GAITHERSBURG, Md. (Aug. 21) Federal
investigators said Thursday they have
solved a mystery of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks:
the collapse of World Trade Center
building 7, a source of longrunning
conspiracy
theories.
The 47story
trapezoidshaped
building sat
north of the World Trade Center towers,
across Vesey Street in lower Manhattan. On
Sept. 11, it was set on fire by falling debris
from the burning towers, but skeptics have
long argued that fire and debris alone
should not have brought down such a big
steelandconcrete
structure.
Scientists with the National Institute of
Standards and Technology say their threeyear
investigation of the collapse determined
the demise of WTC 7 was actually
the first time in the world a fire caused the
total failure of a skyscraper.
“The reason for the collapse of World Trade
Center 7 is no longer a mystery,” said Dr.
Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator on the
NIST team.
Investigators also concluded that the collapse
of the nearby towers broke the city
water main, leaving the sprinkler system in
the bottom half of the building without water.
The building has been the subject of a wide
range of conspiracy theories for the last
seven years, partly because the collapse occurred
about seven hours after the twin
towers came down. That fueled suspicion
that someone intentionally blew up the
building in a controlled demolition.
Critics like Mike Berger of the group 9/11
Truth said he wasn’t buying the
government’s explanation.
“Their explanation simply isn’t sufficient.
We’re being lied to,” he said, arguing that
there is other evidence suggesting explosives
were used on the building.
Sunder said his team investigated the possibility
that an explosion inside the building
brought it down, but found there was no
large boom or other noise that would have
occurred with such a detonation. Investigators
also created a giant computer model of
the collapse, based partly on news footage
from CBS News, that they say shows internal
column failure brought down the building.
Investigators also ruled out the possibility
that the collapse was caused by fires from a
substantial amount of diesel fuel that was
stored in the building, most of it for generators
for the city’s emergency operations
command center.
The 77page
report concluded that the fatal
blow to the building came when the 13th
floor collapsed, weakening a critical steel
support column that led to catastrophic
failure.
“When this critical column buckled due to
lack of floor supports, it was the first domino
in the chain,” said Sunder.
The NIST investigators issued more than a
dozen building recommendations as a result
of their inquiry, most of which repeat
earlier recommendations from their investigation
into the collapse of the two large
towers.
In both instances, investigators concluded
that extreme heat caused some steel beams
to lose strength, causing further failures
throughout the buildings until the entire
structure succumbed.
The recommendations include building
skyscrapers with stronger connections and
framing systems to resist the effects of thermal
expansion, and structural systems designed
to prevent damage to one part of a
building from spreading to other parts.
A spokeswoman for the leaseholder of the
World Trade Center, developer Larry Silverstein,
praised the government’s work.
“Hopefully this thorough report puts to rest
the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, which
dishonor the men and women who lost
their lives on that terrible day,” said Silverstein
spokeswoman Dara McQuillen.
In discussing the findings, the investigator
Sunder acknowledged that some may still
not be convinced, but insisted the science
behind their findings is “incredibly conclusive.”
“The public should really recognize the science
is really behind what we have said,” he
said, adding: “The obvious stares you in the
face.”
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