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To: laconas
To the contrary, my friend.

Anyone who knows the techniques of Controlled Demolition, Inc., the world's leading firm that uses explosives to drop buildings in their tracks, knows that the Towers were designed to take the hit of an airliner into them. They were not designed to take a fire of 2,000 degrees, caused by a full load of aviation fuel.

The floor supports of the building (just each floor, not the entire building) are rated to survive at about 1,500 degrees. Beyond that, the floor supports fail and the building pancakes down, from the point of failure, taking whatever is above it, with it, and crushing whatever is below it. I've followed the career of Controlled Demolition, based in my former hometown of tiny Towson, Maryland. These terrorists did crudely, using fully-loaded transcontinental jet liners, what Controlled Demolition does precisely, using just a few pounds of shaped charges, precisely placed and precisely targetted.

The designer of the Towers confirmed this. Like the designer of the Titanic, when he saw how extensive the fires were, he knew the Towers were doomed. The result of dropping the Towers was planned, not accidental. The death toll was relatively low compared to what it could have been, because the steel holding the floors at the point of the impacts lasted almost an hour. That's why so few of the casualties were civilians, and so many were the firemen who were in there to clear both buildings.

I wrote this up in my column posted during my honeymoon in Las Vegas. Click below. This was written entirely from memory (no interactive Internet access). It is also entirely accurate.

The (More er Less) Honorable Billybob,
cyberCongressman from Western Carolina

Click here for Billybob's latest, "The Engineering (and Law) of War."

73 posted on 09/18/2001 4:10:10 PM PDT by Congressman Billybob
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To: Congressman Billybob
Excellent article. As a trained Structural/Civil Engineer, I concur completely with your conclusions. It would not surprise me to find that the terrorists had checked bags with explosives or high combustibles onto their planes.
98 posted on 09/18/2001 5:46:53 PM PDT by Andrew Byler
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To: Congressman Billybob
Correct on all points, Congressman. These characters knew what they were doing. I have read that the bomb in 1993, was just a feet away from hitting the right spot for collapsing the tower. In both cases, engineers planned the hits.

I don't think the WTC builders had counted on the sort of hits they got. They were expecting an accidental (likely indirect) airplane hit, not the piledriver slams the buildings took. And of course, not with full gas tanks.

My theory is that the terrorist pilots were ahead of schedule, and were supposed to have hit at 9:30 or 10:00 a.m., when the buildings, mezzanine below them, and plaza around them would have been filled with upwards of 150,000 people. But they couldn't wait, because they knew that if they waited until then, they would be shot down.

That theory explains why other terrorist cells were stuck on the ground, in planes at Logan and JFK that were cancelled, due to the news of the WTC hits.

See also:

Arabprop: The Propaganda War

It DID Happen Here

108 posted on 09/18/2001 6:56:04 PM PDT by mrustow
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To: Congressman Billybob
I do believe that you have it right Billy Bob. If the planes had hit at a lower elevation the WTC probably would not have come down. The lower levels require much more steel supports as they are carrying the weight of the entire tower. A strike at a lower level probably would have killed more due to smoke and fire but the Towers would probably have not fallen. I suspect the planners behind the strike expected the Towers to fall but much quicker than occurred. The loss of life is tragic and brings tears to my eyes. The loss could have been many times greater if the towers had failed quickly.

I am throughly convinced that there was some very sophisticated engineers behind the planning of this attack. I do think the terrorist did hit the buildings at the desired height and speed.

In closing I would to say our strikes of retribution will kill some innocents. I much prefer killing their innocents than they killing ours. The goverment or goverments that gave support to these terrorists must be elimintated (killed) so that any other country that considers supporting terrorists knows they will be destroyed if found out.

119 posted on 09/19/2001 8:35:45 AM PDT by cpdiii
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