reply to post by civilized mammal
Giving this thread a little bump, to have fresh eyes look down upon it. But back to your question, I believe the WTC was made to withstand an airplane
collision:
“The Office of Special Planning (OSP), a unit set up by the New York Port Authority to assess the security of its facilities against terrorist
attacks, spends four to six months studying the World Trade Center. It examines the center’s design through looking at photographs, blueprints, and
plans. It brings in experts such as the builders of the center, plus experts in sabotage and explosives, and has them walk through the WTC to identify
any areas of vulnerability…”O’Sullivan consults ‘one of the trade center’s original structural engineers, Les Robertson, on whether the
towers would collapse because of a bomb or a collision with a slow-moving airplane.’ He is told there is ‘little likelihood of a collapse no
matter how the building was attacked.’”
Very Interesting isn't it?
In fact, no steel-framed building structures had ever collapsed due to fire before or since 9/11. This further supports Skilling’s analysis
about the possibility of jet fuel destroying the WTC towers. According to Paul Thompson, “the analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done
in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964.” This ‘white paper’ concluded
that:
“The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600
miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the
building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.”
And I thought this was rather interesting:
“Leslie Robertson, one of the two original structural engineers for the World Trade Center, is asked at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany what he
had done to protect the twin towers from terrorist attacks. He replies, ‘I designed it for a 707 to smash into it,’ though does not elaborate
further.”
He designed it so that a 707 would smash into it? Most likely this means that he designed it to withstand a direct hit.
Also according to Robertson, the WTC towers were “in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist
the impact of a jet airplane.”
Enjoy...
