'What about building 7'?

[TJM]

​

AJM claims he made a similar descent in 2 minutes.[/color]

You keep saying that. I think you don't know what it means.

 

[Gamolon]

I agree that Mr. Hess emphasized that when he reached the 6th floor, all at once and at the same time, there was an explosion, the lights went out, there was smoke, there was soot and dirt, and he could feel the building shaking.

Mr. Jennings states that "after" he got to the 8th floor, everything got dark.

Which is it MM?

Either you believe the lights went out when the explosion happened in the stairwell or you believe that the lights went out sometime after they climbed back up to the 8th floor. You used the latter argument to try and show my timeline incorrect in a previous post.

Seems to me you change your beliefs on the fly just so you can look like you're correct in regards to the current debate. Do you think people forget what you've stated before?

 

[Miragememories]

What Mr. Hess experienced fit with the described explosion that blew out the 6th floor stairwell landing and left Mr. Jennings briefly hanging with his hands holding the railing.

If you look at the NIST damage estimates to 7 WTC from debris dropping from the collapsed WTC towers, you can see that it was impossible for such major damage to have occurred at their east stairwell location.

If you had an ounce of honesty you would also state how NIST came to the estimates.

As we all know it was by looking at pictures from the outside and using what little information gathered from witnesses.

NIST gives an admitted conservative estimate and you use it as fact.

You insult the readers.

People know the difference between something that is an estimation and something that is fully known.

Whether conservative or not, the inside perimeter of the nearest estimated debris damage location is a far cry from the 6th floor stairwell landing.

Where is your honesty?

​

It would help if you proofread your work.

You could use a bit of proofreading yourself.

Jennings states that one of the people he calls tells them to evacuate.

Here you claim its an incoming call to a supposedly empty OEM.

A "superior"?

Yes. From a superior, or are you unfamiliar with that term?

Mr. Jennings had been making calls to find out what was going on.

Obviously once alerted to this fact, one of his superiors knew where to contact him and did so.

He's is on record as having made two mutually exclusive statements about how and from whom , he got the message.

Yet you find his account so very consistent.

Yes I find those statements to be quite in agreement with each other.

"After I called several individuals, one individual told me that, um "to leave, and leave right away."

Mr. Hess came running back in.

He said "we're the only ones up here, we gotta get out of here." "

"At that time I received a phone call from one of my higher ups.

And ah..he said "where are you?"

And I said uhm..you know, the Emergency Command Center.

A long pause.

And then he came back and he said; "Get out of there. Get out of there now."

You do know what "mutually exclusive" means do you not?

Neither of those two statements by Mr. Jennings negates the other.

In both statements Mr. Jennings said he was told by an individual to get out of there.

In one of the statements he added that the individual was his superior.

I agree that Mr. Hess emphasized that when he reached the 6th floor, all at once and at the same time, there was an explosion, the lights went out, there was smoke, there was soot and dirt, and he could feel the building shaking.

As noted in my post, The NIST reported that some 7 WTC occupants also felt the building shaking when the first plane crashed into 1 WTC.

What Mr. Hess experienced fit with the described explosion that blew out the 6th floor stairwell landing and left Mr. Jennings briefly hanging with his hands holding the railing.

It also fits extremely well with what one would expect to be the effect of WTC 1 collapsing on WTC 7.

Hess disputes that the landing fell away.

However even if it did its not that far away from the SW corner where the column was violently removed for a dozen floors.

Only two columns between south side and stairwell, and the lobby floor open from ground to fifth slab.

No. It does not fit "extremely well" since it was about 3 times further away from the nearest inside perimeter damage, and is well protected by columns and elevator shafts.

Mr. Hess does not mention the condition of the landing. Since Mr. Jennings was the one who dropped and was left hanging, it is safe to assume that Mr. Hess didn't try for himself.

Mr. Hess only claimed that they ran "into a wall" which can easily be interpreted as meaning their way was obstructed, which it was.

Back to your perception of damage, the SW corner was about as far away as you could get. Though one of Mr. Jenning's rescuers claims that both stairwells were damaged and inaccessible, others claimed they were able to use the west stairwell which was the closest to the SW corner.

Directly in front of the east stairwell, from the south side, there was no significant external damage noted or estimated by the NIST. It seems very unlikely that some amazing force seeped that far in and damaged the 6th floor stairwell landing.

The SW corner damage, quite obvious in photos . seems to be missing from your diagram.

How does it compare to fig 4-41 in ncstar1-9a?

It shows the impact zone for the south west corner, 8th floor. I see no relevance to either stairwell.

"Figure 4-41 shows a plan view of Floor 8 that highlights the exterior columns that were used to track the column load history for each face. Also noted on the figure is the debris impact zone, which shows the southwest columns that were severed. Loads were extracted just above Floor 8 from three columns per face and averaged to produce Figure 4-42."

How does it compare to figs 5-83 and 5-89 in ncstar1-9?

The later [Figure 5-89] show that every window on the eighth floor south side was broken along with several on the west side, and column and truss damage occurred in a couple of locations on the eighth floor.

Actually Figure 5-89 only graphically represents the west side.

Lie much?

Window damage is hardly representative of serious internal damage, or do you believe elevator shafts and stairwells were enclosed with balsa wood?

Note exterior column damage visible down to the fifth floor just to the east of the columns supporting the stairs.

Not visible in the extent of damage to the SW corner below eighth floor but it can be assumed that the gouging out of that corner did not stop at the seventh.

Actually, no I don't. You do like to make assumptions.

In fact you seem to have ignored altogether fig 5-95,96,97. NIST seems to have attributed damage to columns only by what could be seen.

I haven't ignored anything.

Maybe you should put the bong down for a while and consider what you are saying?

There is nothing to suggest an expectation of debris damage over in the north east quadrant where the east stairwell is located.

Now, knowing of the severe damage to the eighth floor, how then do Jennings and Hess not mention the particular hell that must have been visited upon them by supposedly being on the eighth floor at the time this is done?

They were in the north east corner as shown by the video evidence.

The known damage to the 8th floor, a floor densely populated by office cubicles, was mostly confined to the south side and in particular to the west.

Undoubtedly Mr. Jennings and Mr. Hess experienced the shaking, the dust, the explosive sounds, the darkness and the heat.

But, once they decided to hide out and call for help from that secluded NE corner office, they were not in a position to see much of what occurred in the area that you describe.

You quibble that they did not mention the building shaking when they were on a floor not directly affected by the first collapse.

You take a literal interpretation of an explosion being described as having cut the lights,infused the structure with choking dust and causing structural damage,

and yet cannot bring yourself to note the inconsistency that is implicit in your preferred timeline, which has neither Jennings or Hess making comment on the particular hell that would have visited them when every window on the eighth floor south side was broken , exterior columns on that and several other floors of their south side ripped apart, and that massive dust cloud rolled through the eighth floor.

The mind reels!

Everyone else in 7 WTC appeared to quite notice the crash of 2 WTC.

It is not unreasonable to believe an explosion below the 6th floor would disrupt lighting in that vicinity, create a lot of dust, and do structural damage.

From the perspective of a two 'uninformed' men, trapped in 7 WTC, who at various times, described building shake, power outage, smoke, dust, heat, repeated explosions inside and out, and burning emergency vehicles outside on the street, I think they generally convey the hell they were living through.

I think when Mr. Jennings said he wanted to climb down a firehose from the 8th floor window, it was quite evident the amount of stress he was under.

 

[Miragememories]

I agree that Mr. Hess emphasized that when he reached the 6th floor, all at once and at the same time, there was an explosion, the lights went out, there was smoke, there was soot and dirt, and he could feel the building shaking.

Mr. Jennings states that "after" he got to the 8th floor, everything got dark.

Which is it MM?

Either you believe the lights went out when the explosion happened in the stairwell or you believe that the lights went out sometime after they climbed back up to the 8th floor. You used the latter argument to try and show my timeline incorrect in a previous post.

Seems to me you change your beliefs on the fly just so you can look like you're correct in regards to the current debate. Do you think people forget what you've stated before?

Why do you assume that the stairwell lights and the floor lighting had to be on the same circuit?

 

[GlennB]

<world record amounts of snippage>

From the perspective of a two 'uninformed' men, trapped in 7 WTC, who at various times, described building shake, power outage, smoke, dust, heat, repeated explosions inside and out, and burning emergency vehicles outside on the street, I think they generally convey the hell they were living through.

I think when Mr. Jennings said he wanted to climb down a firehose from the 8th floor window, it was quite evident the amount of stress he was under.

Why then do you take his account of seeing both towers standing when they returned to the 8th floor as gospel truth?

 

[Gamolon]

There is nothing to suggest an expectation of debris damage over in the north east quadrant where the east stairwell is located.

What leads you to believe that it was the east stairwell that they experienced the explosion in? They came up in the freight elevator located on the west side and gained access to the EOC from that side right?

That would mean the other entrances to the EOC remained locked. Why wouldn't they have chosen to exit the same way they came in? Jennings states that Hess returned while he was calling people on the phone and found the stairwell.

I am looking at the framing drawings and I see only one freight elevator. DOes anyone know of other freight elevators?

 

[GlennB]

I am looking at the framing drawings and I see only one freight elevator. DOes anyone know of other freight elevators?

There was a bank of them, 2 singles and 1 double it seems, next to the W stairway.

 

[Gamolon]

There was a bank of them, 2 singles and 1 double it seems, next to the W stairway.

[qimg]http://i250.photobucket.com/albums/gg274/sap-guy/wtc7elevators_zps824449a2.gif[/qimg]

Thanks.

I see SE#29 and SE#30 right below FE#31 on the framing drawings. So there was only one freight elevator and two service elevators.

So they came up on the west side in FE#31 and unlocked a door to the EOC from the west side. That means all the remaining doors were locked so they must have exited back out the way they came in.

In my opinion, Hess located the west stairwell while Jennings was on the phone. The west stairwell was right by the freight/service elevators.

Sound reasonable or am I missing something?

 

[GlennB]

It depends, as you have to consider combinations of accounts/events to cater for the normal timeline vs. the MM timeline.

If Jennings' story is taken literally then he smashed the NE window immediately upon arriving back at the 8th floor - this suggests they used the E stairs and J's account was hopelessly confused subsequently. This makes the seeing of both towers standing while on the 8th part of the hopelessly confused bit.

But MM has accepted (within MM's timeline) that J waited a good 30 minutes before breaking that window, so they could have used either stairwell and just pottered about before breaking it, noticing both towers aloft during that period. However, this allows for J+H to have used the W stairwell, becoming vulnerable to serious effects from WTC1's collapse. MM's timeline is not self-consistent (in fact, it's utter bollocks).

My own view is that Jennings, distraught and seriously confused though he surely was, was also embellishing and dramatising the whole business. People do that.

 

[Gamolon]

Is it safe to assume that the red outline is where the EOC was located on the 23rd floor?





That would put the closest entrance of the EOC to the freight elevator in the southwest corner, right next to the stairwell.

 

[pgimeno]

Mr. Hess didn't say the lights flickered. The NIST did.

Mr. Hess said the lights went out. He omitted the lights going back on soon in his one-sentence summary, but we know they did.

Catalano "said the generators automatically went on for 27 minutes when the building shakes. So once the first tower fell and the smoke cleared, the building was lit." Consistent with flickering of the lights.

NIST said:

As all of the emergency responder restructuring operations were underway, three people became temporarily trapped inside WTC 7. Two New York City employees had gone to the OEM Center on the 23rd floor and found no one there.¹⁶ As they went to get into an elevator to go downstairs, the lights inside WTC 7 flickered as WTC 2 collapsed. At that point, the elevator they were attempting to catch no longer worked, so they started down the staircase.
_______
¹⁶ WTC 7 Interviews 2041604 and 1041704, spring 2004.

Can I see interviews 2041604 and 1041704 that you use as a basis to say that Mr. Hess didn't say that? Because if you aren't using them, you have no basis for your claim.

Mr. Hess didn't say he went back to the elevators to evacuate. The NIST said he did.

Are you sure he didn't? Do you have his interview with NIST? All you can say for sure is he didn't in the interviews posted in this thread so far.

I am not disputing Mike Catalano's statement.

It is your interpretation of the timeline that is problematic.

MY timeline is problematic?

Yours requires that at the time the staircase went blocked, the building had a considerable number of people who didn't report any event such as the explosion you claim.

It requires Jennings and Hess to not even consider for a moment the (fully working) elevators for evacuation during the, at least, 30 minutes since they went back to the 8th floor to the time they broke the windows, in an emergency situation caused by the "impact of a small plane".

It requires all the occupants of the building at the time to be completely trapped together with Jennings and Hess, for the same reasons they were, except by use of the elevators. That includes the elevator technicians and the people that were later trapped in the elevator when WTC2 collapsed and the power went out as the generators started.

That's far more problematic than the descent of an old man and an overweight man taking 30 minutes because of having to take air due to the smoke in the stairwell.

It does not take 30 minutes to evacuate from the 23rd floor to the 6th floor. AJM claims he made a similar descent in 2 minutes.

An explosion from below the 6th floor landing could have severed the stairwell wiring to the lighting.

There would still be light in the 8th floor and in the elevators, were that the case.

The fact that it only requires a fraction of 30 minutes to reach the 6th floor stairwell, establishes that the descent time could not possibly represent the activity of Mr. Jennings and Mr. Hess, between the collapses of the two WTC towers.

Unless of course, they reached the 6th floor and waited about 20 minutes.

Or unless they have to pause every three flights to take air, as Hess reports: "Previously you could breathe for about three flights down."

What do you do when you can't breathe?

It means a helluva lot.

No. Jennings does not report it at any time at all. Therefore it's insignificant that he doesn't report it in particular while he was at floor 23. Different people focus on different things when reporting their experiences.

With difficulty to breathe, remember.

It looks like they had to stop every three flights to take some air.

There was smoke in the stairway from the generator fire after the collapse of WTC 2.

Jennings probably needed to wait for Hess, despite his "leaping stairwells".

Or is your conjecture that he outran Hess, leaving him alone?

It was only Mr. Hess who made that claim several years later to the BBC.

Now who is speculating?

What part of my quote is speculation, exactly?

That Jennings didn't outrun Hess?

That they had to stop every three flights because, as Hess said, they could only breathe for about three flights down?

At any rate, it appears from their testimonies that they both arrived at the 6th floor around the same time.

So, was it speculation on my side? Or just a reasonable assumption based on the fact that they started together and arrived together?

When they were in the stairwell, it was after the aircraft crashes into both of the WTC twin towers.

The fiery debris from those impacts created a number of ground fires. That, and whatever preceded the explosion they witnessed from the 6th floor might account for the air quality in the east stairwell.

You can't seriously claim that the contamination from the outside would have such a huge impact in the staircase's air.

Unlike you with your armchair analysis, the NIST engineers had the expertise and several years to study this issue, using all the data available.

They had a lot of incentive to predict greater damage because it would make the resulting collapse hypothesis easier to develop.

Yet they didn't, as JayDee has indicated previously. It's quite obvious the damage ran all the way from the top to the bottom of the building, yet NIST don't presume damage in the parts that were not visible.

Mike Catalano noted that the 5th floor drew in air through vents which was a particular issue when 1 2 WTC collapsed.

FTFY. The issue was that that air was used for venting the generators, but not the rest of the building. Generators need air for combustion and for safety reasons. The air quality doesn't matter that much as in the rest of the building. You're grasping at straws there.

 

[Gamolon]

Why do you assume that the stairwell lights and the floor lighting had to be on the same circuit?

Can you explain why Jennings states the following at 5:50 in the video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o0PTsP1_AE ?

When I made it to the 6th floor... and... and... and the... there was an explosion... the explosion was beneath me. Keep in mind now, it's pitch black in there, all the lights went out. So when the explosion happened, it blew us back.

Why does he say it was pitch black "in there" before the explosion happened?

 

[Gamolon]

Until questioned further, when he arrived at the 8th floor, he focused on the window breakage, his rescuers on the street, the burning vehicles, the dust, heat and smoke, and repeatedly about all the explosions he kept hearing inside 7 WTC.

Explosions INSIDE 7 WTC?

Can you point me to the time in the video below where he states he heard explosions INSIDE 7 WTC?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o0PTsP1_AE

 

[jaydeehess]

You insult the readers.

People know the difference between something that is an estimation and something that is fully known.

Whether conservative or not, the inside perimeter of the nearest estimated debris damage location is a far cry from the 6th floor stairwell landing.

Where is your honesty?

[qimg]http://i1265.photobucket.com/albums/jj515/Miragememories/NISTWTC7dmageflr5amp6_zps71380853.png[/qimg]​

​

The diagram from the east side shows damage extending into the structure. There are only two columns between the south exterior and the stairwell. It is very possible that the stairwell would be damaged. It would most certainly have been shaking for several seconds.
However I do not accept that the landing went out from under them. That's not backed up by Hess for instance. You expect that in the darkness Jennings did not call out that he was hanging on for dear life and instead just hauled himself up the railing without a word.

Yes I find those statements to be quite in agreement with each other.

​

You do know what "mutually exclusive" means do you not?

Neither of those two statements by Mr. Jennings negates the other.

In both statements Mr. Jennings said he was told by an individual to get out of there.

In one of the statements he added that the individual was his superior.

I see Jennings saying he called several " individuals " and saying one of them told him to evacuate.
Minor point anyway, believe what you will.

No. It does not fit "extremely well" since it was about 3 times further away from the nearest inside perimeter damage, and is well protected by columns and elevator shafts.

Mr. Hess does not mention the condition of the landing. Since Mr. Jennings was the one who dropped and was left hanging, it is safe to assume that Mr. Hess didn't try for himself.

Mr. Hess only claimed that they ran "into a wall" which can easily be interpreted as meaning their way was obstructed, which it was.

Running into a wall is nothing like a floor going out from under you. Not even close.
The description does indeed fit extremely well with the effect on WTC7 from the collapse of WTC1. Including the time of the collapse consistent with the time period of shaking, a point you disregard. An explosion does not cause 5-10 seconds of building shake.

Back to your perception of damage, the SW corner was about as far away as you could get. Though one of Mr. Jenning's rescuers claims that both stairwells were damaged and inaccessible, others claimed they were able to use the west stairwell which was the closest to the SW corner.

The east stairwell was unusable due to debris and/or dust.

At any rate when did I say the east stairwell was damaged?

It shows the impact zone for the south west corner, 8th floor. I see no relevance to either stairwell.

Perhaps when writing that you should use rose colored font rather than blue.

Actually Figure 5-89 only graphically represents the west side.

Yes, obviously I meant the diagram if the south side

Lie much?

Lie, about which diagram? No I was in error.
The south side diagram shows visible damage and given the pattern of window breakage that was visible above and below the 8th floor and over east and west parts of the structure, if not all windows on the 8th were broken only a few survived intact.

Window damage is hardly representative of serious internal damage, or do you believe elevator shafts and stairwells were enclosed with balsa wood?

Not my intent to say it is. If you responded after reading my entire post you'd probably be able to discern that.

Actually, no I don't. You do like to make assumptions.

Believe what you will. Your religion won't allow otherwise anyway.
" put the bong down"!
I have not partaken of any illegal drug for probably longer than you've been on this earth.


Here's where you really jump the shark, IMO.

They were in the north east corner as shown by the video evidence.

The known damage to the 8th floor, a floor densely populated by office cubicles, was mostly confined to the south side and in particular to the west.

Undoubtedly Mr. Jennings and Mr. Hess experienced the shaking, the dust, the explosive sounds, the darkness and the heat.

But, once they decided to hide out and call for help from that secluded NE corner office, they were not in a position to see much of what occurred in the area that you describe.

Are you seriously trying to say that they were protected from the tremendous shaking the structure would experience when columns are torn apart? Are you seriously saying that a dust cloud that enveloped buildings, chased people down the street faster than they could run, did not fill the floors with choking dust? The fall of WTC2 did that to the third floor lobby, but you expect J&H to have been somehow protected from it when WTC1 collapsed? Really?
You do know that office partitions did nor extend to the ceiling, right, that the floor's south side was completely open and that east of the core it was open from north wall to south wall?
Jennings and Hess commented on the choking dust in the stairwell, they commented on the building shaking at that point as well. Never mention either again yet the greatest building shaking that would have taken place was when WTC1 debris ripped out structural components, the greatest amount of dust would have occurred when WTC1 collapsed. You wish to believe that because Jennings and Hess could not see the collapse happening and because they were magically isolated from these effects all that was commented was that they "heard" other explosions.

Everyone else in 7 WTC appeared to quite notice the crash of 2 WTC.

It is not unreasonable to believe an explosion below the 6th floor would disrupt lighting in that vicinity, create a lot of dust, and do structural damage.

Yet somehow unreasonable to believe that heavy building damage would disrupt emergency lighting. Really?
Somehow also unreasonable to expect comment by occupants on the 8th floor about the effect of the event that ripped out structural components and broke a huge number of windows, and filled the building with choking dust.

From the perspective of a two 'uninformed' men, trapped in 7 WTC, who at various times, described building shake, power outage, smoke, dust, heat, repeated explosions inside and out, and burning emergency vehicles outside on the street, I think they generally convey the hell they were living through.

How many instances of the building shaking do the recount? How many times do the comment on thick choking dust?
AFAIK, it once for each, in the stairwell , just as would be expected if WTC2 fell when they were on the 23rd floor and if WTC1's collapse was the cause of their "uninformed" experience at the 6th floor!

As for burning vehicles to the north of WTC7, what caused that to occur prior to the collapse of WTC1 , MM? If it was after WTC1 collapsed, what makes that comment worthy yet the darkness causing, choking dust cloud that ran down the streets not comment worthy?

I think when Mr. Jennings said he wanted to climb down a firehose from the 8th floor window, it was quite evident the amount of stress he was under.

Oh things were far from merry on the 8th floor but I still cannot envision the most extreme conditions that would have been the collapse of WTC1 garnering nary a comment. In fact the only thing Jennings says about the tower collapses is that they caused the FFs to leave the area twice, and we absolutely know he hasn't even broken out the window until after WTC2, at least, had collapsed. If he had broken the window before WTC1 collapsed he would have seen the massive enveloping dust cloud. That would be a comment worthy event, pretty terrifying and spectacular. It is in videos that show it. Nary a mention from Jennings. In those videos we also see that the dust caused an enveloping darkness. Another comment worthy and terrifying result of the collapses if you only light is from the windows. Nary a comment about this while they are on the 8th floor even though according to you, it occurred twice during that time.

 

[Gamolon]

MM, according to he Jennings interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o0PTsP1_AE), starting at 2:10, he states this:

After getting to the 8th floor everything was dark. It was dark and it was very, very hot. VERY hot. Um... I asked Mr. Hess to check the phones as I took a fire extinguisher and broke out the windows. Once I broke out the windows I could see outside below me... I saw uh... police cars... on fire... buses on fire. I looked one way the building was there, I looked the other way, it was gone.

So according to that interview, I have to ask you a couple of questions.

1. What caused the police cars and buses, that he saw below him after immediately breaking the window, to catch fire? According to your interpretation, neither tower had collapsed yet. The collapses happened after calling for help through the broken window and during the discussion with the firefighters once they located them.

2. What building (singular) was Jennings talking about when he stated that the building (singular) was there when he looked one way and then when he looked the other way it (singular) was gone. Is he suggesting that in the few seconds he swiveled his head in two directions that a tower had collapsed?

 

[Norseman]

Is it safe to assume that the red outline is where the EOC was located on the 23rd floor?

[qimg]http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff290/gamolon/EOC_zps6843bfa4.gif[/qimg]

[qimg]http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff290/gamolon/wtc7_EOC_diagram_zpsd83033cf.jpg[/qimg]

That would put the closest entrance of the EOC to the freight elevator in the southwest corner, right next to the stairwell.

I think that should be about right. But that does not necessarily indicate which stairwell they used, in my view.

In this New York Times article from 1999, about the preparations for a potential Y2K-crisis, they have a graphic showing even more of the EOC, and were the different agencies were seated. According to the graphic NYCHA would be sitting in the east half of the operations room. I would guess that Jennings would go to his designated work station to make his telephone calls; likely having a telephone list there with numbers he needed, or numbers on speed dial(this taking place some time after the collapse of WTC 2, as I reasoned in an earlier post). And it also looks as though both doors leads out to the same corridor.

In the Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas interview it may sound like Hess was already outside looking for the stairs, while Jennings was making phone calls. I find it just as likely that they went for east stairwell, it would be close to both exits from the main room. There is also other reasons to assume that they went down the east stairwell, as I described in an earlier post:

My reasoning for the east stairwell has been that the security manager who become trapped on Floor 7, used the west stairwell when he went up after the collapse of WTC 2, to look for personnel he feared might still be left on Floor 44. I would have expected him to maybe meet Jennings and Hess on their way down. No such meeting is mentioned any place I have looked; not that it need to be either. Next that they broke the window in the northeast corner, since that corner was closer to the stairwell. But of course, if they came down the west stairwell it would be natural to move as far away from the damaged southwest corner as possible. Another indication, is that Jennings in the BBC interview, describes how he moves over to the other side of the building finding it gone.

When I look at the floor schematics of Floor 6 and 7 on page 50 and 51 in NIST NCSTAR 1-9, I have speculated as you that the stair changed direction on Floor 6. If so my guess is the east stairwell, since the schematic indicates a rather large landing there. But as mentioned by someone earlier in the thread, they may have been so far down as floor 5 where the stairs ends in transfer corridors. That would also explain why Hess hit a wall in the dark, while likely attempting a 180 degrees turn, expecting to move down the next flight of stairs.

I have found no indication of damage to the stairwells. On page 300 in NIST NCSTAR 1-9, there is a description of damage assessment done by firefighters moving up the east stairwell to Floor 5, then moving over to the west stairwell and moving up to the 9th floor.

Regarding Jennings claiming that the landing gave way during the collapse of WTC 1, my take is that it only happened in his imagination. Quiet understandable when you in a state of fear in the dark, feel the floor/stair strongly shaking. He might very well have lost his balance.

So this is my take on the their choice of stairs, but I have seen no definitive information on this.

For the use of the west stairwell see NIST NCSTAR 1-9 page 296. So that is my reasoning on this.

 

[jaydeehess]

@Gamalon,
MM , iirc, already stipulated that the window was unbroken between tower collapses.

 

[GlennB]

@Gamalon,
MM , iirc, already stipulated that the window was unbroken between tower collapses.

Yes.

Jennings' claim that their retreat and return, twice, was down to the tower collapses is wrong by MM's own admission.

This leaves us with J+H on the 8th for 30 minutes yet never noting the collapse of either tower.

Breathtaking illogicality.

 

[Gamolon]

Sometime after 10:28 am, following the collapse of 1 WTC, Mr. Jennings breaks out two windows, one of which is in the NE corner.

Major problem with your timeline here MM.

According to Jennings, AFTER breaking out the window on the 8th floor, he observed the firefighters running away TWICE. Once because of the collapse of WTC2 at 9:59 am and again at 10:28 am because of the collapse of WTC1.

So no, Jennings did NOT break out the NE window sometime after 10:28 am.

According to Jennings' explanation, he would have to have broken out the window at some point PRIOR to 9:59 am in order to observe the firefighters running away both times due to the collapses.

 

[Gamolon]

Yes.

Jennings' claim that their retreat and return, twice, was down to the tower collapses is wrong by MM's own admission.

This leaves us with J+H on the 8th for 30 minutes yet never noting the collapse of either tower.

Breathtaking illogicality.

Ok, so how does this admission change MM's timeline given here?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10238282#post10238282