reply to post by SPreston
No, it did not fall "straight down".
If it did, the roof would be on top of the pile.
What was found on top of the pile? The north face.
How can you say something fell straight down, and then end up having
one whole face laying on top of it? That would mean that the building was tilting to one side and continued to tilt, even though it was falling
"down" but with a pronounced lean. Towards the end of the collapse you see the entire top of the WTC7 tilting over almost 30 degrees.
Also looky here:
It would appear that the debris is well across the street. Not very "footprint-y" is it? And what is with the north face side laying on top of the
debris?
And here:
We see debris and the north face on top of the pile, and if you look closely, you can even see the east side of the building laying on top of the pile
to the left. And the rest of the debris spreads across the street towards the top of the picture.
So not only do these photos disprove the notion that the tower fell "straight down" and "in its foot print" because if anything, it did the exact
opposite. No exterior walls would be laying on top of the pile and it wouldnt lean over so far.
The reason why it didn't crush the building across the street is a little more trickier to explain but understanding the design of WTC7 helps. When
the collapse initiated, it did start to fall relatively straight down (with exception to the lean that eyewitnesses noticed before collapse). The
allows for the height of the building to decrease substantially. This would be a result of the transfer trusses and large wide open space found at
the base of WTC7. This open area would allow for it collapse down but, once it starts to collapse on the remaining columns that were over the transfer
trusses, they don't let go as quickly, and the building starts to tip moreso. The initial lean was enough that when it stopped moving down, there was
enough lateral movement from the initial tilt to allow it to fall over in the way it did.
Now this is not take into account the probability that the WTC7 in fact came apart in sections and what we take as the "global collapse" part is in
actuality the final collapse of the shell (exterior) of the building falling over after the insides have already collapsed. This would account for why
there was an 18 second event recorded on the seismic graphs during the collapse of WTC7 and the explanation of why the penthouse fell in first.
However, no evidence shows anything with explosives.