Last month, a few Purdue professors, along with some students, presented a short animation ostensibly related to the 9/11 tragedy at the World Trade Center (WTC). Surprisingly the University then announced this animation in a news release, as if it represented a scientifically accurate simulation of the impact of a Boeing 767 into the WTC's north tower.[1] Unfortunately, this short video clip is far from a scientifically-based production, as it actually contradicts several of the government's own, much more intensive studies, and shamefully fails to capture some of the most basic aspects of the related events. To make things worse, Purdue University paradoxically implies that this brief animation provides support for the overworked fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
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In one important way this new animation does reflect reality, although in doing so it negates the official stance taken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In their September 2005 report, NIST presented their "collapse initiation sequence", and explained how they felt the loss of fireproofing was the key to the destruction of the towers. NIST suggested that the fireproofing loss occurred as a result of aircraft debris, in the form of shotgun-like blasts, scraping the fireproofing off of thousands of square meters of surface area.[2] But from Purdue's new animation, we can clearly see that the aircraft that impacted the WTC tower could not have been instantly transformed into thousands of tiny pellets in the form of shotgun blasts. The animation more realistically displays the large fragments of debris from the fuselage clattering around in the skeletal framework of the tower. For this reason we must thank Purdue for this visualization that negates NIST's primary explanation.
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There are many more significant differences between the latest official story for "collapse" of the WTC towers, as given by NIST, and this poor animation put out by a misdirected and unsupervised group at Purdue. Here are a few more examples.

· NIST reported that 9 core columns were severed or heavily damaged by aircraft impact, and this was in their "more severe" case. Purdue now says that 52 core columns were "destroyed or heavily damaged" over a height six floors (see Irfanoglu and Hoffman, table 1). First note that there was a total of 47 core columns in the building. Even if several of these were "destroyed" at multiple levels, Purdue is now asking us to accept a level of damage that is far greater than years of government research could support.

· NIST reported that the damage done to the south face of WTC 1 was limited to one dislodged panel, encompassing three exterior columns (329,330 and 331), caused by whatever small amount of debris passed through and exited the far side of the building. Purdue's team now wants us to believe that 12 exterior columns were severed on the south face of WTC 1.[5]

· NIST told us that the center fuel tank of the aircraft was completely empty when it struck WTC 1. But this new animation shows the center tank to be completely full. Additional comments from the animation’s creators indicate they have no idea how much jet fuel was available inside the building, or how this fuel played a part in the destruction.

Is there a reasonable explanation for the severe damage occurring in the basements prior to collapse