Merged Fireballs and Backdraft in WTC1 Basement and Lobby

[Norseman]

Yeah, he is claiming that it took 30 seconds for the jet fuel to fall down the elevator shaft.

That is a new level of stupidity not seen before.

No the claim is reasonable see my OP (in the thread TexasJack linked) here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2927286#post2927286

And also see this page by Mark Roberts (Gravey) here:
http://911stories.googlepages.com/comparisonofwitnessaccountstorodriguezst2

What's unreasonable here is thewholesoul's interpretation of the events inside WTC 1.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

No the claim is reasonable see my OP (in the thread TexasJack linked) here:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3728749#post3728749

And also see this page by Mark Roberts (Gravey) here:
http://911stories.googlepages.com/comparisonofwitnessaccountstorodriguezst2

What's unreasonable here is thewholesoul's interpretation of the events inside WTC 1.

It is reasonable to expect the fuel to take 30 seconds to fall down the elevator shaft????

Where? on Mars?

 

[Norseman]

It is reasonable to expect the fuel to take 30 seconds to fall down the elevator shaft????

The first link in my post was wrong, it's now corrected. From my OP:

Regarding the time for the fireballs to reach the bottom of the shafts witness Edward McCabe gives the following account:

I was in the refrigeration plant in tower 1 sub basement 4.I was passing through when I felt a slight shifting of the building.I froze right where I stood and listened....nothing.. about 30 seconds past and to my left about 30 feet from me was a stairway leading up to a door. this door explodes off its hinges and white smoke came into the plant.

According to Wikipedia large raindrops impacts ground with a speed of 9 m/s. This gives a fall time for a fuel drop from the impact area to the bottom of the shafts of about 40 seconds. But the time would very likely be somewhat shorter due to down draught from falling elevators and expanding fire-gasses. So the timing of Edward McCabe looks very reasonable.

And in my post #5 in the same thread:

That would be correct initially, but when the speed increases water droplets with a size above 5 mm becomes unstable, and breaks up in to droplets of smaller diameters. Here is an interesting AMS article from 1970 about this that I found, where they started with a water flowing under zero pressure from a hose 60 meters above the ground. And here is an illustration of rain droplet breakup. At exactly what size jet fuel droplets breakup, in situations comparable to rain, I have not found, but this should be within the ballpark.

The timeframe is also supported by other witness accounts from the Lobby area and the basement levels.

 

[Alferd_Packer]

Thee reasons why I don't agree.

1) the impact severed elevator cables causing several of them to fall. This would have caused considerable downdraft within the elevator shaft.

2) When the fuel ignited, the rapidly expanding cloud of hot combustion gases would have shot down the elevator shafts like a giant spud gun. There is no evidence that the fuel fell all the way down before it ignited. In fact the idea is rather ludicrous.

3) The fuel started out as large volumes of liquid, not raindrops.

 

[RKOwens4]

thewholesoul, you do know that there were more elevator shafts in the building than just the shaft for Car 50, right? Felipe David says he was standing in front of the Car 50 elevator shaft when a fireball engulfed him, but Felipe David was still SURROUNDED by elevator shafts and elevator doors. If you look at the blueprints (below), you'll see that the elevator shaft for Car 6 (in yellow) is DIRECTLY across the elevator hallway from the Car 50 (in blue) elevator shaft.

The NIST report states that Car 6 was one of the ones that plummetted all the way to the sub-basement pit. This could explain the "explosion" that Felipe David felt below him. The distance between the two elevator doors can't be anymore than 15-20 feet apart, and if Felipe David was standing in the middle of the hallway (like most people waiting for an elevator), he would have been just as vulnerable to a fireball from Car 6's shaft as from Car 50's shaft. Therefore, your entire analysis of the events involving the Car 50 shaft are irrelevant, because the fireball erupted from the Car 6 shaft (probably).

 

[Alferd_Packer]

This is a moot point anyway.

Liquid fuel doesn't burn.

Although the detonation combustion mode produces the most severe damage, fast deflagrations of the cloud can result from flame acceleration under confined and congested conditions. Flame propagation speed has a significant influence on the blast parameters both inside and outside the source volume.

The blast effects from vapor cloud explosions are determined not only by the amount of fuel, but more importantly by the combustion mode of the cloud. Significant overpressures can be generated by both detonations and deflagrations. Most vapor cloud explosions are deflagrations, not detonations. Flame speed of a deflagration is subsonic, with flame speed increasing in restricted areas and decreasing in open areas. Significantly, a detonation is supersonic, and will proceed through almost all of the available flammable vapor at the detonation reaction rate. This creates far more severe peak over-pressures and much higher amounts of blast energy. The speed of the flame front movement is directly proportional to the amount of blast over-pressure. A wide spectrum of flame speeds may result from flame acceleration under various conditions. High flame front speeds and resulting high blast over pressures are seen in accidental vapor cloud explosions where there is a significant amount of confinement and congestion that limits flame front expansion and increases flame turbulence. These conditions are evidently more difficult to achieve in the unconfined environment in which military fuel-air explosives are intended to operate.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/fae.htm

just like a spud gun

 

[WildCat]

Bombs in the basment may be implausible to many in this room, but i will take implausible over impossible every single time. And so should any RATIONAL human being.

peace

So, what kind of bomb can "burn a man's arms and face to a crisp" and not blow him to smithereens? No truther has been able to answer this question, maybe you can tws?

 

[1337m4n]

(3) Flight AA 11 impacted from 93rd to 98th floor. http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-7.pdf(PDF pg. 160) 93 floors = 388m . Jet fuel falls 9.1m/s http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives...6446.Ph.r.html 388/9.1 = 43 seconds. Taking overpressure into consideration = 30 seconds.

Jet fuel falls 9.1m/s

9.1m/s

m/s

Wow.

Just wow.

Somebody does not understand the difference between velocity and acceleration.

Wow.

Welcome to the Stundies.

if anyone in this forum believes they can refute this argument please address the premises upon which the conclusion logically follows

On account of your sub-Junior HS understanding of physics, I believe your Premise #3 falls.

 

[1337m4n]

Welcome to the Stundies.

Oh dear, is it another month already? Where does time go.

Yo! Unsecured Coins! Hurry up, will ya?

 

[Mel Odious]

Jet fuel falls 9.1m/s

9.1m/s

m/s

Wow.

Just wow.

Somebody does not understand the difference between velocity and acceleration.

Wow.

m/s is velocity. m/s² is acceleration.

Are you sure that 9.1 m/s figure isn't a constant velocity?

 

[Pardalis]

William Rodriguez

I stopped reading after this.

 

[1337m4n]

m/s is velocity. m/s² is acceleration.

Are you sure that 9.1 m/s figure isn't a constant velocity?

thewholesoul gives and calculates it as a constant velocity--but he says it's the rate at which jet fuel "falls".

When something is falling, it is being moved by gravity. The value for gravity is acceleration, not velocity.

(He also has the figure wrong; the correct approximation to the nearest tenth is 9.8)

 

[Mel Odious]

thewholesoul gives and calculates it as a constant velocity--but he says it's the rate at which jet fuel "falls".

When something is falling, it is being moved by gravity. The value for gravity is acceleration, not velocity.

(He also has the figure wrong; the correct approximation to the nearest tenth is 9.8)

Okay, that makes sense. Not seeing the correct units used threw me.

 

[quicknthedead]

thewholesoul, you do know that there were more elevator shafts in the building than just the shaft for Car 50, right? Felipe David says he was standing in front of the Car 50 elevator shaft when a fireball engulfed him, but Felipe David was still SURROUNDED by elevator shafts and elevator doors. If you look at the blueprints (below), you'll see that the elevator shaft for Car 6 (in yellow) is DIRECTLY across the elevator hallway from the Car 50 (in blue) elevator shaft.

[qimg]http://911stories.googlepages.com/ServiceLevelB1.jpg/ServiceLevelB1-full.jpg[/qimg]

The NIST report states that Car 6 was one of the ones that plummetted all the way to the sub-basement pit. This could explain the "explosion" that Felipe David felt below him. The distance between the two elevator doors can't be anymore than 15-20 feet apart, and if Felipe David was standing in the middle of the hallway (like most people waiting for an elevator), he would have been just as vulnerable to a fireball from Car 6's shaft as from Car 50's shaft. Therefore, your entire analysis of the events involving the Car 50 shaft are irrelevant, because the fireball erupted from the Car 6 shaft (probably).

Excellent illuminating post, RKOwens! I learned on this one.
Thanks.

 

[Jonnyclueless]

Wait, you mean we are to believe that there were more elevators in the building that then ones in the OP carefully crafted presentation of cherry picked information meant to direct someone intot he opinion of the OP?

Isn't it much more likely that some diabolical unknown people would have planted napalm devices in the basement to burn people than to believe that a 110 sory building would have many elevators?

 

[bio]

You might want to take it up with Willie Rodriguez. On the one-year anniversary of the attacks, W-Rod told CNN:



He told NIST:

I do not see a problem. At the beginning, he thought it was the fireball, now, we hopefully accept, that that was impossible. So Mr. Rodriguez assumes bombs.

 

[bio]

thewholesoul, you do know that there were more elevator shafts in the building than just the shaft for Car 50, right? Felipe David says he was standing in front of the Car 50 elevator shaft when a fireball engulfed him, but Felipe David was still SURROUNDED by elevator shafts and elevator doors. If you look at the blueprints (below), you'll see that the elevator shaft for Car 6 (in yellow) is DIRECTLY across the elevator hallway from the Car 50 (in blue) elevator shaft.

[qimg]http://911stories.googlepages.com/ServiceLevelB1.jpg/ServiceLevelB1-full.jpg[/qimg]

The NIST report states that Car 6 was one of the ones that plummetted all the way to the sub-basement pit. This could explain the "explosion" that Felipe David felt below him. The distance between the two elevator doors can't be anymore than 15-20 feet apart, and if Felipe David was standing in the middle of the hallway (like most people waiting for an elevator), he would have been just as vulnerable to a fireball from Car 6's shaft as from Car 50's shaft. Therefore, your entire analysis of the events involving the Car 50 shaft are irrelevant, because the fireball erupted from the Car 6 shaft (probably).

Where were the cars of shaft 6 and 7? This is important, because cars provided resistance to the fireball and could even stop it.

 

[Brainster]

thewholesoul gives and calculates it as a constant velocity--but he says it's the rate at which jet fuel "falls".

When something is falling, it is being moved by gravity. The value for gravity is acceleration, not velocity.

(He also has the figure wrong; the correct approximation to the nearest tenth is 9.8)

Not to mention the fact that the fireball was not headed down that shaft at freefall, but at the speed of the expansion of the fireball. I would not at all be surprised if the time was only a couple of seconds max.

 

[Travis]

Wait, you mean we are to believe that there were more elevators in the building that then ones in the OP carefully crafted presentation of cherry picked information meant to direct someone intot he opinion of the OP?

Isn't it much more likely that some diabolical unknown people would have planted napalm devices in the basement to burn people than to believe that a 110 sory building would have many elevators?

I know when I plan to demolish 110 story buildings with thermite I always request a thermobaric bomb in the basement. You know, to just mess with everyone's minds.

 

[T.A.M.]

Seriously, this has been discussed and refuted before. Don't you have anything new?
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=92099

I have been here for 2 years, and I would say it has been every bit of a year since something new came from the TM.

TAM