The Falling Man Research Essay

SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS

On September 11th, 2001, a horrific event took place on the twin towers, in New York City.  The attacks were supposedly 4 coordinated attacks against America by the terrorist group al-Qaeda. The attacks consisted of suicidal attacks used to target symbolic U.S. landmarks.

Four passenger planes, all departing from airports in the united states east coast, bound to reach California—were hijacked by 19 al-Qaeda terrorists to be flown into significant buildings in new york. Two of the planes, United Airlines Flight 175 and American Airlines Flight 11, were flown into the North and South towers of the World trade centre complex in New York City. Within an hour and 42 minutes, both 110-story towers collapsed, with debris and the resulting fires causing partial or complete collapse of all other buildings in the World Trade Centre complex as well as significant damage to ten other large surrounding structures. A third plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was collided into the Pentagon, the main office of the United States defence department, in Arlington County, Virginia, leading to a partial collapse in the Pentagon's western side. The fourth plane, United Airlines Flight 93, was steered toward Washington, D.C., but crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after its passengers tried to overcome the hijackers. In total, the attacks took the lives of 2,996 people (including the 19 hijackers).

Initially, the blame for the attacks fell on Iraq, and particularly al-Qaeda after their infamous leader Osama-Bin Laden claimed the attacks to be done by his terrorist group.  However, years after the attacks, many people are not satisfied by the story given to us by the U.S. government, pointing obvious flaws in its case.  Some conspiracy theorists believe that the attacks were allowed to happen by Bush admiration, and were not stopped when Bush had the opportunity, while others believe that the attacks were actually planned in order to have a valid excuse to invade Iraq.  However, many of these conspiracies provide more logic than the explanation given to us by the American government.  For example,

World Trade Centre 7 was a 47-story high building that was not hit by an aeroplane or by any significant debris from either World Trade Centre 1 or World Trade Centre 2. Buildings 3, 4, 5, and 6 were struck by massive amounts of debris, due to their closer proximity from the collapsing Twin Towers, yet none collapsed, despite their extremely thin and fragile gauge steel supports. World Trade Centre 7, which was located on the next block, was furthest of the buildings from the first and second buildings. Building 7 happened to contain the New York City Office of Emergency Management, a facility that was regared to be one of the most sophisticated and reliable Emergency Command centres in the world.  But just after 5:20 pm on September 11th 2001, as the tragic day was ending, World trade centre mysteriously exploded and fell to the ground in a rapid and suspicious (if I may add) 6.5 seconds.

This is merely half a second more than it would take to drop a standard paving brick from the top of the buildings to the bottom. To put this in simpler terms, a rock dropped from the 47th floor of the building would have taken at least 6 seconds to hit the ground. World Trade Centre 7, fell completely to the floor in 6.5 seconds. Now, to refer to the government story, we're supposed to believe that each floor of the building is stacked on top of the one below. Each of the 47 floors supposedly stacked and collapsed, independently, yet world trade centre 7 reached the ground in 0.5 seconds longer than the freefell. Is this really possible?

However the impossible, fast collapse of world trade centre 7 lead to another theory. When the frame-by-frame footage of the collapse of the towers is watched, the following is observed.

The second plane that crashed the south tower was called the United Airlines Flight 175, which weighed over 72.5 thousand kilograms, and was traveling at just below 565 kilometres per hour did not visibly move the building when it forcefully collided into it.  Theorists ask how a building that could not visibly move initially from a massive and extremely fast plane slamming into it, but could collapse at near freefell speed under a hour later.

Next, many theorists, then focus on the steel beams that fell at freefell speeds as the tower collapsed.  The heavy, sturdy and strong beams were falling at the same rate of the actual towers.  According to basic high school physics and the law of the conservation of momentum and energy, this is deemed impossible due to the official reports that the towers were “pancaking”.

The height of the South Tower was slightly over 415 metres.  Theorists have calculated that from that height, freefell in a vacuum (which means absolutely no resistance on earth) is 9.2 seconds. According to obviously flawed report provided by the 9-11 Commission, the tower fell in 10 seconds. Data from other sources shows that it took closer to 14 seconds. So the towers fell within 0.8-4.8 seconds of the time for freefell in a vacuum. Just like the trade centre 7, this speed is physically impossible if each of the 110 floors had to individually fall.

However, this brought about another problem in the American investigations flawed findings, which can be proved wrong by the principle called the Law of Conservation of Energy and the Law of Conservation of Momentum.

I'll take some time to quickly explain these principles. Let's assume there are two identical cars on the road. One switched off (traveling at 0 kph) The other is driving at 100 kph. The second car slams into the back of the first one. In an instant the first Honda will then be going faster than it was originally, and the second will be going much slower than it was.

This is how the principle works in the horizontal direction, and logically it should work the same way in the vertical direction – with the added constant force of gravity added to it. A renowned professional scientist, by the name of Jim Hoffman, published in several scientific journals, took a long look at all of this. He calculated that even if the structure itself offered no resistance – that is to say, even if the 110 floors of each tower were hovering in mid-air – the "pancake" theory would still have taken a minimum of 15.5 seconds to reach the ground. So, even if the building essentially didn't exist – if it provided no resistance at all to the collapse – just the floors hitting each other and causing each other to decelerate would've taken 15.5 seconds to reach the ground.