25 March 2010 A writes: One thing I wanted to ask-- do you think it is strange that that pipe totally caved in the back of the truck, in the pic with the column set, but that the far heavier columns barely dented the street and sidewalk? I know it is hard to compare directly, but the pipe suggests incredibly force coming down and the column set, not so much. I have no realistic idea how anyone could have brought down the columns softly, but it's still weird. Cryptome: Your point is well taken. The pipe hit relatively soft objects, the scaffolding and the truck, while the columns hit the much harder pavement. Whether the piping was sufficiently entangled in the panel to absorb part of its force of impact is not clear, but it would have been minor as you state. Unless the piping hit first, and that slowed the panel to some extent before it hit the pavement. On other matters, attached is a photo with numbers indicating these: Photo cropped and reduced. Full-size (1) There may be a piece of fuselage at the left of the photo at the back of the car next to the church, heavy enough to cave in the car trunk. (2) A portion of the unraveled tire appears to be at the left of the tire. (3) and (4) There are two fire hoses in the photo, one to the left and one to the right. Fire hoses would have been mounted near exit stairs, so if these are from the tower something snatched them on the way toward the panel at the south wall. I'm not sure the wheel would have made that snatch. However, the piping could have done that, and if that is the case the piping could have come from the northern portion of the floor. Question then is what snatched the piping? The best I can think is that some portion of the landing gear assembly, a very strong heavy piece, was the main force that launched the panel, two wheels broke away and the rest of the assembly landed somewhere else, perhaps fell short and was covered up by the south tower collapse. (5) Your fuselage piece. Fuselage piece photo provided by A. Cryptome provided to A photos which slightly show the fuselage piece: http://cryptome.org/fuselage.zip (3.2MB) 21 March 2010 A source of WTC graphics and photos excerpted from a variety of sources: http://killtown.911review.org/wtc-gallery.html 21 March 2010 A writes: I have been researching this issue some more and found the plan of the North Face damages. It shows clearly that the North face had no more than a single panel (vertically) removed during impact. Doesn't it seem strange that if only one panel tall can get completely removed on the side with the greatest amount of inertia, that it could happen on the side with the least amount? Seems as though if an engine can only take out a single panel then a tire surely can't do it. And let's not forget that the wheels were tucked up inside the body on impact. Too bizarre. I can only see this happening with something helping the debris push. Cryptome: I have continued to look for more information, and have added a few items to my report. You are right that more than a single wheel was needed to knock out the panel and loft it to Cedar Street. I think the kicking force was probably the left landing gear assembly. Three wheels (gears) have been described as coming out of the south side: 1. Cedar Street with photo. 2. West Street with photo. 3. One that landed on the roof of the Marriott Hotel, no photo, only eyewitness reports. Like Cedar Street this would have been covered with South Tower debris. Released material highlights the wheel on West Street, and not so much on the other two. I am pretty sure the three wheels if not the tires, were recovered from the debris, and there may be a fourth wheel plus the other 4-wheel assembly unless completely destroyed by fire and crushing. I also think the Cedar Street panel was recovered and is stored somewhere. The West Street wheel was not affected by the collapse so it is somewhere, I'd bet. A museum shows some fragments of gear but I am not clear from which aircraft. (This comes from a Google search.) The mystery of this topic leads me to want to file an FOIA request to NIST for information on the matter. Before that I will see what else I can find in released material. Speculating more: That a single panel on the north side was knocked out is unexpected, as you say. I point out that the panels were installed in a diamond pattern rather than a rectangular grid in order to provide additional stability. Thus a single panel, north and south side, could be dislodged without pulling the two adjoining panels with it. The exterior panels were designed and installed to spread the gravity  and wind loads over a single panel, an ingenious technique. It is as if the structural design anticipated a single panel failing (or being dislodged). I have not seen reports of that being the case, but it can be interpreted from the pattern of failing panels in post-crash evidence. The weakest part of the design are the connecting bolts, then the steel plate spandrels and lastly the columns. The debris shows just that. As does the panel on Cedar Street. You may know that the landing gear assembly is one of the strongest parts of an aircraft due to the forces it must bear. The supporting struts are hardy and heavy, and the tires and wheel are also. The gear often survives a crash because of that, although the tires often burn or are ripped away from the metal wheel. I think the reason the panel does not show more deformation that would have been caused by a metal part like and engine hitting it, is that the tires aborbed most of the shock, for they are designed to do just that. 21 March 2010 Add photos and 3-D drawings of the aircraft landing gear. 19 March 2010 Add comments on landing gear (the parking lot is at Cedar and West Streets, across Cedar from the 90 West Street building): http://www.checktheevidence.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=134&Itemid=60 Add excerpt from NIST NCSTAR 1-2B: Analysis of Aircraft Impacts into the World Trade Center Towers (Chapters 9-11) (pp. 344-346) on Landing Gear Trajectory: 18 March 2010 Elsewhere the weight of the panel has been described as 6 tons, 3 times what I stated. That the panel was not substantially deformed by its hitting the ground, nor that there was not severe damage to the ground where it landed, is astonishing. Looking more closely at two of the images (1)(2), there is some damage to the street paving which could indicate that the panel hit with its south end down then fell back to the north (although the damage is so slight it does not fit the force of a 6-ton object hitting). That would account for the panel deforming slightly to fit the curb as it fell back, deforming the face of the column webs and likely dislodging the wheel which would have been deeply implanted by the force of its travel. That the wheel was not kocked completely away from the panel indicates the fall-back was not severe. While indicating nothing except my curiosity, here are photos taken on 17 March 2010, yeserday, of the spot where the panel hit, now excavated for WTC new construction (first photo through a dirty window of a pedestrian bridge, the other two through gaps in construction screening (the site still screened from public view as if ashamed of what happened)): 18 March 2010 A2 sends: Subject: Cryptome is banned as a source at Democratic Underground A link to http://cryptome.org/info/wtc-punch/wtc-punch.htm was posted to Democratic Underground's September 11 sub-forum here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=283758 &mesg_id=283758 Subsequent discussion brought the termination of the thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=283758 &mesg_id=284196 Lithos (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-17-10 11:16 PM Response to Original message 48. Locking Cryptome is not an allowed source due to the archiving of bigoted material. Lithos DU Moderator (end quote) It appears some whistleblowing is more equal than other whistleblowing... Cryptome: On another forum a person jumped on my bones about the report, said I should post it to DU where it would be well received. That other forum discusses the premise that no planes hit WTC which I had the audacity to argue with after seeing a link to my report. Here is the provocative forum: http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2010/03/planted-wheel-in-columns.html WTC is a raging topic of fantastic speculation, fostered by official secrecy, which I had lost sight of. Now I'm eager to join the fray, to be smeared, censored, accused of formenting rebellion, working for the government, yaddah. Will make a link to the DU locked thread to spur interest. Great stuff. 16 March 2010. Link to 12 large sequential photos of the area around the wall section location with the photographer walking along West and Cedar Streets shooting the street scenes and the burning towers. These are shown in response to speculation that the wheel and panel may have been staged. http://cryptome.org/wtc-nist-panel.zip (10MB) 16 March 2010. Add dimensions and drawings of steel wall section and compare to aircraft main gear tire. See also video simulation of aircraft attack which shows debris passing out of the north tower (about mid-way through): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UvPWny_PBc 12 March 2010. Add newly found text from an NIST report on the wheel punch, and NIST images of plans and structure. 11 March 2010

Aircraft Wheel Punches Out a Steel Wall Section of WTC Tower

John Young, Cryptome

An intriguing record of the WTC attack on 9/11, at least for this architect, are the photos (below) showing a 3-story section of the exterior wall of one of the Twin Towers -- probably the North (hit first) -- with an aircraft wheel embedded in a window opening. The site was covered by the towers' collapse and it is not clear what happened to the ensemble. The NIST report on the disaster describes the event: The severity of the impact was clear. A wheel from the left wing landing gear flew through multiple partitions, through the core of the building, and became embedded in one of the exterior column panels on the south side of the tower. The impact severed the bolts connecting the panel to its neighbors, and the panel and the tire landed on Cedar Street, some 700 ft to the south. A second wheel landed 700 ft further south. (p.21, NIST NCSSTAR 1. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, August 26, 2008.) This is an astonishing fragment which shows the power of a high-speed rubber projectile to punch a two-ton lattice of steel framing out of its setting. Then the ensemble rockets in an arc about 700 feet south over the 12-story Marriott Hotel and about 900 feet down, to land almost horizontal on an empty lot, curb and street. (There could have been other aircraft parts aiding this launch but they are not visible at the scene.) Map: NIST NCSSTAR 1. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, August 26, 2008 How the 500-mile-per-hour wheel rocketed from the north wall penetration, across the north open offices, past the core services of elevators, stairs and utilities and large steel columns and bracing, then across the south open offices, some 200 feet of gauntlet, and still maintain sufficient momentum to drive the wall section into a quarter-mile arc, is to be fearfully imagined. (Plan below-- revised 19 March 2010 -- shows paths of the right and left gear from the north wall penetration to the south wall column 330. An NIST diagram shows that the right wheel hit at about column number 124. It would have wondrous if the wheel had traveled straight down the corrodor connecting north and south offices in alignment with columns 130 and 330. A deep cut in the wheel indicates it hit something sharp before the panel, either at the north wall penetration or an interior element which may have deflected its path. Utility shafts, columns, stairs and elevator are in the path below.) Plan: NIST NCSSTAR 1. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, August 26, 2008 The wheel (one of four in a right or left main landing gear assembly, below) was in its well near an engine and may have been aided by the landing gear struts, engine or other heavy metal smashing a way. No engine was found to have penetrated the south wall. The panel does not appear to show the kind of severe damage a dense-metal engine hitting it would make. In addition, The NIST report says a second gear wheel flew a further 700 feet to the south at Rector and West Streets (photo below). http://killtown.911review.org/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-2d/e-23_wtc1-impact-pattern.jpg The left landing gear located approximately at Column 130. Boeing 767-200ER Left Main Gear Assembly Source http://killtown.911review.org/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-2d/5-35_767-airframe.jpg http://killtown.911review.org/images/wtc-gallery/nist1-2d/5-34_767-landing-gear.jpg Boeing 767-200ER Nose and Main Gear Characteristics Source (8MB) The steel panel member is 14 inches high. Using this as a measuring device, the tire is shown to be something over 3 times 14 inches, or approximately 45 inches, the diameter of the Boeing 767 main gear tire. Dimension of steel member and drawings below from: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/NISTNCSTAR1-1A.pdf "Uniform perimeter column geometry (14 in. by 14 in. cross-section) was maintained over most of the height of the 110-story buildings." The steel frame remained intact as when it was pre-fabricated for erection, the impact shearing attachment bolts at top and bottom, with hand holes for securing the bolts visible. Lugs connecting the lightweight concrete floor slab to the frame were ripped out intact. Floor joist steel angle connections remain attached. Note that the punched-out assembly shows no evidence of fire, although fibrous fireproofing has been deftly stripped (in original erection photos below fireproofing has not yet been added). Photos: NIST NCSSTAR 1. Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, August 26, 2008 The relatively cohesive frame which broke away from the open web joists and lightweight concrete slabs may indicate why the walls buckled in both towers to separate from the floor structure, and the floors to pancake more or less straight down within the comparatively stable tube-like latticed envelope. Presumably the NIST investigation report covers this possibility. (As an aside, with respect for dogged non-governmental researchers, the theory of planted explosives causing the collapses is far-fetched. However, there has not been a convincing airing of official investigative findings. And there continues to be too much secrecy in the process which fosters contrary speculation. My 12 September 2001 views on the collapses.) Photos of the exterior of the North Tower (below) shows a location which could have been where the wall section originated, with outward bent skin layers indicating a forceful discharge. The photos below were taken between the time the aircraft hit and the two towers' collapse. They are from the National Institute of Science and Technology FOIA release in February 2010 of 3,160 electronic records of the WTC investigation. The photographer is unidentified but the careful attention to details of the wall section suggests it was a fire department or police investigator on the scene to document evidence for future use. It was apparently this forensics specialist who documented fragments of human bodies in other photos (28MB).

Below, Aircraft Wheel Embedded in 3-Story Section of Exterior Wall of WTC Tower

In the background, St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church destroyed in the South Tower collapse (below).

The spaghetti-like piping could have been for electrical conduit, sprinklers, heating or plumbing.

Below, angles sticking up connected floor joists to the panel. The concrete floor slab was cast around perpendicular lugs in the (now bent) spandrel plates. Note damage to street pavement to the right of the south end of the panel (closest to viewer). Below, second landing gear wheel. World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA, 2002. (above) http://killtown.911review.org/images/wtc-gallery/misc/gz-plane-tire.jpg (above) http://killtown.911review.org/images/wtc-gallery/misc/gz-175-wheel.jpg

Below, bolt holes in top of wall section with adjoining hand holes for securing bolts. The faces of the box columns are bent inward.

Below, North Tower, South Elevation

At the center of the three photos below a three-column-wide section of the wall is out below the floor on fire. This is likely the bottom portion of the two-story panel knocked out.

The Greek Church Has Disappeared Under South Tower Debris

Location of Wall Section Under South Tower Debris