So, what explains this?

[Contrite]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0917/p1s1-usgn.html

* * *

Tom Elliott was at work in his office at the Aon Corp., an insurance brokerage firm, on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center's other, south tower. Most Aon employees did not straggle in until 9 a.m., but he liked to arrive around 8:30 and have a quiet cup of coffee while he checked his e-mail.

He was just typing in a response when a bright flash of light startled him, and a rumble shook the structure. Flames appeared to be crawling up the outside of the building, along with dark smoke and debris, burning paper and ash.

Mr. Elliott could feel heat coming through the windows. As far as he knew, it was his building, not the other tower, that was aflame. Oddly, no alarms were going off. The building emergency system was broadcasting no warning.

"I don't know what's happening, but I think I need to be out of here," he remembers thinking.

About 1,100 people worked at Aon in the World Trade Center, but the vast majority weren't there. Elliott and two others headed down the building stairwell, a narrow beige corridor with a yellow stripe painted down the middle of concrete steps. They ran into a few other people as they descended, but there still hadn't been any announcements, and the absence of other escapees was making them feel as if they had prematurely panicked.

Then, as they reached the 70th floor, they heard an announcement: The building was secure. No one needed to evacuate.

One woman in the small group said to Elliott, "Do you want to believe them? Let's go!"

They had descended three more floors when United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into their own south tower like an arrow from a giant crossbow. It was 9:03 a.m.

Flight 175 had left Logan 15 minutes after American Flight 11. It was also bound for Los Angeles, carrying 56 passengers and nine crew.

Although its spectacularly televised impact was above Elliott, at first he and those around him thought an explosion had come from below. An incredible noise - he calls it an "exploding sound" - shook the building, and a tornado of hot air and smoke and ceiling tiles and bits of drywall came flying up the stairwell.

"In front of me, the wall split from the bottom up," he says.

In a flash of panic, people began fleeing higher into the building. Then a few men began working on the crowd, calming people down, saying that downstairs was the only way out.

As they descended, a few other survivors stumbled into the corridor. A construction painter, his white T-shirt covered in blood, was helped downstairs by others. But the stairwell was still far from jammed with evacuees.

Elliott assumed his was one of the final groups descending. They saw only two firemen going up. They told them there had been an explosion near the 60th floor.

At 9:40 a.m., just short of an hour after he first fled his office, Elliott finally made it out of the World Trade Center. He was in a daze. The plaza was strewn with paper and dropped coffee cups.

He walked to the subway. During the 10-minute trip to his roommate's office in Midtown, the south tower collapsed. When he found out at the office, he broke down, fell to the floor, and sobbed

[Bolo Boffin]

1. What explains what?

Tell us your suspicions.

[Contrite]

8. I'm wondering why

1. There were no announcements although the tower had been hit.
2. Flames were curling up the building to his level from how far down?
3. Yet, this guy apparently had no problem escaping the 103rd floor.
4. Firemen reported there were explosions at the 60th Floor.
5. Debris, smoke and heat came UP the stairwell.

[Bolo Boffin]

9. He was in the South Tower. n/t

[Contrite]

10. I know.

Why would flames be curling up outside the building if the fuel exploded as a fireball? Or is he referring to the north tower at that point?


Why is it there were no announcements until he and his co-workers were at the 70th floor? (And, why, at that, were they told the building was "secure"?) YET:


Although its spectacularly televised impact was above Elliott, at first he and those around him thought an explosion had come from below. An incredible noise - he calls it an "exploding sound" - shook the building, and a tornado of hot air and smoke and ceiling tiles and bits of drywall came flying up the stairwell.

Why was debris flying UP the stairwell?


Also, what about the explosion on the 60th floor?

[hack89]

2. Nice description of an 767 hitting the WTC - thanks. nt

[Twist_U_Up]

3. "Walls cracking from the bottom up." = Bombs in the basement

Thats what explains that.

[hack89]

5. Care to elaborate?

Sounds like a pretty slow pressure wave to me.

[Kingshakabobo]

4. I have a friend that was probably part of that group.

He was an Aon employee who barely made it out because he decided to evacuate and disregard the "all clear" warning they received.

[MervinFerd]

6. Definitely Romulan Disruptor fire.

Or a 767 hitting the building.

[Taxloss]

7. You're suggesting an invisible explosion below the impact of the second flight, at the

same time as the impact of the second flight? An explosion not seen by any of the workers in the south tower, or any of the emergency workers responding to the emergency at the north tower? An explosion that does not lead to the building's collapse?