The 9 11 Commission Report Omissions And - Amazon Noir

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CHAPTER TWO 27 7. Most of the steel beams and columns came down in
sections that were no more than 30 feet long.14 8. According to many
witnesses, explosions occurred within the buildings.' 5 9. Each collapse
was associated with detectable seismic vibrations (suggestive of
underground explosions). 10. Each collapse produced molten steel (which
would be produced by explosives), resulting in "hot spots" that remained
for months.'6 Although authors of The 9/11 Commission Report reportedly
aspired to make it "the fullest possible account of the events
surrounding 9/11," it does not explicitly acknowledge, let alone solve,
any of these problems. THE TWIN TOWERS: OMITTING THE CORE COLUMNS The
report does implicitly acknowledge that the North Tower collapsed
straight down, primarily into its own footprint, by speaking of its
"pancake" collapse (308). But it offers no reflections on how a fire
could have produced such a collapse.17 The report also mentions that the
"South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds" (305), which would be at virtually
free-fall speed. But the report gives no indication that any of the
Commission's members expressed curiosity as to how fire could cause a
110-floor steel-frame building to collapse so rapidly. With regard to
the more basic question-Why did the Twin Towers collapse at all?-the
Commission implies an answer by saying that the outside of each tower
was covered by a frame of 14-inch-wide steel columns.... These exterior
walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the
buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells
were grouped. (541n 1) This implicit explanation, however, involves a
complete falsification, because the core of each tower was composed not
of "a hollow steel shaft" but of 47 massive steel columns, in between
which were the elevators and stairwells. At its base, each column was 14
by 36 inches, with 4-inch- thick walls. It then tapered up to 1/4-inch
walls in the upper floors, which had far less weight to support. 18 It
was these massive steel columns that "bore most of the weight of the
buildings." One of the major problems with the official account is why,
even if the fire could have somehow caused the floors of the building to
"pancake" (as the generally accepted explanation has it), the resulting
pile of rubble was only a few stories high.