Originally posted by byhiniur
You haven't explained how the heat got to the steel. Why didn't it melt the window frames? Why wasn't the whole thing up in flames?

Originally posted by Nygdan
Q.Why didn't the towers turn into burning infernos?

A.It weakened the steel, which was exposed by the impact of the crash. It didn't turn it into liquid, it weakened it, enough that it failed at the critical points where the stress of the building, it mass and weight, were focused.

Originally posted by Wgatenson
As you can actually see, the fires were a orange color with alot of black smoke, similar to what you see in a burining oil well. The orange indicates a cooler flame, than a white or blue would indicate, and the thick dense black smoke indicates an abundance of fuel and a shortage of oxygen.

Originally posted by Wgatenson
Due to the fact that this was a oxygen deprived kerosene fire, far from optimal burning conditions that would be required for the fire to reach the 2000-3000 degrees needed to heat the steel. Also, just the fact that the fire is that hot does not mean that everything that the fire touches is exactially that temp.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
NIST has plenty of photographs in thier reports that document the sagging and falure of numerous floor slabs.

There's no evidence of widespread truss failures on a scale that would even initiate a collapse. You just point to the columns that "buckle" once the collapse actually starts to make up for all the ones that are missing earlier.

A total of 2,071 occupants of the World Trade Center died on September 11, among the 2,749 victims of the WTC attacks. According to an article in the October 11, 2001, Wall Street Journal, roughly 1,700 people had listed the religion of a person missing in the WTC attacks; approximately 10% were Jewish. A later article, in the September 5, 2002, Jewish Week, states, "based on the list of names, biographical information compiled by The New York Times, and information from records at the Medical Examiner's Office, there were at least 400 victims either confirmed or strongly believed to be Jewish." This would be approximately 15% of the total victims of the WTC attacks. A partial list of 390 Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died (out of 658 in the company) lists 49 Jewish memorial services, which is between 12% and 13%.

This 10-15% estimate of Jewish fatalities tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area. According to the 2002 American Jewish Year Book, 9% of the population of New York State, where 64% of the WTC victims lived, is Jewish. A 2002 study estimated that New York City's population was 12% Jewish. Forty-three percent of the WTC victims lived in New York City. Thus, the number of Jewish victims correlates very closely with the number of Jewish residents in New York. If 4,000 Jews had not reported for work on September 11, the number of Jewish victims would have been much lower than 10-15%.

The following partial list of 76 Jewish World Trade Center victims includes many from companies that were located at or above where the planes hit. These include Cantor Fitzgerald, which lost 658 employees, Marsh & McLellan, which lost 295 employees, Aon Corporation, which lost 176 employees, and others.