The Evidence Surrounding the 9/11 World Trade Center Attacks, and Subsequent Tower Collapse

1806 Words4 Pages

On September 11, 2001 four passenger commercial jet airliners were hijacked and as a result approximately 3,000 human lives were lost. When asked about 9/11, many can recall exactly what they were doing when they heard the news that a plane crashed into one of the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings and many Americans can tell you how it all unfolded and the reason behind such a travesty. The “official story” provided by officials, and restated by Sofia Shafquat, producer of “9/11 Mysteries: Demolitions” say that “four passenger planes were hijacked and taken radically off course, within an hour, two of the planes had flown into the enormous steel towers of the World Trade Center, creating fires and eventually toppling them” (Shafquat). Soon the American public believed that the impact of the planes and that the fires had gotten so hot from burning jet fuel, that they caused the steel frames of the buildings to give way and implode, falling to the ground into dust (Shafquat). Internal fires take on the responsibility of the official story, though others believe controlled demolition is to blame. Some evidence that debates these two explanations of how the steel towers fell are: the way the buildings collapsed, the properties of steel, and the evidence of molten metal.

There have been suspicions surrounding how the towers collapsed into dust. Some say it was a “pancake” collapse. According to Engineers, a pancake collapse or progressive collapse is when the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bears down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor and unable to absorb the energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the ...

... middle of paper ...

...? The Real Story Behind Five Years of High Alerts.” Rolling Stone.Com. 07 February 2008. 13 September 2008. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18056504/truth_or_terrorism_the_real_story_behind_five_years_of_high_alerts.

Jones, Steven E. “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” Journal of 9/11 Studies 3 (September 2006): 1-48. 26 August 2008. http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf.

Lawson, Guy. “Fear Factory.” Rolling Stone.Com. 07 February 2008. 10 September 2008. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18137343/the_fear_factory/print.

Popular Mechanics.eds. “Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report.” Popular Mechanics Online. March 2005. 26 August 2008. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html.

More about The Evidence Surrounding the 9/11 World Trade Center Attacks, and Subsequent Tower Collapse

Open Document