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Snippet(s) taken from "The Complete 911 Timeline", an online cooperative research project that evaluates mainstream press and other "credible" news and information sources. Its regular updates are mirrored in this blog to give it more overall exposure as well as provide an opportunity to discuss these research results.
      Update(s) published: Nov 9, 2006

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September 11, 2001, (After 9:20 a.m.): FAA Administrator Frustrated That Military Is Not Involved in Teleconference

At 9:20 a.m. (or earlier, according to some accounts), the FAA set up a hijacking teleconference with several agencies (see (9:20 a.m.)). FAA records indicate that the National Military Command Center within the Pentagon was included in the communication network “no later than 9:20 a.m.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ] Yet at some point later in the morning, Acting FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger becomes aware that the military is not involved in the teleconference in any meaningful way. Presumably referring to tape recordings of the FAA headquarters, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick will later say to Belger, “We heard some rather colorful language came from your mouth at that point.” The absence of the NMCC from the teleconference is unusual. Belger says, “I’ve lived through dozens of hijackings in my 30-year FAA career ... and [the NMCC] were always there. They were always on the net, and were always listening in with everybody else.” He adds, “The most frustrating after-the-fact scenario for me to understand is to explain ... the communication link on that morning between the FAA operations center and the NMCC. ... I know how it’s supposed to work, but ... it’s still a little frustrating for me to understand how it actually did work on that day.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 36]

Entity Tags: National Military Command Center, Monty Belger

September 11, 2001, (Soon After 9:37 a.m.): Air Force Liaison Said to Join Teleconference; FAA Disputes Timing

A statement provided by the FAA in 2003 will claim that, minutes after the first WTC tower was hit, the FAA established a teleconference with several agencies. It will claim that the “US Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate line” (see (8:50 a.m.)). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] However the Air Force liaison subsequently disputes this, saying she only arrived at FAA headquarters five or ten minutes after the first tower was hit. She says, “I went to my office. Everybody was there around the TV. We watched the events unfold. At first, we were kind of hanging back and saying, you know, there’s something awful going on with the air traffic system ... But at a certain point, not too long after that, it became obvious that ... something really strange is going on and so ... I relocated. I went upstairs to the 10th floor.” She therefore only joins the FAA teleconference after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. [US Department of Transportation, 8/31/2006 ]

(more items after break....)

September 11, 2001, (9:59 a.m.): Some Witnesses Think South Tower Collapse Resembles a Controlled Demolition

Numerous witnesses to the collapse of the south WTC tower think it resembles a demolition using explosives. Some initially believe this is what is occurring:
Reporter John Bussey watches the collapse from the Wall Street Journal’s offices across the street from the WTC. He says, “I ... looked up out of the office window to see what seemed like perfectly synchronized explosions coming from each floor, spewing glass and metal outward. One after the other, from top to bottom, with a fraction of a second between, the floors blew to pieces.” [Wall Street Journal, 9/12/2001]
Deputy Fire Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick: “I remember seeing, it looked like sparkling around one specific layer of the building. ... Then the building started to come down. My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV.” [City of New York, 10/1/2001]
Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory: “I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista ... he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him ... I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down. ... You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That’s what I thought I saw.” [City of New York, 10/3/2001]
Firefighter Richard Banaciski: “It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions.” [City of New York, 12/6/2001]
Firefighter Joseph Meola: “As we are looking up at the building, what I saw was, it looked like the building was blowing out on all four sides. We actually heard the pops. ... You thought it was just blowing out.” [City of New York, 12/11/2001]
Fire Chief Frank Cruthers: “[T]here was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse.” [City of New York, 10/31/2001]
Battalion Chief Brian Dixon: “I was watching the fire ... the lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because the whole bottom I could see—I could see two sides of it and the other side—it just looked like that floor blew out. ... I thought, geez, this looks like an explosion up there, it blew out.” [City of New York, 10/25/2001]
Firefighter Timothy Burke: “Then the building popped, lower than the fire ... I was going oh, my god, there is secondary device because the way the building popped I thought it was an explosion.” [City of New York, 1/22/2002]
Firefighter Edward Cachia: “It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit, because we originally had thought there was like an internal detonation explosives because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down.” [City of New York, 12/6/2001]
Firefighter Kenneth Rogers: “[T]here was an explosion in the south tower ... I kept watching. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another and when it hit about the fifth floor, I figured it was a bomb, because it looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing.” [City of New York, 12/10/2001]
Reporter Beth Fertig: “The tower went down perfectly straight, as if a demolition crew had imploded it. I wondered if it was being brought down deliberately.” [Gilbert et al., 2002, pp. 78]
Paramedic Daniel Rivera: “[D]o you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear ‘Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop’? That’s exactly what—because I thought it was that.” [City of New York, 10/10/2001]
Battalion Chief Dominick DeRubbio: “It was weird how it started to come down. It looked like it was a timed explosion.” [City of New York, 10/12/2001]
The Guardian will report that police on the scene said the collapse “looked almost like a ‘planned implosion’ designed to catch bystanders watching from the street.” [Guardian, 9/12/2001] However, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which conducts a three-year study of the WTC collapses, will reject suggestions that the WTC towers were brought down with explosives (see August 30, 2006). CTV will assert, “[F]lashes of light that seemed to indicate bombs detonating were not explosions. They were pockets of airs being forced out of windows as the sagging floors pushed downward.” [CTV, 9/12/2006]

Entity Tags: Daniel Rivera, John Bussey, Timothy Burke, Frank Cruthers, Richard Banaciski, Brian Dixon, Beth Fertig, Edward Cachia, Joseph Meola, Kenneth Rogers, Stephen Gregory, Dominick DeRubbio, Thomas Fitzpatrick, World Trade Center

August 30, 2006: NIST Counters Allegations of Explosive Demolition of the WTC

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) issues a seven-page fact sheet to counter alternative theories about the WTC collapses. NIST conducted a three-year study of the collapses, and concluded they were caused by the damage when the planes hit combined with the effects of the ensuing fires. However, many people—what the New York Times calls an “angry minority”—believe there was US government complicity in 9/11, and a recent poll (see July 6-24, 2006) found 16 percent of Americans believe the WTC towers were brought down with explosives. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/31/2006; New York Times, 9/2/2006; Reuters, 9/2/2006] The fact sheet responds to 14 “Frequently Asked Questions.” Some of its key points include the following:
Regarding whether NIST considered a controlled demolition hypothesis: “NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down ... using explosives ... Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.” However, it admits, “NIST did not test for the residue” of explosives in the remaining steel from the towers.
Its explanation for puffs of smoke seen coming from each tower as it collapsed: “[T]he falling mass of the building compressed the air ahead of it—much like the action of a piston—forcing smoke and debris out the windows as the stories below failed sequentially.”
Its explanation for a stream of yellow molten metal that poured down the side of the south tower shortly before it collapsed (see (9:50 a.m.)). NIST previously claimed it was aluminum, but this should not have been yellow in color: “Pure liquid aluminum would be expected to appear silvery. However, the molten metal was very likely mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) which can display an orange glow.”
Regarding reports of molten steel in the wreckage at Ground Zero (see September 12, 2001-February 2002): “Any molten steel in the wreckage was more likely due to the high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile than to short exposure to fires or explosions while the buildings were standing.”
Regarding the collapse of WTC 7 (see (5:20 p.m.)): “While NIST has found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event, NIST would like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 8/30/2006] In response to the fact sheet, Kevin Ryan, the coeditor of the online Journal of 9/11 Studies, says, “The list of answers NIST has provided is generating more questions, and more skepticism, than ever before.” He says, “NIST is a group of government scientists whose leaders are Bush appointees, and therefore their report is not likely to veer from the political story.” [New York Times, 9/2/2006; Reuters, 9/2/2006]

Entity Tags: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Kevin Ryan

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