Asking what really happened 9/11

The two brothers are quite ordinary young men with a master degree in mechanical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology, both working with processing within the petroleum industry; one working for StatoilHydro, the other for a consultancy company. When it comes to politics, this is what they say: 

- We belong to the right wing of Norwegian politics. The USA is a great country, and its people are nice and welcoming. Our criticism has nothing to do with politics, it’s simply about what’s right and wrong, Ove Hundseid says.

Were shocked 

- What got you so interested in the 9/11 attack? 

- We were at a friend’s house when all of a sudden he said the WTC towers were attacked. At first, we were shocked, but our friend is a sensible and reliable man, Ove says. 

The two decided to check out information on the Internet and also ordered films of the towers collapsing. They have also studied recordings of how the WTC 7 collapsed 7 to 8 hours later. 

- The laws of nature cannot explain how the towers could fall at a speed close to that of a free-fall and then be reduced to dust.

Strong core 

The Twin Towers, WTC 1 and 2, were constructed in the late 1960s. The buildings were about 415 m high, 63x63 m wide and each had 110 floors. Each tower weighed 5-700 000 ton, one fifth of which was pure steel. 

- They were designed to withstand hurricanes and an impact caused by airplane. Even fire caused by airplane fuel had been taken into consideration, his brother Jan says. 

- Each tower had a core made up of 47 massive steel beams, more massive than what is normally used when constructing buildings, Ove says. 

He sketches out how each tower was hit by two separate planes. 

- If we accept that the floors around the steel core collapsed due to fire after the plane crashed into the buildings, it’s impossible to understand why the steel core wasn’t left standing in the middle of the ruins.

Not warm enough 

The official explanation to the collapse of the Twin Towers claim the heat from the fire softened the steel, causing it to collapse. Jan and Ove Hundseid dismiss this claim. 

Kevin Ryan, working for the company that certified the steel, backs up their theory. He told the head of the NIST commission that if the core reached 450°C, the steel would still maintain 75 percent of its strength. 

Melting construction steel requires 1560°C, a heat not reached in an ordinary fire. 

- Judging by the black smoke rising from the buildings a while after the planes crashed into them, we can see there was no complete combustion, Jan says. 

- It’s like when after you choke a gas burner, soot comes out. Incomplete combustion indicates insufficient heat, Ove explains. 

Their point of view is confirmed by the official NIST report, which lists the highest temperature measured on an external beam at 250°C.

Reduced to dust 

The official NIST report establishes that the northern tower WTC 1 collapsed in 11 seconds, while the southern WTC 2 took 9 seconds to collapse. 

The collapse is supposed to have been generated by gravity alone. Each floor is to have crushed the floor beneath like pancakes. The collapses resulted in huge clouds of dust covering Manhattan as the towers pulverized. 

- This can’t possibly be right. If you drop a large chunk of reinforced concrete from an altitude of 200 m, it would crush into pieces, not turn into dust. When 110 floors collapse on top of each other, it should have left behind a 30-40-metre pile of ruins, Ove claims.

Calculations needed 

During a recent Internet debate on this issue organised by Aftenbladet, Jan Hundseid was challenged by someone who claimed the gravitational potential energy would be powerful enough to pulverize everything. How do the brothers respond to such a claim? 

- This is a complicated calculation. Some of the energy went into deforming the steel, some into pulverizing the concrete and some was transformed into falling velocity, Ove says. 

- If you want to calculate how much energy went into the indicated falling velocity, you have to add to the equation that remnants of steel beams were flung into neighbouring buildings during the fall, Jan says. 

He brings to our attention that there is no official analysis of how the buildings broke down in 9-11 seconds. NIST has only analysed how the collapse started, not the collapse itself. 

- Such an analysis is essential to answer how such massive steel constructions could break down completely in such a short period of time, Jan says.

The billiard ball 

Judy Wood, an American professor of engineering, has done parts of the calculations requested by the Hundseid brothers. These results were published in a web article called “A refutation of the official collapse theory”. 

According to her calculations, a billiard ball dropped from the top of the WTC towers in a vacuum would take 9.22 seconds to fall to the ground. 

It would therefore not be possible for 110 floors to collapse at the same speed (9-11 seconds according to NIST), since the gravitational potential energy had to go to both pulverizing the concrete, flinging debris into surrounding buildings in addition to crushing one floor after the other in the fall. 

Wood’s calculations show that the shortest amount of time it could take for each floor to slam onto the next, like pieces of domino, would be 96.7 seconds, a little more than one and a half minute. 

This is how Jan Hundseid comments on Wood’s analysis: 

- It’s so well illustrated with calculations and photos that it ought to lead to new official evaluations of the collapse of the towers. What we ask for is an even more thorough analysis than the one performed by Wood. The entire building needs to be analysed using computer programs.

Explosives 

So how could the Twin Towers have collapsed as fast as it did? 

- Explosives must have been planted on the different floors, assume Jan and Ove Hundseid. 

As they watch the TV recordings of the collapse in slow motion, they notice minor explosions emerging horizontally from the walls far below and before the collapse has reached this level. 

- Some claim this is air being squeezed out, but to me it looks like the kind of explosions you see in controlled demolitions, Ove says. 

- We’ve also seen film clips showing the fire fighters who helped out after the attacks. Along with the reporters, they claim they heard a series of explosions in the basements under the towers. TV footage from the lobby in one of the towers shows that everything had been blown out, which could hardly be due to the impact of the plane hitting 80 floors above, Jan says.

Building 7 

As for WTC Building 7, collapsing at 5.20 pm on the same day, the Hundseid brothers think there is no doubt we are talking about a controlled demolition. 

- It collapsed absolutely symmetrically in only 6.5 seconds. The laws of nature do not support that such a thing could have happened without the help of explosives. 

- But who could have brought in the amounts of dynamite necessary to blow up such a building? 

Jan and Ove are unable to answer this question. All they want is this: 

- A new investigation, just as the 9/11 Truth Movement is asking for.

Open letter 

On Friday November 16 they noticed an announcement in Stavanger Aftenblad, that the weekend insert would contain an article on the 9/11 attacks. At that point, the brothers had been working for a few months on drafting a letter containing a number of links to the Internet, as well as copying 27 sets each containing two DVDs to enclose with the letters. 

The letter sums up media reports of events occurring prior to, and after, September 11 2001, and encourages the readers to raise critical questions. 

- At that point I told Ove it was time for us to send out what we had been working on. 

Thus, the two engineers sent out an open letter to all members of the Norwegian Parliament, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as to several medias. 

- What kind of response did you get? 

- Not much. An MP representing the Progress Party (FrP), Ulf Erik Knudsen, requested we stop sending him such nonsense. He went on to suggest we contact the Norwegian Institute of Technology to ask for a refund of our tuition, Jan says, looking at his brother in despair. 

- Aftenbladet asked if it was “about time to go conspiratorial?” My answer is no, but it’s high time to request facts, Jan says. 

- Should anyone wish to study the collapse of WTC 1, 2 and 7, I can recommend the documentary 911 Mysteries Part 1: Demolitions. It is available at video.google.com, Ove says, before ending with the following: 

- If the official explanation is correct, something has to be done to the standard for high-rise buildings.

So far, they have heard no such demands.