Columns Likely Failed First in Terrorist-Triggered WTC Fires McGraw-Hill Construction | ENR
The lead investigator of the $16-million Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center’s destruction says the team’s working hypothesis is that columns, weakened by fires ignited by jet fuel, failed and triggered the collapse of the twin 110-story towers.
The June 18 announcement in New York City, made by Shyam Sunder of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, Md., implies that floor trusses, under close scrutiny since 9/11, did not fail first.