NIST: Final Report - Collapse of World Trade Center building #7

Gaithersburg (MD) - Yesterday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its final report on the September 11, 2001 collapse of World Trade Center building #7 (WTC7).

The report states that a crucial column (number 79) failed due to uncontrolled fires burning on several floors which produced "an extraordinary event." Once column 79 failed, it "initiated a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down."

Computer analysis

NIST received comments from "the building community," and conducted an additional computer analysis of the structural failure of column 79 to see if it would still bring the entire building down at free fall speeds without damage caused by the collapse of WTC1 and WTC2. The investigation team concluded that "the column’s failure under any circumstance would have initiated the destructive sequence of events."

The report follows a two-year investigation into the collapse of WTC7 which, approximately 7 hours after the collapse of WTC1 and WTC2, came down at free fall speeds.

Building code changes because of 9/11

NIST reports that a three-year study of the collapse of WTC1 and WTC2 was conducted. It began in August, 2002 and concluded in October, 2005. As a result, more than 20 changes to the U.S. model building and fire codes have been adopted.

Concerns over collapse

Several university professors, engineers and independent researchers, and even family members of those lost on 9/11, continue to question the government's official account of the event. Testimony by Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, given before the 9/11 Commission, whereby he reports the Vice President had prior knowledge of the plane which hit the Pentagon while still many miles out and several minutes before the event, has never been acknowledged on officially published reports.

CNN and BBC both reported the collapse of WTC7 before it occurred. BBC reported it 20 minutes early, with on-air personality Jane Stanley reporting on the disarray downtown caused by the collapse of WTC7.

There were also pools of molten metal found six to eight weeks after the collapse on 9/11. Everyone agrees that a hydrocarbon-based fire (jet fuel) could not heat up steel sufficiently to cause it to become molten. It can heat up enough to weaken and soften it causing it to lose strength, but it cannot melt it to the orange-yellow color observed, and those seen from aerial photographs taken by NASA.

A 24/7 news program related to 9/11 documentaries, reports, presentations, speeches, and more has been created on channel 68078 of the you-broadcast network, TVUnetworks.com.

Read more about the report on the NIST press release, read the full report, view a video describing the collapse, look at all of the comments received on the first draft of the WTC7 report, and look at a chart which tracks the progress toward implementing all of the NIST WTC recommendations.