Explosions - Bottom floor WTC

Ok, I'm a firm believer that 9/11 was an inside, job, and have been for a long time now, but I keep wondering, of all the people who claimed to have heard explosion in the lobby's and in the sub basements of the WTC 1 and 2, what are the chances that those were just one of the 198 elevators crashing to the grounds? And is there any evidence distinguishing the difference?

Possible. I wouldn't rule it out.

It has been proven, however, that jet fuel and fire raged down the shafts not long after the planes hit. Reports of people running out of the elevators on fire are pretty common.

Not to mention gas mains, electrical transformers etc.

...we looked up and saw the entire top of the second tower blow up in a 100-foot fireball and debris started falling. The two of us ran back about 20 feet. We then dove headfirst into a doorway cut into the side of a building as debris crashed to the ground. Brian and I were separated and I thought he was dead. I tried to yell his name but couldn't as the smoke and dust were choking me. There was zero visibility. When I finally was able to scream, he immediately screamed back that he was OK. We decided that we had to get out before a secondary collapse trapped us. So, we opened the door and proceeded north, totally blind in the most surreal setting imaginable. There were mini explosions on all sides of us and then a huge gas main blew up, creating a 30-foot torch.

origin.web.fordham.edu...

As for having bombs in the bottom sections of the bulding. Why? The towers collapsed from the impact point down, not from the base. There’s nothing a bomb 90+ floors below could do to affect that. And remember, the very base of the towers were left standing. This part of the structure is all that remained, which is why a few people survived in the lower levels of the trade towers.

Double Post - My Mistake. Laggy Connection.

[edit on 31/10/2006 by doctorfungi]

Impossible, for a couple reasons.

One is that people were seriously burned in the explosions, as well as concrete being destroyed and steel doors being blown out. This is why official "CT'ers" say it must have been an FAE (fuel-air explosion) from jet fuel traveling down an elevator shaft.

Two, the only elevator that went from the impacted floors of WTC1 to its basement floors had a man inside of it, and the man was injured from free-falling several stories in his elevator, but was not burned, as there was no fireball. No other elevators could have delivered an FAE.

There's going to be a more in-depth article written up in the near future that expounds upon all of this and gives the proper sources. I'll try to remember to come back and post the link here when it's up.

The Naudet brothers footage has commentry to it along the lines of:

"At this point I had to turn the camera away. Two people ran out of the elavator shafts on fire and I didn't think that was appropriate to film".

That's not an exact quote but it is the general theme of what he's saying.

William Walsh of ladder 1 also said that the elevators that were heavily damaged, blown off their hinges, were the low-level elevators that serviced around floors 30 and below.

[Lt. Walsh:] What I observed as I was going through these doors and I got into the lobby of the World Trade Center was that the lobby of the Trade Center didn't appear as though it had any lights.

All of the glass on the first floor that abuts West Street was blown out. The glass in the revolving doors was blown out. All of the glass in the lobby was blown out.

The wall panels on the wall are made of marble. It's about two or three inches thick. They're about ten feet high by ten feet wide. A lot of those were hanging off the wall.

[B.C. Congiusta:] Wait a second.
(Interruption.)

[Walsh:] What else I observed in the lobby was that -- there's basically two areas of elevators. There's elevators off to the left-hand side which are really the express elevators. That would be the elevators that's facing north. Then on the right-hand side there's also elevators that are express elevators, and that would be facing south. In the center of these two elevator shafts would be elevators that go to the lower floors. They were blown off the hinges. That's where the service elevator was also.

[B.C. Congiusta:] Were these elevators that went to the upper floors? They weren't side lobby elevators?

[Walsh:] No, no, I'd say that they went through floors 30 and below.

[B.C. Congiusta:] And they were blown off?

[Walsh:] They were blown off the hinges, and you could see the shafts. The elevators on the extreme north side and the other express elevator on the extreme south side, they looked intact to me from what I could see, the doors anyway.

graphics8.nytimes.com...

I'm assuming we're all familiar with William Rodriguez's testimony of two events in WTC1's basement: one from a plane impact, and another from an explosion.

Construction worker Phillip Morelli corroborates this testimony:

I go downstairs, the foreman tells me to go to remove the containers, as I’m walking by the main freight car of the building, in the corridor, that’s when I got blown. I mean, the impact of the explosion, or whatever happened, it threw me to the floor, and that’s when everything started happening…

It knocked me right to the floor. You didn’t know what it was. Of course you’re assuming something just fell over in the loading dock, something very heavy, something very big, you don’t know what happened, and all of a sudden you just felt the floor moving and you get up and the walls… And then you know, I mean now I’m hearing that the main freight car, the elevators fell down, so I was right near the main freight car so I assume what that was.

Then, I mean you heard that coming towards you. I was racing, I was going towards the bathroom. All of a sudden, I opened the door, I didn’t know it was the bathroom, and all of a sudden the big impact happened again, and all of the ceiling tiles was falling down, the light fixtures were falling, swinging out of the ceiling, and I come running out the door, and everything, the walls were down, and I started running towards the parking lots. …

I just thought something… because I know that the loading dock is on B1, that’s three floors above me, I just assumed that a car or something exploded on B1 or something got delivered and something big and heavy fell over. You just knew it was something big…

Real Player video of this testimony here: www.studyof911.com...




Morelli says he was told the second event was caused by the main freight elevator hitting the ground. This is impossible.



That's Arturo and Carmen Griffith. Arturo was the operator for elevator 50A: the main freight elevator!

Not only did he survive, and his elevator not free-fall to the basement, but he experienced no fuel-air explosion.

Arturo was running 50A, the big freight car going from the six-level basement to the 108th floor. When American Airlines Flight 11 struck at 8:46 a.m., Arturo and a co-worker were heading from the second-level basement to the 49th floor.

Like his wife, who had just closed the doors on a passenger elevator leaving the 78th floor, Arturo heard a sudden whistling sound and the impact. Cables were severed and Arturo's car plunged into free fall.

"The only thing I remember saying was 'Oh, God, Oh, God, I'm going to die,' " he says, recalling how he tried to protect his head as the car plummeted.

The emergency brakes caught after 15 or 16 floors. The imploding elevator door crushed Arturo's right knee and broke the tibia below it. His passenger escaped injury.

www.usatoday.com...


His wife, however, was burned. Her elevator did not reach to the basements, however, and neither did it free-fall downward.

[edit on 31-10-2006 by bsbray11]

Speaking of the keymaster (Who you gonna call?)

What did he say it sounded like?

Oh, yeah, a big rumble like someone moving a lot of heavy furniture.

Not like an impact, but a rumble.

transcripts.cnn.com...

Would someone care to explain to me what on earth an explosion 90 floors below impact would do to effect a top to bottom collapse other than risk exposure for the people who placed them?

The trade towers CLEARLY started collapsing at the top. There is NOTHING a bomb 90 floors below the impact point that went un-noticed by thousands of people would have done to help bring that building down.

Who cares, HowardRoark? We have testimony from more than just Rodriguez, testifying to more than just a sound.

We have testimony from the NYFD's William Walsh in which he says the lower-level elevator banks were blown out, while the upper-level elevators weren't. We have testimony from a stationary engineer saying a mech room was destroyed and filled with thick, white smoke. We have testimony from a construction worker saying there were two blasts, one of which caused actual physical damage to the structure of the basement.

And we have testimony from the operator of THE ONLY ELEVATOR THAT WENT FROM THE IMPACTED FLOORS TO THE BASEMENT LEVELS.

HE SURVIVED!

And there was no FAE down his shaft, no massive overpressures, NOT EVEN A FIREBALL!

And if that's not good enough for you, I've laid all of the above out and then some, logically and with documented sources, in an article here: www.studyof911.com...

Originally posted by doctorfungi
Would someone care to explain to me what on earth an explosion 90 floors below impact would do to effect a top to bottom collapse other than risk exposure for the people who placed them?

Have you seen any of the quotes from demolition experts saying they would take the Towers out by destroying the core structure at the base, and cutting the whole above-ground structure off from its foundations? In fact, I've seen one of them argue that the WTC Towers couldn't have been demo'd BECAUSE nothing was seen from the bases (Blanchard from PROTEC). Think about that.

What if there was not an FAE but there was burning fuel that made it to the basement?

What if the fuel went from shaft to shaft as this USAToday article states.

www.usatoday.com...

Elevator shafts worked like chimneys, funneling unbearable smoke to floors above the crashes. The shafts also channeled burning jet fuel throughout both towers. Fire moved not only up and down but also side to side, from shaft to shaft, unleashing explosions in elevator lobbies and in restrooms next to the shafts.

After all, they were very close together and stacked on top of each other to save space.

Elevator Layout

Nothing was 'stacked onto' the main freight, as it went from top to bottom with nothing else above or below it.

In addition, burning jet fuel does not create explosions, overpressures, or destroy mech rooms or blow out concrete walls and blow lower-level elevators off of their hinges, all of which were reported by various individuals that were actually there on 9/11.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Have you seen any of the quotes from demolition experts saying they would take the Towers out by destroying the core structure at the base, and cutting the whole above-ground structure off from its foundations?

Yes, and since the buildings clearly were not cut at their foundations, what purpose did the basement "bombs" serve, as they obviously did not destroy the core structure at the base?

The collapses started from the impact areas, and left parts of the bottom floors intact. If there were bombs in the basement, all they accomplished was to kill people in elevators and really had no effect on the structure.



[edit on 7-11-2006 by LeftBehind]

How would you know if they were cut from their foundations or not?

Do you realize that the core structure was the primary load-bearing structure in terms of the gravity loads? The outer walls weren't holding the building up. If the core was severed from the base, from its foundations, explosive sounds and smoke WOULD be all that you would experience. And we have testimony and video of both of these things. So why don't you drop it?

Originally posted by bsbray11
Have you seen any of the quotes from demolition experts saying they would take the Towers out by destroying the core structure at the base, and cutting the whole above-ground structure off from its foundations?

And have you read the quotes from the NUMBER ONE demolition company in the world, the thousands of civil and structural engineers and people who were inside the buildings when they collapsed saying that the conspiracy theory is baseless and totally false?

What you are suggesting would have occured in a controlled demolition, yes? You are aware that controlled demolitions occur over the course of a matter of seconds, not hours.

So tell me again, what would an explosion in the bottom of the towers (which clearly did no damage) over an hour before the buildings collapsed do to effect the collapse of the towers?

I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.

D. Allan Firmage
Structural Engineer - 57 years

57 years of structural engineering experience isn't a walk in the park. After 57 years of experience... you know your stuff.

In fact, I've seen one of them argue that the WTC Towers couldn't have been demo'd BECAUSE nothing was seen from the bases (Blanchard from PROTEC). Think about that.

I have thought about it - trust me.


[edit on 7/11/2006 by doctorfungi]

Originally posted by Bsbray11In addition, burning jet fuel does not create explosions, overpressures, or destroy mech rooms or blow out concrete walls and blow lower-level elevators off of their hinges, all of which were reported by various individuals that were actually there on 9/11.

Well the folks at USAToday disagree with you. Why should we believe your opinion over their news report?

Did you do as much research as they did independantly?

www.usatoday.com...

USA TODAY based its estimate of at least 200 dying in elevators on interviews with survivors, victims' families and emergency personnel, as well as photographs, videos and architectural plans. The information was analyzed in a database. The death toll could have been as high as 400, although the exact number of deaths cannot be known with certainty.

Or perhaps you haven't realized that the layout showing only one elevator going from the impact zones down is merely a two dimensional model showing where multiple elevators actually went.

The loss of life was almost complete inside the south tower's 10 giant express elevators, which were shuttling evacuees from the 78th floor to the ground floor after the north tower was hit. Only four people survived.

Looks like there were ten express elevators in the North Tower capable of shuttling people to the ground floor.

Something tells me the same is true of the south tower.

The four survivors — two each from adjacent elevators — were in elevators that plunged and were stopped by the emergency brakes 6 to 10 feet above the lobby floor. About 40 people died in those two elevators. Doomed passengers called loved ones from two other south tower express elevators stuck near the 12th floor in one case and the 19th floor in another.

Looks like at least two express elevators in the south tower.

Maybe you should have done a little more research before posting that giant essay based on the false premise of a single express elevator.

How would you know if they were cut from their foundations or not?

Because then the collapses would have started at the base, not the tops where the impacts were.

What's wrong with this picture?: I respond to one of your posts, and in your next post, you change gears completely and drag something else into the picture. This could go on forever, and you just end up dragging things back into play that've already been discussed.

First of all, if you're referring to CDI, then guess what? They were "in on it", at least in the uppermost levels. They were government-contracted, they came in, they did the clean-up and helped ship all the evidence out, get rid of it. They did the same thing with the Murrah Federal Building during OKC, and undetonated charges were found within that building!

Your structural engineer is a human being just as the rest of us. There are people that don't agree with him, including one man of at least 30 years of experience, who also has experience with explosives, and direct experience with oil fires upon steel-only structures (Charles Pegelow). The man you're referencing is likely the product of his generation, and too old to entertain schema-shattering events that are outside of his field of expertise in the first place.

It has been discussed before, it will be constantly brought up that structural engineers deal with STATICS ONLY. If you want to talk about fires on steel, you can talk about metallurgists. If you want to talk about the collapses themselves, you can talk about physicists, structural dynamicists, mechanical engineers, but not structural engineers. That these people were singled out to begin with as pinned as experts is suspicious in itself. These guys came out after 9/11 saying the columns must have melted. They have no idea what they are talking about by and large, except upon diving into fields outside of their experience.

The elevators to the lobby did not go into the basement levels.

With that, I'll let you regroup and try again. Only one elevator per tower went from top to bottoms -- including basement levels.

Why should I regroup?

No one is claiming that there were explosions or fires in the fifth basement.

Remember Rodriguez had to climb to C level before he saw any damage, and if the fires were going from shaft to shaft, and side to side, then they wouldn't need to go down that one elevator.

After all, many people were burnt in the elevators and many more were killed. Just because the the elevators did not service every floor does not mean that the shafts stopped at each local elevator, nor does it mean that they weren't open to each other laterally.

Why should we believe you over the Journalists who actually studied what happened?