CyberBlog

Actor Charlie Sheen has questioned what caused the fall of the Twin Towers and is calling for a new independent investigation of the attack. Sheen has a problem believing the government version of events, suggesting that the biggest conspiracy theory was put out by the government. Some internet conspiracy theorist suggest that the Bush administration might have been responsible for the attacks on 9/11 to create a reason to go to war with Afghanistan and Iraq with the goal of helping Bush administration friends in the oil industry.

Don’t believe your eyes! We all watched video of jetliners hitting each of the Twin Towers and then we watched in horror as 56 minutes latter the second tower fell only to be followed by the first tower falling soon after. Sheen stated that 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners feels like a conspiracy theory. So I guess you were watching fake video of the planes crashing into the Towers. Or, maybe the government placed the hijackers on the plane and then used remote controls such as those used in predator drones to crash the planes into the intended targets.

The conspiracy nuts tried to involve me in this story. Cyber Gazette is a side profession for me. I am a self employed structural engineer and my name matches a professional who worked at Underwriters Laboratory named Kevin Ryan who was questioning if the heat produced by burning jet fuel could have brought down the Twin Towers. Two conspiracy theorists and a journalist contacted me through my Ryan Design Group Structural Engineering Consultant website thinking that I was the same Kevin Ryan that was questioning the governments version of events.

They praised me in their e-mails for my courage to blow the whistle on the government conspiracy and they were anxious to talk to me to discuss my findings that jet-fuel combustion would not melt steel and there must be some other cause of the collapse. The reporter called me directly and I explained to him that I was not the Kevin Ryan that works for Underwriters Laboratory. I did let him know that I was a structural engineer and although I had nothing to do with the WTC investigation, I felt that he should be careful not to align himself or write a story based on information gathered in conjunction with these two conspiracy theorists.

The reporter asked me what my concerns were and I explained to him that even though steel melts at temperatures of around 3000 degF, the strength of steel is greatly reduced at lower temperatures. For example at only 800 degF the yield strength is reduced to 77% while at 1200 degF yield strength is reduced to 37%. I also explained to the reporter that the damage caused to the building by the jet impact could have redistributed the loads to the point of bringing some of the undamaged member close to 100% of their capacity and any small reduction of strength from elevated temperatures could have brought on failure of those members.

Then I explained that since I was not part of the investigation, we could just use logic to understand what happened at the Twin Towers without having any engineering knowledge, just common sense. The visual facts are that both Towers were hit by jet airliners that caused extensive damage but did not cause the Towers to collapse. Since both Towers survived the impact, common sense would tell you that they would have continued to stand indefinitely even in their damaged condition until some other condition or loading worsened their situation. It might be possible for one tower to be damaged by impact to just within 99% of its capacity and then randomly collapse a short while later. But to expect two towers to be hit just right so that they both were damaged to 99% of capacity is not logical. Therefore an outside factor must have increased the loading or decreased the capacity of the damaged towers to cause the collapse.

I noted that the smoke rising from the towers was for the most part going vertically indicating that the wind was light on that day, so wind could be ruled out as causing the collapse. There were no reports of earthquakes on that day. But what we could see were raging fires on both towers. Knowing that steel strength is reduced with increasing temperatures and seeing no other outside source of loading to cause the collapse, it only takes common sense to realize that the fires were the final straw that caused the collapse of the Twin Towers.

To believe otherwise would require one to believe that some nefarious conspiracy was concocted to set off explosives in both buildings to finish the job. I told the reporter that this theory is nutty and he should reconsider writing a story suggesting such a thing.

I also sent an e-mail to Underwriters Laboratory warning them how their name was being used in a conspiracy theory but never heard from them in return. Finally I sent an e-mail to the conspiracy theorist explaining that I was not the hero that they were searching for. I also let them know that steel strength is greatly reduced at temperatures much lower than the point at which it melts. They were very disappointed in my response to their inquiries but dismissed my information outright since I was not the Kevin Ryan that was a part of the investigation.

In doing research for this article, I have since learned more information of interest. I previously did not even know if there was a Kevin Ryan that worked at Underwriters Laboratory as the e-mailers could have been making up their story. But as you can see from the reference links to the right, Kevin Ryan did publish a letter of concern on the issue of jet-fuel causing collapse of the Towers.

However, his finding is not inconsistent with the events of the collapse. In the latter report by NIST (also linked to on the right) jet-fuel is not attributed as the source of the ongoing fire. The jet-fuel would have burned off in a short amount of time. The ongoing fire is attributed to the flammable contents of the Twin Towers and to a lesser extent the contents of the jetliner.

The bottom line is that we all watched on TV that day and we all saw the fires that raged up to the point of the building collapse. So Kevin Ryan�s test at Underwriters Laboratory could have shown that the jet-fuel did not cause the collapse while at the same time the Twin Towers collapse was caused by fire. Of coarse the conspiracy theorist only pick the facts that support their theories and ignore what the rest of us understood by just using our common sense.

Let�s look at some of the other claims by the conspiracy theorist and see if there are reasonable explanations to counter their arguments.

One claim is that when the towers collapsed you could see the windows shattering out from the top floor down as though explosive charges were set off. However, if the building collapsed in one quadrant first, this sequence would cause the building to torque, distorting the exterior frame. The steel is ductile and would yield under this torque to some degree, but the glass set within the exterior steel frame is not ductile and would shatter as the frame distorts.

Another claim is that Explosions in the basement of the Towers at the time of the jetliner impact are consistent with high explosives being set off and not consistent with jet-fuel traveling down the elevator shafts and exploding as the government claims. If the jet-fuel did not cause the explosions then how did the explosions occur at the exact same time as the jetliner impact. Witnesses indicated they smelled kerosene which is what jet-fuel is. Jet-fuel falling over 70 stories down an elevator shaft could easily become vaporized by the fall making it very explosive. If high explosives were used to help bring down the building then why didn�t the building come down immediately?

A concern of Charlie Sheen is that 19 hijackers with box cutters couldn�t hijack 4 planes. In the plane that went down in Pennsylvania, the passengers were allowed to speak to loved ones before the crash and verified that events went down as documented. To believe otherwise would require you to believe these passengers were lying to their families right before their deaths.

WTC building 7 collapsed into itself as though it was destroyed by a controlled demolition. If the center columns of a building fail first, the collapse of these columns will pull the surrounding columns in towards them as they collapse. It doesn�t matter if these columns failed by a controlled explosion or other causes.

There are many other ridiculous claims that are not worth the time rebutting because to believe them you would have to believe that there are hundreds of people in the government, military and private sector working together to fool the American people while not allowing a single leak amongst themselves.

But a more interesting aspect of this story is how we have reached a point in our country where some of our citizens have become so hateful of the President that they can not be objective in analyzing circumstances that effect our lives. Have we become so partisan and divided in this country that we assume the worst in each other even when common sense seems to indicate otherwise? Has politics become a street fight where any tactic is acceptable because the ends justifies the means?

Have we become a country of people who vote for whomever will protect our own self-interest by whatever tactic is necessary, instead of a country based on common principles of freedom with personal responsibility, of hard work and self-reliance? President Bush did not murder 3000 of our fellow Americans for his own personal gain. Anyone who thinks otherwise is reflecting on their own shortcomings and personal biases.