I didn't know this, tower population on 9/11

This isn't exactly a conspiracy but intersting infor (to me anyways) none the less.

I hope that I am not the only one.

I am reading this fascination book called:the Unthinkable, Who Survives when Distaster Strikes and why.

The author did a lot of research on response to disaster, of course 9/11 was studied a lot, and how those people responded.

During the NIST studies, it was found that it took people and average of 1 minute per floor to get down the stairs. Becauase of crowding and basically, no one was every taught the layout of the buildings and evacuation procedures. Most people didn't know that there were crossover hallways near the bottom floors. Engineering codes had estimated it should of only taken people 30 seconds.

(the premise of the book is that people need to be informed of disaster situations, because you have to take care of you first, because it can take time for professional rescue to get there. She made a point of saying it can be an average of 26 hours before rescue dogs show up)

Anwhoo,

What the author provides is that on the morning of 9/11, the towers were mainly vacant (only 50% of capacity)for several reasons:

there was the mayoral election that day, so many people were late to work because of stopping at the polls
others took their children to school as school had just started that day
the NYESE doesn't open till 9:30
the visiting platform didn't open till 9:30

because of the slow evacuation, if the buildings had been full, NIST estimated that the casualties could of been a conservative 14,000.

I also have heard that Tuesday is a the slowest flying day.

So irregardless of who really caused 9/11 and why, do you think that they made an effort to operate at a time to minimize casualties? It certainly seems that way.

That is very interesting. And in my mind only add some weight to the government caused it argument.

Think about it, they knew Americans (Among many nations people) would die, so they chose they day where they would kill the smallest amount of their own people.


But regardless of that it is very interesting indeed, and extreemly thankful that those extra people were not present.

As for Sept 11 - air traffic was at low utilization for number of reasons,
summer being over and schools in session, were fewer people flying
on vacations or to return to universities. Also traffic peaks on Monday
and Fridays as business travellers are coming/going. Lower passenger
traffic during week meant less passengers to control (witness Flight 93)
and better chance of getting prime seats in 1st class near cockpit.

As for Tower occupancy - planes struck early in morning, 1st at 8:46,
lot of people still not arrived. Also as you have stated was primary
for NYC mayor, people stopped to vote. Others took children to school -
Howard Lutkin of Cantor Fitzgerald was one . Stock exchanges not
opened and observation platform on South Tower not open.

There were onlly 3 stairways down (Empire State Bld had 6 including
fire/smoke proof "smoke tower" in center) the 2 outboard (A/C) stairs are
only 44 inches wide - barely enough for 2 people to pass. Interior (B)
was 56 inches. Stairs were crowded with people going down, including
handicapped, burned/injured while FDNY - because all the elevators
were smashed had to walk up carrying equipment.

If had happened hour later casualties would have thousands more.

Wasn't that terrorists wanted to limit casualties - just that circumstances
turned out that way.

Whats funny to me is the fact that the plane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon hit the section that had just been rebult and reinforced and not fully occupied (kind of like they went out of the way to not cause a lot of casualties).

Another point is that all the planes hijacked had a minimal number of people on them, i think if i was a terrorist and wanting to cause a lot of casualties i would have picked full planes.



[edit on 13-7-2008 by ULTIMA1]

Whats funny to me is the fact that the plane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon hit the section that had just been rebult and reinforced and not fully occupied (kind of like they went out of the way to not cause a lot of casualties).

The reason it hit that section was thats the direction it approached from -
easier to hit that section . It doubtful terrorists knew anything about the
Pentagon reconstruction or cared what part of the Pentagon they hit.

Also tin foilers are always complaining that Hani Hanjoor was lousy
pilot - now want him to pick specific section of Pentagon to attack!

Another point is that all the planes hijacked had a minimal number of people on them, i think if i was a terrorist and wanting to cause a lot of casualties i would have picked full planes.

Again reason terrorists picked lightly loaded planes was fewer people
to control (witness Flight 93) and could insure get seats close to
cockpit to carry out plan.

Most people didn't know that there were crossover hallways near the bottom floors.

When you work in a place you should take the time to familiarize yourself with it so that you can get out of it quickly. People always come up with some excuse as to why this or that happened (or didn't). It's getting old.

Stop making excuses. Take responsibility for yourself.

reply to post by Sleuth


I dont think anyone is making excuses, fact of the matter is people go to work, and the last thing they expect is to be slammed into by a plane.

The OP is just pointing out the facts of that morning, not claiming a conspiracy as they said just pointing out the facts, its up to the individual whether or not its suspicious, and their decision as to how they process that information.

OK back to the subject.

Now lets look at the reality, im pretty sure that everyone everywhere, would rather the subject of 9/11 never existed, that planes never hit anything, nobody died, and families together again, war in the middle east was just a story, and Mankind still had some faith in itself.

Regardless of who was responsible for 9/11, mankind was irreversibly damaged that day, every man woman and child became a victim of the animals responsible, what we have allowed to happen is so many doors opened, fingers pointing at every person who acted differently, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people are now dead, im absolutely convinced that even if there had been only 20 people in the WTC that day, those hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people would still be dead, WHY?

Tears still roll down my face even now, at the thought of those people who looked out of the shattered windows of their offices, and realized that they where going to jump, because they had no choice, and the thought that some of their families watched them live on TV unaware that it was their family member, out of everything that happened that day, those images burned themselves into my mind more than any other, and nothing will ever heal those thoughts in my mind nothing.



[edit on 13/7/2008 by azzllin]

Originally posted by thedman

Whats funny to me is the fact that the plane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon hit the section that had just been rebult and reinforced and not fully occupied (kind of like they went out of the way to not cause a lot of casualties).

The reason it hit that section was thats the direction it approached from -
easier to hit that section . It doubtful terrorists knew anything about the
Pentagon reconstruction or cared what part of the Pentagon they hit.

Also tin foilers are always complaining that Hani Hanjoor was lousy
pilot - now want him to pick specific section of Pentagon to attack!

Oh sure, an easier section of the Pentagon to hit. That's why crack pilot Hani Hanjour (who an FBO wouldn't rent a Cessna to a couple months earlier because the check-out pilot said he "couldn't fly at all"), did a 270 degree, high-speed spiraling descent that made air traffic controllers think it was a "military maneuver."

reply to post by GoldenFleece


Obviously Hani was not an ideal pilot as many have pointed out.

Here is some more information you may find interesting about Hani:

In 1996, Hanjour returned to the United States to pursue flight training,after being rejected by a Saudi flight school. He checked out flight schools in Florida, California, and Arizona; and he briefly started at a couple of them before returning to Saudi Arabia. In 1997, he returned to Florida and then, along with two friends, went back to Arizona and began his flight training there in earnest. After about three months, Hanjour was able to obtain his private pilot's license. Several more months of training yielded him a commercial pilot certificate, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April 1999... Settling in Mesa, Hanjour began refresher training at his old school,Arizona Aviation. He wanted to train on multi-engine planes, but had difficulties because his English was not good enough.The instructor advised him to discontinue but Hanjour said he could not go home without completing the training. In early 2001, he started training on a Boeing 737 simulator at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa.An instructor there found his work well below standard and discouraged him from continuing.Again, Hanjour persevered; he completed the initial training by the end of March 2001.

Page 225/227, 9/11 Commission Report

Jarrah and Hanjour also received additional training and practice flights in the early summer.A few days before departing on his cross-country test flight, Jarrah flew from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia, where he trained at Hortman Aviation and asked to fly the Hudson Corridor, a low-altitude "hallway" along the Hudson River that passes New York landmarks like the World Trade Center. Heavy traffic in the area can make the corridor a dangerous route for an inexperienced pilot. Because Hortman deemed Jarrah unfit to fly solo, he could fly this route only with an instructor. Hanjour, too, requested to fly the Hudson Corridor about this same time,at Air Fleet Training Systems in Teterboro, New Jersey, where he started receiving ground instruction soon after settling in the area with Hazmi. Hanjour flew the Hudson Corridor, but his instructor declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills. Shortly thereafter, Hanjour switched to Caldwell Flight Academy in Fairfield, New Jersey, where he rented small aircraft on several occasions during June and July. In one such instance on July 20, Hanjour--likely accompanied by Hazmi--rented a plane from Caldwell and took a practice flight from Fairfield to Gaithersburg, Maryland, a route that would have allowed them to fly near Washington, D.C. Other evidence suggests that Hanjour may even have returned to Arizona for flight simulator training earlier in June.

Page 242, 9/11 Commission Report

FBI agents have questioned and administered a lie detector test to one of Hanjour's instructors in Arizona who was an Arab American and had signed off on Hanjour's flight instruction credentials before he got his pilot's license.

That instructor said he told agents that Hanjour was "a very average pilot, maybe struggling a little bit." The instructor added, "Maybe his English wasn't very good."

www.cbsnews.com...

Hanjour successfully conducted a challenging certification flight supervised by an instructor at Congressional Air Charters of Gaithersburg, Maryland, landing at a small airport with a difficult approach.The instructor thought Hanjour may have had training from a military pilot because he used a terrain recognition system for navigation. Eddie Shalev interview (Apr.9, 2004).

911 Report Chapter 7 footnote

Here are some other interviews from professional pilots:

"Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot, said Bernard of Freeway Airport. "There's no doubt in my mind that once that [hijacked jet] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it," he said"

www.pentagonresearch.com...

As I've explained in at least one prior column, Hani Hanjour's flying was hardly the show-quality demonstration often described. It was exceptional only in its recklessness. If anything, his loops and turns and spirals above the nation's capital revealed him to be exactly the #ty pilot he by all accounts was. To hit the Pentagon squarely he needed only a bit of luck, and he got it, possibly with help from the 757's autopilot. Striking a stationary object -- even a large one like the Pentagon -- at high speed and from a steep angle is very difficult. To make the job easier, he came in obliquely, tearing down light poles as he roared across the Pentagon's lawn.

www.salon.com...

In my opinion the official version of the fact is absolutely plausible, does not require exceptional circumstances, bending of any law of physics or superhuman capabilities. Like other (real pilots) have said, the manoeuvres required of the hijackers were within their (very limited) capabilities, they were performed without any degree of finesse and resulted in damage to the targets only after desperate overmanoeuvring of the planes. The hijackers took advantage of anything that might make their job easier, and decided not to rely on their low piloting skills. It is misleading to make people believe that the hijackers HAD to possess superior pilot skills to do what they did.

Italian Air Force Pilot Giulio Bernacchia

Originally posted by thedman
Also tin foilers are always complaining that Hani Hanjoor was lousy
pilot - now want him to pick specific section of Pentagon to attack!

Well if he was such a good pilot why did a military witness close to the Pentagon say the plane looked out of control? ALso if he would have wanted to cause major damage he would have put the plane down into the middle of the buidling and not just hit 1 side.

Again reason terrorists picked lightly loaded planes was fewer people to control (witness Flight 93) and could insure get seats close to
cockpit to carry out plan.

Why would terrorist worry about controlling passengers due to the history of hijackings that planes were taken somewhere and landed? All the reports state that Flights 11, 175 and 77 had no probelm with the passengers.

I beleive the reason the passengers on Flight 93 tried to gain control of the cockpit is becasue they knew there was a good chance they could be shot down if not.


[edit on 14-7-2008 by ULTIMA1]

reply to post by Sleuth


That is the point the author was trying to make. The first line of defense is you.

But it has been ingrained in our heads so much to rely on emt services, that we don't consider that we should take matters into our own hands and learn them.

A lot of this is conditioning.

Or the illusion of safety. She makes a point of how much money is spent on emt services and technology, and how little is put into individual training.

So we are conditioned to believe to wait for the professionals to arrive, but really the first decisions we make or don't make can make (no pun) all the difference.

I read once that people who read the evacuation cards on planes and make note of what it says has a 25% higher chance of surviving then those who don't.
So I take the 5 minutes when I get on a plane and read it and make note of the exits, the doors, and what would be needed to get out.

And many people "think" that they know what to do, but the way you respond can be quite surprising.

Now, the other point.

I thought what was interesting about the population information is that it was refreshingly good news compared to all teh gloom and doom of 9/11.

If it were indeed terrorists who composed the attacks, it is possible they negotiated it to be the least causalties. I have heard this before, however faintly.
Their beef is with the government, not the people.

Obama has been in teh USA before, and people who met him say he didnt' have a hatred for the people, in fact he was very respectful, he just didn't like the government.

So it is entirely possible it was orchestrated with the least casualties possible.