r/NoStupidQuestions • u/JMRooDukes808 • 6d ago

Do you think the 9/11 hijackers knew that the WTC buildings would collapse?

I really don’t know where else to ask this. There is obviously an overload of information about the event itself online, but one thing I can’t find out is if the hijackers intended to, or knew that the WTC buildings would collapse. Do you think they just planned on the impact and fires to be the extent of the damage caused? As far as I know, no steel structure buildings in history had collapsed from fire at that point, so it makes me wonder if they actually “succeeded” in their plan more than they intended.

Edit: no conspiracies please, that was not the point of my post

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u/Hoppie1064 6d ago

US forces found a tape in November 2001 that they released the transcript for in December 2001. You can read an English transcript here.

It includes predictions that were made of what the terrorists thought would happen, including bin Laden's himself.

UBL: (...Inaudible...) we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower. We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.

In other words, bin Laden thought they might reach every floor above where the plane hit on each tower, but not the collapse of the entire towers.

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u/plunkadelic_daydream 6d ago

I stopped to get coffee on the way to work and people started to gather around the television. Then the 2nd plane hit. I went to work and listened to coverage on NPR. It didn’t register with me that the buildings completely collapsed until some hours afterwards. I imagined portions of it collapsing, not the entire thing because that was unthinkable.

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

I was on my way to class and heard about the building getting a hit a few minutes after the first plane. When I got to my friends house to watch the news they were about to replay the first tower collapsing when the second tower collapsed and it took several minutes for it to register in my brain that i was watching everything live.

My one class before they canceled the day and evacuated the campus (of 50k students and faculty) had a teacher from France with Opinions who used the hour and a half to rant about America. Maybe not the best way to read the room.

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u/Wrekt-Okie 5d ago

I was a freshman when that happened on the West Coast so it happened much earlier in the day for us. I watched the replay's in the student union. My english prof refused to release us. My History prof was an academic on Native Studies so he used the hour to rant. It was a wild day

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u/pjourneyRB 5d ago

I was a freshman too, at fsu. I had to pick my gf up from campus which is close to the capitol building and there were a few apc’s around. W’s brother was our governor and I guess they thought he might be a target.

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u/Wrekt-Okie 5d ago

I was at UNLV. We had a clear line of sight to the New York New York casino. Vegas was freaking out thinking we were targets as well. My dad was an air traffic controller working that day. He had a rough one.

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u/CraigLake 5d ago

I was in a college band at the time and we used to play with a great all-girl punk band called Americunt. Americunt’s shtick was anti-capitalism, anti-colonialism, anti- conservative oppression, etc. All good stuff. But a week or so after 9/11 we played a show with them and they kept yelling ‘fuck America!’ And other things. Seemed a little soon.

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u/Jupiter_Doke 5d ago

I totally read this as a college marching band… I was like “how the hell did they work that out??” Wokest marching band ever.

Now it makes sense. 😬 #toosoon #neverforget

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u/CraigLake 5d ago

😂😂 I could’ve been more clear lol. I should’ve said a band while in college.

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u/D34thToBlairism 5d ago

lmao who cares America didn't stop being a colonialist empire just because of 9/11

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u/CraigLake 5d ago

Yeah, for sure. Couldn’t agree more. The point was 3000+ people just died in a tragic attack and it was only a few days before. I’m not defending policies, just saying the timing may have been insensitive.

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u/D34thToBlairism 5d ago

saying fuck America isn't saying fuck the people who died in 9/11?

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u/CraigLake 5d ago

I know you get my point.

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u/D34thToBlairism 5d ago

not really, because they were saying fuck America at a time when politicians were using the attack to brew up support for the war on terror and turn American into even more of an imperialist polic state than it already was. if anything that was the exact correct time to be saying fuck America

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u/CraigLake 5d ago

I guess we’re going to disagree on this one.

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u/spicy_dill_cucumber 5d ago

You belong in guantanamo

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u/Direct-Ad1642 5d ago

What do you think Imperialism is?

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u/spicy_dill_cucumber 5d ago

You belong in guantanamo

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u/D34thToBlairism 5d ago

rational and sane thing to say. I want you take a moment to think about the fact you for me to be tortured and think about whether that sits roght with you. i did nothing other than state that opposition to American nationalism at the time when support for the war on terror was being built was good. i come from a family whose country was destroyed by the war on terror. i only called for an opposition to American nationalism and you called for my violent torture? is that who you really are? do you object to free speech that much? have some shame

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u/D34thToBlairism 5d ago

i hope you'd be ready to back that talk up with violence irl. otherwise your just hiding behind a computer calling for me to be tortured for free speech cunt

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u/Direct-Ad1642 5d ago

lmao dude youre such a fucking wiener

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u/0RGASMIK 5d ago

I was in third grade. My school banned us from talking about it. Was really sad. I wore my NYFD shirt that day and they made me put it on inside out. That was the day my teachers and school staff became the enemy.

They eventually addressed it in an assembly but it was too late.

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u/sofa_king_weetawded 5d ago

Wtf? That's wild. Where was this?

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u/0RGASMIK 5d ago

California. My dad was out of town and I woke up early that day which was very rare. I guess I missed my dad because I turned on the TV and turned it to the news, my dad always watched the news in the morning and that’s what usually woke me up.

I turned it on right before the tower collapsed. My mom thought I was joking when I woke her up. I had just received that NYFD shirt from someone and learned all the buildings of New York because they showed me pictures of their trip. Super weird day my mom thought I had psychic abilities because why else would a 7 year old wake up early and turn on the news.

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u/Hoppie1064 4d ago

I watched both towers go down live.

I remember thinking, "How many thousands of people did I just watch die?"

I knew tens of thousands of people worked in each tower.

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u/Frosty558 5d ago

Classic Frenchman.

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u/AlmondCigar 5d ago

What happened to that teacher?

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

Nothing.

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u/Every3Years Shpeebs 5d ago

Well. Good. Can't really expect people to have known that it was going to be a reality shifting incident. I remember at my school we all gathered and one of the RAs started singing amazing grace. I guess that's better than a rant but tbf you didn't say anti-America, just that it was an rant focused on America. Honestly that almost seems appropriate. There was a lot of shit America had done that probably would have never crossed my desk had it not been for 9-11. Not conspiracy bullshit but like after we lost a bit of our freedoms it caused me at least to take a better look at this country, this government, and the weird religion that rules em unofficially.

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

I guess I can clarify to say she went on a tirade about how much she hates America and we had it coming to us.

I was at a large American (like I said 50k students and faculty) university.

This was 2001. It wasn’t the era where everyone gets reported for everything. Which is a separate debate and I’m not here to talk about that in any way. Just noting it was a different era completely.

I was annoyed at her timing and also the fact that she used her platform in a linguistics class to talk politics for weeks afterwards.

I just wanted to learn cool things about languages.

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u/Every3Years Shpeebs 5d ago

I guess that's why it was still cool to make funnada French back then. Makes sense!

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u/jompjorp 2d ago

Everyone knew ir was reality shifting the second they saw the footage, Jesus Christ

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u/Every3Years Shpeebs 2d ago

Well, no, we didn't really know what the hell was going on at first. And some of us came here from countries that experienced terrorist attacks, war, civil war, dictatorships, etc... And I imagine overall experience was different than full blooded Merry Cans.

Of course it was tragic and unthinkable and insane and horrible. But if you lived your entire life only in the US and this was your first real tragedy, that's different from people that came here from elsewhere. It just is.

We're a super young country and I suppose that means we'll still experience those calamitous growing pains well into the future. Shit I think we're experiencing one right now and have been for these last few years.

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u/jompjorp 1d ago

Stop talking

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u/Every3Years Shpeebs 1d ago

No thanks, you do make me miss being young and dumb though. Thanks for the reminder, sir edgelord

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u/SensibleChapess 5d ago

... you've not mentioned the third tower that collapsed?

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

Huh? What’s your point?

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u/SensibleChapess 5d ago

Most people only ever seem to mention the fate of the two towers, WTC1 and WTC2, that day.

I wondered why that is?

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

Oh for literal fucks sake. Go away.

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u/SensibleChapess 5d ago

Why is my referring to WTC7, an over 40 story steel framed skyscraper, not hit by any aeroplanes, that collapsed into its own footprint, (partially at free-fall speed), and that was only partially on fire from debris, and whose collapse remains inexplicable, so emotive?

It's an honest question... and a very important one if the memory of that day is notvto be subverted by an incomplete, and thus very flawed, narrative.

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u/graceful_mango 5d ago

Because you’re being incredibly weird. That’s why. Out of the woodwork you respond to my comments like you’re trying to catch me I’m at something or swing your agenda or who the fuck knows what.

Go. Away. Weird. Oh.

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u/SensibleChapess 5d ago

This is social media.

People comme to each other.

Sorry... but I'm honestly puzzled as to why you seem more bothered by my asking questions, in a public social media forum, than the puzzle of the collapse of WTC7 that day. Its a very important matter and I'm sorry but I'm genuinely intrigued why over 99% of people never mentioned it, they just talk about the twin towers.

Three planes were heading to NYC that morning.

One crashed.

Leaving two planes to hit the WTC complex.

... and yet three building collapsed. The only examples of steel framed buildings to ever have collapsed in the history of skyscrapers. There have been bigger fires in other skyscrapers, but the steel was fine and the buildings rebuilt. Its just something at that day that's never talked about...

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u/haughtTopick 5d ago

Come on grandad, let’s help you get that tinfoil hat of

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u/SensibleChapess 4d ago

Sorry, I don't understand. I'm a retired Principal Business Analyst. I retired in my 40s, some years ago, because I was luckily paid quite a bit for my skills in looking at issues in an objective manner and 'cutting to the chase' of major issues affecting global companies.

If those skills can be in much demand by corporations when facing immediate issues, or setting out their 5yr, 10yr and even 20yr strategic plans, why are those skills suddenly of no relevance when it comes to other matters?

It's a fact that three buildings collapsed that day, but only two were hit by aeroplanes.

It's a fact that the only three steel framed buildings to ever have collapsed anywhere all occured that morning at the WTC complex.

It's a fact that over 2000 Architects and Engineers, qualified people that design and construct such buildings, all signed a collective affidavit to say that the collapses that day were not, in fact, explainable by the official explanations put forward by FEMA. N.B. Early on the FEMA team proposed the 'Pancake Theory', the world saw news clips of them setting up a dummy partial building and blasting it with heat to test the dedirmation and/or collapse of steel frames. So many people think the (simplistic) story stopped there and still, to this day, say "the upper floors collapsed onto the lower floors and the building collapsed like a pancake". What they're unaware of is that the A&E professionals proved that could not happen and FEMA had ro go back to the drawing board... the problem is the public didn't hear about that rather important development.

WTC7 was claimed by FEMA to have collapsed due to office fires. So that is the official cause of a 47 story, steel-framed, skyscraper collapsing. There are thosands of steel framed buildings all over the USA yet federal building regulations after 9/11 were not upgraded to require even one additional fire extinguisher be available in such buildings.

The above are facts.

The 2000 Architects and Engineers deal in facts. They have never commented on anything other than facts. They simply want to understand what led to the collapses so as they cannot happen again.

Why is any of that 'tin foil'?

Wouldn't you, next time you are in a large steel framed building, want to know that an 'office fire' wasn't going to make it collapse? I know I'd like to know it was safe!

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u/graceful_mango 4d ago

Because the fucking tragedy of the the two towers falling with people inside somehow outweighs an evacuated building that also collapsed you syrup soaked waffle.

And your weird inability to parse out why your “I’m just trying to have an intelligent conspiracy theory moment with someone I don’t know” is fucking weird.

If you so desperately want to know why this building fell then i suggest using your time to research it on your own.

It seems that you didn’t live through this so also kindly fuck off with your judgment on why people focus on the trauma we went through watching people jump out of skyscrapers because that was less painful for them than jet fueled fire. Versus a short evacuated building that collapsed without killing a fuck ton of first responders in it as well.

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u/SensibleChapess 4d ago

You can throw a tantrum all you like.

I'm well informed about the explanations put forward by FEMA, as well as the 2000 qualified professionals who signed the affidavit to join 'Architects and Engineers for 9/11Truth'. The latter are not 'conspiracy theorists' but people who design buildings for a living and some actually set the standards for building and construction controls. They are motivated because they want to, need to, understand what happened so as it doesn't happen again, and thus save lives.

Every explanation FEMA came up with for the collapse of WTC7 was proven to be incorrect by the professional architects and engineers.

Isn't getting to the bottom of why a 47 story, steel framed, skyscraper collapsed in less than 10 seconds a bit of an issue that needs more people to be aware of and ask "How on Earth did that happen?".

P.S. You don't seem to be aware, but at the time WTC7 was a huge question mark? Unfortunately for the victims that day, people's emotions have got the better of them and it has become a disservice to simply ask the valid question "What about WTC7?", and to try and remind people that three buildings in the WTC complex collapsed that morning, not just two.

Think of it this way, and let me know of you agree, if a 47 story steel-framed building can collapse, partly at free-fall speed, when it had only suffered minor damage is a significant worry because until we know why it did it could happen again. A fully occupied building that size, on a typical workday, will house more people than died in the largely evacuated WTC1 and WTC2 buildings. It is a travesty that all those people died on 9/11, it's a travesty if we don't do anything to avoid another WTC7, (whether it was a failure in building control, the construction company cutting corners, poor components, or something else entirely).

In light of the above can you please explain your aversion to mentioning that three WTC skyscrapers collapsed that morning?

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