Controlled demolition

Proponents list several things. The towers came down fast and nearly straight; WTC 7 fell into its own footprint with a period of free fall. Witnesses, including firefighters in the oral histories the city released in 2005, described what sounded like explosions. Firefighter Richard Banaciski, waiting at a command post on West Street, told an FDNY interviewer in December 2001 that after 10 or 15 minutes “there was just an explosion. 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.” [1][4] Video shows puffs of dust bursting from floors below the collapse front. [2][3]

They also argue that no steel high-rise had ever collapsed from fire, and that NIST stopped its tower models at collapse initiation. [2]

NIST says the puffs were air pushed out ahead of the falling mass, like a piston, forcing smoke and debris out the windows as each story failed. It says photographs and video from several angles show the collapses beginning at the fire and impact floors and moving down; and the seismic spikes came from debris hitting the ground, about 10 seconds after the collapses started, with nothing before. [1]

For WTC 7, NIST calculated that a charge able to cut the critical column would have been as loud as a gunshot half a mile away, and no recording or witness has it. A demolition would also have needed weeks of preparation in occupied buildings, with charges, cutting and wiring in place, and no one involved has ever come forward. [2]

NIST concedes it “did not test for the residue” of explosives or thermite in the steel. It argues such tests would not necessarily have been conclusive, because the same metals are in construction materials and sulfur is in the gypsum wallboard used throughout the buildings. [1]

Richard Gage, the architect who founded Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, told the BBC that Building 7 “is the smoking gun of 9/11.” Proponents often cite Danny Jowenko, a Dutch demolition contractor who, shown footage of the collapse, said: “That is a controlled demolition… absolutely. It’s been imploded. It’s a hired job done by a team of experts.” [1]

Mark Loizeaux, whose firm Controlled Demolition Inc. holds the record for the largest steel building ever demolished, told the BBC that bringing down a building like Tower 7 takes months of design and preparation, gutting walls, hundreds of charges and miles of cable and detonating cord, all impossible to hide in an occupied building. Charges big enough to cut its columns would also have shattered windows on every side, he said, and the windows on the sheltered sides were intact. [1]

Gene Corley, who led FEMA’s first inquiry, said: “We looked for it, yes, and we found no evidence of controlled demolition.” [1]

Securacom, a security systems firm based in Virginia, listed New York’s World Trade Center, Washington Dulles airport and United Airlines among its clients. Its 1997 prospectus says it won an $8.3 million contract in October 1996 as part of the security upgrade at the World Trade Center, which in 1996 and early 1997 was its largest client. Marvin P. Bush, the youngest brother of the future president, had been a director since 1993. [1][4]

The company, renamed Stratesec, reported that its revenue fell by almost half in 1998 because of “the closeout of the World Trade Center Project.” Marvin Bush signed its annual report as a director in March 1999 but was not among the directors in March 2000. [2][3]

In 2003 the journalist Margie Burns wrote that this connection had never been examined by any investigation, and quoted the company’s later chief executive saying it had a contract at the towers “up to the day the buildings fell down.” For believers in demolition this is the access they need: a company tied to the Bush family working on the buildings’ security. [4]

No document, witness or investigation has linked Securacom or Marvin Bush to explosives, and the company’s work was electronic security systems. Its main project there ended in 1998, three years before the attacks. [1][3][4]