To: sea_urchin who wrote (10079 ) 2/19/2005 6:41:58 AM From: sea_urchin Respond to of 20039 More references...... WTC BUILT TO WITHSTAND AIRLINER IMPACT freepressinternational.com >>Frank A. Demartini, on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, spoke of the resiliance of the towers in an interview recorded on January 25, 2001. "The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting". Demartini, who had an office on the 88th floor of the North Tower, died on 9/11/2001 in the World Trade Center attack. Architects that designed New York's World Trade Center Towers expressed shock on September 11th that the 110-story landmarks in Lower Manhattan collapsed after each tower was struck by a hijacked passenger jetliner according to MedServ News. Lee Robertson, the WTC project's structural engineer, addressed the problem of terrorism on high-rises at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany, one week prior to 9/11, according to Chicago engineer Joseph Burns. Burns said Robertson told the conference, "I designed it for a (Boeing) 707 to hit it." <<groups.yahoo.com >>Airplane strikes 'do not' destroy skyscrapers. A bomber strike to the Empire State Building during World War II 'did not' harm that building. The World Trade Center towers were designed to 'survive' a strike by a Boeing 707. The 767 is more massive, so the building was stressed near its design limits. But if a failure had occurred at that moment, it would have been at the point of highest levered stress, near the base of the tower, and the tower would have fallen over like a giant tree in a forest windstorm. That, of course, did not happen. "Fires do not destroy skyscrapers. Never in the history of steel frame structures has a single one been destroyed by fire".<<