WTC7 damage according to NIST Investigator Shyam Sunder

[spooked911]

from the Popular Mechanics "debunking" article on 9/11:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=1&c=y

"NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner."

Curiously, the damage Sunder describes is not documented in any way, there are no videos or pictures of this "scooped out" section.

But here is what I don't understand: if the lower front of building 7 was seriously compromised by debris damage from the WTC1 collapse, how did the building undergo this perfect symmetrical even collapse?

Why didn't the building lean and tip over on its front, since presumably the supporting columns were damaged on that side, low down, exactly where most of the weight would be bearing on them?

But instead the building goes straight down.

Sunder seems to be saying that if you were sitting on a chair, and someone bashed one of the legs out, rather than the chair tipping over towards the damaged side, the other legs cannot take up the weight and so they suddenly fail evenly, making you fall straight down.

[JackRiddler]

1. This is exactly what he claimed to me

When I went to the NIST presentation in New York in April 2005. He says he has pictures of this scooping-out; where are the pictures in the thousands of pages of the NIST report?

Part II C (WTC 7 Collapse, April 5, 2005) contains a graphic of "Estimated Extent of Debris Damage" to WTC 7. Sorry, I have this in print but you can no doubt also find it online at the WTC at NIST site.

The purported ground-level damage is charted as extending no further than three of the main columns at the front (out of 25 total). This is if we take the maximum estimate of the damage, the lesser estimate leaves these columns untouched. The collapse initiation area however is far to the right of that purported front-side damage (as seen from the south), with column 79 (don't ask me how they're numbered) identified as the key failure that started the East Penthouse kink and subsequent collapse. It as far from the purported front-side damage as you can get within the building. Sunder said this column held up an unusual amount of floor space, that its failure would cause a collapse of 20 percent of the floor area. But how did this one-column, 20 percent failure cause the smooth cascade effect once the overall collapse began? We should have seen that side falling off first before other failures began.

6.5 seconds from the moment the roof line begins to move - as an entire, straight line, straight down. With squibs and perfect compression.

[NecessaryOnslaught]

2. I call bullshit

Here a brief clip from a newscast taken at the base of WTC 7 on the side of the building that Sunder is describing, clearly taken after the towers had "collapsed". There is no evidence of any damage to this side of WTC 7, nor any type of large debris near the building.
http://tinyurl.com/8g7nb

This is a shot from the opposite side of the walkway taken before 9/11.


The damage that Sunder is describing matches exactly the damage to the bankers trust building, which as you can see stood up nicely.

[spooked911]

3. EXCELLENT FIND!!!!!!

All right-- we can now officially proclaim that Shyam Sunder, lead author on the official government report on the collapses of WTC1 and WTC2, is FULL OF SHIT.



The one caveat is that the video you link doesn't show anything above the second or third floor of WTC7, but clearly the bottom of the building is not "scooped out"-- and from his description, it is much more likely he was referring to the banker's trust building.

It is quite amazing how much damage that building took but isn't close to collapse.

[ryan_cats]

4. The Oklahoma city bombing perfectly matches a scooped out description.

The Oklahoma city bombing perfectly matches a scooped out description. It didn't collapse until it was blown up. Granted it wasn't a 50 story building but it was sure missing some big pieces of itself.

Where are the pictures of this scooping out? Are they like the ones of that photographer who died in 9/11 but before he died got the picture of the Marriott basically cut in half. It stood too until the other WTC collapsed.