The 9/11 Forum

Did the east... and then the west penthouse collapse right down through the building before the "big" descent? Or did they drop a story or two?

SanderO wrote:Did the east... and then the west penthouse collapse right down through the building before the "big" descent? Or did they drop a story or two?

More than a story or two. How far I don't know. I've always assumed it kept going.

Tony Szamboti gave a public presentation about wtc 7 and show an image where you could see sky through the upper story windows and asked if the PH had dropped all the way down, as some have said, wouldn't you see sky through more of those upper stories.

I thought was a pretty lame analysis and asked him in after the talk if the PH kept going. He flat out said absolutely not. It only dropped a single story.

If the PH did drop through the core and take out 79,89 and 81 and perhaps a few others it could lead to the complete destruction of the core columns and leave the building hollowed out and set up the FF and rapid descent of the facade and whatever floors were hanging on to the perimeter columns.

SanderO wrote:Tony Szamboti gave a public presentation about wtc 7 and show an image where you could see sky through the upper story windows and asked if the PH had dropped all the way down, as some have said, wouldn't you see sky through more of those upper stories.

I had a good look at the video information, and my conclusion is that you ca't see sky, but instead reflection on the windows as the facade twists.

Forget where we discussed it in some detail, but sure it'll turn up...

I agreed with your conclusion of no sky, wherever it was.

SanderO wrote:Tony Szamboti gave a public presentation about wtc 7 and show an image where you could see sky through the upper story windows and asked if the PH had dropped all the way down, as some have said, wouldn't you see sky through more of those upper stories.

I thought was a pretty lame analysis and asked him in after the talk if the PH kept going. He flat out said absolutely not. It only dropped a single story.

If the PH did drop through the core and take out 79,89 and 81 and perhaps a few others it could lead to the complete destruction of the core columns and leave the building hollowed out and set up the FF and rapid descent of the facade and whatever floors were hanging on to the perimeter columns.

Jeffrey,

Either I wasn't speaking clearly enough or you weren't listening well enough, as you completely misunderstood me. The point I made to you outside the auditorium, concerning the one story drop before the entire exterior came down, was about the screenwall and the west penthouse, not the east penthouse. If you remember I showed the frame by frame slides in a slow motion way to prove that what NIST was saying about the entire interior collapsing before the exterior came down was not true. The screenwall and west penthouse have started to drop and are still visible above the roofline when the entire exterior starts coming down. Anyone who says the entire interior collapsed leaving an exterior shell which then collapsed afterward is not being honest.

As far as what I said concerning the east penthouse, I showed the NIST figure where they say daylight was visible through the windows in the uppermost story and I think that is true. I did not say the east penthouse only dropped one story. It could have been three, four, or even ten. My point was that it did not collapse to the ground and that is all I was trying to say here, not that it had to be only one story, although it is certainly uncanny that there is no daylight seen below the upper story. In your posts here you failed to mention that I provided additional evidence that the east side of the interior did not drop to the ground before a horizontal east to west interior collapse began, as NIST claims. It is that there is no light colored dust coming out of broken windows on the east side until the exterior comes down, and that the east side exterior columns did not start buckling under their own weight, before the west side exterior did, which they would have if the entire east side interior had collapsed to the ground seconds before the west side interior and the entire exterior came down.

It is a shame you thought it was lame. Maybe if you had fully understood what I actually said you might have thought different.

Outside you also mentioned your notion that freefall acceleration was possible if the exterior column splices failed in unison, across the full length and width of the building, since they were long and slender walls at that point. That is when I asked you how that was even possible since it can be observed that the screenwall and west penthouse are still visible when the exterior starts to descend. You didn't answer that question and now I think I understand why you didn't, as it seems you did not quite follow what I was saying during my talk or outside in our personal conversation.

T_Szamboti wrote:Anyone who says the entire interior collapsed leaving an exterior shell which then collapsed afterward is not being honest.

Absolutely correct.

As far as what I said concerning the east penthouse, I showed the NIST figure where they say daylight was visible through the windows in the uppermost story and I think that is true.

Have you seen what femr2 is talking about with regards to the alleged sky actually being reflection? I always assumed it was sky but a pretty decent case was made that it wasn't. Can't find it now.

OneWhiteEye wrote:

T_Szamboti wrote:Anyone who says the entire interior collapsed leaving an exterior shell which then collapsed afterward is not being honest.

Absolutely correct.

As far as what I said concerning the east penthouse, I showed the NIST figure where they say daylight was visible through the windows in the uppermost story and I think that is true.

Have you seen what femr2 is talking about with regards to the alleged sky actually being reflection? I always assumed it was sky but a pretty decent case was made that it wasn't. Can't find it now.

It makes more sense that it is daylight in the top story windows than some form of reflection. After all the east penthouse did drop into the building. I think it is daylight and so does the NIST and it is visible before the exterior comes down and there is any twist of the exterior. I haven't seen the argument you mention.

However, as I discuss above that was only one small part of the argument I was making for why it appears that the east side interior did not collapse to the ground before the exterior came down. The lack of early east side exterior column buckling and no light colored dust emanating from windows on the east side before exterior collapse are strong indicators that the entire east side interior did not collapse before the exterior came down. This throws a lot of cold water on the NIST alleged failure of column 79 between floors 5 and 13.

NIST shows a graphic from an analysis where column 79 was removed and it resulted in matching the observed kink in the roof of the east penthouse. However, that doesn't prove where column 79 was removed/failed. This kink in the penthouse roof would occur the same way if column 79 was removed at the 40th, 41st, 42nd, or 43rd floors as it would if it failed at the 12th floor.

T_Szamboti wrote:Anyone who says the entire interior collapsed leaving an exterior shell which then collapsed afterward is not being honest.

Why is this being dishonest? How can you tell that the entire core did not collapse before the facade?

Was the mechanism making the north facade to bow inward as it descends? Are there floors and structure behind the IB and has it bowed? Why and how?

Perhaps the north side bowed in because the girder cantilevers and the transfer trusses along the sides of the core and the north row of the core columns fell right though the sub station taking the floors above on the north side with them... hence the IB of the facade - nothing behind??? If so, could the collapse or the north side of the core pull the south side down and the OOS floors and structure on the south side... essentially gutting out the tower just in advance of the facade drop?

Bump...

I've come across a quote by the engineer of B7, Irwin Cantor, who said the tower came down because the diesel fires weakened the transfer trusses.

That sounded very much like my *theory* of late which proposed the following sequence:

1. Plane hits tower 1 causing shorts in the electrical system which blows transformers in WTC 1 and also in WTC 7. Con Ed reported losing up to 8 13kv feeders beginning at 8:46, the instant of the plane strike. Rodriguez hears an explosion in the sub basement about a second before he hears the plane hit... sound travels much slower so he heard the explosion instantly and the sound from the plane a second after the event.

2. Transformers in the sub station at B7 overheat and explode or leak insulating oil which is flammable and can explode. Jennings and Hess leaving the EMC at floor 23 walking down the stairs (no power to the elevators... BEFORE WTC falls and before 10 am) experience explosion(s) below them when they were at about floor 6/7 and managed to get back up to 8. Stairs were in the core above the sub station and blown apart. sub station gas exploding???

3. Back up generators kick in and they begin pumping diesel up from basement and ground tanks to 275 gal day tanks with float or pressure switches. Day tanks are breached by the explosions and pumps are bringing up a constant supply of diesel which pours onto the floor and then is ignited and burns for hours.

4. Transfer trusses and cantilever girder are within the mech floors on 6&7 and are heated and weakened by the diesel fires for more than 8 hrs.

5. One strut in a truss loses yield strength from the heating and fails... other struts buckle. One failure leads to another. All transfer trusses fail... and same with cantilever girders... like the progressive failure progress in the twins' core columns.

6. Core drops... 24 columns... plunging down 8 floors right through the sub station. East penthouse was directly over one or two of the transfer trusses... the one(s) that failed first???? then the one to the west...

7. The upper floors drop down with no core side support following in an instant after the core drops. It's possible that the core pulled the floors with it like water rushing down a sink drain.

8. The collapsing and transfer trusses on floors 6&7 caused the frame around the core below 8 to *implode* inward... the 57 perimeter columns just inside the curtain wall. There was essentially no structure now for the first 8 floors... all a consequence of the transfer truss collapses.

9. The last part to go was the curtain wall which separated from the spandrels which fell inward with the floors. The curtain wall was connected to the spandrels with light steel angle clips and bolts which parted rather easily when the massive spandrels and floors plunged downward.

10. The inward bowing of the north curtain wall may telegraph the fact that the cantilever girders were below the north wall supporting the columns and spandrels inside the north curtain wall. If those columns held by the cantilever girders did fail with the transfer trusses as they were all on floors 6&7 then there WAS nothing behind the curtain wall to hold it plumb. The dropping of the cantilever girders preceded that of the rest of the other perimeter columns. The sub station was on the north side of the building.

Vids of the lower part of the tower on the east and south side show extensive fires all along floors 6&7 with heavy black smoke pouring out to the south... the lee side (low pressure side of the tower)... Also there was a massive intake grille at floor 6&7 for the HVAC system providing a *way in" for the air on the windward north side giving plenty of fresh oxygen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzi8Ull24KQ

comments???