Engineers society accused of disaster probe cover-ups (9/11 and Katrina)

[UpInArms]

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5658132.html

NEW ORLEANS — The professional organization for engineers who build the nation's roads, dams and bridges has been accused by fellow engineers of covering up catastrophic design flaws while investigating national disasters.

After the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and the levee failures caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the federal government paid the American Society of Civil Engineers to investigate what went wrong.

<snip>

"They want to make sure that they do things the right way and that they learn lessons from the studies they do," said Sherwood Boelhert, a retired Republican congressman from New York who heads the panel. He led the House Science Committee for six years.

<snip>

In 2002, the society's report on the World Trade Center praised the buildings for remaining standing long enough to allow tens of thousands of people to flee. But, the report said, skyscrapers are not typically designed to withstand airplane impacts. Instead of hardening buildings against such impacts, it recommended improving aviation security and fire protection.

<snip>

He also questioned the makeup of the society's investigation team. On the team were the wife of the trade center's structural engineer and a representative of the buildings' original design team.

...more...

my LBN thread was locked for being too old (past 12 hours) - so am reposting here

[Buzz Clik]

1. Interesting. Before we break out the tinfoil, let's look at one of the critical comments:

“What would have happened if instead of the unusual and relatively light bearing wall structural system with no framing, used in the WTC towers, a more traditional system of structural framing used in almost any other structure, was used? Very few people are aware of the fact that the WTC towers did not need to follow any design code and did not need to obtain the construction permit from the City. The structural system used in the towers was an unusual system of “Steel Exterior Bearing Walls and Interior Compression Columns” with no framing system in between. There is no record of use of such a system before or after the design and construction of the World Trade Center. The issue of structural design of the WTC and its effects on the fate of these towers on that tragic day has not been studied or reported by other studies of the WTC. The results presented here will show what would have happened if the towers were designed following the code and using the structural systems used in almost any other building structure instead of the unique system used in the collapsed WTC towers.
http://www.astaneh.net/

This has been put forward to the conspiracy theorists again and again, but they never listen.

[RC]

3. Nice looking web page @ astaneh.net, but

none of the links seem to work. Hmmmmm...

[Buzz Clik]

5. He clearly doesn't value maintaining his personal website. Try this:

http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~astaneh/

[RC]

2. Ok, then, why have we been told that the WTC 1 & 2 were designed

to withstand an airplane impact? A 767 I believe it was, which is slightly smaller that the 757's which were flown into them.

[Buzz Clik]

4. The problem was not the impact, it was the heat of the burning fuel.

The rivets failed, and with the design of the building, it led to a cascading collapse.

[RC]

6. Not true. The rivets were made of the same steel the columns were.

Also pooled jet fuel or kerosene does not burn hot enough in the open air to soften steel enough to cause a collapse like that.

And keep in mind the second building hit, the plane went in at an angle and most of the fuel load burned outside the building. That building collapse first.

There are pictures of people standing in the entrance hole of the first building hit. Real hot fire there, correct? Or maybe all that burning jet fuel had already flowed down the elevator shafts, 80 some stories to the 7th sub basement, to burn so hot in that airless area to melt the 47 columns. Ya think?

My advice is to read up on who owned what and when and who was responsible for what for the WTC buildings that collapsed. The 'hmmmm' factor here stretches credibility all out of shape.

Coupled with 4 passenger planes off course with their transponders off for 2 1/2 hours before our military responded from a air base 110 miles away, with 2 fighters at 550 mph, when there was a perfectly good air base with 2 wings setting on the ground 11 miles from WDC.

You need to learn to question more.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Sorry. I'll stay with the engineers and leave the conspiracy theories to the experts.

I am on solid ground with the scientific data, and I won't be sucked into some bullshit chicken wire and plaster discussion of the construction of those buildings.