Republished as part of our 9\/11: From the Archives series, where we revisit some of OffG\u2019s best 9\/11 articles over the years for the benefit of our post-Covid audience.<\/p>\n
In August 2002, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) launched what would become a six-year investigation of the three building failures that occurred on September 11, 2001 (9\/11):<\/p>\n
1. the well-known collapses of the World Trade Center (WTC) Twin Towers that morning and
2. the lesser-known collapse late that afternoon of the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7, which was not struck by an airplane.<\/p>\n
NIST conducted its investigation based on the stated premise that the “WTC Towers and WTC 7 [were] the only known cases of total structural collapse in high-rise buildings where fires played a significant role.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, neither before nor since 9\/11 have fires caused the total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise\u2014nor has any other natural event, with the exception of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which toppled a 21-story office building.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Neither before nor since 9\/11 have fires caused the total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise\u2014nor has any other natural event, with the exception of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which toppled a 21-story office building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":122734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1031],"tags":[],"organicbytes":[],"countries":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n