My sudden change of heart

"Whether 911 was an "inside job", or pulled off by "turban headed thugs", one thing is abundantly clear."

I resent that comment! They weren't Turban Headed Thugs - they were Top Gun Turbans! C'mon, a little respect, okay? I mean, these guys were able to pull off incredible aerial maneuvers that even the most highly trained Air Force Pilots would have difficulty in accomplishing using state of the art military aircraft. And they didn't do it once, they didn't do it twice, they did it three times and all within one short hour.

Do you know how much amazing skill and elusiveness it takes to successfully attack and bring unheard of devastation to the wealthiest, most powerful, most technologically advanced country in the world? And all this was accomplished using some dollar store box cutters and airplane tickets.

Therefore, they were not only amazingly skillful, they were incredibly resourceful and economical. Who would have thunk it?

reply to post by SphinxMontreal

I stand corrected sir. "Top Gun Turbans" they are. Or were.

I know. One liner. Here is the second.

Originally posted by mikelee
reply to post by Chinesis

 

You people sound like a bunch of tyrants trying to make others think as you do when they express anything to your own contrary. Not everyone is a truther, dis-info type, skeptic or whatever you types call folks. Some of us are Americans with opinions. Don't like it?....Tough pal.

edit on 11/21/2010 by mikelee because: Punctuation

Everyone has a right to an opinion, even when it is glaringly flawed.
Even if they never formed this opinion on their own, but via selective programming, sure you're right.

Unfortunately I deal with closed-minded people all of the time.
I'm not a label and it does not define me as well.
I'm not left or right, I'm not classified into a specific group.
My opinions do NOT control me, nor are these opinions "personal" as they are to you.
This is why a discussion is simply not possible with people who cannot think for themselves
and while sure, it sounds pretty ugly and bad...is it the truth?

You people? Nice.

I am only interested in the truth, and in my life when
I am presented with different stories I do my own research before coming to a conclusion
and even then, I've not concluded either way what happened.

All I do know is the building(s) that fell on 9/11 would never have just crumbled
like they did, in the short amount of time they did it in.

Why didn't the more intense fire in China of their high rise (which burned for 6hrs)
failed to collapse? Can you attempt an answer?

Or will you use my posts as a reason not to "talk to me" because I was wrong
grouping people together (as you've done to me) ?

I'm terribly sorry for casting aspersions of you and people who agree with your opinions
but I find it so hard to look at those buildings and say, "Aluminum can crush concrete and steel..."

And do it with a straight face. (regardless of speed)

"I don't claim to know everything about what went on, but a building doesn't get hit by a plane, burn for upwards of an hour, and then have nothing happen to it."

Watch out! A one hour fire caused the global collapse of two decrepit asbestos filled cash draining modern skyscrapers which were designed to withstand multiple airliner strikes, hurricane force winds and earthquakes. Yep...they designed those buildings to withstand cataclysmic natural disasters, but a one hour oxygen starved fire was enough to turn them into complete dust. I can see your point.

By the way, we won't mention the three hour fire which occurred in the North Tower in 1975; a fire which apparently burned hotter than the one on 9/11 and caused little structural damage to the building.

whatreallyhappened.com...

reply to post by Varemia


Actually, things like 9/11 have happened, at least where a plane flew into a building and guess what, nothing happened to the building, other than superficial damage. At 9:49 a.m. on Saturday, July 28, 1945, a B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building. Even more, that building wasn't designed to take an airplane crash, like the WTC was.

Furthermore, I can accept that a plane flies into a building and the building recieves severe damage, though what is just a little bit more difficult to accept is that a plane flies into a building and only an hour (or so) later, the entire building is pulverized into dust in a sequence near free-fall speed. What is even harder to believe, is that this would happen to a highrise that wasn't hit by an airplane and wasn't directly near the two towers. The buildings that were right next to or underneat the towers and which recieved the full brunt of the falling buildings, did not collapse.

Add this to the fact that many people heard explosions, to include first responders and other credible people. Also, according to a consensus of scientists who actually looked for evidence of explosives, that evidence was there.

Should all of this be at least enough for the authorities to consider the use of explosives? Absolutely, you can bet your bottom dollar, yet stubbornly, they refuse to even consider it. This is even when they were apparently stumped as to how building 7 fell. Why would you not consider it, at least for the purposes of ruling it out? Also, why wouldn't the MSM at least report that a few scientists who looked for evidence of explosives, found evidence of explsoives, especially considering that at least one of those scientists is a renowned physicist who is highly respected in his particular field, a field that is conducive to the subject matter at hand, unless of course there was an active cover-up before our very eyes.

All in all, yes a building can recieve severe damage from a plane flying into it and it might even collapse, but what are the odds that it would fail in the manner in which it did? Then times that by three, only the third building wasn't even hit by an airplane, nor was it directly near the two buildings (across the street even) that were hit by aircraft. Then, you have a plethora of eye-witnesses who heard explosions, most of which made such statements directly after the attacks, thus were presumably not a party to or influenced by any ulterior conspiracy theories. Then to top it all off, the only scientists who actually looked for evidence of explsoives, found evidence of explsoives. If this is not enough to warrant consideration of explsoives, then I don't know what is and the fact that explosives haven;t been considered by government officials is indicative of a cover-up.

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This doesn't take a scientist or expert to see that there is a very real possibility, at the very least, that explsoives could have been used. instead it just takes common sense and the capability of critical self thought. This isn't exactly rocket science here.

What has happened, is that a theory was developed and then the evidence was cherry-picked to coincide with or fit that theory, as opposed to allowing the evidence to shape the theory. This, while evidence that doesn't conform to that theory is being completely ignored, covered up or even hidden. I haven't seen anything more absurd in my life, considering that the cost, in terms of human life, monetary value and freedom, is so high.

The only thing worse than the attack itself, is the aftermath of that attack and the obviously apparent cover-up.



--airspoon

Originally posted by SphinxMontreal
"I don't claim to know everything about what went on, but a building doesn't get hit by a plane, burn for upwards of an hour, and then have nothing happen to it."

Watch out! A one hour fire caused the global collapse of two decrepit asbestos filled cash draining modern skyscrapers which were designed to withstand multiple airliner strikes, hurricane force winds and earthquakes. Yep...they designed those buildings to withstand cataclysmic natural disasters, but a one hour oxygen starved fire was enough to turn them into complete dust. I can see your point.

By the way, we won't mention the three hour

fire which occurred in the North Tower in 1975; a fire which apparently burned hotter than the one on 9/11 and caused little structural damage to the building.

whatreallyhappened.com...

Let's see..
- Asbestos filled: False. Tower 1 had abestos used to up the 40th floor, Tower 2 had none. Asbestos was banned while the towers were being construced. www.nytimes.com...

- Cash draining: False. The towers held a 98% occupancy rate in February of 2001. www.panynj.gov...

- Designed to stand multiple airplane strikes. Which they did. However, noone had calculated the effects of the massive fires.

- Oxygen-starved fires: False. Large fires involving plastics produce copious quantities of black smoke. www.hse.gov.uk...

- The 1975 fire. Let's take a closer look at that fire, shall we?

Fire spread through the core to the 9th and 14th floors by igniting the insulation of telephone cables in a utility shaft that ran vertically between floors. Areas at the furthest extent of the fire were extinguished almost immediately and the original fire was put out in a few hours. Most of the damage was concentrated on the 11th floor, fueled by cabinets filled with paper, alcohol-based fluid for office machines, and other office equipment. Fireproofing protected the steel from melting and there was no structural damage to the tower.

The fires were fought almost from the start, since it was well within reach of firefighting efforts.

reply to post by airspoon

And I KNEW someone would claim Empire State Building when I was asking for other buildings that got hit by airliners that had a similar construction. Dag Nabbit if that hasn't been freaking disproved since the very beginning! It's upsetting! You can't seem to get that out of your frogging mind this stupid, ridiculous comparison that is literally almost nothing like 9/11!

I'm not even going to say anything more about the Empire State Building. Here's a link with all the info about how different it was:

vincentdunn.com...

pulverized into dust

No... it didn't pulverize into dust. That is truther fallacy at its best.

wasn't hit by an airplane and wasn't directly near the two towers

In fact it was hit by a lot of debris, and if you watch videos of the North Tower collapsing, you can see the debris hitting it. Is it just happenstance that the North Tower was hit on its north face? Could that have something to do with where the debris concentrated itself?

many people heard explosions

Yes, but explosions are not necessarily explosives.

The only scientist to look for something that isn't even an explosive, thermite, is highly contested as to having found paint and simply discovered that it burns when set on fire... I guess the alternative studies done on the dust and the fact that Jones refuses to replicate his results are saying enough?

I admit that there is a possibility of explosives, but the OS is just as much, and more likely considering everything.

the evidence was cherry-picked to coincide with or fit that theory

Because no truther is guilty of that *sarcasm*

reply to post by demonseed


The evidence is that Bush said on national television that watched the first tower on video going into the first building live on TV. I don't know how much evidence you could possibly ask for, but thats essentially a confession. Then of course there is the guy who said "I was in on it". I mean seriously when there are people saying "I was in on it." and you are not taking that as evidence that everyday Americans were involved there is clearly nothing to convince you.

Cheney & team didn't get away with it. They left the obvious clues all over the place. They did it right in our faces.

Then there is the trading activity EVIDENCE of high bets on UAL stock going down leading up and especially on the trading day before 9/11. Maybe it was a group of psychics making the trades. Or more likely, someone knew what was going to happen and cashed in on it.

The CIA already *admitted* to staging the Gulf of Tonkin in a false flag incident to get us into Vietnam. And they have already *admitted* trying to staging other false frag incidents to start other wars. Admitted, on paper. So you have a situation where you have one successful attempt at a false flag and one not so successful in a 25 year period. And the rumors of other false flags go back to the early days of America. Yet according to you, this is no longer happening all of a sudden. America is good now and reformed. These false flag events are EVIDENCE that 9/11 was a false flag attack.

Then of course they tried to destroy all of the evidence by shipping the WTC steel off to China for melting, when local steel yards would have paid HIGHER prices for the steel. Then of course they didn't manage to hide all of the the traces.... undetonated explosive were found, and photographs of molten concrete are everywhere to see. That is evidence. Did you know that?

The very first promise Bush made on 9/11 was that he would commit the "full resources of the federal government" to investigating what happened. But he immediately changed his mind and had zero interest in any investigation. How suspicious can you get? Not any more suspicious, until a few months later when he admitted guilt on mistake.

Silverstien skipped his daily breakfast visit to the WTC and reportedly warned her daughter not to go to work. Suspicious behavior. Then he later said he overhead the words "pull it" during his conversation with the fire chief. And yet again, you discount yet another accidental admisssion. All of the top people involved all accidentally admitted guilt, and you don't call that evidence. I don't know what to tell you. It sounds like you want to believe one thing regardless of the evidence.

I don't know what you've been reading but from what I've seen on ATS the evidence pile is always going up and the idea that the US government was involved is always getting less credit every day.

reply to post by demonseed


I was wondering when I read the first article of thinly veiled propaganda today.

Its kind of hard to take what you say seriously when you say things like

"We are also talking about a LOT of weight, causing the building to collapse faster as it progresses. "
Ever hear of gravity?

"But because the floors only hold enough weight to hold "ONE" floor above"
You do know that the entire bottom floor of a building must be capable of holding up the rest of the structure right?
Otherwise it would collapse during construction.

reply to post by demonseed


Fantastic post OP, your opinion really resonates with me. I have, for a long time, been overly-critical of all the people on ATS who claim that 9/11 was an Inside Job and/or done by the Jews. There is just so little evidence to back that statement up. You've done well to debunk each of their claims piece by piece. Well done! Deny ignorance!!!

reply to post by demonseed


you my friend sound like the perfect sheeple.

Originally posted by VonDoomen
reply to post by demonseed

 

"We are also talking about a LOT of weight, causing the building to collapse faster as it progresses. "
Ever hear of gravity?

Thats impossible, you cant use energy twice. An "pancake" collapse would have slowed down the fall of the building. Yet it was barely over a second slower than freefall speed.

Im sorry, but your evidence is comparing Steel buildings being built in the 1970s collapsing at free fall speed, to a building(unknown structural components) in 1906 DURING AN EARTHQUAKE? Really? thats your "evidence"?

i mean rly, your only evidence supporting your theory is that picture evidence of a collapsed building during an earthquake...

And also a 60 ton plane just vaporizing? i dont think so

disinfo

reply to post by roboe

Let's see..
- Asbestos filled: False. Tower 1 had abestos used to up the 40th floor, Tower 2 had none. Asbestos was banned while the towers were being construced.

Well considering that one tower did have asbestos, then I wouldn't say his statement was inaccurate. I believe he was trying to imply that it would have costed far too much to demolish the building legally, which is true.

- Cash draining: False. The towers held a 98% occupancy rate in February of 2001. www.panynj.gov...

Well, just because the building had near close to full capacity, doesn't mean that it wasn't cash draining, as it costs a tremendous amount of money for heating, cooling, power and maintenance. Also, the size of the buildings compared to the available office space, which directly correlates to the cost of upkeep, should be considered. Furthermore, the building lost occupants directly after February of 2001 so at the time of the attacks, the building was not 98% occupied.

- Designed to stand multiple airplane strikes. Which they did. However, noone had calculated the effects of the massive fires.

Fail. The fires were not massive, relatively speaking and were obviously choked and starved for oxygen, as is evident from the thick black smoke. To my knowledge, the buildings were not constructed out of plastic, nor did they contain enough plastic to warrant so much visible black smoke. A few copy machines and computer cases would not produce such large amounts of black smoke.

Furthermore, on Feb 13th, 1975, the North Tower caught fire over 6 floors and lasted for at least several hours (longer), was described as an inferno, yet it never brought the building down. Sure, most of the fire was put out immediately but what is immediately, say, 1 hour? I would certainly think that 1 hour would fall in the realm of immediately, considering the response time of the fire-dept and the time needed to smother the flame.

Steel framed buildings don't totally collapse due to fire (especially after only a little over an hour) and never have before in history, yet it happened three times in one day, one building that wasn't even hit by a plane and was across the street and seperated by other buildings. In fact, hydro-carbon fires do not get nearly hot enough to melt steel, nor weaken it enough in the extremely limited time that this building burned, especially by an oxygen starved fire that was billowing black smoke.

If the towers had enough fire to bring them down in the severely limited time from impact to collapse, then those fires would certainly be much more visible and much bigger pver a wider area than what was witnessed.

Take for instance the Windsor building, a steel reinforced concrete framed skyscraper that burned for more than 18+ hours, over a greater range of the building with an arguably much bigger fire, yet didn't collapse. The WTC North and South burned with much less intense fires (visibly) for just over an hour, yet completely collapsed.

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Granted, the Windsor didn't have the same structure as WTC 1, 2 and 7, however the steel didn't fail none the less and there are at least 5 other examples of steel framed buildings burning for much longer, with much larger and hotter fires that also didn't collapse.

The One Meridian Plaza Fire

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A 38 story steel framed skyscraper in Philidekphia that suffered a severe fire back in 1991 that raged for over 18 hours, gutting 8 floors and causing over $100,000,000 in damages. It was considered "the most signiificant fire of the century" by officials in that city. There was window breakage, cracked granite and spandrel panel failures (among other damage), yet the structure stayed erect and didn't collapse. This is spite of the severity and duration of the fire, which trumps the WTC fires, particularly WTC 7.

The First Interstate Bank Fire

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A 62 story skyscraper in Los Angeles which endured the worst high-rise fire in the city's history, back in 1988. The extremely severe fire was battled by over 60 fire companies, for over 3-1/2 hours, yet this building didn't collapse either, though it did gut the 12th through 16th floors.

According to Iklim Ltd:

In spite of the total burnout of four and a half floors, there was no damage to the main structural members and only minor damage to one secondary beam and a small number of floor pans.

The 1 New York Plaza Fire

A 50 story high-rise, less than a mile from TWC site, which burned for more than six hours, back in 1970. It's important to note that this building suffered both fires and explosions, burned for much longer than the WTC, 1 and 2, yet it did not collapse.

Caracas Tower Fire

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The tallest skyscraper in Caracas, Venezuela experienced a severe fire on October 17, 2004. The blaze began before midnight on the 34th floor, spread to more than 26 floors, and burned for more than 17 hours. Heat from the fires prevented firefighters from reaching the upper floors, and smoke injured 40 firefighters.

26 floors, for over 17+ hours, yet this building did not collapse and in spite of the fact that the floor with the worst damage was the 35th, leaving 19 stories as a gravitational instigator.

The Beijing Mandarin Oriental Hotel Fire

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On February 9th, 2009, this almost completed 40 story, 520-foot-tall steel framed skyscraper in Beijing caught fire, was engulfed within 20 minutes, and burned for at least 3 hours. Despite the fact that this building was on fire across its entirety for three hours +, the main steel structure didn't collapse.

It is yet another example of a severe fire that failed to induce even the partial collapse of a skyscraper... the Mandarin tower is notable for the magnitude of the fire it withstood -- a fire that dwarfed the fires that preceded the "collapses" of each of the the WTC skyscrapers.

Compare to the WTC:

And BLDG 7:

The point here being that the probability of all three buildings collapsing due to fire (on the same day), with the first two failing in just over an hour, especially when the fires were relatively small and not nearly as intense as the other cases, is very low. There is absolutely no reason that the possible use of explosives shouldn't be considered, if for no other reason to rule them out. The only reason that one wouldn't want to consider explosives being used, is because they are affraid they will find it, if they don't know that such evidence would be found, as it has already by a consensus of scientists who have actually looked for it. Yes, that's right, every scientist who actually considered the possibility and then looked for evidence of explosives in the WTC dust, has actually found it. To date, there hasn't been any scientist who has viably countered their research on the thermitic materials found.


--airspoon


ETA:

 

 

 

First, I wasn't saying that the Empire State Building crash was exactly similar, though it was a plane flying into a building.

No... it didn't pulverize into dust. That is truther fallacy at its best.

Are you kidding me? The building's concrete was pulverized into dust -before it hit the ground-, which raced through the streets of lower manhattan like a pyroclastic flow.

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Furthermore, thermitic material can be nano-engineered to rapidly release energy or explode. Thermate is not explosive, though nano-enginnered thermitic materials can certainly be explosive. Maybe you should research before pretending to know what you are talking about, or at least don't try to obfuscate the truth with truster fallacies and nonsensical myths.

With funding from the U.S. government, Sandia National Laboratories, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are researching how to manipulate the flow of energy within and between molecules, a field known as nanoenergentics, which enables building more lethal weapons such as "cave-buster bombs" that have several times the detonation force of conventional bombs such as the "daisy cutter" or MOAB (mother of all bombs).

Source: www.technologyreview.com...

Researchers can greatly increase the power of weapons by adding materials known as superthermites that combine nanometals such as nanoaluminum with metal oxides such as iron oxide, according to Steven Son, a project leader in the Explosives Science and Technology group at Los Alamos.

"The advantage (of using nanometals) is in how fast you can get their energy out," Son says.

Son says that the chemical reactions of superthermites are faster and therefore release greater amounts of energy more rapidly.

"Superthermites can increase the (chemical) reaction time by a thousand times," Son says, resulting in a very rapid reactive wave.

Source:www.technologyreview.com...

Son, who has been working on nanoenergetics for more than three years, says that scientists can engineer nanoaluminum powders with different particle sizes to vary the energy release rates. This enables the material to be used in many applications, including underwater explosive devices, primers for igniting firearms, and as fuel propellants for rockets.

However, researchers aren't permitted to discuss what practical military applications may come from this research.

Source: www.technologyreview.com...


--airspoon

edit on 21-11-2010 by airspoon because: reply to Varemia

Originally posted by SuperZepto
Fantastic post OP, You've done well to debunk each of their claims piece by piece. Well done! Deny ignorance!!!

He hasn't debunked anything. You're talking about someone so uninformed that they thought the TSA was in operation before 9/11. Besides, anything he said was countered with fact here;

www.abovetopsecret.com...


Nobody can debunk anything in that post. If you think you can, by all means: try.

I read your entire post and I thought it was bold to posit such a counter-conspiracy position, then it seemed weak because you only mentioned a few incongruities of the truther side, and failed to mention many of the Official story facts (real and circumstantial); for example,

A passport cannot escape a fiery explosion and stay atop all of the debris, and be found so quickly (the day of), that is completely fabricated imo.

You don't mention to put-options of traders nor the insurance plan/lease of Mr. Silverstein that both led to huge sums of money.

You fail to mention how the poorly trained pilots navigated the maneuvers, especially hitting the Pentagon.

And the pentagon, the video (which was finally released), no one can conclusively see a plane.

There is no explanation for the perfect circle of a hole in the other side of the Pentagon allegedly hit by the plane.

If a plane (Shanksville) was shot down, it seems as though the debris would span a large distance and be scattered for hundreds of feet, it wouldn't just stop, drop and leave a black spot.

Listen to your brain, not your heart.

You are free to believe whatever you like, but the official story is this.

19 Saudi Arabian "Terrorists" simultaniously hi-jacked 4 747 airliners, thus bypassing a 40+ Billion Dollar homeland defence budget. Supposedly only 2 had minimal flight training. A man on the other side of the world orchestrated this all, who apparently hides out in caves, and is on a kidney dialesis machine. Building 7 freefalls for no reason. A plane crashes into a field but leaves hardly any debris. A small hole is created by a jumbo jet at the pentagon, apparently, onlly 2 photos are released documenting this event. Let us not forget that this is THE PENTAGON!, you would have cameras all over the place, but lets ignore that. The world trade ceneter wreckage is immediately shipped off to china, with no investigation. Larry Silverstein takes out multi-billion dollar insurance polcies 1 week prior to 9/11. Israeli 'reporters' were found watching 9/11 "document" the event, that supposedly no one knew was going to happen. and a President who repeatedly says "let us not tolerate crazy conspiracy theories, we know who did this", so America invades Iraq, a country which has no been proven to have nothing to do with anything, to find weapons of mass destruction, which have never been found. So then we go to Afghanistan and flush out some caves, then convieniently find a Trillion dollar mineral deposit. and now we have strategically surrounded The country of Iran, who the government claims as weapons of mass destruction. We have created The Patriot act, which strips everyones rights. The COCIA law may soon be coming into effect which will monitor and destroy any internet content which is "unfit" for the safety and security of the US. and now we have the entire world going around chasing ghosts, excuse me... terrorists.

9/11 wasnt caused by the American government, they let it happen. 9/11 was a Mossad operation, and now we just so happen to be conviniently taking out all of Israels enemies.

Seriously... wake up.

reply to post by ztruthseeker


What a shame.....not a fact in your entire tirade.

Shame....talking about trying to discover "truth"?? A good start would be to actually, first, understand what you are "arguing"....

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by roboe

 

Let's see..
- Asbestos filled: False. Tower 1 had abestos used to up the 40th floor, Tower 2 had none. Asbestos was banned while the towers were being construced.

Well considering that one tower did have asbestos, then I wouldn't say his statement was inaccurate. I believe he was trying to imply that it would have costed far too much to demolish the building legally, which is true.

20% of the structure having asbestos in it, isn't exactly what I would call 'filled'.

And the PANYNJ themselves estimated that it would cost $600 million to clean ALL of their properties (ie. not just the WTC, which it was estimated would cost just about half of that to clean up).

- Cash draining: False. The towers held a 98% occupancy rate in February of 2001. www.panynj.gov...

Well, just because the building had near close to full capacity, doesn't mean that it wasn't cash draining, as it costs a tremendous amount of money for heating, cooling, power and maintenance. Also, the size of the buildings compared to the available office space, which directly correlates to the cost of upkeep, should be considered. Furthermore, the building lost occupants directly after February of 2001 so at the time of the attacks, the building was not 98% occupied.

On April 26 2001 it was reported that it was generating $200 million per year: www.nytimes.com...

And if it was such a cash drain, how come there were something like 30 bidders for the lease contract?

- Designed to stand multiple airplane strikes. Which they did. However, noone had calculated the effects of the massive fires.

Fail. The fires were not massive, relatively speaking and were obviously choked and starved for oxygen, as is evident from the thick black smoke. To my knowledge, the buildings were not constructed out of plastic, nor did they contain enough plastic to warrant so much visible black smoke. A few copy machines and computer cases would not produce such large amounts of black smoke.

Nope, no fires here


Oh, and the bit about the steel section of the Windsor Tower not collapsing?

reply to post by demonseed


Using the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and subsequent fires as a rationale for your epiphany, as noted in your point #3, is not the best comparison in regard to the failure of WTC 7. The statement is correct for the others as well, but let's just stick with 7 for the moment.

As a licensed architect in several states, I have considerable knowledge of building construction, building codes and life safety requirements for high rise structures. I'm pretty confident that I know what I am talking about.

Having made the qualifier, consider the following:

WTC 7 was finished in 1985, under the jurisdiction of the Building Code for the City of New York. The structure, as were the others, was steel with gypsum-based cementitious pneumatically-applied fireproofing. W. R. Grace probably made it, they had a lock on the market for at least three decades. Basic stuff, and typical for the time. You can look it up yourself in the Underwriters' Laboratories Fire Resistance Design Manual. All fire resistive assemblies are required to be certified, and with some exceptions, the listings are proprietary. There are other labs these days, but 25 years ago there were just a couple.

High rise steel construction of this type and height would be classified as minimally two-hour fire resistive construction. All that really means is that the structure would likely stay intact for at least that amount of time in order for evacuations to take place and emergency responders to act.

It did what it was supposed to do.
But that isn't the problem. It fell into its own footprint within the span of one quarter of a minute. The cause is stated as being the failure of " a critical column on the thirteenth floor". If true, this represents a criminal flaw in the redundancy design for the building, and on that no structural engineer would allow, and not just the designer, but the authority having jurisdiction as well. Other issues of physics apply: a weight transfer occured using braced frame and steel trusses addressed a cantilever consition six floor below the claimed failure column. Yet the building fell straight down... into its own footprint... in 18 seconds.

To repeat the official explanation: after fires burned sporatically throughout the building for the better part of nine hours, the failure of ONE COLUMN forced the symmetrical collapse of a 610 foot tall, 47 story, masonry clad, steel structure (with fireproofing) into its own footprint.

In contrast, your reference is to an entire city that first was shaken right down to the foundations in a 7.8 magnitude quake, and then succumbed to widespread gas fires and the failure of the water supply system that would have been used to fight the fires.

The city fire departments were helpless from the start (www.sfmuseum.org...).

Also, fully 90% of the construction was WOOD, and only 54 of the city's buildings had fire protection (mceer.buffalo.edu...)... if one could call it that.

There were NO building codes in effect in San Francisco in 1906. If anything, the haste to rebuild the city contributed to the problem of poor construction. Most buildings were tightly packed together and there were no restrictions to address fire separation at demising wall conditions.

The two catastrophic events bear no similarity whatsoever.

Regardless, the circumstances of the failure of WTC 7 bear much more investigation than was given, and more explanation is necessary.

The fact that the NIST web link for the official report (wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf) is no longer available (and it hasn't been for the past year) does little to offer confidence in their conclusions.