Locked doors stopped rooftop rescue in WTC towers

Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 10/24/01

[aruanan]

Dozens of people trapped at the top of the burning World Trade Centre in New York could have been airlifted to safety if doors had not been locked, it emerged today.

So what was stopping police and fire helicopters from landing on the roof and then breaking the doors down?

[SuziQ]

As always, hidsight is 20/20. It is likely that the heat from the fire, and updrafts created by it may have prevented helicopters from getting close enough to land or even hover in order to take people off the roof. No one can know for sure, and it is useless to beat people over the head NOW about what MIGHT have been done.

[EggsAckley]

This is very disturbing. I also find it disturbing that the people in tower 2 were told by the port authority to go back up to their offices, that their building was secure. There has been very little press coverage of that, and I think it should be investigated.

[hellinahandcart]

You know, from my vantage point in front of the TV that day, the tops of the towers appeared to be completely engulfed in smoke most of the time. I don't think a helicopter could have landed.

[dead]

This article is definitely a bit of Monday-morning-quarterbacking, but I think the issues raised should be addressed by NYC and other cities with skyscrapers.

[Ward Smythe]

Dozens of people trapped at the top of the burning World Trade Centre in New York could have been airlifted to safety if doors had not been locked, it emerged today.

For one thing, we could never have imagined those buildings collapsing. And, in the chaos of that morning, how would we have known another plane wasn't on the way. The buildings collapsed so quickly. This is all speculation. It may have helped, but we'll never know for sure how effective they could've been.

That's not to say we shouldn't review the policy and that perhaps changes need to be made. But I just hope we never again have the opportunity to need/try that type of rescue.

[KC Burke]

In a Code conflict such as this, where doors meant to be emergency exits are locked for good and valid operation issues, a well functioning code authority would have required an Engineered Solution to meet the intent of the code.

Locks can be deactivated

[lelio]

Yeah this sounds a little fishy on both sides. I didn't see helicopters flying up to the WTC to save people.
But what kind of heart-wrenching task would that have been? You can only take a dozen or so people in the huge helicopters, maybe one or two in news copters. How do you pick out of hundreds that would of been up there?

[Teacher317]

By the time the helicopters would have found pilots, gone through pre-flight checks, taken off into SUDDENLY VERY QUESTIONABLE airspace, and landed on the roof... the towers would have collapsed. (It was only about 30 minutes, IIRC). Most likely, they would not have saved a soul, and may have been lost themselves.

[Azzurri]

You know, from my vantage point in front of the TV that day, the tops of the towers appeared to be completely engulfed in smoke most of the time. I don't think a helicopter could have landed.

I agree with you and Mayor Giuliani alluded to the same thing. He said it was impossible to get a helicopter rescue up there and most of the films I saw indicate the same thing.

[ben richards]

If the doors remain unlocked people would go to the roof to kill themselves or throw things off of the roof or similar stunts. When this happens, Port Authority gets sued and is forced to keep the doors locked. Doors locked, no one gets out in the event of a fire. Such is the world in which we live.

[snorkeler]

I also find it disturbing that the people in tower 2 were told by the port authority to go back up to their offices, that their building was secure.

I find it disturbing that they did as they were told instead of taking responsibility for their own safety. It's the same mindset that now has postal workers crying that the government won't test them for anthrax instead of making an appointment to get themselves tested. Scary..

[BearCub]

I've heard the stories of locked doors, blocked stairwells and whatnot. In my building, once you're in the stairwell, you can't get out except at the ground floor (i.e., all doors out of the stairwell are locked). This seems like a terrible way to do it. In a fire, people need options - to be able to exit the stairwell and cross the building to a different one, for example. The lawsuits will start soon...

-bc

[Uncle Sham]

"This article is definitely a bit of Monday-morning-quarterbacking, but I think the issues raised should be addressed by NYC and other cities with skyscrapers. "

After the attempted take-down of these buildings in 1993, ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS should have been considered and planning should have been done to properly deal with EACH AND EVERY ONE of them. The fact that this obviously was not done by those supposedly in charge of public safety resulting in more lives being lost than necessary is a valid point to raise. It is not "Monday morning quarterbacking" as you wish to suggest. We had a warning. Not preparing ourselves for another attack in the proper fashion is OUR fault.

[hellinahandcart]

(It was only about 30 minutes, IIRC).

I thought the same thing, so imagine my surprise the next day when I learned that Tower 2 fell after 40 minutes but Tower 1, the first tower hit, stayed up for about an hour and a half total.

Of course, I have a different problem altogether as an excuse--"lost time"--I cannot account for the hour-and-a-half after the first collapse, and have no real-time memory at all of Tower 1 coming down. Didn't see it until the next day on television repeats, when it came as a real shock.

Six weeks later I still can't fill in the blank.

[Pontiac]

But afterwards the Port Authority used its exemption from local fire rules to insist that the towers' roofs were kept locked to prevent people committing suicide or launching stunts from the top.

And a turf war between the police and fire departments meant fire chiefs rejected the idea of helicopter rescues

Just goes to show, don’t trust your life to government bureaucrats.

[hellinahandcart]

ALL POSSIBLE SCENARIOS should have been considered and planning should have been done to properly deal with EACH AND EVERY ONE of them

Could you have imagined TWO suicide bombers flying jumbo jets into the buildings, let alone one? I couldn't have.

[LibWhacker]

. . . which included a police aircraft which came within 200 metres of the second hijacked plane to hurtle into the towers.

Wonder what these cops thought that jet was doing?

[dead]

It is not "Monday morning quarterbacking" as you wish to suggest. We had a warning. Not preparing ourselves for another attack in the proper fashion is OUR fault.

So, prior to September 11th, what plans had you developed for airborne rooftop rescues in the event of simultaneous hijacked airliner crashes into multiple skyscapers?