Plane Crashes into World Trade Center

NewYork1 | 9/11/01

[hellinahandcart]

Just in. I am looking at a picture of the WTC with smoke pouring out of the western tower. Looks like a huge amount of damage. Debris raining down on people in the street.

[Catspaw]

Well Well Well Guess Bush hasn't been doing the job he ought to have been doing. Now we get to find out if he has any balls.

Get the hell out of here. People are DEAD in a terrorist attack against US. OUR people. U. S. citizens.

talk about balls? You don't have any.

[jjbrouwer]

Bush has spoken. Terrorism.

[piasa]

Last Friday a terrorist warning was issued to US citizens worldwide from State Dept.

Boston to LA American Airlines was hijacked thios morning

FBI enroute. Osama bin Laden suspected.

[It'salmosttolate]

The World Trade Center
Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting
Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting

The World Trade Center is more than its signature twin towers: it is a complex of seven buildings on 16-acres, constructed and operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ). The towers, One and Two World Trade Center, rise at the heart of the complex, each climbing more than 100 feet higher than the silver mast of the Empire State Building.

Construction of a world trade facility had been under consideration since the end of WWII. In the late 1950s the Port Authority took interest in the project and in 1962 fixed its site on the west side of Lower Manhattan on a superblock bounded by Vesey, Liberty, Church and West Streets. Architect Minoru Yamasaki was selected to design the project; architects Emery Roth & Sons handled production work, and, at the request of Yamasaki, the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson served as engineers.

The Port Authority envisioned a project with a total of 10 million square feet of office space. To achieve this, Yamasaki considered more than a hundred different building configurations before settling on the concept of twin towers and three lower-rise structures. Designed to be very tall to maximize the area of the plaza, the towers were initially to rise to only 80-90 stories. Only later was it decided to construct them as the world's tallest buildings, following a suggestion said to have originated with the Port Authority's public relations staff.

Yamasaki and engineers John Skilling and Les Robertson worked closely, and the relationship between the towers’ design and structure is clear. Faced with the difficulties of building to unprecedented heights, the engineers employed an innovative structural model: a rigid "hollow tube" of closely spaced steel columns with floor trusses extending across to a central core. The columns, finished with a silver-colored aluminum alloy, were 18 3/4" wide and set only 22" apart, making the towers appear from afar to have no windows at all.

Also unique to the engineering design were its core and elevator system. The twin towers were the first supertall buildings designed without any masonry. Worried that the intense air pressure created by the buildings’ high speed elevators might buckle conventional shafts, engineers designed a solution using a drywall system fixed to the reinforced steel core. For the elevators, to serve 110 stories with a traditional configuration would have required half the area of the lower stories be used for shaftways. Otis Elevators developed an express and local system, whereby passengers would change at "sky lobbies" on the 44th and 78th floors, halving the number of shaftways.

Construction began in 1966 and cost an estimated $1.5 billion. One World Trade Center was ready for its first tenants in late 1970, though the upper stories were not completed until 1972; Two World Trade Center was finished in 1973. Excavation to bedrock 70 feet below produced the material for the Battery Park City landfill project in the Hudson River. When complete, the Center met with mixed reviews, but at 1,368 and 1,362 feet and 110 stories each, the twin towers were the world's tallest, and largest, buildings until the Sears Tower surpassed them both in 19

[The Documentary Lady]

Osama bin Ladin is my guess***

Maybe, but GB wants ground troops in Iraq so I guess Sadaam is going to get the blame.

[2020x100]

Hijacked from Logan -- BOSTON

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Thanks! Take care!!

[wingnuts'nbolts]

Thanks! Take care!!

[areafiftyone]

I pray for your family. Can you get thru to them on their cellphones? Do you know what floor they are on? I can see the two holes right now - There are flames coming out of one of the holes and billowing smoke. Looks like the top 10 floors. Cell phones are down right now. You can't get thru to anyone. Everyone in my building is freaking out. Trying to get thru to my boss but I can't get thru the cellphones are blocked. They evacuated all of Wall Street already.

[freefly]

I wonder if there are any OTHER hijacked planes
(in other parts of the country)
that they haven't bothered to mention?
DFW, LA, Chicago?
If it REALLY is a Bin Laden operation,
(or other large player)
I would expect more than just 2.

[smiley]

Now is not the time to fear, now is the time to FIGHT!

[FR_addict]

My brother-in-law and my nephew were both in the building, high up. Please pray for them and our family. Prayers sent. May they come through this disaster intact.

It didn't really hit me until I read your post. Good luck to your family.

[Irma]

Just heard that all of Manhattan is sealed off. You take care now and thanks for your brave reporting!

[areafiftyone]

Heard all subways are stopped and no way for anyone to get out of the city. It's like a nightmare here!

[FrogMom]

White House being evacuated, Fox reports.

[FrogMom]

Explosion in Pentagon, too!!!

[Irma]

Reports of plane crash into Pentagon....OMG!

[freefly]

I just heard the Pentagon got hit...

[FrogMom]

Nationwide ALL airports closed. No take-offs, in-air flights will be diverted to closest airports.

[wingnuts'nbolts]

All planes in the USA are grounded no take offs.