Warning: This article may contain traces of satire.

Only one skyscraper in history has ever collapsed completely due to fire. Fires are fairly common in skyscrapers but even the worst fires usually leave the building’s supporting structure intact. The four recent skyscraper fires in Dubai were spectacular but the buildings have all been repaired and reopened. Several floors of Moscow’s half-completed Federation Tower East blazed in 2012, but construction resumed in 2014.

Fire raged for over 24 hours on 17 floors of the East Twin Tower in Caracas in 2004, but with its partner Twin Tower it remains South America’s second tallest skyscraper.

Five floors of the First Interstate Tower in Los Angeles were gutted by fire in 1988, but the building (now the Aon Center) remains in use.

Even partial collapses are rare in tall buildings. In 2005 Madrid’s Windsor Tower became a textbook towering inferno resulting in the partial collapse of its upper ten stories.

But the building’s central core and twenty lower stories remained standing. If you accept the convention that a skyscraper must be at least 40 stories or 150 metres tall, the Windsor wasn’t a skyscraper.

There are more than 3500 skyscrapers around the world. Hundreds more have been demolished after decades of use. Only one has ever collapsed completely due to fire.

You might think this would earn it the kind of notoriety that we reserve for Titanics and Hindenburgs. Perhaps we overlook it because the disaster involved no loss of life. The 47 storey, 190 metre Salomon Brothers Building had fires on several floors, fires that by official accounts lasted no more than 20 minutes in any location. Yet the building collapsed like a house of cards, as neatly as in those videos we have all seen of controlled demolitions. Not a single wall or pillar remained standing; just a pile of rubble to be carted away.

Let’s look at the coincidences. The first is that the Salomon Brothers Building collapsed on September 11 2001: the same day as the 911 terrorist attacks. The Twin Towers collapsed on the morning of that fateful day.

The Salomon Brothers Building collapsed at 5:20 pm New York time, as if, by some mysterious energetic connection, it came down in sympathy with the Twin Towers. One might speculate that the connection was strong because the Salomon Brothers Building was actually in New York City. But the story is way, way weirder than that. The Salomon Brothers Building was not just in NYC, it was part of the World Trade Center complex. The Salomon Brothers Building was the common name of World Trade Center Building 7.

Wait a minute, you might say. If Building 7 was part of the World Trade Center it was presumably destroyed as part of the terrorist attack. But that’s not the case. Not according to the official account. According to the official account Building 7 was brought down by fires, fires that had all the characteristics of ordinary office fires. The building was not hit by a plane or by major pieces of plane. It was damaged by the collapse of World Trade Center 1 (the North Tower), but the damage was superficial and didn’t compromise the structural integrity of the building. That’s the official conclusion, not just my opinion.

The fires in Building 7 were presumably caused in some way by the other events of 911. But fire is fire, whether it’s started by falling masonry or faulty electrics. If a 47 storey building in Melbourne or Sydney fell flat after a few minor fires there would be a national outcry. The behaviour of Building 7 is no less extraordinary for having happened amid the larger events of 911.

The totality of its collapse was not the only strange thing about Building 7’s demise. For two and a half seconds the upper floors of the building plummeted in freefall, which means the structure below had not only been weakened but had completely disintegrated. The building fell symmetrically and folded neatly in on itself like a closing flower.

The lesson seems to be that if you want to bring a tall building down with surgical precision, set fire to a few random chairs and filing cabinets.

Logic compels us to suspect that there must be a deeper connection between the Building 7 collapse and the terror attacks. Perhaps the World Trade Center complex was poorly built? The official inquiry found no evidence of this, and no charges have been laid against the architects or construction companies. Perhaps the Twin Tower collapses damaged Building 7’s foundations? The seismic record says it’s highly unlikely. Was lack of fire-fighting water a factor? Fire fighters fought the fires for hours, and with or without water the fires were short-lived.

Perhaps explosives were involved? A bomb exploded in the North Tower of the World Trade Center in 1993. The Building 7 collapse had all the hallmarks of an explosive-induced demolition. Explosions were reported on 911 by numerous eyewitnesses and recorded on numerous video soundtracks. Traces of explosives were found by researchers in dust from the World Trade Center collapses.

But explosives were never officially found because US officials didn’t look for explosives. They didn’t look because, they said, there was no evidence that explosives had been used. There was no evidence because they didn’t look. Explosives don’t fit the official story.

Fifteen years after the attacks a debate is now raging in the United States over the possible release of 28 hitherto censored pages from a 2003 congressional report on 911.

Meanwhile more than 2000 accredited architects and engineers have called for a new and independent inquiry into the collapse of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7.

These developments are a reminder that questions remain as to what really happened on 911.

While those questions remain there can be no coherent explanation of why the one-in-thousands event of a total fire-induced skyscraper collapse should coincide in time and place with the worst terror attack in modern times.

I guess you would have to describe it as the mother of all coincidences.

LINKS

Evidence of explosives in 911 dust:
http://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOCPJ-2-7
Debate over release of 28 redacted pages:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-911-classified-report-steve-kroft/
Architects and Engineers:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?320748-5/washington-journal-architects-engineers-911-truth

*Martin Hawes is a Tasmanian-based writer, photographer and wilderness management consultant. He became sceptical of the official 911 account after watching video of the 6.5-second collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Extensive research has convinced him that there is overwhelming evidence that all three World Trade Center towers were brought down with explosives. His partner Deb, who was in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, shares this view.

The Independent: Saudi Arabia, 9/11, and the secret papers that could ignite a diplomatic war Twenty-eight secret pages of a report locked away in a room in the Capitol in Washington lie in the centre of a crisis between America and Saudi Arabia which threatens to have severe and widespread repercussions. The US Congress is considering legislation which would enable the families of victims of the September 11 attacks to sue Saudi Arabia, presented by the West as its most valuable ally in the Middle East, over alleged links with al-Qaeda terrorists who carried out the attacks on New York and Washington. The issue had cast a long shadow over the recent visit of President Barack Obama to Riyadh, with the Saudis threatening to sell off $750bn of American assets they hold if the bill is passed by Congress …