t continue your attempt to deliberately mislead people by claiming that fire effects were not considered –they blatantly were.

A plane hit the ESB, and a plane hit the WTC. SAME THING.

Regarding the Empire State Building, it has been mentioned that the B-25 was rather much smaller than a 767. It would also be worth adding that the structure, unlike the WTC, was a steel frame reinforced with concrete. The significance of this was noted by the Deputy Chief of the Fire Department of New York: -

“The more mass the more fire resistance. The best fire resistive building in America is a concrete structure. The structures that limit and confine fires best, and suffer fewer collapses are reinforced concrete pre-WWII buildings such as housing projects and older high rise buildings like the empire state building, The more concrete, the more fire resistance; and the more concrete the less probability of total collapse. The evolution of high- rise construction can be seen, by comparing the Empire State Building to the World Trade Center. The estimate is the ratio of concrete to steel in the empire state building is 60/40.”

Whilst we see that the Empire State Building and WTC crashes were not exactly the same thing, comparisons can still be made so long as we are aware of the differences. It would be incorrect to claim there is no precedent at all to the WTC event just because no identical building has suffered in identical circumstances.

For example, both buildings suffered impacts which would have been expected to dislodge material from around the steel frames. The Empire State Building fire burned for approximately 2 hours, a longer duration than either of the Twin Towers.

Could it not be expected, considering the above, that the Empire State Building would experience at least some form of partial collapse and/or structural weakening from the fire? But no, not even that - offices on the lower floors were open for business the next day.

Still there are other building fire comparisons. Here are some of the best: -

One Meridian Plaza fire - February 23rd, 1991

meridian_plaza.jpg

The fire lasted for over 19 hours and engulfed 8 floors.

The FEMA report observed: -

“After the fire, there was evident significant structural damage to horizontal steel members and floor sections on most of the fire damaged floors. Beams and girders sagged and twisted -- some as much as three feet -- under severe fire exposures, and fissures developed in the reinforced concrete floor assemblies in many places. Despite this extraordinary exposure, the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage.”

It took the fire 19 hours to produce these results in the One Meridian Plaza and still the significant damage did not cause even partial collapse. Contrast that with the 56 minute fire which caused WTC2 to enter a sudden, near freefall, global collapse. Consider also the less than 7 hour fire which allegedly produced the same results in WTC7.

First Interstate Bank fire – May 4th, 1988

la_fire_lg_c.jpg

The fire burned for 3 hours 40 minutes and covered 4 floors.

The fire report observed: -

“In spite of the total burnout of four and a half floors, there was no damage to the main structural members and only minor damage to one secondary beam and a small number of floor pans. Although there was concern for structural integrity during the incident, post fire analysis indicates that there was no danger of major or minor structural collapse. It was noted that quality control in the application of the sprayed-on fire protection was unusually good.”

Again it is seen that there was no risk of even partial collapse. Whilst the application of fire-proofing was noted as being “unusually good”, it must be considered that the WTC7 building, which was of a 14 year more recent design, may also have had equally as effective fire protection.

New York Plaza fire – August 5th, 1970

No picture of this one but the fire duration was 6 hours over at least 3 floors.

It was reported that: -

“spray-on fireproofing, which at some point had been knocked away, left steel supports for the floors exposed to the blaze. They twisted and pulled away from their connections, initiating collapses that stopped only because the concrete slabs of the floors refused to give way.”

I’m unsure as to the extent of the claimed collapse initiations here – it is certainly known that the building survived and if the floor slabs did not give way then there was in fact no collapse. Again, contrast with the three WTC buildings which also had concrete flooring and yet all entered global collapse.

Also worthy of note are the Beijing Television Cultural Center fire, the Caracas Tower fire, the Windsor Madrid building fire, the Cardington Test building fire, the Bankers Trust building fire and the WTC5 fire. Not one of these examples came close to the results of the three WTC buildings on 9/11. The only evident comparison for that…… is controlled demolition.

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Q24, the fires you mention would have been survivable in the WTC towers as well, were it not for the annoying detail of structural damage caused by the high speed jetliner impacts...impacts AND fires...

The chief engineer got it wrong...simple as that. I don't see firefighters, CD experts, or structural engineers lining up en masse to question the events on 9/11.

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Please see the message board rules, “2d. Accuracy: Do not post material that is knowingly or intentionally false, inaccurate or misleading.”

Q24,

I strongly suggest that you take your own advice and see the message board rules. I would advise you to pay particular attention to this one:

5. Etiquette

In the interests of maintaining constructive and friendly discussions:

  • 5i. Rule quoting: Do not quote the site rules to other members, if you believe the rules have been broken please hit the 'report' button.

Thank you.

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So I was reading an article about the Empire State Building having bedbugs in its basement. I noticed it said it withstood a B-52 Bomber crashing into it at 200 mph. So, how could a building built in 1931 be made to take a hit from a plane, and the World Trade Centers went down after 56 minutes? All of these buildings (WTC) were built between 1975 and 1981. Surely the architects would have built it with the ability to withstand multiple plane crashes at over 200 mph and more weight. I mean... it was almost 50 years later. If this doesn't prove that there were explosives in the damn buildings, and that this was an inside job. WTF does? Also don't know if this should be posted here but it seems like a modern mystery to me.

What the mystery actually is--is that so many people today have no concept about fairly basic physical principals, and logic, and fail to have enough inquisitiveness to actually study the situations before proclaiming such nonsense as "inside job" and "conspiracy".

First of all, the B-52 bomber was, in 1945, 7 years away from it's maiden test flight.

The 1945 impact into the Empire State Building was a B-25, a WW2 medium bomber.

You ask how the WTC towers could've suffered catastrophic damage while the Empire State Building did not.

The answer is two fold.

First of all, there is no similarity between the two events.

The B-25, which was indeed traveling somewhere in the vicinity of 200 miles per hour, was an aircraft with two internal cumbustion engines, has a wingspan of 67 feet and a length of 53 feet, and weighed around 25,000 pounds that day. The aircraft was carrying approximately 5,000 pounds of fuel (couldn't have been much more...it was on a relatively short ferry flight).

The Boeing 767 is 159 feet long, 156 feet in wing span, was traveling approximately 500 MPH that day, and weighed in at over 275,000 pounds, powered full throttle by jet fueled turbofans, and was loaded with fuel for a cross-country trip...roughly 100,000 pounds of jet fuel.

The basic difference in impact energy liberated by the 767 was at least 70 times larger (maybe more...I'd have to do the math again...) than that of the B-25.

That's the difference. Further, about 20 times more fuel was involved...another significant thing.

The Empire State Building sustained significant damage, and a fire that was extinguished in approximately 40 minutes.

the WTC towers sustained massive damage and much more significant fire that could not be extinguished.

The B-25 crash was an insiration to design the WTC towers to sustain the impact of a Boeing 707 jet, at approach speeds (there's no jet at 1000 feet that's doing cruising flight speeds...you're either approaching, or departing an airport, and you're no where near cruising speeds during those operations). This is an aircraft that would've been doing approximately 30% the speed of the 767 in question, and which was about 70% the size, and mass of the 767 in question. The buldings were stressed to be able to handle perhaps 1/20 the impact energy (or less) they received on 9-11-01.

Why the WTC towers would've been built to endure multiple large aircraft impacts at speeds that aren't permitted in NYC airspace is beyond me. ATC prohibits any aircraft on approach or departure from LaGuardia, Newark, Teterboro, JFK, or any New York Airport from being anywhere near the WTC area during operations. The buldings were designed to endure a highly unlikely accident, not a deliberate suicide run.

In 1945, no such planning existed, and the pilot of that B-25 did not follow established procedures. In 2001, it was impossible, short of a deliberate act (which 9-11 was) for any jet to be anywhere near the WTC or Empire State Building area.

I think it's abundantly clear why the WTC towers fell in 2001 and the Empire State Building didn't in 1945.

It's a simple matter of relative energy levels between the two events...of which there is utterly no comparison.

Edited by MID
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Q24, the fires you mention would have been survivable in the WTC towers as well, were it not for the annoying detail of structural damage caused by the high speed jetliner impacts...impacts AND fires...

The chief engineer got it wrong...simple as that. I don't see firefighters, CD experts, or structural engineers lining up en masse to question the events on 9/11.

I just don't think he's ever going to get that....

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Q24,

I strongly suggest that you take your own advice and see the message board rules. I would advise you to pay particular attention to this one:

Thank you.

Apologies for my rule quoting.

Q24, the fires you mention would have been survivable in the WTC towers as well, were it not for the annoying detail of structural damage caused by the high speed jetliner impacts...impacts AND fires...

You are completely ignoring WTC7 which did not suffer an impact.

Apart from that, the impact damage is too often hyped without cause…

Using WTC1 as the example, in the worst case scenario that NIST could concoct, a maximum nine of the forty-seven core columns were severed or severely damaged. NIST confirmed that such an impact would result in the core structure carrying only an additional 1% load. Once it is known that the core columns had an average safety factor in excess of 2:1, it is understood that there was still huge redundant capacity in the structures immediately following impact.

These facts, and indeed the witnessed impact, are in perfect agreement with WTC construction manager Frank Demartini, who believed, “the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.” In other words, the impacts did very little to the integrity of the structures.

You see, even NIST relied on additional manually input forces to initiate collapse in their models – their ramped up fire and impact damage together still were not enough.

The chief engineer got it wrong...simple as that. I don't see firefighters, CD experts, or structural engineers lining up en masse to question the events on 9/11.

Maybe John Skilling got it wrong… but I would have to take his word over yours. The interesting thing is, the base analysis that NIST carried out for the fire situation actually agreed with those earlier findings – the buildings should not have collapsed. Of course this was a politically unacceptable answer and so NIST increased the fire severity and input the further forces I mentioned above to give the desired result.

1,258 architects and engineers have signed a petition demanding an independent investigation into the WTC collapses – that is quite a large number of qualified individuals. Silence of the larger engineering community does not automatically constitute their agreement one way or the other and there are certainly not so many professionals specifically lining up to acclaim the official story.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

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1,258 architects and engineers have signed a petition demanding an independent investigation into the WTC collapses – that is quite a large number of qualified individuals. Silence of the larger engineering community does not automatically constitute their agreement one way or the other and there are certainly not so many professionals specifically lining up to acclaim the official story.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

Seeing that "1,258" makes something less than 0.05% of the population of engineers and architects, even less if you only count structural engineers, and also seeing that "truthers" like quoting polls showing a large proportion of the public at large having doubts about the official theory, it would seem that being qualified makes you several orders of magnitude less likely to have doubts. Incidentally, how many of the "1,258" have actually published any analysis of the collapses? The statements on that website, with their repetition of well-debunked points, suggest that most of them haven't even looked at the facts.

Apart from that, where is your evidence that the engineering community are silent? How many engineers have you discussed this with? Why don't you ask a few at random? Just go to your nearest engineering college.

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