Debunking 9-11 Conspiracy Myths + Did the Chinese Plan it?

This Popular Mechanics cover story is pretty solid in answering many poorly explained anomalies about 9-11,, except I feel they really had to stretch to explain the collapse of WTC 7. They do admit that does require more research and final explanation.

However, the article doesn’t deal with the high level conspiracy theory that I subscribe to, and which relates the 9-11 event to the Tao of an East-West dynamic that I believe is being played out, specifically between shadow elements in the governments of both China and USA.

My hypothesis is that 9-11 was a classic example of an old Chinese strategy known as “murder by borrowed weapon”. I was in China a few weeks after 9-11, and my interpreter, who I have known for some time, was with a group of high level Korean government officials when the attack happened. These high officials looked at each other and said, “this brilliant military attack looks very Chinese in its planning – not something we have ever seen in decades of Middle East terrorism”.

My muslim friend (who prefers to remain anonymous) agree: “This attack is very atypical of muslims. They tend to be very emotional and more short-sighted in their targets. This attack on 9-11 showed a very different kind of mind in its planning”.

Hypothesis: The Chinese (shadow elements in their militaryy) were the masterminds of the attack. They suggested the plan through their contacts with antii-western elements in Pakistani intelligence, which has been incriminated as having advance knowledge of the attack. The chinese sell nuclear technology to the Pakistanis, so such relations are natural. These Pakistani elements passed on the plan to islamic extremists.

Chinese motives?

1. Revenge for US missile bombing of Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. I was in China when this happened as well, and it provoked one of the strongest and most emotional backlashes I have ever seen in modern China.

2. Problems in Chinese government – people becoming sick of its corruption and top-heavy power, doubts about communism. Government needed to distract public of its problems at home.

3. Super-power strategic competition. The iintelligence agencies of both countries know what each other is doing. The two countries cannot openly militarily attack each other, so the battle between aspiring underdog (China) and arrogant Overdog (USA) becomes economic or political. The USA relies on short term displays of brute strength, the Chinese win through Five Elements strategy and long term planning. This was an attack using the Metal element: metal planes flying into metal buildings symbolizing the pillars of western strength.

The 9-11 attack revealed how weak and defenseless the seemingly impervious global imperial power of the world really is. It was a shot across the bow, a warning from the Chinese not to underestimate them or get in their way as they expand their global position. Two days after 9-11, the Chinese were voted into the World Trade Organization….

There is more to support this hypothesis, but this is enough for now. And I should add, that in general, I find the Chinese far less militaristic and imperialistic than the US government, with its military bases spread across the planet and fuelling wars through the lucratie arms trade.

Clearly the Chinese had periods of expansion in ancient or medieval times, when they consolidated their empire, but stopped short of expanding their physical land boundaries, and have not invaded their neighbors.
Instead they are clever at using proxies, such as North Korea, or in the case of 9-11, the unhappy Islamic jihadists. In general I find the Chinese people more focused as a culture (copared to the West) on maintaining harmony and balance, classical virtues that are still embedded in contemporary Chinese values.

The Chinese lost face when their embassy was targeted (no one believes the “accidental missile” theory), and they found a way for the USA to lose face. There was a chinese news report shortly after 9-11 that the then President Jiang Zemin was obsessed with watching footage of the WTC collapse, and would watch it repeatedly, as many as 15 times in a row.

Food for thought on the clash of ancient and modern cultures. Taoist Five Element strategy still employed on the modern stage of politics. That implies four more strikes, each with a different element. Is the US sophisticated enough to guess the pattern and prevent it? Should we offer 5 element training to the CIA?

Stay tuned……

————

9/11: DEBUNKING THE MYTHS

PM EXAMINES THE EVIDENCE AND CONSULTS THE EXPERTS TO REFUTE THE MOST
PERSISTENT CONSPIRACY THEORIES OF SEPTEMBER 11.

Popular Mechanics
Cover Story
March, 2005 issue

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

[See the link above for photos and graphics related to the article below.]

From the moment the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center on
the morning of September 11, 2001, the world has asked one simple and
compelling question: How could it happen?

Three and a half years later, not everyone is convinced we know the truth.
Go to Google.com, type in the search phrase “World Trade Center conspiracy”
and you’ll get links to an estimated 628,000 Web sites. More than 3000 books
on 9/11 have been published; many of them reject the official consensus that
hijackers associated with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda flew passenger planes
into U.S. landmarks.

Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy
tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media.
Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts
have inspired a slew of elaborate theories: The Pentagon was struck by a
missile; the World Trade Center was razed by demolition-style bombs; Flight
93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet. As outlandish as these claims
may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here
in the United States.

To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists,
POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who,
together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields
that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering
and the military.

In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard
evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories
are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day.
Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject
suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such
poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really
happened on a day that is forever seared into world history.

………….

THE PLANES

The widely accepted account that hijackers commandeered and crashed the four
9/11 planes is supported by reams of evidence, from cockpit recordings to
forensics to the fact that crews and passengers never returned home.
Nonetheless, conspiracy theorists seize on a handful of “facts” to argue a
very different scenario: The jets that struck New York and Washington, D.C.,
weren’t commercial planes, they say, but something else, perhaps refueling
tankers or guided missiles. And the lack of military intervention? Theorists
claim it proves the U.S. government instigated the assault or allowed it to
occur in order to advance oil interests or a war agenda.

…

WHERE’S THE POD?

CLAIM: Photographs and video footage shot just before United Airlines Flight
175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) show an object
underneath the fuselage at the base of the right wing. The film “911 In
Plane Site” and the Web site LetsRoll911.org claim that no such object is
found on a stock Boeing 767. They speculate that this “military pod” is a
missile, a bomb or a piece of equipment on an air-refueling tanker.
LetsRoll911.org points to this as evidence that the attacks were an “inside
job” sanctioned by “President George Bush, who planned and engineered 9/11.”

FACT: One of the clearest, most widely seen pictures of the doomed jet’s
undercarriage was taken by photographer Rob Howard and published in New York
magazine and elsewhere (opening page). PM sent a digital scan of the
original photo to Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography
Laboratory at Arizona State University. Greeley is an expert at analyzing
images to determine the shape and features of geological formations based on
shadow and light effects. After studying the high-resolution image and
comparing it to photos of a Boeing 767-200ER’s undercarriage, Greeley
dismissed the notion that the Howard photo reveals a “pod.” In fact, the
photo reveals only the Boeing’s right fairing, a pronounced bulge that
contains the landing gear. He concludes that sunlight glinting off the
fairing gave it an exaggerated look. “Such a glint causes a blossoming
(enlargement) on film,” he writes in an e-mail to PM, “which tends to be
amplified in digital versions of images — the pixels are saturated and tend
to ‘spill over’ to adjacent pixels.” When asked about pods attached to
civilian aircraft, Fred E. Culick, professor of aeronautics at the
California Institute of Technology, gave a blunter response: “That’s bull.
They’re really stretching.”

…

NO STAND-DOWN ORDER

CLAIM: No fighter jets were scrambled from any of the 28 Air Force bases
within close range of the four hijacked flights. “On 11 September Andrews
had two squadrons of fighter jets with the job of protecting the skies over
Washington D.C.,” says the Web site emperors-clothes.com. “They failed to do
their job.” “There is only one explanation for this,” writes Mark R. Elsis
of StandDown.net. “Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11.”

FACT: On 9/11 there were only 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous 48
states. No computer network or alarm automatically alerted the North
American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of missing planes. “They [civilian Air
Traffic Control, or ATC] had to pick up the phone and literally dial us,”
says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Boston Center,
one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regional ATC facilities,
called NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) three times: at 8:37 am
EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked; at 9:21 am to inform the
agency, mistakenly, that Flight 11 was headed for Washington (the plane had
hit the North Tower 35 minutes earlier); and at 9:41 am to (erroneously)
identify Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 from Boston as a possible hijacking.
The New York ATC called NEADS at 9:03 am to report that United Flight 175
had been hijacked–the same time the plane slammed into the South Tower.
Within minutes of that first call from Boston Center, NEADS scrambled two
F-15s from Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and three F-16s from
Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. None of the fighters got
anywhere near the pirated planes.

Why couldn’t ATC find the hijacked flights? When the hijackers turned off
the planes’ transponders, which broadcast identifying signals, ATC had to
search 4500 identical radar blips crisscrossing some of the country’s
busiest air corridors. And NORAD’s sophisticated radar? It ringed the
continent, looking outward for threats, not inward. “It was like a
doughnut,” Martin says. “There was no coverage in the middle.” Pre-9/11,
flights originating in the States were not seen as threats and NORAD wasn’t
prepared to track them.

…

FLIGHT 175’S WINDOWS

CLAIM: On Sept. 11, FOX News broadcast a live phone interview with FOX
employee Marc Birnbach. 911inplanesite.com states that “Bernback” saw the
plane “crash into the South Tower.” “It definitely did not look like a
commercial plane,” Birnbach said on air. “I didn’t see any windows on the
sides.”

Coupled with photographs and videos of Flight 175 that lack the resolution
to show windows, Birnbach’s statement has fueled one of the most widely
referenced 9/11 conspiracy theories–specifically, that the South Tower was
struck by a military cargo plane or a fuel tanker.

FACT: Birnbach, who was a freelance videographer with FOX News at the time,
tells PM that he was more than 2 miles southeast of the WTC, in Brooklyn,
when he briefly saw a plane fly over. He says that, in fact, he did not see
the plane strike the South Tower; he says he only heard the explosion.

While heading a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) probe into the
collapse of the towers, W. Gene Corley studied the airplane wreckage. A
licensed structural engineer with Construction Technology Laboratories, a
consulting firm based in Skokie, Ill., Corley and his team photographed
aircraft debris on the roof of WTC 5, including a chunk of fuselage that
clearly had passenger windows. “It’s … from the United Airlines plane that
hit Tower 2,” Corley states flatly. In reviewing crash footage taken by an
ABC news crew, Corley was able to track the trajectory of the fragments he
studied–including a section of the landing gear and part of an engine–as
they tore through the South Tower, exited from the building’s north side and
fell from the sky.

…

INTERCEPTS NOT ROUTINE

CLAIM: “It has been standard operating procedures for decades to immediately
intercept off-course planes that do not respond to communications from air
traffic controllers,” says the Web site oilempire.us. “When the Air Force
‘scrambles’ a fighter plane to intercept, they usually reach the plane in
question in minutes.”

FACT: In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane
over North America: golfer Payne Stewart’s Learjet, in October 1999. With
passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost
radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so,
it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in
effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts.
Prior to 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air
Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). “Until 9/11 there was no domestic
ADIZ,” FAA spokesman Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11, NORAD and the FAA
increased cooperation, setting up hotlines between ATCs and NORAD command
centers, according to officials from both agencies. NORAD has also increased
its fighter coverage and has installed radar to monitor airspace over the
continent.

………….

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

The collapse of both World Trade Center towers — and the smaller WTC 7 a
few hours later — initially surprised even some experts. But subsequent
studies have shown that the WTC’s structural integrity was destroyed by
intense fire as well as the severe damage inflicted by the planes. That
explanation hasn’t swayed conspiracy theorists, who contend that all three
buildings were wired with explosives in advance and razed in a series of
controlled demolitions.

…

WIDESPREAD DAMAGE

CLAIM: The first hijacked plane crashed through the 94th to the 98th floors
of the World Trade Center’s 110-story North Tower; the second jet slammed
into the 78th to the 84th floors of the 110-story South Tower. The impact
and ensuing fires disrupted elevator service in both buildings. Plus, the
lobbies of both buildings were visibly damaged before the towers collapsed.
“There is NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage 80
stories below,” claims a posting on the San Diego Independent Media Center
Web site (sandiego.indymedia.org). “It is OBVIOUS and irrefutable that OTHER
EXPLOSIVES (… such as concussion bombs) HAD ALREADY BEEN DETONATED in the
lower levels of tower one at the same time as the plane crash.”

FACT: Following up on a May 2002 preliminary report by the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), a major study will be released in spring 2005 by
the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a branch of the
U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST shared its initial findings with PM and
made its lead researcher available to our team of reporters.

The NIST investigation revealed that plane debris sliced through the utility
shafts at the North Tower’s core, creating a conduit for burning jet fuel —
and fiery destruction throughout the building. “It’s very hard to document
where the fuel went,” says Forman Williams, a NIST adviser and a combustion
expert, “but if it’s atomized and combustible and gets to an ignition
source, it’ll go off.”

Burning fuel traveling down the elevator shafts would have disrupted the
elevator systems and caused extensive damage to the lobbies. NIST heard
first-person testimony that “some elevators slammed right down” to the
ground floor. “The doors cracked open on the lobby floor and flames came out
and people died,” says James Quintiere, an engineering professor at the
University of Maryland and a NIST adviser. A similar observation was made in
the French documentary “9/11,” by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. As Jules Naudet
entered the North Tower lobby, minutes after the first aircraft struck, he
saw victims on fire, a scene he found too horrific to film.

…

“MELTED” STEEL

CLAIM: “We have been lied to,” announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net.
“The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of
structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel.” The
posting is entitled “Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC.”

FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel
(2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their
steel frames didn’t need to melt, they just had to lose some of their
structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. “I have
never seen melted steel in a building fire,” says retired New York deputy
fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A
Guide To Fireground Safety. “But I’ve seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent
and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both
ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete
cracks.”

“Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F,” notes senior
engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction.
“And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent.” NIST also believes
that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked
off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the
metal more vulnerable to the heat.

But jet fuel wasn’t the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a
professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one
of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says
that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting
inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings,
including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of
fire hit 1832°F.

“The jet fuel was the ignition source,” Williams tells PM. “It burned for
maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was
the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat
transfer that eventually brought them down.”

…

PUFFS OF DUST

CLAIM: As each tower collapsed, clearly visible puffs of dust and debris
were ejected from the sides of the buildings. An advertisement in The New
York Times for the book Painful Questions: An Analysis Of The September 11th
Attack made this claim: “The concrete clouds shooting out of the buildings
are not possible from a mere collapse. They do occur from explosions.”
Numerous conspiracy theorists cite Van Romero, an explosives expert and vice
president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who was
quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque Journal as saying “there were some
explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse.”
The article continues, “Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled
those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures.”

FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above
the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact
floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail,
transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to
progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call
the process “pancaking,” and it does not require an explosion to begin,
according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and
a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked
on the FEMA report.

Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As
they pancaked, all that air — along with the concrete and other debris
pulverized by the force of the collapse — was ejected with enormous energy.
“When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it’s going to
shoot air and concrete dust out the window,” NIST lead investigator Shyam
Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a
controlled demolition, Sunder adds, “but it is the floor pancaking that
leads to that perception.”

Demolition expert Romero regrets that his comments to the Albuquerque
Journal became fodder for conspiracy theorists. “I was misquoted in saying
that I thought it was explosives that brought down the building,” he tells
PM. “I only said that that’s what it looked like.”

Romero, who agrees with the scientific conclusion that fire triggered the
collapses, demanded a retraction from the Journal. It was printed Sept. 22,
2001. “I felt like my scientific reputation was on the line.” But
emperors-clothes.com saw something else: “The paymaster of Romero’s research
institute is the Pentagon. Directly or indirectly, pressure was brought to
bear, forcing Romero to retract his original statement.” Romero responds:
“Conspiracy theorists came out saying that the government got to me. That is
the farthest thing from the truth. This has been an albatross around my neck
for three years.”

…

SEISMIC SPIKES

CLAIM: Seismographs at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth
Observatory in Palisades, N.Y., 21 miles north of the WTC, recorded the
events of 9/11. “The strongest jolts were all registered at the beginning of
the collapses, well before falling debris struck the earth,” reports the Web
site WhatReallyHappened.com.

A columnist on Prisonplanet.com, a Web site run by radio talk show host Alex
Jones, claims the seismic spikes (boxed area on Graph 1) are “indisputable
proof that massive explosions brought down” the towers. The Web site says
its findings are supported by two seismologists at the observatory,
Won-Young Kim and Arthur Lerner-Lam. Each “sharp spike of short duration,”
says Prisonplanet.com, was consistent with a “demolition-style implosion.”

FACT: “There is no scientific basis for the conclusion that explosions
brought down the towers,” Lerner-Lam tells PM. “That representation of our
work is categorically incorrect and not in context.”

The report issued by Lamont-Doherty includes various graphs showing the
seismic readings produced by the planes crashing into the two towers as well
as the later collapse of both buildings. WhatReallyHappened.com chooses to
display only one graph (Graph 1), which shows the readings over a 30-minute
time span.

On that graph, the 8- and 10-second collapses appear — misleadingly — as a
pair of sudden spikes. Lamont-Doherty’s 40-second plot of the same data
(Graph 2) gives a much more detailed picture: The seismic waves — blue for
the South Tower, red for the North Tower — start small and then escalate as
the buildings rumble to the ground. Translation: no bombs.

…

WTC 7 COLLAPSE

CLAIM: Seven hours after the two towers fell, the 47-story WTC 7 collapsed.
According to 911review.org: “The video clearly shows that it was not a
collapse subsequent to a fire, but rather a controlled demolition: amongst
the Internet investigators, the jury is in on this one.”

FACT: Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA’s preliminary report, which
said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With
the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the
working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris
than the FEMA report indicated. “The most important thing we found was that
there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7,” NIST’s
Sunder tells PM. “On about a third of the face to the center and to the
bottom — approximately 10 stories — about 25 percent of the depth of the
building was scooped out.” NIST also discovered previously undocumented
damage to WTC 7’s upper stories and its southwest corner.

NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe
structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact
proportion requires more research. But NIST’s analysis suggests the fall of
WTC 7 was an example of “progressive collapse,” a process in which the
failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the
entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or
“kinks,” in the building’s facade just before the two penthouses disappeared
into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on
itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west
side in a diagonal collapse.

According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building’s failure:
In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying
exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each
floor. “What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just
one column on one of the lower floors,” Sunder notes, “it could cause a
vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down.”

There are two other possible contributing factors still under investigation:
First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed to transfer
loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the south face
apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been communicated to
columns on the building’s other faces, thereby exceeding their load-bearing
capacities.

Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. “There was no
firefighting in WTC 7,” Sunder says. Investigators believe the fire was fed
by tanks of diesel fuel that many tenants used to run emergency generators.
Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the
fifth floor was connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized
line. Says Sunder: “Our current working hypothesis is that this pressurized
line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time.”

WTC 7 might have withstood the physical damage it received, or the fire that
burned for hours, but those combined factors — along with the building’s
unusual construction — were enough to set off the chain-reaction collapse.

…………

THE PENTAGON

At 9:37 am on 9/11, 51 minutes after the first plane hit the World Trade
Center, the Pentagon was similarly attacked. Though dozens of witnesses saw
a Boeing 757 hit the building, conspiracy advocates insist there is evidence
that a missile or a different type of plane smashed into the Pentagon.

…

BIG PLANE, SMALL HOLES

CLAIM: Two holes were visible in the Pentagon immediately after the attack:
a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building’s exterior wall, and a 16-ft.-wide
hole in Ring C, the Pentagon’s middle ring. Conspiracy theorists claim both
holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757. “How does a plane
125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. across?”
asks reopen911.org, a Web site “dedicated to discovering the bottom line
truth to what really occurred on September 11, 2001.”

The truth is of even less importance to French author Thierry Meyssan, whose
baseless assertions are fodder for even mainstream European and Middle
Eastern media. In his book The Big Lie, Meyssan concludes that the Pentagon
was struck by a satellite-guided missile–part of an elaborate U.S. military
coup. “This attack,” he writes, “could only be committed by United States
military personnel against other U.S. military personnel.”

FACT: When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon’s exterior wall,
Ring E, it created a hole approximately 75 ft. wide, according to the ASCE
Pentagon Building Performance Report. The exterior facade collapsed about 20
minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole
on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged.
Computer simulations confirmed the findings.

Why wasn’t the hole as wide as a 757’s 124-ft.-10-in. wingspan? A crashing
jet doesn’t punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced
concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of
structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit the
ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the
Pentagon’s load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the
behavior of concrete buildings. What was left of the plane flowed into the
structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. “If you expected
the entire wing to cut into the building,” Sozen tells PM, “it didn’t
happen.”

The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft. wide–not 16 ft. ASCE concludes it was
made by the jet’s landing gear, not by the fuselage.

…

INTACT WINDOWS

CLAIM: Many Pentagon windows remained in one piece — even those just above
the point of impact from the Boeing 757 passenger plane.
Pentagonstrike.co.uk, an online animation widely circulated in the United
States and Europe, claims that photographs showing “intact windows” directly
above the crash site prove “a missile” or “a craft much smaller than a 757”
struck the Pentagon.

FACT: Some windows near the impact area did indeed survive the crash. But
that’s what the windows were supposed to do — they’re blast-resistant.

“A blast-resistant window must be designed to resist a force significantly
higher than a hurricane that’s hitting instantaneously,” says Ken Hays,
executive vice president of Masonry Arts, the Bessemer, Ala., company that
designed, manufactured and installed the Pentagon windows. Some were knocked
out of the walls by the crash and the outer ring’s later collapse. “They
were not designed to receive wracking seismic force,” Hays notes. “They were
designed to take in inward pressure from a blast event, which apparently
they did: [Before the collapse] the blinds were still stacked neatly behind
the window glass.”

…

FLIGHT 77 DEBRIS

CLAIM: Conspiracy theorists insist there was no plane wreckage at the
Pentagon. “In reality, a Boeing 757 was never found,” claims
pentagonstrike.co.uk, which asks the question, “What hit the Pentagon on
9/11?”

FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer was the first structural engineer to
arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the emergency
response. “It was absolutely a plane, and I’ll tell you why,” says
Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. “I saw the
marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of
the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail
section of the plane, and I found the black box.” Kilsheimer’s eyewitness
account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the
building. Kilsheimer adds: “I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my
hands, including body parts. Okay?”

…………

FLIGHT 93

Cockpit recordings indicate the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93
teamed up to attack their hijackers, forcing down the plane near
Shanksville, in southwestern Pennsylvania. But conspiracy theorists assert
Flight 93 was destroyed by a heat-seeking missile from an F-16 or a
mysterious white plane. Some theorists add far-fetched elaborations: No
terrorists were aboard, or the passengers were drugged. The wildest is the
“bumble planes” theory, which holds that passengers from Flights 11, 175 and
77 were loaded onto Flight 93 so the U.S. government could kill them.

…

THE WHITE JET

CLAIM: At least six eyewitnesses say they saw a small white jet flying low
over the crash area almost immediately after Flight 93 went down. BlogD.com
theorizes that the aircraft was downed by “either a missile fired from an
Air Force jet, or via an electronic assault made by a U.S. Customs airplane
reported to have been seen near the site minutes after Flight 93 crashed.”
WorldNetDaily.com weighs in: “Witnesses to this low-flying jet … told
their story to journalists. Shortly thereafter, the FBI began to attack the
witnesses with perhaps the most inane disinformation ever–alleging the
witnesses actually observed a private jet at 34,000 ft. The FBI says the jet
was asked to come down to 5000 ft. and try to find the crash site. This
would require about 20 minutes to descend.”

FACT: There was such a jet in the vicinity — a Dassault Falcon 20 business
jet owned by the VF Corp. of Greensboro, N.C., an apparel company that
markets Wrangler jeans and other brands. The VF plane was flying into
Johnstown-Cambria airport, 20 miles north of Shanksville. According to David
Newell, VF’s director of aviation and travel, the FAA’s Cleveland Center
contacted copilot Yates Gladwell when the Falcon was at an altitude “in the
neighborhood of 3000 to 4000 ft.” — not 34,000 ft. “They were in a descent
already going into Johnstown,” Newell adds. “The FAA asked them to
investigate and they did. They got down within 1500 ft. of the ground when
they circled. They saw a hole in the ground with smoke coming out of it.
They pinpointed the location and then continued on.” Reached by PM, Gladwell
confirmed this account but, concerned about ongoing harassment by conspiracy
theorists, asked not to be quoted directly.

…

ROVING ENGINE

CLAIM: One of Flight 93’s engines was found “at a considerable distance from
the crash site,” according to Lyle Szupinka, a state police officer on the
scene who was quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Offering no evidence,
a posting on Rense.com claimed: “The main body of the engine … was found
miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which
a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner.”

FACT: Experts on the scene tell PM that a fan from one of the engines was
recovered in a catchment basin, downhill from the crash site. Jeff Reinbold,
the National Park Service representative responsible for the Flight 93
National Memorial, confirms the direction and distance from the crash site
to the basin: just over 300 yards south, which means the fan landed in the
direction the jet was traveling. “It’s not unusual for an engine to move or
tumble across the ground,” says Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert
who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 out of New York City in 1996.
“When you have very high velocities, 500 mph or more,” Hynes says, “you are
talking about 700 to 800 ft. per second. For something to hit the ground
with that kind of energy, it would only take a few seconds to bounce up and
travel 300 yards.” Numerous crash analysts contacted by PM concur.

…

INDIAN LAKE

CLAIM: “Residents and workers at businesses outside Shanksville, Somerset
County, reported discovering clothing, books, papers and what appeared to be
human remains,” states a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article dated Sept. 13,
2001. “Others reported what appeared to be crash debris floating in Indian
Lake, nearly 6 miles from the immediate crash scene.” Commenting on reports
that Indian Lake residents collected debris, Think AndAsk.com speculates:
“On Sept. 10, 2001, a strong cold front pushed through the area, and behind
it — winds blew northerly. Since Flight 93 crashed west-southwest of Indian
Lake, it was impossible for debris to fly perpendicular to wind direction.
… The FBI lied.” And the significance of widespread debris? Theorists
claim the plane was breaking up before it crashed. TheForbiddenKnowledge.com
states bluntly: “Without a doubt, Flight 93 was shot down.”

FACT: Wallace Miller, Somerset County coroner, tells PM no body parts were
found in Indian Lake. Human remains were confined to a 70-acre area directly
surrounding the crash site. Paper and tiny scraps of sheetmetal, however,
did land in the lake. “Very light debris will fly into the air, because of
the concussion,” says former National Transportation Safety Board
investigator Matthew McCormick. Indian Lake is less than 1.5 miles southeast
of the impact crater — not 6 miles — easily within range of debris blasted
skyward by the heat of the explosion from the crash. And the wind that day
was northwesterly, at 9 to 12 mph, which means it was blowing from the
northwest–toward Indian Lake.

…

F-16 PILOT

CLAIM: In February 2004, retired Army Col. Donn de Grand-Pre said on “The
Alex Jones Show,” a radio talk show broadcast on 42 stations: “It [Flight
93] was taken out by the North Dakota Air Guard. I know the pilot who fired
those two missiles to take down 93.” LetsRoll911.org, citing de Grand-Pre,
identifies the pilot: “Major Rick Gibney fired two Sidewinder missiles at
the aircraft and destroyed it in midflight at precisely 0958.”

FACT: Saying he was reluctant to fuel debate by responding to
unsubstantiated charges, Gibney (a lieutenant colonel, not a major) declined
to comment. According to Air National Guard spokesman Master Sgt. David
Somdahl, Gibney flew an F-16 that morning–but nowhere near Shanksville. He
took off from Fargo, N.D., and flew to Bozeman, Mont., to pick up Ed Jacoby
Jr., the director of the New York State Emergency Management Office. Gibney
then flew Jacoby from Montana to Albany, N.Y., so Jacoby could coordinate
17,000 rescue workers engaged in the state’s response to 9/11. Jacoby
confirms the day’s events. “I was in Big Sky for an emergency managers
meeting. Someone called to say an F-16 was landing in Bozeman. From there we
flew to Albany.” Jacoby is outraged by the claim that Gibney shot down
Flight 93. “I summarily dismiss that because Lt. Col. Gibney was with me at
that time. It disgusts me to see this because the public is being misled.
More than anything else it disgusts me because it brings up fears. It brings
up hopes — it brings up all sorts of feelings, not only to the victims’
families but to all the individuals throughout the country, and the world
for that matter. I get angry at the misinformation out there.”

………….

REPORTING: Benjamin Chertoff, Davin Coburn, Michael Connery, David Enders,
Kevin Haynes, Kristin Roth, Tracy Saelinger, Erik Sofge and the editors of
Popular Mechanics.

PHOTOGRAPHY RESEARCH: Sarah Shatz.

PM consulted more than 300 experts and organizations in its investigation
into 9/11 conspiracy theories. The following were particularly helpful.

…

AIR CRASH ANALYSIS:

Cleveland Center regional air traffic control

Bill Crowley special agent, FBI

Ron Dokell president, Demolition Consultants

Richard Gazarik staff writer, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Yates Gladwell pilot, VF Corp.

Michael K. Hynes, Ed.D., ATP, CFI, A&P/IA president, Hynes Aviation
Services; expert, aviation crashes

Ed Jacoby Jr. director, New York State Emergency Management Office (Ret.);
chairman, New York State Disaster Preparedness Commission (Ret.)

Johnstown-Cambria County Airport Authority

Cindi Lash staff writer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Matthew McCormick manager, survival factors division, National
Transportation Safety Board (Ret.)

Wallace Miller coroner, Somerset County, PA

Robert Nagan meteorological technician, Climate Services Branch, National
Climatic Data Center

Dave Newell director, aviation and travel, VF Corp.

James O’Toole politics editor, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Pennsylvania State Police Public Information Office

Jeff Pillets senior writer, The Record, Hackensack, NJ

Jeff Rienbold director, Flight 93 National Memorial, National Park Service

Dennis Roddy staff writer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Master Sgt. David Somdahl public affairs officer, 119th Wing, North Dakota
Air National Guard

Mark Stahl photographer; eyewitness, United Airlines Flight 93 crash scene

…

AIR DEFENSE:

Lt. Col. Skip Aldous (Ret.) squadron commander, U.S. Air Force

Tech. Sgt. Laura Bosco public affairs officer, Tyndall Air Force Base

Boston Center regional air traffic control

Laura Brown spokeswoman, Federal Aviation Administration

Todd Curtis, Ph.D. founder, Airsafe.com; president, Airsafe.com Foundation

Keith Halloway public affairs officer, National Transportation Safety Board

Ted Lopatkiewicz director, public affairs, National Transportation Safety
Board

Maj. Douglas Martin public affairs officer, North American Aerospace Defense
Command

Lt. Herbert McConnell public affairs officer, Andrews AFB

Michael Perini public affairs officer, North American Aerospace Defense
Command

John Pike director, GlobalSecurity.org

Hank Price spokesman, Federal Aviation Administration

Warren Robak RAND Corp.

Bill Shumann spokesman, Federal Aviation Administration

Louis Walsh public affairs officer, Eglin AFB

Chris Yates aviation security editor, analyst, Jane’s Transport

…

AVIATION:

Fred E.C. Culick, Ph.D., S.B., S.M. professor of aeronautics, California
Institute of Technology

Robert Everdeen public affairs, Northrop Grumman

Clint Oster professor of public and environmental affairs, Indiana
University; aviation safety expert

Capt. Bill Scott (Ret. USAF) Rocky Mountain bureau chief, Aviation Week

Bill Uher News Media Office, NASA Langley Research Center

Col. Ed Walby (Ret. USAF) director, business development, HALE Systems
Enterprise, Unmanned Systems, Northrop Grumman

…

IMAGE ANALYSIS:

William F. Baker member, FEMA Probe Team; partner, Skidmore, Owings, Merrill

W. Gene Corley, Ph.D., P.E., S.E. senior vice president, CTL Group;
director, FEMA Probe Team

Bill Daly senior vice president, Control Risks Group

Steve Douglass image analysis consultant, Aviation Week

Thomas R. Edwards, Ph.D. founder, TREC; video forensics expert.

Ronald Greeley, Ph.D. professor of geology, Arizona State University

Rob Howard freelance photographer; WTC eyewitness

Robert L. Parker, Ph.D. professor of geophysics, University of California,
San Diego

…

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING / BUILDING COLLAPSE:

Farid Alfawakhiri, Ph.D. senior engineer, American Institute of Steel
Construction

David Biggs, P.E. structural engineer, Ryan-Biggs Associates; member, ASCE
team for FEMA report

Robert Clarke structural engineer, Controlled Demolitions Group Ltd.

Glenn Corbett technical editor, Fire Engineering; member, NIST advisory
committee

Vincent Dunn deputy fire chief (Ret.), FDNY; author, The Collapse Of Burning
Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety

John Fisher, Ph.D. professor of civil engineering, Lehigh University;
professor emeritus, Center for Advanced Technology; member, FEMA Probe Team

Ken Hays executive vice president, Masonry Arts

Christoph Hoffmann, Ph.D. professor of computer science, Purdue University;
project director, September 11 Pentagon Attack Simulations Using LS-Dyna,
Purdue University

Allyn E. Kilsheimer, P.E. CEO, KCE Structural Engineers PC; chief structural
engineer, Phoenix project; expert in blast recovery, concrete structures,
emergency response

Won-Young Kim, Ph.D. seismologist, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
Columbia University

William Koplitz photo desk manager, FEMA

John Labriola freelance photographer, WTC survivor

Arthur Lerner-Lam, Ph.D. seismologist; director, Earth Institute, Center for
Hazards and Risk Research, Columbia University

James Quintiere, Ph.D. professor of engineering, University of Maryland
member, NIST advisory committee

Steve Riskus freelance photographer; eyewitness, Pentagon crash

Van Romero, Ph.D. vice president, New Mexico Institute of Mining and
Technology

Christine Shaffer spokesperson, Viracon

Mete Sozen, Ph.D., S.E. Kettelhut Distinguished Professor of Structural
Engineering, Purdue University; member, Pentagon Building Performance
Report; project conception, September 11 Pentagon Attack Simulations Using
LS-Dyna, Purdue University

Shyam Sunder, Sc.D. acting deputy director, lead investigator, Building and
Fire Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Mary Tobin science writer, media relations, Earth Institute, Columbia
University

Forman Williams, Ph.D. professor of engineering, physics, combustion,
University of California, San Diego; member, advisory committee, National
Institute of Standards and Technology

————