I think you're missing the point. I am not questioning that these men conspired to hijack the planes. The point is that both explanations can accurately described as "conspiracy theories" however only one carries a connotation with it.The difference is one scenario actually happened, the other is wishful thinking by people trying to accuse the gov't of something it likely shouldn't be accused of.
I'm not aware of any suggestions that explosives were placed in the Pentagon or in the Capitol. I'm also not familiar with any suggestions that the hijackers were hired by anyone (other than al-Queda, I suppose). Could you please tell me where you're hearing these suggestions so that I can see what else they have to say? Oh geez. How many ridiculous theories have you heard over the years? I've heard hundreds. I didn't catalog them. Have you sourced all the ridiculous theories you've heard? I've seen a youtube vid of some supposed explosion happening at the Pentagon prior to the plane actually making impact (which by definition requires explosives to have been planted prior). I've heard people speculate that the gov't adjusted the information to make it look like Al Qaeda hired the terrorists when it was some super-secret black ops thing. Most of it was pure crap and half-baked pseudo-science, and I didn't waste brain space remembering where I'd seen/heard that stuff.
There were lots of media reports of explosions and discussion regarding the possibility of bombs. They discuss them at length in several of the videos that are available.
FWIW though, I tend not to put too much into them though because everyone knows that eyewitness accounts tend to be sketchy at best. I do find the pervasiveness of them pretty interesting though.
When the B-25 hit the Empire state building, people thought they heard bomb-like explosions, too.
Thank you for your opinion.
As I pointed out above, interviews with a member of the team responsible for the buildings' construction indicate that both structures were designed to withstand multiple airplane crashes.They were designed to withstand crashes by 707s, not 767's which are considerably heavier and fly faster. The 767s hit with about 3.4 times greater force than what the designers anticipated.
From the Fema report (
http://www.fema.gov/rebuild/mat/wtcstudy.shtm):
The WTC towers were the first buildings outside of the military and nuclear industries whose design considered the impact of a jet airliner, the Boeing 707. It was assumed in the 1960's design analysis for the WTC towers that an aircraft, lost in fog and seeking to land at a nearby airport, like the B-25 Mitchell bomber that struck the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, might strike a WTC tower while low on fuel and at landing speeds. However, in the September 11 events, the Boeing 767-200ER aircraft that hit both towers were considerably larger with considerably greater weight, or mass, and traveling at substantially higher speeds. The Boeing 707 that was considered in the design of the towers was estimated to have gross weight of 263,000 pounds and a flight speed of 180 mph as it approached an airport; the Boeing 767-200ER aircraft that were used to attack the towers had an estimated gross weight of 274,000 pounds and flight speeds of 470 to 590 mph upon impact. (p. I-17)
Before anyone gets their shorts in knots about the different sizes of Boeing 707s (
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html), note that the report says 'the Boeing 707 that was considered in the [1960's] design' was the one listed above in the quote.
Do I take his word over the firefighters interviewed in more than a few of the films available? They were at ground zero also. What about the recordings of firefighters that were in the building but didn't survive to give interviews? They would be equally trained, no?If they're also hazmat trained firefighters (because that is an extra, very specific level of training), then they might have the same credibility. Have you identified the full credentials of all the firefighters in those films?
Okay (
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=92525&page=1)
A B-25 Mitchell (
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=81) is considerably smaller (MTOW 34,000 lbs), flies a lot slower (272 mph), and has a much smaller fuel load of 974 gallons (
http://www.xs4all.nl/~fbonne/warbirds/ww2htmls/nortb25.html) than a Boeing 767 (
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/767family/pf/pf_200prod.html)'s) 23,980 gallons. I don't see how you can possibly begin to compare those. Not to mention they use 2 different fuel types.
Engineers planned for airplanes, just not airplanes carrying fuel. Got it. OK, that did sound dumb on its own so let me clarify: they did not plan for a 767 of that weight going that speed with that great of a load of fuel.
Thanks goodness for easy answers from our government :)
Well, there are some things that don't fit any of the scenarios well. There are so many things that happened on that day that we'll never know completely understand because the forensic data is destroyed. I understand that some of the remaining evidence can be viewed and/or twisted to fit various theories.
The simplest explanation is still 'bad guys ram planes into WTC, this causes tremendous structural strain on the building both from physical and fire damage, buildings collapse under the strain'.
Any conspiracy theory is much more complex and has room for way too many errors to happen. For example, this theory, which may or may not be grounded in some reality and/or fantasy: 'bad guys, who may or may not have been hired by the the CIA, KGB, MI-6, Guoanbu, and/or the Mossad to make it look like an Al Qaeda plot (and Saddam Hussein if we can at all possibly implicate him), were sent on a mission to plow some planes into buildings that we had pre-wired with explosives to collapse in the event of, shockingly, just such an occurrence, so that we could make sure lots of Americans die (and Brits too, we're sorry about that, Your Majesty, but it's all for a good cause!). That way, we'll get lots and lots of sympathy from the American (and maybe British) people so that we can go whack Osama bin Ladin, who we've blamed for this whether he did it or not, take out the Taliban because we don't like how they've covered up women so we can't leer at them anymore, and most importantly, get a bunch of bad intel and quite possibly completely made-up crap in Iraq to give us an excuse to go beat the snot out of Hussein, especially if it looks real enough to fool Powell. That should provide us with enough sympathy (and/or abject stupidity) from the American people (and the Brits because we like to fight with them, not against them) so that we can take out Saddam & Sons and Make Iraq (and maybe Afghanistan) A Bastion of Democracy in the Middle East (even if the real reason is just to get back at Saddam). Oh, and by the way, we're going to swear several hundred people to abject secrecy, despite the fact that some of them can be bought at any time for the right price. If any secrets do leak out, like in the FBI, we'll just 'make sure' that the leaks are never made again and we'll make up even more outrageous stories to cover our first stories. That way, Bush can have 'his little war", and we will have promoted Truth, Justice, and The American Way to the world!'
Sure, that's pretty simple. I might find a way add in some aliens while we're at it. :D