October 14, 2018
Twin Towers engineer blamed himself after 9/11
From the article:
"In 1945, a military plane accidentally crashed into the Empire State Building. There were 14 casualties and $1 million in damage, but the 1,250-foot-tall structure stayed upright. So when structural engineer Leslie Robertson was working on the World Trade Center, which would trump the Empire State by 100-plus feet, he considered jet impact.
"The towers were designed [to withstand a] 707", the largest commercial airliner that existed in the 1970s, Robertson, 90, told The Post. "A low-flying, slow-flying 707 heading for Idlewild"  But on 9/11, two fully-fueled 767s sparked fires that weakened the Twin Towers' support systems beyond anticipation.
The World Trade Center was destroyed, and so was Robertson.
"He lost a lot of his joy and spirit. He had to defend himself, because he was attacked, criticized and pressed by other engineers, by architects, by clients,â€Â says architect A. Eugene Kohn in a documentary about his colleague Robertson, "Leaning Out", premiering Tuesday at the Architecture and Design Film Festival."
Read the entire article.
Dana Mathewson adds:
Isn't it "just like" some people, to castigate a guy for not planning for a crash by planes not yet in existence? How far do you take that idea? Plan a building to withstand a hit by the Death Star? Sheesh! And note he planned for an accidental crash by a plane coming in for a landing. Yes. Who would have foreseen a deliberate attack? We were not at war with the Islamic world back then.
Tim's 2c
That is part and parcel with the liberal notion that they are gods, and they can control everything. If something happens outside of the controls of Man it there must be someone to blame. Our era is chock-full of blame, always looking to establish fault. That's because the Left refuses to admit there is fate, there are acts of God, and we do not control events.
This from Eddie,a trained engineer:
The KE of a B767 vs. A B707 can be estimated to be as high as 8 to 1. That plane probably was shredded on impact but enough KE remained in some of its pieces to travel across to the opposite side of one of the towers and blow out through the inner and outer core, falling to the ground.The fire insulation code at the time of design and specification writing would have to be followed, reviewed and approved by recognized authorities, for obvious reasons. Inadequate by today's standards often wonder how much of that dust plume from the collapse contained asbestos particulate coated with vaporized mercury, generated from the 1000's of destroyed fluorescent light tubes.A tragic day for many, and hard lessons hopefully learned.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
09:18 AM
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