Ruling out a bomb on the ground level: Burn victims on first floor of WTC towers

This first wave also included a few patients that were burned when ignited jet fuel filled elevator shafts and engulfed the occupants. As discussed, these patients were on the ground floor and were able to escape and present early to paramedics.

files.abovetopsecret.com...
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The purpose of this thread is to address the issues and reports of explosions on the ground floor lobby of the WTC's. The medical reports indicate jet fuel leaking down the elevator shafts causing burns to victims on the ground floor. This is one theory I have not seen debunked or even discussed in much depth.

The questions I pose to advance this discussion are:

1. Can jet fuel fall or drip down the elevator shaft while ignited? How?
   
2. Based on the elevator shaft layout of the buildings, is it possible for jet fuel to have reached the lobby?
   
3. Would burns to the skin be different based on heat, fire contact, or fuel igniting on the skin?
   

Any further speculation on this issue is appreciated. Please stay on topic.

Further information about the explosion and elevator shafts can be found clicking the link below.
www.greatdreams.com...

[edit on 16-3-2010 by ExPostFacto]

I think its extremely necessary to consider the facts when we talk about this issue the facts are there are countless of testimonies by eyewitnesses who were actually there that heard and saw explosions on the ground floor, also we must take in to consideration the photos that were taken from the basement that showed an extremely likely scenario of an explosion at ground level.

I think anyone that studies this topic must take in to consideration the FACTS and understand that everyone that speaks out are not all lying. The FACTS are that so much of this was covered up and you have to ask WHY?

People only cover things up to HIDE things pure and simple.

My view of this is based on my own personal research, and considering that I do not believe everyone who testifies to a change of events other than the official report dictates is lying and has an agenda, I believe it is the only conclusion that anyone who studies this can come to.

I suppose the Germans would be arguing amongst themselves in exactly the same way if they had their own internet forum when the Reishstag went up.

Deny ignorance is the motto of this site - Reichstag Fire Decree

Very interesting topic indeed.

I personally do not buy into the OS of the jet fuel igniting and flowing down the elevator shaft into the lobby and sub basement levels. It seems to me that it violates all common sense.

We know that the fireball upon impact was igniting jet fuel. So how would it stay in a liquid form to flow down the elevator shaft? And if it is simply a fireball of already ignited fuel, how could it come out the elevator shaft with such a force as to blow out the lobby? It just does not make any sense to me.

Answering question 2, I'd say technically anything is possible, but I feel that this scenario is very unlikely.

3. Yes burns would be different based on the criteria you offered. Each one of those factors would make a difference in the severity of a burn in my opinion.

Besides, there are way too many witnesses, first responders, and even reporters who claimed secondary devices, secondary explosions, etc etc that any reasonable person can not simply chalk it up to lies and mistakes. I just dont buy it.

It would have to get there and THEN ignite into an explosive fireball. This definitely provides a reason to doubt this theory.


The fuel has to be in aerosol form, dispersed in the air and mixed with the right ratio of air, in order to be explosive. When the planes impacted they created fireballs, but even these fireballs were just deflagrations and didn't produce the kind of explosive force that destroys 300-lb doors as reported by engineer Mike Pecoraro.


If the theoretical explosive fireball formed near the impact area, it would have to travel down about 1000 feet of drywall shaft. If it's going to the lobby and basement levels to cause so much destruction, that drywall shaft is going to be blown too and so the fireball would never make it down that far.

If the jet fuel was leaking through the shafts that far, that's not aerosol form, that's running liquid form. Which can light on fire and burn up, but isn't going to explode like in Hollywood movies.



Plus if you look up FDNY Lt. William Walsh's testimony, he specifically says the floors servicing the lower floors and basement were blown out of their hinges when he got to WTC1, NOT the express elevators that serviced the impacted floors.

Just for the record...I do not believe dripping jet fuel could have been the reason behind the explosions witnessed on the ground floors. However, I have no proof. I am hoping more discussion on this issue will bring forward some evidence to debunk the claim of spilling jet fuel outside of the witnesses from the basement level.

Plane which impacted North (WTC 1) tower was carrying some 9500 gallons of jet fuel, approx 60,000 lbs.

Some of fuel ignited on impact forming the visually impressive fireball

What did not burn on impact splashed through the building. flowing
down stairs and shaft ways

Number of people were burned near the impact zone by the jet fuel

88th floor
“Now, a few seconds after the plane’s impact, Elaine Duch, a member of the Port Authority staff, wandered the 88th floor, dazed, charred, her clothes nearly burnt off her. She had been getting off the elevator when the fireball of fuel blew through the shaft, the flames shooting out of any opening to gulp oxygen. The ceilings had collapsed in the hallways. Out of their offices and cubicles, men and women were swarming. Where the elevators had been were now two gaping holes…”

83rd floor
(Manu) Dhingra was engulfed in a fireball from the crash of one of the hijacked planes Tuesday and suffered burns over most of his body.

Like others who were severely burned by a fire sparked by the jet fuel as the crashed planes turned the buildings into infernos, he was just beginning his work day Tuesday on the 83rd floor of the north tower, the one that was struck first.

"All of a sudden, as I was walking down the hallway and I heard a door explode and this large ball of fire just engulfed me," he said from his hospital bed at the Cornell Burn Center where all those burned in the attack are being treated. "I just froze. I didn't do anything. I just stood there." www.greatdreams.com...

The jet fuel was travelling at 500 mph when it hit the building as it fell
would brerak into droplets, becoming finer and finer the farther it travelled

The fuel mist would mix with air forming an explosive aerosol cloud.

Same thing happens at grain/sugar mills when fine dust becomes suspended in air forming explosive mixture. The resulting explosion
can level a entire concrete mill

Result of dust explosion Westwego LA 1977

As for elevators

There were 3 elevators which ran entire lenght of building (or to 107 floor)

1 freight elevator - Car 50 which was destroyed by the fireball

the #50 freight elevator shaft, which is continuous from the impact zones to the lowest basement level, B6. In the north tower, with elevator operator Arturo Griffith and carpenter Marlene Cruz aboard, the #50 elevator was hit by a blast, dropped several floors, and stopped below the B1 landing. A large fireball came through the shaft just after Griffith and Cruz were pulled from smoky elevator.

2 passenger elevators which ran to WINDOWS ON THE WORLD restaurant
on 106/107 floor

There were two express elevators (#6 and #7) to Windows on the World (and related conference rooms and banquet facilities) in WTC 1 and two to the observation deck in WTC 2. There were five local elevators in each building: three that brought people from the subterranean levels to the lobby, one that ran between floors 106 and 110, and one that ran between floors 43 and 44, serving the cafeteria from the skylobby. All elevators had been upgraded to incorporate firefighter emergency operation requirements.

Numerous people were burned in the lobby and on the street outside the building

The Port Authority’s on-site commanding police officer was standing in the concourse when a fireball exploded out of the North Tower lobby, causing him to dive for cover. www.9-11commission.gov...

[Whitaker] "When Flight 11 hit, he had been standing in front of a Banana Republic store in the enclosed shopping mall and concourse beneath the two towers, a spot he occupied four mornings a week and where thousands of people exiting the subways could see him. Whitaker had been stunned by a fireball that ran down an elevator shaft in the north tower." 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 2006. MacMillan, New York. p. 78

Ronnie Clifford and Jennianne Maffeo
At around 8.45am, Ronnie walked into the lobby of the Marriott, which was connected to the lobby of the north tower by a revolving door. As he was checking his yellow tie in a mirror, he felt a massive explosion, followed several seconds later by a reverberation, a warping effect that he describes as the "harmonic tolerance of a building that's shaking like a tuning fork". He peered through the revolving door into the lobby of the north tower. It was filling with haze. People were scurrying to escape what had become a "hurricane of flying debris".

Then the revolving door turned with a suctioning sound followed by a hot burst of wind, and in came a mannequin of the future. A woman, naked, dazed, her arms outstretched. She was so badly burned that Ronnie had no idea what race she was or how old she might be. She clawed the air with fingernails turned porcelain-white. The zipper of what had once been a sweater had melted into her chest, as if it were the zipper to her own body. Her hair had been singed to a crisp steel wool. With her, in the gust of the door, came a pungent odour, the smell of kerosene or paraffin, Ronnie thought.

Vasana) Mutuanot was in the lobby of Tower One when she heard the first explosion. Thinking it was a bomb like the terrorist attack in 1993, she turned to run, looking over her shoulder as flames leaped from a freight elevator shaft cooking her back and legs and right cheek. "It was a fireball with sand and heat, like a hurricane of fire," she said.

More accounts here

sites.google.com...

The visual evidence is compelling for me. The momentum of the fuel and the fuel explosion which dissipated well before hitting the ground is evidence the fuel could not have caused the ground level explosions. I am convinced by the many eyewitness accounts of explosions in the basement.



This clip has many different angles...

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Thanks for those clips Leo...based on the observable effect of the fuel explosions the clips are compelling. One thing I notice is when fuel explodes it goes upward, not downward. I wonder if this would be different in a elevator shaft?

Originally posted by thedman

88th floor
“Now, a few seconds after the plane’s impact, Elaine Duch, a member of the Port Authority staff, wandered the 88th floor, dazed, charred, her clothes nearly burnt off her. She had been getting off the elevator when the fireball of fuel blew through the shaft, the flames shooting out of any opening to gulp oxygen. The ceilings had collapsed in the hallways. Out of their offices and cubicles, men and women were swarming. Where the elevators had been were now two gaping holes…”

83rd floor
(Manu) Dhingra was engulfed in a fireball from the crash of one of the hijacked planes Tuesday and suffered burns over most of his body.

Like others who were severely burned by a fire sparked by the jet fuel as the crashed planes turned the buildings into infernos, he was just beginning his work day Tuesday on the 83rd floor of the north tower, the one that was struck first.

"All of a sudden, as I was walking down the hallway and I heard a door explode and this large ball of fire just engulfed me," he said from his hospital bed at the Cornell Burn Center where all those burned in the attack are being treated. "I just froze. I didn't do anything. I just stood there." www.greatdreams.com...

The jet fuel was travelling at 500 mph when it hit the building as it fell
would brerak into droplets, becoming finer and finer the farther it travelled

The fuel mist would mix with air forming an explosive aerosol cloud.

In your scenario, the misted jetfuel is already burning and would be consumed long before it reached the ground floor. And if it was aerosolized, then why would it drop down the elevator shafts anyway?

Even if you ignore testimony from people like Rodriguez who claim there was an explosion shortly BEFORE the plane impact, what about ground-level fireballs immediately prior to collapse? Don't tell me there was still a bunch of jet fuel in the basement after all that time had passed. Rescuers would have been overcome by the fumes.



Unfortunately the female reporter at the end of this video passed away, like so many eyewitnesses to the truth.

"In your scenario, the misted jet fuel is already burning and would be consumed long before it reached the ground floor."

And if it was not burning, why would the fuel suddenly ignite when it hit the lobby, after a drop of approximately 800 feet? Either way, the story is so preposterous it wouldn't even make it onto a Hollywood script.

Whether or not some fuel made it down the elevator shafts is a very complicated question and your going to need some pretty good simulations to come to any sort of conclusive answers. Anyone have a 1000 ft high building and a boeing 767 handy? Thought not.

Theory will get us nowhere. How much fuel? How far did it have to travel? How fast would it have traveled? What was it's exact mode of travel?; strait down or did it have to get around actual elevators. What other factors effect it's journey?How much became vapour? Did the whole shaft/s ignite? Blah, Blah, Blah..

From the stories it sounds like there actually was a fuel explosion that made it down the shafts. Sounds reasonable.


Anyhow, it has nothing to do with whether explosives went off in the basement.

[edit on 16-3-2010 by mrwiffler]

So here is a little math to see if this was possible.

The planes were carrying around 9000 gallons of fuel, or 34000 liters.

Jet fuel's density is around 0.775 kg/l, equating to somewhere around 26,350 kilograms.

Each kilogram of mostly kerosene Jet-A1 Fuel can release up to 48,400,000 joules of energy. For this example let’s assume each kilogram can only release 40,000,000 joules.

With the amount of fuel on the plane 1,360,000,000,000 joules can theoretically be released. Or to make this easier on ourselves, 1,360 giga-joules (GJ).

Next, find something you can compare the energy release to, for this the obvious is TNT.

TNT Equivalent, or Ton of TNT, is equal to one for every 4.184 giga-joules.

So taking this into account, if all of the Jet Fuel had ignited, exploded, and been completely consumed in the initial impact, it would have hit with the force of THREE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE tons of TNT. Keep in mind that is after I severely lessened the possible energy released by the fuel.

That would be a force equivalent to more than SEVEN 44 ton Russian Aviation Thermobaric Bomb of Increased Power (FOAB) bombs. This bomb is touted as being the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in existence. Check it out here.



Now call me crazy, but if that much energy had been released immediately on impact, the towers would have been down as soon as the planes hit.

The only conclusion I find is that a very large amount, likely 75-80%, of the initial fuel was left over after the impact, now the next part is where I really can not help much other then observation. Overall it was obviously a very fuel-rich fire as seen by the constant black smoke emanating from the towers throughout the entire event. The fact that the smoke stayed black up to the collapse of the towers shows that there still was fuel left to burn.

Being as jet fuel is in liquid form, and the length of time there still was jet fuel present, it is very likely that some of it found its way down the tower through elevator shafts/stairways, etc.

Interesting thread OP! S&F for you! I really don't buy the theory that all that fuel ran down the elevator shafts.I have seen and read much of the eye witness testimony about the explosions on the ground level and I think they are right we have all these reports about this and yet we were being told by all the official accounts that the workers in the TWC basement and the first responders are "mistaken." or perhaps "confused."

Originally posted by thedman
What did not burn on impact splashed through the building. flowing
down stairs and shaft ways.

Problems with your theory.

1. Only one elevator shaft runs from the floors where the planes hit to the sub basement.

2. Lots of jet fuel would have been soaked up by the caprets and furniture.

3. Jet fuel burns off real fast.


[edit on 17-3-2010 by REMISNE]

reply to post by CalibratedZeus


So the Russians need only dump 34000 liters of kerosene to achieve the amount of force generated by 7 of their 44 ton bombs? Sounds like a much cheaper solution. Someone should tell them!

Originally posted by Leo Strauss
reply to post by CalibratedZeus

 

So the Russians need only dump 34000 liters of kerosene to achieve the amount of force generated by 7 of their 44 ton bombs? Sounds like a much cheaper solution. Someone should tell them!

Dumb old Russians. Don't they know that Flights 11 and 175 SHOULD have wiped out half the City of New York?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/5eb2ec3fbcfa.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by Leo Strauss


Sure, if they could figure out a way to supply enough oxygen to the 34,000 liters of kerosene that it would all ignite at once.

The inherent problem with using a fuel as a bomb is that fuels are meant to sustain a long burn, not explode immediately like C-4 and TNT. A bomb made out of pure kerosene would create a small initial explosion followed by a long slow burn.

How come no-one has said that the sounds of explosions heard in the lobby might have been the elevators crashing to the basement and 'exploding'.

I say that after reading the elevator mechanic's evidence on the www.greatdreams.com site linked to by the poster.

There are a few references in his account to 'impacts' and 'explosions' which might explain some of the eyewiness reports of hearing explosions.

"It was like a bomb, not quite the sound of a bomb coming down from a bomber. It was a sound of wind increasing, a whistling sound, increasing in sound.
What we heard was 6 and 7 car free-falling from the 107th floor and they impacted the basement at B-2 Level. And that’s the explosion that filled the lobby within a matter of two or three seconds, engulfed the lobby in dust, smoke.
And apparently from what I talked to with other mechanics, they saw the doors, the hatch doors blow off in the lobby level of 6 and 7 car."

Robert Jones Elevator Mechanic
archive.recordonline.com...

FYI I have a healthy open minded attitude to all things 911. Having read and seen loads of information from both camps I think something dodgy went on during that fateful day. Too many unexplained anomolies for my liking.

reply to post by ExPostFacto


Sorry that I don't have any technical insight to offer but what I find most frustrating with the entire 9-11 event is; because this has never happened in modern history before (from WTC to Building 7 to the Pentagon) they can and DO say anything they wish. There's no tangible argument (offering) to the OS! However, when the average (and above) person thinks about what they claimed happened, it's hard not to find yourself scratching your head in confusion and disbelief.

I further find it hard to imagine that this fuel managed to seep down the elevator shaft(s?) and re-start its own fire wherever there was a convenient explanation to be had!
Not to mention, by their own admission, most of this kerosene fuel ignited into a huge fireball upon impact (but had enough leftover to bring down both towers!)
But, like I stated, because we have nothing to compare or gauge this with, it's a free-pass for them! Very sad!