Freelance writer and editor for over 17 years, she loves to read and loves fringe science and conspiracy theory. Top Secret Writers Gabrielle is a journalist who finds strange stories the media misses, and enlightens readers about news they never knew existed. Mark Dorr grew up the son of a treasure hunter. His experiences led to working internationally in some surprising situations!
Mark R. Whittington, from Houston, Texas, frequently writes on space, science, political commentary and political culture. Get a Top Secret Bumper Sticker! Recent Reader Comments. This may take a second or two.
Amazing Adventures. Public Health. Fringe Science. Inside China. Modern Survival. Paranormal Activity. Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the fifth floor was connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized line.
Says Sunder: "Our current working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time. WTC 7 might have withstood the physical damage it received, or the fire that burned for hours, but those combined factors--along with the building's unusual construction--were enough to set off the chain-reaction collapse. Though dozens of witnesses saw a Boeing hit the building, conspiracy advocates insist there is evidence that a missile or a different type of plane smashed into the Pentagon.
Conspiracy theorists claim both holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing The truth is of even less importance to French author Thierry Meyssan, whose baseless assertions are fodder for even mainstream European and Middle Eastern media. In his book The Big Lie, Meyssan concludes that the Pentagon was struck by a satellite-guided missile--part of an elaborate U. The exterior facade collapsed about 20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged.
Computer simulations confirmed the findings. Why wasn't the hole as wide as a 's ft. A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building, says ASCE team member Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University. In this case, one wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns, explains Sozen, who specializes in the behavior of concrete buildings.
What was left of the plane flowed into the structure in a state closer to a liquid than a solid mass. The tidy hole in Ring C was 12 ft. ASCE concludes it was made by the jet's landing gear, not by the fuselage. FACT: Some windows near the impact area did indeed survive the crash. But that's what the windows were supposed to do--they're blast-resistant. Some were knocked out of the walls by the crash and the outer ring's later collapse.
Kilsheimer was the first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the emergency response. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts.
Cockpit recordings indicate the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 teamed up to attack their hijackers, forcing down the plane near Shanksville, in southwestern Pennsylvania. But conspiracy theorists assert Flight 93 was destroyed by a heat-seeking missile from an F or a mysterious white plane. Some theorists add far-fetched elaborations: No terrorists were aboard, or the passengers were drugged.
The wildest is the "bumble planes" theory, which holds that passengers from Flights 11, and 77 were loaded onto Flight 93 so the U. Customs airplane reported to have been seen near the site minutes after Flight 93 crashed.
Shortly thereafter, the FBI began to attack the witnesses with perhaps the most inane disinformation ever--alleging the witnesses actually observed a private jet at 34, ft. The FBI says the jet was asked to come down to ft. This would require about 20 minutes to descend. They got down within ft. They saw a hole in the ground with smoke coming out of it.
They pinpointed the location and then continued on. Offering no evidence, a posting on Rense. FACT: Experts on the scene tell PM that a fan from one of the engines was recovered in a catchment basin, downhill from the crash site.
Jeff Reinbold, the National Park Service representative responsible for the Flight 93 National Memorial, confirms the direction and distance from the crash site to the basin: just over yards south, which means the fan landed in the direction the jet was traveling.
For something to hit the ground with that kind of energy, it would only take a few seconds to bounce up and travel yards. Since Flight 93 crashed west-southwest of Indian Lake, it was impossible for debris to fly perpendicular to wind direction. The FBI lied.
Theorists claim the plane was breaking up before it crashed. Human remains were confined to a acre area directly surrounding the crash site. Paper and tiny scraps of sheetmetal, however, did land in the lake. Indian Lake is less than 1. And the wind that day was northwesterly, at 9 to 12 mph, which means it was blowing from the northwest--toward Indian Lake.
I know the pilot who fired those two missiles to take down FACT: Saying he was reluctant to fuel debate by responding to unsubstantiated charges, Gibney a lieutenant colonel, not a major declined to comment.
David Somdahl, Gibney flew an F that morning--but nowhere near Shanksville. He took off from Fargo, N. Gibney then flew Jacoby from Montana to Albany, N. Jacoby confirms the day's events. Someone called to say an F was landing in Bozeman. From there we flew to Albany. Gibney was with me at that time. It disgusts me to see this because the public is being misled. More than anything else it disgusts me because it brings up fears.
It brings up hopes--it brings up all sorts of feelings, not only to the victims' families but to all the individuals throughout the country, and the world for that matter. I get angry at the misinformation out there. The following were particularly helpful. Air Crash Analysis Cleveland Center regional air traffic control. Richard Gazarik staff writer, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Michael K. Hynes, Ed. Ed Jacoby Jr. Master Sgt. Mark Stahl photographer; eyewitness, United Airlines Flight 93 crash scene.
Air Defense Lt. Skip Aldous Ret. Air Force. Todd Curtis, Ph. Chris Yates aviation security editor, analyst, Jane's Transport. Aviation Fred E. Culick, Ph. Clint Oster professor of public and environmental affairs, Indiana University; aviation safety expert. Bill Scott Ret. Ed Walby Ret. Image Analysis William F. Gene Corley , Ph. Steve Douglass image analysis consultant, Aviation Week.
Thomas R. Edwards, Ph. Ronald Greeley, Ph. Robert L. Parker, Ph. David Biggs, P. Vincent Dunn deputy fire chief Ret. John Fisher, Ph.
Christoph Hoffmann, Ph. Allyn E. Kilsheimer, P. It clearly shows the hole in the facade between columns 15 and Finally for comparison, I offer a photo taken of the collapsed section days afterward.
Note that columns are numbered on the columns themselves by the recovery workers. Note also the impact damage at columns which was visible in the Morris photo. Between columns we find the left wing impact hole, shored up but exactly of the same dimensions seen in the Morris photo.
Note that the left edge of the collapse is right at column 11, where we saw the vertical displacement in the Ingersoll photos. The right edge of the collapsed section is right at column 18 -- exactly where the right wing impact hole terminated. In the collapsed section itself, columns 12 through 17 are visible.
Also note that right wing impact damage extends beyond the hole, between columns 18 and 21 -- from the second floor, to the third and fourth floors, just as we saw in photo 5. The following composite of Ingersoll photos gives an idea of the size of the initial impact hole, which was substantially wider than the height of the Pentagon facade. I have annotated the composite with features visible in the above photos.
The area of breached limestone is indicated in red, other substantial areas of impact damage are shown in green, non-load bearing spiral columns still attached to the second floor are indicated in orange, and stripped load bearing columns in this case, columns 18 and 19 are indicated in purple.
The line of vertical displacement at column 11 is indicated in blue. The relevant heights and widths as indicated in the After Action Report Damage Plan and other official sources are indicated in yellow.
One should bear in mind that because of the perspective of the photographer, the yellow lines themselves do not precisely reflect the actual distances involved.
Below I combine the data from these photos with the Damage Plan published in the Arlington After Action Report, and I illustrate with a scaled depiction of a exactly where the plane would have hit the building:. We see that the entire left wing damaged the building, and almost the entire wing except for the wing tip entered the building. The right wing just a little past the right engine also entered the building.
However the rest of the wing, about two-thirds of the length of the wing, did not. The reason for this was the angle of the wings. The right wing was higher than than left; if the wings were level, the right wing would have demolished the white construction trailer in addition to the emergency generator next to it.
The outer portion of the wing crashed above the first floor, and the horizontal second floor slab more strongly reinforced than the vertical columns and which was parallel to the vector of the impacting wing absorbed much of the force of the impacting wing above the first floor. The left wing slipped below the second floor slab and thus created a larger hole. The right wing did inflict considerable damage above the first floor, but the limestone facade was only breached between columns 13 and 15 on the second floor.
Due to the strength of the floor slabs, the dimensions of the hole reflects the structure more than the actual dimensions of the plane.
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