I'm not sure I've ever seen that one but they might know of it at /r/911Truth. Also check out their wiki.

Very interesting. Sounds like damage control to me.

He cried as he explained that he could have built the building to withstand that size of plane crash, but they didn't see any reason why a plane that size would fly that low, so they just made the building strong enough to withstand a smaller plane.

Some revisionist history by Leslie Robertson imop. Digging around reveals the planes were comparable.

I concur, sounds a lot like Robertson.

There was even an interview with the head engineer behind the building. He cried as he explained

Leslie Earl Robertson

was the lead structural engineer of the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_E._Robertson

"I think there are times when logic just isn’t the right way to think." Robertson’s eyes were filling with tears.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/11/19/the-tower-builder

The presentation appeared to be extremely difficult for him. Several times he stopped in the middle of his sentences, having been overcome with a surge of emotion that could only result in an outpouring of tears should he continue. Struggling with the use of the past tense intertwined with the present, he spoke about the buildings’ original design and construction.

https://web.archive.org/web/20011121120355/http://www.engr.psu.edu/ae/WTC/LERPresentation.htm

It sure seems he did a lot of crying those days... /u/slicedbreaditor, can you give an estimate how soon after 9/11 that presentation was given?

Do you still have notes, or could you do the math with us?

John Skilling was the engineer, Robertson was involved - sure he did the dampers for it. The company was Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson. I don't see a "Robertson" in there.

1923-1955: W.H. Witt Company
1955-1960: Worthington & Skilling
1960-1967: Worthington, Skilling, Helle, & Jackson

1967-1983: Skilling, Helle, Christiansen, Robertson

1983-1987: Skilling Ward Rogers Barkshire
1987-2003: Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire
2003–present: Magnusson Klemencic Associates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnusson_Klemencic_Associates

[Leslie Earl Robertson] was the lead structural engineer of the Twin Towers of the original World Trade Center

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_E._Robertson

Sorry, But Robertson wasn't, an that wasn't even their name at that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Skilling "John Skilling (October 8, 1921 in Los Angeles, California – March 5, 1998 in Seattle, Washington) was a civil engineer and architect, best known for being the chief structural engineer of the World Trade Center"

https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Skilling "John Skilling, American structural and civil engineer whose firm, Skilling Ward Magnusson Barkshire, designed over 1,000 buildings in 36 states and 27 countries; among his best-known work was the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City (b. Oct. 8, 1921, Los Angeles, Calif.--d. March 5, 1998, Seattle, Wash.)."

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html "John Skilling was the head structural engineer for the World Trade Center. In a 1993 interview, Skilling stated that the Towers were designed to withstand the impact and fires resulting from the collision of a large jetliner such as Boeing 707 or Douglas DC-8."

Robertson WAS NOT the lead engineer on it. That is bullshit that is put out to give the BS that he talks credence.

Sorry, I know you as a knowledgeable investigator, so I can only assume we are simply talking past each other. Otherwise, I really don't understand what you are trying to argue. That OP saw the ghost of Skilling?

John Skilling was the lead engineer on the twin towers. Leslie Robertson worked on the project, sure. But John Skilling was the guy that designed and built them, not Robertson. This is a very sly piece of manipulation by the establishment to tout Robertson as "the man who designed the towers". He designed the viscoelastic dampers and suchlike, and was involved, but the fact remains that Skilling was the lead structural engineer on the project. This manipulation is there so that for example, Robertson can make out as if the towers were tested for impact of a 707 but not for the resultant fire that would inevitably follow. If you look at that particular claim, it was made by Skilling, who also mentioned the fires that would ensue, and that they would not affect the towers enough to bother them at all. When you listen to Robertson, he claims that there was no account taken of the fires that would follow a jetliner hit, which is just nonsense. It is a very crafty and sly piece of disinformation that Robertson was the "lead engineer" or "the man who designed the towers". It allows the real claim and analysis that was made by Skilling, to be set aside and for Robertson to almost accept responsibility for the failure of the towers on behalf of the designers. I often wonder how Skilling's family must feel when they hear Robertson falsely take the credit for the design, and at the same time infer that the design was responsible for the failure. It is a very subtle, and very telling piece of manipulation. "City in the Sky" is an incredible read, you would enjoy it immensely, I am sure. "Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center" by Gillespie is also out there somewhere for free I am sure. Very telling that you will only ever find references to RObertson being the man who designed these towers post 911, yet everywhere pre 911, Skilling is rightly said to be the designer. Hope that helps - (personal bugbear of mine)

personal bugbear of mine

Okay, I get it now. John Skilling was the lead engineer on the twin towers. They just called it Robertson because he was around to blame it on the fires and give teary-eyed interviews and presentations, such as the one OP saw, possibly.

"City in the Sky" is an incredible read, you would enjoy it immensely, I am sure.

I know, I know. It has the telegram Richard Roth wrote to Lawrence Wien :) But I just got "Building - The Fight Against Gravity" by Mario Salvadori in the mail, a beautiful copy withdrawn from the Atlantic County Library, Pleasantville Branch. Why that, you ask? Because he also wrote "Why Buildings stand up", and, together with Matthys Levy, "Why Buildings Fall Down", then he died, then the Twins fell, and then Levy squeezed in another chapter about the Twins in a 2002 re-edition and said jet fuel can melt steel beams.

Civil engineering student currently, we do discuss how we now have to take terrorism into consideration when designing but haven't been shown the video in class.

You should bring up Dr. Hulsey's $300,000 finite element model analysis to your professor/class. The University of Alaska Fairbanks will released his WTC 7 models in a few months.

Hulsey discusses the findings from his 2 year analysis in front of ASCE members here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKN4qilUOfs

Do you not think it is odd that you have not and will not get taught anything regarding the actual three worst engineering failures ever, in an engineering capacity?

I mean that might be in a structural analysis class that I haven't taken yet or may be covered more in grad school.

The towers turned to dust as they fell. You can see giant parts of building turning to dust as they fall. Keep digging, will make it out on the other side soon.

https://youtu.be/Y1vcx26-S3Q

The engineering community at large clearly doesn't realize that you've been thrown under the bus. The deafening silence from everyone except the AE911Truth signatories has one of two implications.

If the towers were destroyed by other means than the jet impacts, then you're in a unique position to expose the most treacherous crime in American history but are failing to do so, and thus become complicit.

If the plane impacts were the cause of the total destruction of both towers, and the indirect cause of the destruction of WTC7, then you've abandoned your responsibility to protect the public who use your buildings. Three of the most spectacular and deadly engineering disasters in history, all on the same day, and you, the professionals, think it's OK that the investigations into these events couldn't even muster a statistically significant sample of physical evidence or describe what actually even happened to the towers?

Either way, it makes engineering look like a sick joke, sloppy and totally unconcerned with public safety; instead of the incredible scientific marvel that it really is.

Wasn't it the first time three steel buildings fell into their own footprint at a rate of gravity, when only two of them were hit by jets? Lol. Yeah no foul play at all there.

Exactly. When you mention that they were built with jet impacts in mind, people say, "well, the Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable!"

But the Titanic sank. That is a perfectly normal and predictable thing for a damaged ship to do. Meanwhile, blowing to smithereens all of a sudden is not something that damaged, burning buildings tend to do.

I think a lot of people get hung up on the question of whether or not it's possible for a jet to knock down one of the Twin Towers...without actually looking at what actually happened!

I can't agree more.

No, actually it is that easy, it is something that you can look at the video and easily tell what's going on. The buildings literally blew up. The steel structure was completely cut into pieces while the concrete and people and office furniture fell over the city like volcanic ash.

I'm trying to compliment engineers. I love you people. That's why I can't believe you built buildings so shitty where tens of thousands of people came to work for decades thinking the buildings were safe, but then when push came to shove, they got cremated alive.

Look at it this way. Think about using a sledgehammer to smash a big block of concrete into small pieces. Then smash those small pieces into fine dust. That would take a lot of energy, right? Wouldn't it tire you out?

Now look at the video and watch the building turn into steel sections and clouds of fine powder. The clouds indicate that lots of energy is being released really fast. (Even Governor Pataki said that all the concrete was pulverized).

Remember that the total energy in the system is constant. Many people try to say that the top section - the lightest and least dense part of the building - had sufficient potential energy to crush and destroy the bigger, heavier section of the building.

But even the official report acknowledges that the building came down "essentially in free fall", which means that pretty much all of its potential energy would be converted to kinetic energy even if it were just falling through the air. There is little to none left to move a 90-story building out of the way, let alone crush it into powder.

So it's clear just from the video that a huge amount of energy is missing from the equation. Explosives of some kind can easily fill the gap. Not only that, explosives theory predicts the total destruction and is consistent with all the observations.

Meanwhile, there is no predictive, consistent, evidence-based theory of how the towers could have been destroyed without the addition of an energy source like explosives. NIST spent years and millions of dollars trying to come up with one, and failed. In fact, they didn't even try to explain how the towers were completely destroyed and admitted they couldn't.

Since it's obviously true that explosives can destroy buildings and can account for the energy release observed during the destruction, and that the theory is consistent with all the evidence, there's absolutely no scientific or logical reason to prefer the alternative incoherent non-theory.

And if you really insist that the Twin Towers were engineered so shitty that they violently blew up into clouds of dust instead of surviving a plane crash like they were supposed to, and no engineer noticed or spoke up about this extraordinarily lethal vulnerability for thirty years, then I have no reason to trust the credibility of an engineer's opinion in the first place.

I don't mean to be a dick, but conservation of energy is not something you can decide to disagree with.

The way it fell makes sense from an engineering point of view.

How did they fall? Where did the energy come from to completely dismember the steel structure and pulverize the concrete, office contents and people? What "makes sense" is totally irrelevant. I know for a fact that you have no precedent, experiment or physical evidence.

From an engineering perspective, skyscrapers don't just collapse unless they have explosives in them. Skyscrapers have caught on fire hundreds of thousands of times, been hit by planes, bombed, hit by artillery shells, etc. And yet, a normal skyscraper collapse is still a controlled demolition.

So what's your theory, and what are the good scientific reasons to accept it? How can it collapse at free fall and simultaneously totally dismember the steel structure and pulverize all the concrete and everything inside? Where does the energy come from?

Thousands of people were murdered. Your theory also has to explain why their bodies were destroyed and how bone fragments from firefighters found on the roof of the next skyscraper. Again, explosives explains all this very easily.

how do you explain the thousands of engineers who've seen the video and it doesn't look questionable to them?

There are thousands of architects and engineers who have put their career on the line, this being Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, (AE911Truth)

Since 9/11, however, independent researchers around the world have assembled a large body of evidence that overwhelmingly refutes the notion that airplane impacts and fires caused the destruction of the Twin Towers and WTC 7. This body of evidence, most of which FEMA and NIST omitted from their reports, instead supports the troubling conclusion that all three skyscrapers were destroyed in a process known as “controlled demolition,” where explosives and/or other devices are used to bring down a building.

Whereas there isn't a single credentialed building professional that has taken up the 9/11 Debate Challenge — an opportunity to publicly endorse the National Construction Safety Team Act Report 1A (NCSTAR 1A), titled Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7) and published in November 2008 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), with a thousands dollars to be given to a charity of there choosing, bit odd no?

But to my eye, I don't see any red flags purely from the video...Again, it's possible for the math to check out and explain exactly how it fell as it did

Leaving WTC1&2 aside for a moment, even though Newton's Third Law tells us that when objects interact they exert equal and opposite forces between them and there is no math available to explain the complete destruction of these building outside of controlled demolition.

Have you seen the demolition of WTC7? (click for a compilation)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxl06jxfgRk) not only does this building look like every other building in history that has completely collapsed via the mechanism of controlled demolition, this building went into literal freefall, think about that.

For any object to fall at gravitational acceleration, there can be nothing below it that would tend to impede its progress or offer any resistance. If there is anything below it that would tend to impede its progress or offer any resistance, then not all of the potential energy of the object would be converted to motion and so would not be found falling at gravitational acceleration (where did every single structural supporting columns go, instantly, at the exact same time?)

There's no exception to that rule, those are the conditions that must exist for gravitational acceleration to occur for the entirety of the duration of the time it occurs, this is basic Newtonian physical principles, you either agree with this basic concept or disbelieve science., they want us to believe that dropping a brick from WTC7's roof and the complete collapse all the way to the ground, both would hit the floor at the same time.

That is absurd.

How soon after was it?

Fair enough. Sounds odd presentation to give, but i'm not so soon.

Do you remember if their analysis/conclusions were different than nist?

Nist are the "scientists" that wrote an official report on the causes of the collapses of wtc1 and 2 and wtc7 eventually.