Eyewitness testimony, photos, and dust analysis show liquid molten steel floors below ground at WTC 1, 2, and even under Building 7, impossible according to the collapse theories in the official reports.
According to the official theory, the event’s peak temperature, which was reached immediately before collapse, was 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. That is the highest recorded temperature of jet fuel (kerosene), and has only been reached in laboratory experiments. Real-world measurements of kerosene fire rarely exceed 1,600 degrees, and after fuel burns off in a matter of minutes (as stated in the NIST report), temperatures fall to 800-1,200 degrees, or within the normal range of office fires. NIST claimed that unique conditions allowed the non-kerosene-fueled fire to reach 1,600 degrees and weaken the steel, but steel does not become molten until 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and cannot vaporize until 5,400 degrees. Molten steel, not weakened steel, was documented, as well as molten and vaporized steel, molten molybdenum, and vaporized lead.
These findings indicate temperatures of at least 5,500 degrees were reached at moments during the event and temperatures of at least 2,800 degrees were sustained for long periods of time after collapse.
What do the official reports – the 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST Report- say about the molten steel?
The 9/11 Commission Report contains the transcript of Ken Holden’s testimony of molten metal under WTC 1, but makes no comment on it. As a side note, the report also conspicuously fails to make a single mention of WTC Building 7, a 47-storey skyscraper that collapsed symmetrically in its own footprint at free-fall speed on the afternoon of 9/11, even though it was not hit by a plane. The NIST report claims Building 7 collapsed this way due to fire fueled by burning office materials, in which temperatures do not top 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit and typically fluctuate between 800-1000 degrees.
There is only one comment on molten steel in either official report, and it is buried deep in the 10,000-page NIST report:
“The condition of the steel in the wreckage of the WTC towers (i.e., whether it was in a molten state or not) was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing.”
How could it be irrelevant? That would suggest that either the standing buildings’ structural steel could have been liquid in the days leading up to 9/11, or that steel spontaneously liquefies without a heat source, both absurd notions. Basically, NIST is saying, ‘we don’t know why there was molten steel there, and we don’t want to know why.’
What else have government officials said about it?
“First of all let’s go back to your basic premise that there was a pool of molten steel. I know of absolutely nobody, no eyewitness, who has said so.”
-John Gross, NIST Lead Structural Engineer, de facto spokesman for media inquiries on the NIST report, and the only member of the US government who has addressed the issue of molten steel under the buildings, either verbally or in print. This statement was made in 2007 after all of the eyewitness statements below had already been published in major media and heavily discussed for several years in circles of those studying the collapse.
Neither the NIST Report nor the 9/11 Commission Report addressed the findings of scientists at the RJ Lee Group (a prominent international engineering firm) who was commissioned by Deutsche Bank to analyze the dust from Ground Zero, or those of a group of Danish scientists led by Dr. Niels Harrit (Columbia University, University of Copenhagen), whose published dust analysis results were identical to RJ Lee’s. The studies indicate temperatures of at least 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit in the rubble of the towers (see below for details on the studies).
NIST added to its report’s then single remark on molten metal in the wreckage when it flatly rejected the possibility of molten steel at any stage of the event in a post-report-publication statement on its website:
“In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36).”
-from NIST website, http://wtc.nist.gov/
The highest recorded temperature of hydrocarbon fire is 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (achieved only in a laboratory setting, never documented in real-world measurements which average 1,600 degrees). Apparently 1,500-1,800 degrees Fahrenheit qualifies as ‘about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit’ to NIST.
Over 35 eyewitness accounts of molten steel
The following are accounts of discovery of molten steel underneath the buildings (not to be confused with the molten metal seen dripping off high stories of the Twin Towers). You can watch some of these statements on the first posted video on this page’s wall.
“There were hot spots of molten steel in the basements, three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed, at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”
“Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being ‘dipped’ out by the buckets of excavators. I’m not sure where you can get a copy.”
-Mark Loizeaux, President, Controlled Demolition, Inc., one of the world’s largest demolition companies, which was the primary contractor for cleanup of Ground Zero
“There were pools of literally molten steel.”
-Peter Tully, President, Tully Construction, Inc., also contracted to clean up Ground Zero
“As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running.”
“When we were down at the B1 level, one of the firefighters said, ‘I think you’d be interested in this,’ and they pulled off a big block of concrete and there was like a little river of steel.”
“There were little rivers of molten steel flowing.”
-Leslie Robertson, Chief Structural Engineer of construction of World Trade Center; President, Structural Engineers Association of Utah
“The fires got very intense down there and actually melted beams where it was molten steel that was being dug up.”
-Richard Riggs, General Manager, Aman Environmental Construction, demolition company contracted to clean up Ground Zero
“I was shown slides of molten metal, which was still red hot weeks after the event.”
-Dr. Keith Eaton, The Institution of Structural Engineers (UK)
“Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the walls from Building 6.”
-Ken Holden, Director, New York Department of Design and Construction
“NYDS played a major role in debris removal — everything from molten steel beams to human remains.”
-Kathy Dawkins, Spokeswoman, New York Department of Sanitation
“Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel.”
-Alison Geyh, PhD, Johns Hopkins University, part of a government-commissioned team of public health scientists who visited the site after the collapse
“I saw melting of girders in the World Trade Center.”
“The beam, so named because its cross-section looks like a capital I, had clearly endured searing temperatures. Parts of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.”
-Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, PhD, UC Berkeley, structural engineer and engineering professor, speaking about WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane. (The vaporization point for steel is 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit.)
“Steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.”
-Jonathan Barnett, PhD, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, structural engineering professor. (The vaporization point for steel is 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit.)
“”Evidence of some steel melting was suggested by the photographs.”
-Ahmed Ghoniem, PhD, MIT, Ronald C. Crane Professor of Mechanical Engineering, specializes in thermodynamics
“You’d get down below and you’d see molten steel, molten steel, running down the channel rails, like you’re in a foundry, like lava.”
-Philip Ruvolo, Captain, FDNY
“Cranes were dripping from the molten steel.”
-Joe O’Toole, FDNY
“Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster.”
-Ron Burger, Public Health Advisor, National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“One of them commented on how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris.”
-Corey Kilgannon, New York Times, “Ironworkers’ Job of Clearing Ground Zero is Over, but the Trauma Lingers”
“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel.”
“Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains.”
-Guy Lounsbery, New York Air National Guard 109th Air Wing, aided in site cleanup
“When steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down.”
-Father Edward A. Malloy, “Visit to Ground Zero, New York City”
“A fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel.”
-Vance Deisingnore, OSHA Safety Officer, monitored working conditions at Ground Zero
“The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running.”
-Rich Garlock, structural engineer who worked under Leslie Robertson, one of the principal designers and engineers of WTC construction, from the PBS documentary “America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero”
“Large columns of steel were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals.”
“It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together.”
-Mike Donoho, Chief, Bryan, TX Fire Department, aided in cleanup effort
“The workers go through three pairs of rubber boots a day because they melt in the three-week-old fire of molten metal and jet fuel.”
“The health hazards are everywhere: the fire, molten metal, the lack of breathable air and 3000+ decomposing bodies. And, I’m working for these brave souls.”
-Ben Johnson, first responder, aided in cleanup effort
“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel.”
-Greg Fucheck, first responder, aided in cleanup effort
“Turner himself crawled through an opening and down crumpled stairwells to the subway, five levels below ground. He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life.”
-Re: Lee Turner, paramedic with Missouri Task Force 1 and Boone County, MO Fire Department, aided in cleanup
“Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath [my dog Anna’s] feet.”
-Sarah Atlas, Canine Search Specialist, New Jersey Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue
“There were big clumps of molten metal.”
-Glen Klein, NYPD, Emergency Services Unit, 9/11 first responder
“Deep down below ground a portion of the pile was still on fire and boiled with molten material.”
-Diary of Ed Pfister, first responder
“When I was there, of course, the remnants of the towers were still standing. It looked like an enormous junkyard. A scrap metal yard, very similar to that. Except this was still burning. There was still fire. On the cold days, even in January, there was a noticeable difference between the temperature in the middle of the site than there was when you walked two blocks over on Broadway. You could actually feel the heat. It took me a long time to realize it and I found myself actually one day wanting to get back. Why? Because I felt more comfortable. I realized it was actually warmer on site. The fires burned, up to 2,000 degrees, underground for quite a while before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off. I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat. So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors. It was just demolishing heat.”
-Herb Trimpe, Ground Zero chaplain
“Sometimes the steel could explode when the buried ends were exposed to the air. You saw some of the thickest steel I’ve ever seen bent like a pretzel, and you just couldn’t imagine the force that that took. The grapplers were pulling stuff out, big sections of iron that were literally on fire on the other end. They would hit the air and burst into flames, which was pretty spooky to see.”
-Larry Keating, union ironworker, aided in cleanup effort
“You see how this debris is still smoking? That’s from the fires that are still burning. Eight weeks later we still got fires burning. Every now and then, one of the pieces of equipment will dig in, it will open up a small area and the oxygen will rush in, and you’ll get this plume of brown-black smoke coming up. That’s because that fire just got more oxygen. So these things are burning. I think at one point they were about 2,800 degrees.”
-Construction worker in PBS documentary ‘America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero,’ name unknown
“I found it hard to believe that it bent because the size of it and how there’s no cracks in the iron. It’s bent without almost a single crack in it. It takes thousands of degrees to bend steel like this.”
– Ironworker discussing a horseshoe-shaped I-beam saved as a memorial in the A&E documentary ‘Relics from the Rubble,’ name unknown
“He would go wandering off through the subterranean ruins , gazing intently through small spectacles at the columns and beams . . . with apparently only a vague awareness of the danger signs around him – the jolt of a collapse far below, the rattle of cascading debris, the ominous groaning of weakened structures overhead, or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole.”
-William Langewiesche, speaking about Richard Garlock, structural engineer who worked under Leslie Robertson, who helped design and build the WTC, from the book ‘American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center’
“Now let’s hear from the only real journalist given unrestricted access to Ground Zero for the duration of the “cleanup.” He was below the surface of “the pile,” exploring with engineers on more than one occasion. Here he mentions “…the rattle of cascading debris, the ominous groaning of weakened structures overhead, or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole.”
– William Langewiesche, mentioning a journalist and other engineers who accompanied Garlock on his explorations into Ground Zero rubble, from the book ‘American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center’
“In his reporting for “American Ground,” Langewiesche explored the shifting debris with construction workers and engineers . . . He crawled through “the pile” with survey parties and descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams. He interviewed hundreds of people, from ironworkers and city managers to architects and doctors. What he witnessed in his reporting, Langewiesche says, was ‘uniquely American improvisation on an enormous scale.'”
-Editorial from magazine The Atlantic, July/August 2002
“These candidly shaken macho guys recall scenes still haunting their nightmares two years after 9/11 – a 4-foot-high pile of bodies hurled from the towers, finding faces that were ripped from heads by the violence of the collapse, and heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel.”
-Lou Lumenick, New York Post, ‘Unflinching Look Among the Ruins,’ March 2004
“A three-foot stalagmite of steel, which looks for all the world like a drip candle, sits next to one of the immense steel columns that held up the north face of the tower.”
-James Glanz, New York Times, ‘Below Rubble, a Tour of a Still-Burning Hell,’ November 2001
“Thermal imagery measures the progression of underground heat on about a weekly basis. These images are produced in 8-bit grayscale, with brightness levels of 0-255, 0 being the hottest and expressed as pure white. This is known as emissive data, or heat being given off from the structure from underlying hot debris or molten steel. Smoldering is yet undetectable, because potential fires appear cold until they are exposed to air.”
– Maddalena Romano, “Mapping Ground Zero,” GeoNews, Hunter College Dept. of Geography, October 2001
“Thermal measurements taken by helicopter each day showed underground temperatures ranging from 400ºF to more than 2,800ºF.”
-Jeffrey W. Vincoli, Norman H. Black and Stewart C. Burkhammer, ‘Safety, Health, and Environmental Specialists’ for Bechtel Corporation, the world’s largest engineering and largest construction company, from the report ‘SH&E at Ground Zero’
“And all of the sudden he comes out of this little tunnel, screaming ‘Wait till you see what I found!’ And he pulls in ministers and officials, and there this cross is fully extended, melted together with the intense heat, the two beams were never initally part of the same structure. Heat literally melted them together. And the piece of metal draped over was literally molten metal that had fallen over one the arms.”
-George Polarek, Salvation Army Incident Commander, aided in cleanup effort
Three dust studies corroborate the eyewitness accounts
The following are excerpts from studies on the discovery of molten steel:
-Another study was carried out by the US Geological Survey (a government agency), the purpose of which was to aid the “identification of WTC dust components.” Besides also finding iron particles, the scientists involved in this study found that molybdenum had been melted. This finding was especially significant, because this metal does not melt until it reaches 2,623°C (4,753°F).
-The Deutsche Bank building, right next to the Twin Towers, was heavily contaminated by dust produced by the collapse. But Deutsche Bank’s insurance company refused to pay for the clean-up, claiming that this dust had not resulted from the destruction of the WTC. So Deutsche Bank hired the RJ Lee Group to do a study, which showed that the dust in the Deutsche Bank was WTC dust, which had a unique signature. Part of this signature was “Spherical iron . . . particles.” This meant, the RJ Lee Group said, that iron had “melted during the WTC Event, producing spherical metallic particles.” The study even showed that, whereas iron particles constitute only 0.04 percent of normal [demolished] building dust, they constituted almost 6 percent of WTC Dust – meaning almost 150 times as much as normal.
-The RJ Lee study also found that temperatures had been reached “at which lead would have undergone vaporization”– meaning 1,749°C (3,180°F).
-A team of Danish scientists led by Dr. Niels Harrit (Columbia University, University of Copenhagen), also analyzed the WTC dust and had findings identical to those of RJ Lee.
What caused the high temperatures?
Only mini nuclear devices or some other, unknown weaponry could have caused momentary 5,500 degree temperatures and sustained steel-melting temperatures of at least 2,800 degrees for weeks after the collapse. Conventional explosives, let alone a simple collapse, do not provide an explanation for these phenomena.
Comprehensive studies on molten steel found underneath the buildings:
Molten Steel & Extreme Temperatures at WTC
http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2011/03/05/the-mysterious-collapse-of-wtc-7/
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/moltensteel.html
http://www.takeourworldback.com/smokinggun.htm
Websites with more complete citations for many of the above quotes:
Molten Steel & Extreme Temperatures at WTC
http://history-bytes.blogspot.com/2006/09/more-molten-metal-magic.html
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/moltensteel.html