The Investigation
Two Competing Theories
How did a 47-story skyscraper collapse without being hit by a plane? There are two very different answers to that question.
The Official Story (NIST)
Thermal Expansion
The official investigation concluded that “normal office fires” were the culprit. The theory is that the heat caused floor beams to expand, pushing a single critical support (Column 79) off its seat. This failure supposedly triggered a progressive collapse of the entire building.
The Dissent (UAF Study)
“Physically Impossible”
However, a major four-year study by the University of Alaska Fairbanks concluded that the fire narrative was physically impossible. Their advanced computer models showed that the only way to replicate the way the building actually fell was if every column in the building’s core failed at almost the exact same time.
NIST NCSTAR 1A (Pages 21, 53)
UAF Structural Reevaluation Final Report (Pages 3, 16)