9/11 cops saw collapse coming
By PAUL H.B. SHIN DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/204224p-176260c.html

The World Trade Center towers showed telltale signs they were about to collapse several minutes before each crumbled to the ground, scientists probing the Sept. 11, 2001, disaster said yesterday.

In the case of the north tower, police chopper pilots reported seeing the warning signs - an inward bowing of the building facade - at least eight minutes before it collapsed at 10:29 a.m.

Other key findings include:

Even though the jet fuel on the planes burned off in the first few minutes after impact, there was enough office furniture to sustain intense fires for at least an hour.

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Buckling Steel

According to Shyam-Sunder, the concave bowing of the steel was seen on the sides of the towers opposite where the planes hit them. At 10:06 a.m. that morning, an officer in a police helicopter reported that ``it's not going to take long before the north tower comes down.'' This was 20 minutes before it collapsed. In another radio transmission at 10:21 a.m., the officer said he saw buckling in the north tower's southern face, Shyam-Sunder said.

The report includes photographs taken from police helicopters showing the bending columns.
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=aCuh.ATdfOXc&refer=top_world_news

`A Disgrace'

Sally Regenhard, chairwoman of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign and mother of probationary firefighter Christian Regenhard, who was killed on Sept. 11, called the institute's findings ``a disgrace,'' and further evidence that firefighters were left incapable of saving themselves once the buildings were deemed unsafe. Most upsetting, she said, were findings from the institute's report that the towers' fire-protected steel frame was rated to last two hours, at best.

``That means I'm putting you into a building that in case of an emergency and a fire like this, you won't get out,'' Regenhard said. ``These are deeply disturbing things.''
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