Do we agree the towers were designed to withstand jetliner crash?

[westprog]

Welcome to the forums, westprog.

Delighted to be here.

 

[Non Believer]

As a have said I think the thread is winding down, especially if I only have Beachnut and Loss Leader to respond to.
Loss Leader. as usaual you really have nothing to say. No response to the question about 1993, and no response to the two versions of Robertson (post and pre 9-11).
One last time if Skillings statements were so outrageous why were they not challenged. If you believe he was misquoted that is fine as your personal belief, but it means NOTHING in terms of evidence. The fact that he is quoted is evidence until proven otherwise. Oh by the way are you an expert?
I never said it was a conspriracy if the experts refused to discuss the issue. What I am saying is that if the most important event of the last 50 years cannot be discussed openly by the public then we have lost a functioning democracy. If the experts claim only they can understand the real issues and then refuse to discuss them, where does that leave us ? You must have an informed citizenry to have a true democracy. I hope those terms ring some sort of a bell

 

[Loss Leader]

As a have said I think the thread is winding down, especially if I only have Beachnut and Loss Leader to respond to.

I think he's right. You know that you're dealing with a real conspiracy lightweight when the person dispatched to debunk him is me. I mean, when Binglybert and Mackey don't even check in, you can bet that the individual honestly has nothing to say. I take the fact that I'm the one answering him as conclusive proof that his points are not only without merit, but without even substance.

As Non Believer is so vapid that *I* was able to rebut his silly arguments, I agree that we should all move on.

 

[beachnut]

I thought Non Believer was just a veiled CT troll, not really saying what he wants to say. A non issue question/statement on possible proprietary design issue thread.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I think the evidence is clear that the majority of the engineers of the towers have gone on the record that the towers were designed to withstand crashes of fully fueled jetliners. Leslie Robertson's famous quote that the coincidence theorists point to says that he was not aware of any calculations that were done on the resultant fires from a crash. He does not say that he knew there were no such calculations. The late John Skilling is clearly on the record that the towers were built to withstand such an event, as is the late Frank Demartini who died in the towers on Sept 11. De Martini can be seen on video claiming that the towers could withstand multiple jetliners. For those of you not aware of the history. The empire state building was struck by a B-25 bomber that was lost in the fog in 1945. Because of this event the designers of the towers intentionally designed the towers to withstand such an impact.

Something you might not be aware of, but not all jetliners are the same size, they where designed for a 707 crash not a 777 crash, damn you aviation for building bigger planes.

 

[Housefly]

Hey! Check this out!

The towers DID withstand the impacts!

Two large jet planes crashed into them at high speed! But they remained standing!

For nearly an hour!

At which point they collapsed DUE TO WIDESPREAD FIRES!

Who needs physics when you've got semantics?

 

[rwguinn]

Hey! Check this out!

The towers DID withstand the impacts!

Two large jet planes crashed into them at high speed! But they remained standing!

For nearly an hour!

At which point they collapsed DUE TO WIDESPREAD FIRES!

Who needs physics when you've got semantics?

I don't know whay so many CT ers (and regular people, too) have trouble understanding that and is different from or.

The Tower will withstand an unchecked Fire for 2 hours, or the impact.
Not both. No And in there

 

[firecoins]

I don't know whay so many CT ers (and regular people, too) have trouble understanding that and is different from or.

The Tower will withstand an unchecked Fire for 2 hours, or the impact.
Not both. No And in there

Because they don't care. Especially normal people. Some than read some ct thing, see a movie and believe it because they care initally floored by what they say. Unless they take the time to research it, they won't get beyond the ct.

 

[Non Believer]

As for the and or question their is an inclusive version of or that has the same semantic version of and. Also in Frege's modern formal predicate (you know what they teach you in college level logic courses), the inclusive or and and have the same function. Just thought you guys might need a refresher, since their are now signs of the big L in any of your statements.
I am going to sum up the argument on this thread as I have seen it. We can debate what evidence is, but much of my case is based on the statements by John Skilling in 1993 and by Frank Demartini in 2000. Both men were among the most intimately involved in the building of the trade towers, and are on record as saying the towers would survive airplane impacts. This is really the fundamental point of this thread, whether these men were involved in, or believed it to be a fact in their minds, that the towers were built to withstand fully fueled jetliners at high speeds. Whether or not they were correct in having those beliefs is a secondary point that I will take up in a minute. Some have said they believe they were misquoted (though De Martini is on film). Those with such a claim need to show some evidence, none has arrived. Others claim that the speed of 600 MPH (cited by Skilling) would be extremely dangerous, yet it is the cruising speed of the plane so there is no reason to believe that Skilling cited this number in error. So beyond this there is no challenge to the fact that the statements were made, the men who made them are among the most involved with the construction of the towers, and they believed what they were saying. So point one case closed.
Point two is that they had some degree of accuracy in their assesment of the towers ability to survive jetliner crashes. Here are the main crticisims and my responses to this aspect
1- 767's impact would be larger than 707's. Wrong 707 would produce more energy at a crash at cruising speed.
2- Impossible to calculate building design to resist fires- No evidence given for this one which it desperatly needs
3- Impossible to design building to resist fires other than firerpoofing materials. Again no evidence, but we know intuitively that the materials that make up a building are the crucial factor in a buildings vulnearability to fire. And clearly calculations can be made considering those materials and potential fires.
4- 40 years has gone by and science and calculations were primitive then. There are abunch of issues with this one. There should be other public data available for the considerations high rise engineers used in the 1960's even if we are missing Skillings. We should be able to point to the reasons that our modern technolgy in this field is so much better. Further Skilling made his quote in 93 and Demartini in 2000, wouldn't they have admitted that they really needed to update the research if it was known to be faulty. And why no challenges about their statements before 9-11 by others?
5- The fact that Skillings research is missing- The most salient point here is that we don't even know who has looked for it, where it should have been, or how long it might have been missing. all we have is an amibigous statement by NIST that calls into more questions about the nature of NIST'S work than Skillings.

As fars as the questions I have asked that no one has answered.
1- Do you believe in the public having as much access as possible to the information surrounding the construction of the towers?
2- Do you believe the ASCE owes the public some help in understanding the issues surrounding the construction and collapse of the towers?
3- Are there records or news reports as to what the understandings were of the towers ability to withstand terrorist explosives after the 93 bpmbing?
4- Why did Leslie Robertson repeatdly simply say that the towers were designed to withstand a crash of a 707 when asked about the terrorist threat to the towers. Oh ya I did get an answer to this one, he meant they might stand an hour or two, and then collapse.

 

[Thunder]

the towers were indeed built to withstand the impact of a jet airliner crash. they indeed survive both impacts. maybe 20,000 lives were saved. however, the ensuing fires and initial damage was more then the buildings could bear.

the towers were built to survive the impact...and they did. though they were not built to stand perpetually after such an impact.

 

[beachnut]

As a have said I think the thread is winding down, especially if I only have Beachnut and Loss Leader to respond to.
Loss Leader. as usaual you really have nothing to say. No response to the question about 1993, and no response to the two versions of Robertson (post and pre 9-11).
One last time if Skillings statements were so outrageous why were they not challenged. If you believe he was misquoted that is fine as your personal belief, but it means NOTHING in terms of evidence. The fact that he is quoted is evidence until proven otherwise. Oh by the way are you an expert?
I never said it was a conspriracy if the experts refused to discuss the issue. What I am saying is that if the most important event of the last 50 years cannot be discussed openly by the public then we have lost a functioning democracy. If the experts claim only they can understand the real issues and then refuse to discuss them, where does that leave us ? You must have an informed citizenry to have a true democracy. I hope those terms ring some sort of a bell

What ever?

I just think the 600 mph cruise speed is good at 27,000 feet, but 180 mph is just right for a plane lost in the fog.

You have the wrong number unless you back it up why was the plane doing 600 mph on a routine mission at 1000 feet. It would not be a planning factor for a routine lost plane!

Just a fact. Show me Skilling's work, I have shown you the letters and talk by Robertson.

 

[beachnut]

neat

 

[beachnut]

I am going to sum up the argument on this thread as I have seen it. We can debate what evidence is, but much of my case is based on the statements by John Skilling in 1993 and by Frank Demartini in 2000. Both men were among the most intimately involved in the building of the trade towers, and are on record as saying the towers would survive airplane impacts. This is really the fundamental point of this thread, whether these men were involved in, or believed it to be a fact in their minds, that the towers were built to withstand fully fueled jetliners at high speeds. Whether or not they were correct in having those beliefs is a secondary point that I will take up in a minute. Some have said they believe they were misquoted (though De Martini is on film). Those with such a claim need to show some evidence, none has arrived. Others claim that the speed of 600 MPH (cited by Skilling) would be extremely dangerous, yet it is the cruising speed of the plane so there is no reason to believe that Skilling cited this number in error. So beyond this there is no challenge to the fact that the statements were made, the men who made them are among the most involved with the construction of the towers, and they believed what they were saying. So point one case closed.
Point two is that they had some degree of accuracy in their assesment of the towers ability to survive jetliner crashes. Here are the main crticisims and my responses to this aspect
1- 767's impact would be larger than 707's. Wrong 707 would produce more energy at a crash at cruising speed.
2- Impossible to calculate building design to resist fires- No evidence given for this one which it desperatly needs
3- Impossible to design building to resist fires other than firerpoofing materials. Again no evidence, but we know intuitively that the materials that make up a building are the crucial factor in a buildings vulnearability to fire. And clearly calculations can be made considering those materials and potential fires.
4- 40 years has gone by and science and calculations were primitive then. There are abunch of issues with this one. There should be other public data available for the considerations high rise engineers used in the 1960's even if we are missing Skillings. We should be able to point to the reasons that our modern technolgy in this field is so much better. Further Skilling made his quote in 93 and Demartini in 2000, wouldn't they have admitted that they really needed to update the research if it was known to be faulty. And why no challenges about their statements before 9-11 by others?
5- The fact that Skillings research is missing- The most salient point here is that we don't even know who has looked for it, where it should have been, or how long it might have been missing. all we have is an amibigous statement by NIST that calls into more questions about the nature of NIST'S work than Skillings.

As fars as the questions I have asked that no one has answered.
1- Do you believe in the public having as much access as possible to the information surrounding the construction of the towers?
2- Do you believe the ASCE owes the public some help in understanding the issues surrounding the construction and collapse of the towers?
3- Are there records or news reports as to what the understandings were of the towers ability to withstand terrorist explosives after the 93 bpmbing?
4- Why did Leslie Robertson repeatdly simply say that the towers were designed to withstand a crash of a 707 when asked about the terrorist threat to the towers. Oh ya I did get an answer to this one, he meant they might stand an hour or two, and then collapse.

Robertson said slow lost in fog; he wins he is the chief structural engineer. That is done. Done deal, you loose Skilling.

Prove that 600 mph was use, the plane would fall apart at 1,000 feet at 600 mph. The top speed of 707 at 1000 feet is 355 KCAS; if not exact it is very close. So go back to you; where is you 600, nut cases take it off the spec sheet, they are picking without thinking.

The 767 proved on 9/11 it is a robust aircraft, speeding above its design limits it impacted at 5 to 7 times what Robertson plan had anticipated. Robertson plan included a low fuel state on the aircraft, sorry the 767 had just took off, it is efficient, it needed over 10,000 gallons, the 707 would have had lost in the fog fuel of 2,000 gallons; factor of 5.

Impact and fuel 5 times more on 9/11! Robertson's plan is the correct one; he is the structural engineer for the WTC.

CT cult member use the 607 mph cruise but are not pilots or using their heads. What a bunch of chumps. The 767 and 707 are both the same weight, and both have similar speeds.

Robertson and Skilling never mentioned terrorist flying a fast plane into the WTC.

Let me recap. The impact of 9/11 were greater than planned. Robertson tells us in many venues.

CT dolts often use 600 mph to trump up the facts, to mislead, to be liars.

So either present logical reasons for using 600 mph at 1000 feet, since this is well above the 355 KCAS the plane clean is designed for; add some evidence also. Robertson said the design was a lost airplane trying to land. Produce evidence Skilling did not concur.


Again, the 707 does not cruise at 600 mph at 1000 feet. It would do less than 250 KIAS. And once again the design was for a slow moving aircraft, 180 mph to 200 mph. End of story.

I think and engineer and a pilot would concur. I do.

 

[beachnut]

Does my type rating in a 707 help?

 

[Loss Leader]

I am going to sum up the argument on this thread as I have seen it.

I guess it's pretty easy to win an argument when you dismiss and ignore the points made by the other side, claim that the answers were never given and then resolve every possible unknown factor in your own favor.

 

[beachnut]

2- Do you believe the ASCE owes the public some help in understanding the issues surrounding the construction and collapse of the towers?

How can you build a building that can not be destroyed?

How can you build a ship that can not sink, a plane that does not crash?

What do you want? The plane impact on 9/11 could have sheered all the supports! They just were not lined up. But if you give me the 2,000 pounds of TNT the impact was equal to; I could make the WTC tower fail just with the equal energy of the impact.

Robertson tells you, I posted his email and talks, please copy them before they disapear. Robertson said slow lost in the fog 707.

Slow is 200 mph, the terrorist were 470-590 mph.

There is a big difference design guy. But why would the towers not take a bigger impact. The desgin was very strong! It took a lot fire, failure of fire system, and impact to rip off fireproofing, and you want more. I think the building did a good job.

I would not want to be near a building that takes a impact like the WTC. And I will never trust armchair engineers to tell me they will not fall or fail and can take many impact for large aircraft. I let you do the testing, I will watch from NJ.

got to go fly

 

[beachnut]

I declare Robertson the winner, he is the chief

what Robertson says is the word. (how do CT nuts think a plane cruses at 600 mph at 1000 feet?)

 

[TjW]

As for the and or question their is an inclusive version of or that has the same semantic version of and. Also in Frege's modern formal predicate (you know what they teach you in college level logic courses), the inclusive or and and have the same function. Just thought you guys might need a refresher, since their are now signs of the big L in any of your statements.
I am going to sum up the argument on this thread as I have seen it. We can debate what evidence is, but much of my case is based on the statements by John Skilling in 1993 and by Frank Demartini in 2000. Both men were among the most intimately involved in the building of the trade towers, and are on record as saying the towers would survive airplane impacts. This is really the fundamental point of this thread, whether these men were involved in, or believed it to be a fact in their minds, that the towers were built to withstand fully fueled jetliners at high speeds. Whether or not they were correct in having those beliefs is a secondary point that I will take up in a minute. Some have said they believe they were misquoted (though De Martini is on film). Those with such a claim need to show some evidence, none has arrived. Others claim that the speed of 600 MPH (cited by Skilling) would be extremely dangerous, yet it is the cruising speed of the plane so there is no reason to believe that Skilling cited this number in error. So beyond this there is no challenge to the fact that the statements were made, the men who made them are among the most involved with the construction of the towers, and they believed what they were saying. So point one case closed.
Point two is that they had some degree of accuracy in their assesment of the towers ability to survive jetliner crashes. Here are the main crticisims and my responses to this aspect
1- 767's impact would be larger than 707's. Wrong 707 would produce more energy at a crash at cruising speed.

This is largely immaterial. There are two sets of assumptions: 707 at cruise, or even diving, and a 707 making a bad IFR approach.

The 707 at cruise would be the least likely, but the worst case scenario. No non-terrorist pilot would be flying a 707 at cruise below ten thousand feet.

A 707 making a bad IFR approach would be nowhere near cruise.

So there are two sets of assumptions; there could have been two separate design reviews. But it doesn't matter, because in the actual event, with a heavy jet going very fast, the towers did not fail immediately. There was enough time to evacuate everyone. The fact that some could not evacuate due to fires and stairway blockages is unfortunate. But from a design review standpoint, coming to this conclusion (though the stairway blockages might not have been predicted) would be Good Enough for an accidental event of such low probability.
But this, of course, was not an accident, but an act of declared war.

2- Impossible to calculate building design to resist fires- No evidence given for this one which it desperatly needs

The processing power to be able to do modelling on this scale is quite recent.
Buildings tend to be built to code. This has the unintended effect of bringing most construction to a lowest common denominator.

3- Impossible to design building to resist fires other than firerpoofing materials. Again no evidence, but we know intuitively that the materials that make up a building are the crucial factor in a buildings vulnearability to fire. And clearly calculations can be made considering those materials and potential fires.

Not impossible, but most people aren't building the building as a research project. They expect to make money. Spending money on a research project, when one can build a building which is perceived as "safe" (in the sense that it meets the building code), without doing such research, is not going to appeal to investors.

4- 40 years has gone by and science and calculations were primitive then. There are abunch of issues with this one. There should be other public data available for the considerations high rise engineers used in the 1960's even if we are missing Skillings. We should be able to point to the reasons that our modern technolgy in this field is so much better. Further Skilling made his quote in 93 and Demartini in 2000, wouldn't they have admitted that they really needed to update the research if it was known to be faulty. And why no challenges about their statements before 9-11 by others?

I'm sure you can look up the relevant building codes. I'm pretty sure designers would consider their calculations proprietary data.
The first sentence refers to calculations. You surely aren't arguing that the ability to do numerical solutions hasn't improved significantly since the 1960's?
Most any cheap desktop computer these days would outperform the "high-speed" computers of that era. Not only is computing cheaper, but we know more about how to apply it.
I'm not sure why they would have assumed their analysis to be faulty. Could it have been done again? Certainly. Would they expect to get paid for doing the work? Certainly. Would someone pay for a re-analysis of what at that time was considered to be a low-probablity scenario? Probably not.

5- The fact that Skillings research is missing- The most salient point here is that we don't even know who has looked for it, where it should have been, or how long it might have been missing. all we have is an amibigous statement by NIST that calls into more questions about the nature of NIST'S work than Skillings.

I'm not sure of the relevancy of this. Since the buildings stood up long enough to evacuate everyone (with the unfortunate exceptions noted above, what does Skilling's claim of analysis or the results of that analysis matter?

As fars as the questions I have asked that no one has answered.
1- Do you believe in the public having as much access as possible to the information surrounding the construction of the towers?

So CTs can come up with ever-more-complex possible theories? Fine with me.

2- Do you believe the ASCE owes the public some help in understanding the issues surrounding the construction and collapse of the towers?

No. That sector of the public interested in, capable of and willing to understand the issues already do. Those capable and willing, who develop an interest later, have adequate resources to do so. Those incapable of, or unwilling to understand engineering issues will never be satisfied.

3- Are there records or news reports as to what the understandings were of the towers ability to withstand terrorist explosives after the 93 bpmbing?

I don't know for certain. Certainly I would be unwilling to publish data on how terrorists could have done a better job, on the off-chance that they might try again.

4- Why did Leslie Robertson repeatdly simply say that the towers were designed to withstand a crash of a 707 when asked about the terrorist threat to the towers. Oh ya I did get an answer to this one, he meant they might stand an hour or two, and then collapse.

My understanding is that Robertson's design review assumptions included the more-probable low-speed, non-terrorist pilot scenario.

 

[Larry Lovage]

De Martini can be seen on video claiming that the towers could withstand multiple jetliners.

I saw that video. It's included in 9/11 Revisited. It was shown to the first 9/11 conference by James Fetzer.

I've written an analysis of that film, in which I mention this De Martini film.

Fetzer highlights a short interview on film with one of the engineers involved in the actual building of the WTC, Frank Demartini, who describes how it is impossible for a plane to penetrate the WTC towers. Well, he describes how any airliner hitting the WTC would be like a pencil hitting some mosquito netting. I was waiting for him to explain how it was that the design hadn't quite performed according to spec, but it transpired that the engineer in question actually died in the disaster. Nobody here explains what scenario they are actually describing here. Since the engineer thought the building was safe from planestrike, exactly what are they saying transpired on 9/11? Was the building exterior somehow replaced by weaker material prior to the day? Since the planes very much did more than a pencil hitting mosquito netting, it's hard to see exactly what Fetzer is trying to claim here.

What are they claiming? De Martini thinks that "withstanding aircraft strike" means that planes would pretty much bounce off. If the CT-ists are citing De Martini, then he must be right, no? In which case, what exactly is the explanation for the aircraft succeeding in plunging directly into the heart of each building, and causing a massive fireball to emerge from the far side? Were all the walls magically replaced by federal employees?

 

[Non Believer]

How do you get De Martini's statements as saying the planes would bounce off the building? I mean you guys have wierder theories than the most outlandish conspiracy theorist.