WTC explosive demolition?

9/11 being not so long ago, I was once again confronted with 9/11 conspiracy nonsense being posted all over FB.

Which annoys the hell out of me. 

Not that I doubt for one instant that Dick Cheney would be capable planning of such a thing, but the rest of the Dubya administration was just so grossly incompetent that it boggles the mind that anyone would, or even could, think it possible.

Now if it was The Illuminati, that's another matter entirely. But we're talking the Dubya administration. You know, the one that never happened? At least that's the impression I received from the recent Republican National Convention.
"George who? George Dubya Bush? Not H.W. Bush, but Dubya Bush? I'm sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell."

So one of the sites, (which I am not going to link because I don't want to encourage them, and because I also think you should do your own research), states that no high rise building has ever collapsed due to a fire.

Which is true.

As far as it goes.

More or less.

And how do I know this? 

Because I went out and looked up the 6 high rise fires on their list. And sure enough, not one of the six they list had totally collapsed. So we're in mostly true land so far....

But I'm a Virgo, so I decided that I would go a little further and do a quick comparison between the six buildings that didn't totally collapse and the WTC towers,  just to satisfy my own personal curiosity. To see for myself if there were any other valid - which I now doubted, since they had fudged on the collapse issue - comparisons that could be made. Who knows, it could be significant that no other high rise has totally collapsed (yet) due to a fire.

(Though not one of the official reports has ever indicated that anyone believed the collapse of the WTC twin towers was due solely to the fires. You'll find this a common tactic/trick in conspiracy hypotheses, synecdoche. Except it's the part that's left out that matters.)

- Since I can't figure out how to embed a spreadsheet in here this is going to be rather clunky, but I'm going to give it a try. -

So here we go.

A.  High velocity plane impact
B.  Destruction of load bearing members
C.  Intact fire proofing
D.  Framing type
E.  Height

1.                                                   A        B          C          D                         E
2. WTC 1&2                                   Yes      Yes       No        Tube Frame        1,360
3. One Meridian Plaza                     No      No       Yes       Steel Frame           492
4. First Interstate+                          No      No       Yes       Steel Frame           860
5. 1 New York Plaza                         No      No       Yes       Steel Frame           640
6. Caracas Tower*                            No      No       Yes      Steel&Concrete      732
7. Windsor Building**                       No      No       Yes      Steel Frame            348      
8. Beijing Mandarin Hotel                No      No       Yes       Steel Frame***       350++

* The Caracas Tower was a steel and concrete frame. Several structural steel members of the building did exhibit significant heat related deformation, which might well, had the fires burned longer, resulted in the collapse of at least the upper stories.

**The Windsor Building suffered significant structural failure and collapse of the upper structure, which collapse was arrested due to load shedding, as usually happens in steel frame (post and beam style) construction.

*** The Beijing Mandarin is in a seismically active area and consequently the structural steel was engineered with earthquake survivability in mind. The building is framed with heavier steel than is normally the case, and the structure has steel cross and eccentric bracing.

This is my way of saying
I came
I saw
I realized that Nary a One of those 6 other buildings had a 767 fly into it at 500 MPH resulting not just in a fire but in significant destruction of structural load paths. These six were all intact and structurally un-compromised buildings, of a completely different construction type, when they burst into flame.

Therefore I conclude there are NO meaningful comparisons which can be made.
None.

I don't care how many accredited architects or engineers sign on. If you're going to make a comparison, at least have the decency to make valid one.

I will be doing more on this. But I figured this was a good place to start. Until you can compare similar structures with similar histories and similar stresses, you're just wasting my time.

Well, actually I'M wasting MY time. But I find it entertaining, so there you go.

Next a little discourse on the differences between steel frame curtain wall structures and Tube Frame structures.

+ To answer a potential objection regarding the First Interstate (now Aon Tower) fire, there are two Aon Towers, one in LA and one in Chicago. The one in LA - formerly First Interstate - is a traditional steel frame with curtain walls. The Chicago Aon Tower is a tube frame building.

++ I have not been able to find an actual total height for the Beijing Mandarin, only the number of stories, which is listed as 34, so the height given is based on an estimate of 10 feet per story. It may well be taller given more height per story. If I can find an actual height I will post it.