Latest Critique of NIST's Final Report on the WTC Collapses

[Revised for NIST Final Report]

Building a Better Mirage

NIST's 3-Year $20,000,000 Cover-Up of the Crime of the Century
by Jim Hoffman
Version 1.0, Dec 8, 2005

a critique of the Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers by the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster

revision history
8/01/05: 911Research publishes Version 0.9 of this critique
8/21/05: 911Research publishes Version 0.98 of this critique
12/08/05: 911Research publishes Version 1.0 of this critique
NOTE: Pre-1.0 versions of this essay critiqued the Draft of NIST's Final Report.
Version 1 includes the new section NIST's Vacuous Response to its Critics.

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NIST's Vacuous Response to its Critics

The main difference between the Draft and the Final Report is the addition in the Final Report of Section 6.14.4, "Events Following Collapse Initiation," which consists of five paragraphs filling half a page. This section apparently constitutes the "little analysis of the structural behavior" following "collapse initiation" mentioned in the Executive Summary. Section 6.14.4 promotes the pile-driver theory with a circular argument; cherry-picks, misrepresents, and dismisses with faulty arguments evidence of controlled demolition; and attacks the demolition hypothesis by melding it with hoaxes.

The Pile-Driver Theory, Again

The first two paragraphs of the new section reiterate the pile-driver theory using similar language and vagueness to many earlier tellings of the theory.

Failure of the south wall in WTC 1 and east wall in WTC2 caused the portion of the building above to tilt in the direction of the failed wall. The tilting was accompanied by a downward movement. The story immediately below the stories in which the columns failed was not able to arrest this initial movement as evidenced by videos from several vantage points.

The structure below the level of the collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structures below to absorb that through energy of deformation. (p 146/196)

Note the observations that the structure below was "not able to arrest this initial movement," and "offered minimal resistance." The Report implies that this was because the force of the falling mass destroyed the intact structure below it. It does not actually state this, however, or rule out the shattering of structure by explosives as the reason for the minimal resistance. Instead, it states that the energy of the falling mass exceeded the "energy of deformation" that the intact structures could supply. That may or may not be true, but the intact structure could have arrested the downward movement of the top without deforming by simply transmitting the impact forces to the ground. These nuances of meaning will not be noticed by the casual reader but could provide the investigators with an out in the event that they are charged with covering up the crime of the intentional controlled demolition of the Towers. Statements that are grossly misleading but legally defensible because they are technically true are one of the hallmarks of a sophisticated cover-up.

. . .