Question Report of 9/11

The following is an opinion submitted to the Times Argus, Vermont followed by a reply from the editor. Believe builders not theorists TIMES ARGUS, Vermont - Opinion Linda Carbonella Victoire Published: June 14, 2009 With all due respect for the professional expertise of the members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, no one has been misled about the reason the Twin Towers collapsed. I am not an engineer, but I am the niece of one of the hundreds of men who built the Empire State Building, and my uncle watched the World Trade Center being built. So I can pass along what he told me. The reason the Empire State Building survived being hit by a B-52 while the Twin Towers collapsed was the simple fact that the Empire State Building was built from the exterior in — not the interior out. The Twin Towers were held up by their central elevator shaft. The exterior walls were glass, supported by minimal structural steel frames. The floors were supported by assemblies resembling umbrella spokes. Additionally, they were built on "reclaimed land" — not the bedrock of Manhattan Island. WTC Building 7 was hit by debris from the falling towers in such a way that the building was sheered at an inward angle from the top down. That is why WTC 7 collapsed. People always seem to want some extraordinary explanation for events. Conspiracy theories are rampant in this world. Sometimes the simple truth really is the truth. There were no explosives involved. The Twin Towers fell because they were built on inferior land and were structurally inferior to the Empire State Building. "670 (and growing) degreed-registered professional architects and engineers" can be wrong. The people who really understand the structure of these buildings are the people who actually built them. Linda Carbonella Victoire Rutland ========================================================= REPLY ========================================================= TIMES ARGUS, Vermont Question Report of 9/11

Published: June 22, 2009

I'm glad that Linda Carbonella Victoire's letter (June 14) expresses respect for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. The media blackout of the 9/11 truth movement, which includes hundreds of highly credentialed Americans, has resulted in a disproportionate amount of misinformation. Professional people who have pointed out logistical problems with the official story of 9/11, because of the conspiracy theorist label, have done so at the risk of losing their credibility or their livelihood. The 1970 documentary film "Building the World Trade Center" shows clearly that the buildings' primary support was not "their central elevator shaft" but 47 massive steel core columns, and that these columns were in fact anchored firmly to the bedrock. The perimeter columns were over-designed by 2000 percent. The tower's tube design provided superior resistance to lateral forces and became the standard for skyscrapers since the 1960s, including the Sears Tower. The WTC's lead engineer John Skilling said the towers could survive both the impact of a 707(cruising faster than today's 767) and the resulting jet fuel fire. On 9/11 not only did the intact structures below the impact zones ultimately fail to resist the shifted loads from the damaged columns, they provided zero resistance, since the towers fell at virtually free-fall speed with perfect symmetry. Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, also collapsed in this manner. So these would have been the three worst engineering failures in modern history, calling into question the safety of hundreds of similarly designed buildings. So why was there not the forensic investigation necessary to determined exactly how the buildings failed? The answer is that these were not structural failures but highly sophisticated controlled demolitions. This is the suspicion of virtually all of the architects and engineers who have been shown the footage of the Building 7 collapse. Dave Darton Rutland SOURCE