January 7, 2002--This from Jim McMichael: Three articles concerning Fire Engineering magazine's criticisms of the investigation of the WTC collapse.
Two articles on the subject appear in the January edition of the magazine, one written by editor-in chief Bill Manning, the second signed by three other authors. In turn, editor-in-chief Manning was interviewed by the New York Daily News on January 4. The three articles appear below, after McMichael's comments.
Editor-in-chief Manning is calling the present investigation run by the American Society of Civil Engineers "a half-baked farce," and has condemned the destruction of WTC evidence. "For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up and sold for scrap. Crucial evidence that could answer many questions about high-rise building design practices and performance under fire conditions is on the slow boat to China, perhaps never to be seen again in America until you buy your next car," says Manning. So far so good.
The second article says " ... the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers," but the authors go on to furnish their own answers to the riddle of the collapse, suggesting they may not have an open mind about the inquiry. The quality of the fireproofing is the designated culprit.
The authors of the second article make it quite clear they buy the official story: "Yes, it was the terrorist pilots who slammed two jetliners into the Twin Towers. It was the ensuing fire, however, that brought the towers down."
How do the authors know this? No fire has ever caused the complete collapse of high rise office buildings in the history of the industrialized world.
The second article goes on to state: "Make no mistake about it: This high-rise collapse was no 'fluke.' The temperatures experienced and heat release rates achieved at the World Trade Center could be seen in future high-rise fires."
But as Jim McMichael points out, jet fuel does not burn hot enough
to melt steel. See McMichael's "Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics,"
http://www.holocausts.org/911/mcmichael.html
Jet airplanes and high rise office buildings have coexisted peacefully for decades. Yet, all of a sudden, SHRIEK! Fire Engineering realizes there's a problem. Now they are predicting more such occurrences. (Doubtlessly, such can be arranged by the WTC perpetrators for a little posthumous credibility.)
None of the Fire Engineering writers raise the question of what caused the concrete in the twin towers to turn into powder. Didn't they notice that?
None of writers asked what caused the disappearance of the buildings' massive steel interior columns. Didn't they notice that? Even warm licorice holds it shape, and so should "softened" steel.
Fire Engineering is calling upon Sen. Charles Schumer, who has joined other would-be whistleblowers, to support a REAL investigation. That's right, they expect integrity from "Burn 'em Alive" Schumer, who, while in the House of Representatives, assassinated the Branch Davidians all over again during the so-called Congressional "investigation."
What kind of foul creature would help the US cover up the torture and murder of innocent women and children by degrading the dead? And how naive would you have to be to expect help from him on the WTC investigation?
Remember that Israel, not the Muslim world, is benefitting from the events of 9-11. Certainly Israel has the gall to attack America. Remember the USS Liberty! http://www.USSLiberty.com . Israel, not a man living in a cave, had the technical sophistication to pull off the job. Israel, not bin Laden, had the contacts within the US Air Force to make sure the military organization that guards American skies (NORAD) was not around on September 11.
Fire Engineering, Sen. Schumer is an Israeli patriot, not an American patriot. Or didn't you notice that, either? Do you seriously expect Mr. Schumer to arrange a real investigation of the 9-11 atrocities?
Friends, it sounds like yet another fake investigation is on the way, a la Waco and Oklahoma City.
OK. Enough from me. See McMichael's comments, then the New York Daily News interview and the two Fire Engineering articles.
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 10:29:51 -0800
From: "Jim McMichael"
<jmcm5@lycos.com>
Subject: Re: Firefighter Magazine Raps 9/11 Probe
These articles were brought to my attention by a friend [xxxxx]:
The third article affirms the plane wrecks by suicide hijackers, affirms the collapse of the WTC by fire -- but most compelling, observes that WTC is "[t]he first total collapse of a high-rise during a fire in United States history."
Ahem. Quite a landmark event. Most remarkable, given the statements in NYDN editorial that: "The World Trade Center is not the only lightweight, core construction high-rise in the U.S. It's a typical method of construction."
But the US Government (FEMA etc.) is moving rapidly to destroy the evidence, cutting it up and selling it for scrap without serious investigation -- eerily reminiscent of the Murrah Building (OKC) destruction and cleanup, and of the quarantine and excavation of the site where scores of Branch Davidians died in Waco.
Row, row, row your boat ... truth is whatever they tell us it is.
J
NY Daily:
[Note: If you want to see on its original web page through the URL
above, I suggest you get it today. Otherwise, it may be available
only through the archives.]
From: News and Views | City Beat |
Friday, January 04, 2002
By JOE CALDERONE
Daily News Chief of Investigations
A respected firefighting trade magazine with ties to the city Fire Department
is calling for a "full-throttle, fully resourced" investigation into the
collapse of the World Trade Center.
A signed editorial in the January issue of Fire Engineering magazine says the current investigation is "a half-baked farce."
The piece by Bill Manning, editor of the 125-year-old monthly that frequently publishes technical studies of major fires, also says the steel from the site should be preserved so investigators can examine what caused the collapse.
"Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happy Land social club fire? ... That's what they're doing at the World Trade Center," the editorial says. "The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately."
Fire Engineering counted FDNY Deputy Chief Raymond Downey, the department's chief structural expert, among its senior advisers. Downey was killed in the Sept. 11 attack.
John Jay College's fire engineering expert, Prof. Glenn Corbett, serves as the magazine's technical editor.
A group of engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers, with backing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been studying some aspects of the collapse. But Manning and others say that probe has not looked at all aspects of the disaster and has had limited access to documents and other evidence.
A growing number of fire protection engineers have theorized that "the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers," the editorial stated.
A FEMA spokesman, John Czwartacki, said agency officials had not yet seen the editorial and declined to comment.
Norida Torriente, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Civil Engineers, described her group's study as a "beginning" and "not a definitive work."
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has joined a group of relatives of firefighters who died in the attack in calling for a blue-ribbon panel to study the collapse.
"We have to learn from incidents through investigation to determine what types of codes should be in place and what are the best practices for high-rise construction," Manning told the Daily News. "The World Trade Center is not the only lightweight, core construction high-rise in the U.S. It's a typical method of construction."
[ This is the preamble to the Manning article-- CV.]
"Burning Questions...Need Answers":
Fair Lawn, NJ, January 4, 2002 - Bill Manning, Fire Engineering's editor in chief, is summoning members of the fire service to "A Call to Action." In his January 2002 Editor's Opinion, "$elling Out the Investigation" (below ), he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation by an independent panel established solely for that purpose, "the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals." Manning explained: "Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers .... The lessons about the buildings' design and behavior in this extraordinary event must be learned and applied in the real world."
In an interview with the New York Daily News today, Manning reiterated his call for a "full-throttle, fully resourced" investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center. He is asking members of the fire service to read "WTC 'Investigation'? A Call to Action" in the January 2002 issue of Fire Engineering and at fireengineering.com and to contact their representatives in Congress and officials in Washington to ask that a blue ribbon panel be convened to thoroughly investigate the WTC collapse.
Among those also calling for the investigation are Sally Regenhard, the mother of Christian Regenhard, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) probationary firefighter killed in the World Trade Center (WTC) attack, and founder of the Campaign for Skyscraper Safety; Give Your Voice, a civilian relatives' group headed by Michael Cartier, who lost his brother in the collapse; prominent structural engineers and fire-safety experts, and New York State Senators Charles Schumer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
[Continuing text from the Fire Engineering page]
By Bill Manning
Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happyland Social Club Fire? Did they cast aside the pressure-regulating valves at the Meridian Plaza Fire? Of course not. But essentially, that's what they're doing at the World Trade Center.
For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up and sold for scrap. Crucial evidence that could answer many questions about high-rise building design practices and performance under fire conditions is on the slow boat to China, perhaps never to be seen again in America until you buy your next car.
Such destruction of evidence shows the astounding ignorance of government officials to the value of a thorough, scientific investigation of the largest fire-induced collapse in world history. I have combed through our national standard for fire investigation, NFPA 921, but nowhere in it does one find an exemption allowing the destruction of evidence for buildings over 10 stories tall.
Hoping beyond hope, I have called experts to ask if the towers were the only high-rise buildings in America of lightweight, center-core construction. No such luck. I made other calls asking if these were the only buildings in America with light-density, sprayed-on fireproofing. Again, no luck-they were two of thousands that fit the description.
Comprehensive disaster investigations mean increased safety. They mean positive change. NASA knows it. The NTSB knows it.
Does FEMA know it?
No. Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the "official investigation" blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure. Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by ASCE investigation committee members- described by one close source as a "tourist trip"-no one's checking the evidence for anything.
Maybe we should live and work in planes. That way, if disaster strikes, we will at least be sure that a thorough investigation will help find ways to increase safety for our survivors.
As things now stand and if they continue in such fashion, the investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer generated hypotheticals.
However, respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers. Rather, theory has it, the subsequent contents fires attacking the questionably fireproofed lightweight trusses and load-bearing columns directly caused the collapses in an alarmingly short time. Of course, in light of there being no real evidence thus far produced, this could remain just unexplored theory.
The frequency of published and unpublished reports raising questions about the steel fireproofing and other fire protection elements in the buildings, as well as their design and construction, is on the rise. The builders and owners of the World Trade Center property, the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey, a governmental agency that operates in an accountability vacuum beyond the reach of local fire and building codes, has denied charges that the buildings' fire protection or construction components were substandard but has refused to cooperate with requests for documentation supporting its contentions.
Some citizens are taking to the streets to protest the investigation sellout. Sally Regenhard, for one, wants to know why and how the building fell as it did upon her unfortunate son Christian, an FDNY probationary firefighter. And so do we.
Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers. Based on the incident's magnitude alone, a full-throttle, fully resourced, forensic investigation is imperative. More important, from a moral standpoint, for the safety of present and future generations who live and work in tall buildings-and for firefighters, always first in and last out-the lessons about the buildings' design and behavior in this extraordinary event must be learned and applied in the real world.
To treat the September 11 incident any differently would be the height of stupidity and ignorance.
The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.
The federal government must scrap the current setup and commission a fully resourced blue ribbon panel to conduct a clean and thorough investigation of the fire and collapse, leaving no stones unturned.
Firefighters, this is your call to action. Visit WTC "Investigation"?: A Call to Action, then contact your representatives in Congress and officials in Washington and help us correct this problem immediately.
Never again! In the wake of the World Trade Center, we are left with many thoughts-thoughts of friends lost, thoughts of devastated families, thoughts of the tremendous impact on so many lives for so many years to come. Yet, we-America's fire service-are left with one critical thought: How can we prevent a disaster like this from ever happening again?
Yes, it was the terrorist pilots who slammed two jetliners into the Twin Towers. It was the ensuing fire, however, that brought the towers down. Make no mistake about it: This high-rise collapse was no "fluke." The temperatures experienced and heat release rates achieved at the World Trade Center could be seen in future high-rise fires.
There are many, many questions to be asked by us about the World Trade Center collapse and its implications on high-rise firefighting across the nation. Some questions are political, many are technical, others are philosophical. Here are a few (inno particular order) to think about.
There are many more questions, more than we have answers for. What is clear is that things must change. Where do we begin? By putting things in perspective. The World Trade Center disaster was
Now, with that understanding, you would think we would have the largest fire investigation in world history. You would be wrong. Instead, we have a series of unconnected and uncoordinated superficial inquiries. No comprehensive "Presidential Blue Ribbon Commission." No top-notch National Transportation Safety Board-like response. Ironically, we will probably gain more detailed information about the destruction of the planes than we will about the destruction of the towers. We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence.
The World Trade Center disaster demands the most comprehensive detailed investigation possible. No event in our entire fire service history has ever come close to the magnitude of this incident.
We, the undersigned, call on FEMA to immediately impanel a "World Trade Center Disaster Review Panel" to coordinate a complete review of all aspects of the World Trade Center incident.
The panel should be charged with creating a comprehensive report that examines a variety of topics including determining exactly how and why the towers collapsed, critiquing the building evacuation procedures and the means of egress, assessing the buildings' fire protection features (steel "fireproofing," fireprotection systems, etc.), and reviewing the valiant firefighting procedures employed. In addition, the Panel should be charged with preparing a detailed set of recommendations, including the critical changes necessary to our building codes. Please e-mail this (italicized) call to action to:
and to your own congressional representatives. To obtain e-mail addresses for your representatives, go to www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm and www.house.gov/writerep/.
Francis L. Brannigan, SFPE
Glenn P. Corbett, PE
Deputy Chief (Ret.) Vincent Dunn, FDNY
911 Lies exposed at
http://www.holocausts.org/911