9/11 third tower mystery 'solved'

The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse.Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition.Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane.The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based near Washington DC, is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse.That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire.The National Institute of Standards and Technology's lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two's "The Conspiracy Files":"Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings."'Smoking gun'However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition.The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives."Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11. A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process."Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance", says Gage, "they don't go straight down through themselves."Conspiracy theoriesThere are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven.Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down.The third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defense and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack.The destruction of the third tower was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The first official inquiry into Tower Seven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to be definitive about what caused its collapse.In May 2002 FEMA concluded that the building collapsed because intense fires had burned for hours, fed by thousands of gallons of diesel stored in the building. But it said this had "only a low probability of occurrence" and more work was needed.But now nearly seven years after 9/11 the definitive official explanation of what happened to Tower Seven is finally about to be published in America.The National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent more than two years investigating Tower Seven but lead investigator Dr Shyam Sunder rejects criticism that it has been slow.(BBC)Bakudaily.Az