Ok, I have been meaning to put up this post for some time. I have a background the fire protection industry, I spent years as a head contractor in Sydney, Australia, mainly working on high rise. The 2 main issues that I have always had trouble coming to terms with in the official story is the assumptions of the dislodged fire proofing, and the elevator fireball of WTC 1.
I started a thread on the old LC board last year with some questions I had about the elevator fireball, and picked up some great information.
So with the recent leaking of the WTC 1 blue prints, I’d like to open this thread, and put together a collection of as much info as I have, and hopefully others here can add to it. See if we can close the case on the elevator fireball.

Ok first off,

Last year when I was researching this subject, I was pointed to this site,
http://www.studyof911.com/articles/BsB100106/
The author has done a great job, and I found it had lots of great information, but there are a few mistakes, and a few ends left untied. The release of the WTC1 blueprints has obviously helped to tie up some of these loose ends.
Please read the article before going any further.

A point the article gets wrong, is that there were not just 2 elevators from the lower levels, up to the impact zone, but 3. Those were freight car 50, freight/express car 6, and express car 7.
The below image, shows the floor plan for floor 104. I have marked out elevators 50, 6 and elevator 7.


What is significant about floor 104 is that a woman named Mary Baldizzi, was on floor 104 of WTC 1 at the time of the first strike. She survived and lived to tell the tale. She describes how she took an elevator with about 10 other people, from floor 104 down to ground floor.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/9...ry.baldizzi.wmv
So given that the article I first linked to shows that the freight car 50 had the cables severed, it plunged and those inside were injured and had to be rescued. We can rule out that Mary was in this car because it got her safely to ground level. Through process of elimination, we can conclude that the only other car that Mary could have taken from floor 104 to the ground floor would be car 7.
Due to the fact that Arturo Griffith survived in freight car 50, and describes no over pressure and was not burnt, and that it appears Mary Baldizzi took car 7 from floor 104 safely down to the ground floor, we can rule these 2 elevator shafts out for the explosive fireball. This means the only shaft we have left extending from the lower levels to the impact zone, is car 6, which was directly adjacent to car 7.
From the blueprints, here is an elevation drawing of cars 6 and 7.


I often find confusion amongst some about the basement levels, especially when reading statements from witnesses and comparing them to information from otis elevators or the blueprints. So below I have listed how they are labeled on the blueprints, and next to it how they are referred to by NIST and most witnesses.
Service level – B1
Sub level 1 – B2
Sub level 2 – B3
Sub level 3 – B4
Sub level 4 – B5
Sub level 5 – B6
The NIST report tells us that car 6 (no 7 is not listed) services from B1 up to 107. Looking at the blueprints this is true, however it should be noted that the shaft does extend down to B3.
This can be noted on the floor plans, as you can still see the shaft on the lower levels, however there is no access but a service door on B4. Car 7 is the same.
The below are screen caps of levels B1 to B4, I have added the elevator numbers, note that elevators 6, 7, and 50 are circled, these are the only 3 elevators that extended to the impact zone.





A common lie by debunkers I have heard before is that, there were many more elevator shafts that extended into the impact zone because the local elevators were “stacked”. A mention of this can be found in the NIST report,

Pg 69-70
http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-7.pdf

The key point to observe from what NIST says is, “providing additional transport without increasing floor space”. The elevators were stacked, as in, local elevators would keep the in the same path throughout the building. For example, as per the NIST report, below shows the variations in floor plans as each bank of local elevators terminate, giving the higher levels more floor space.

All four banks occupying floor space.


Bank A terminates, giving these levels more floor space.


Bank B terminates, giving these levels more floor space.


Bank C terminates, giving these levels more floor space.


Until, finally we reach the mechanical room where all the lift motors are, and the last bank of local shafts terminate. Having worked in elevator shafts and lift rooms many times, I could never understand how anyone could tell me two elevators could share the same shaft “stacked”, the shaft has to terminate in order to install the motor.

Here is the 44th floor lobby starting off again. Notice the local elevators are in the same positions, hence they are “stacked”.


This is from the NIST report showing the arrangement.


So lets rule out the lie that there were other lift shafts which extended from the lower levels.

We are left to consider elevator 6, the elevator that was within inches of elevator 7, which was the elevator that appears to have taken Mary Baldizzi safely to the ground floor. An elevator which was in a position not described by Lieutenant William Walsh,

This report also seems to imply that there were multiple shafts blown open. If that were the case, and if the fireball can only be in elevator 6, wouldn't elevator 7 be a good candidate for one of the other blown elevators Walsh is referring to? Of course, that is a problem if Baldizzi took 7 to the lobby.


I have a few other points to make, but don't have the time at this moment.

I would be really interested to know if Marlene Cruz was in WTC 1 or 2. If she was in 1, she had to of been in elevator 6, because she mentions being in a freight car, her experience was different to Griffith, and her cables were cut (they could have only been cut if her elevator was in the impact zone).

Also it would be worth discussing about Griffith's experience some more, he claims to have got out without being burnt, but a short time later a female who was in the car with him, was burnt by fire whilst being rescued.

I have no doubt reports of people on fire were true, and it was probably due to fuel coming down the shafts. But that doesn't account for the explosive damage reported and filmed.

http://z10.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_F...wtopic=9285&hl=

Chopoz,
thanks for your post. I find that your analysis of those points and some of the details of the structure of the core and elevators of the towers extremely revealing.


As you seem to be familiar with elevators, their shafts and fire prevention can you answer for me the following query.

Presumably an express lift which can stretch (almost) the whole height of these enormously tall towers, will be designed so that it runs very fast. When travelling all the way to the top or bottom.
In my mind I see such an installation like a huge cylinder(shaft) with a big piston(elevator car). If there was a fire or smoke, or many gallons of liquid fuel in one of the top levels, surely the action of an express elevator speeding down a distance of nearly a quarter of a mile would suck ( the smoke/the heat/the liquid fuel?) into the shaft like a pump.
Therfore, passengers could reach the bottom of the shaft at speed, get out of the car into safety, and then a minute later the car could have fuel liquid soaking it causing an explosion or fire?

Or to put it another way. The act of an elevator car speeding toward smoke or a fire, on a high up floor could act as a bellows causing any seat of fire to blow much hotter as the air rushes past. the effect could be the hot material leaking out of the side of the floor which to some looks like a "thermite event"

Presumably for any of these things to happen all that is required is for the lift shaft on one of the damaged floors to have a small hole in the wall at that level.

I am not familiar with the design of elevators with regard to any pressure or vacuum forming as the cars move up and down but it would be interesting to know.

I remember reading that the ventilation in the shafts kept the oxygen level very low, so that the fire could not spread through them. Can you confirm/deny this?

Hi UK,

Generally speaking, your analogy is quite correct.

Elevator cars are usually designed to take up as much space of the shaft as possible.
When the cables are severed in a elevator shaft, the elevator car has 2 means of slowing it down and/or stopping it.

1. Emergency brakes, which are usually located on the side of the car, and latch onto rails which run up the elevator shafts.

2. The elevator car acts like a piston in a cylinder, and the falling car compresses the air blow offering some resistance.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question730.htm

With regards to a falling elevator, or even just a fast moving express elevator acting like a vacuum sucking the fuel etc down from above, this is also quite likely.
I don't doubt this to be the case, there are reports of kerosene being smelt on lower levels, and also people on fire, which could only be explained by some kind of fuel.

However, there are also reports that suggest these two events were seperate, and if we are to assume that the fuel was the cause of the these lower level explosions, which had so much force they blew away car park walls, took out 3" plate glass etc. there are many inconsistencies with how it was that people were able to survive.

The story of Arturo Griffith in the freight elevator is an example, both for the fact that he survived, and also for the fact that he describes a fireball (not explosive) coming down his shaft minutes after he had fallen and crawled out of his car and burning another passenger.

The fact that you have testimony of so many people that said there were 2 loud explosions within seconds of each other. And you have David Felipe, who William Rodriguez says came running into the office blown away, moments after the explosions. This discounts the possiblilty of someone being able to jump in an elevator after the impact, take the elevator down to the ground level, safely exit, then the fuel sucked down the shaft from the elevator causes this massive explosion moments later. All of that takes time, these explosions were meant to be in very quick sucession of the impact.

Even on the upper levels there are descriptions of the fireballs, and people have lived to tell the tale. We are talking about explosions that threw people off their feet and burned them, VS explosions that turned car parks into a pile of rubble, or blew away a 50 tonne press.

You think people would live to tell the tale if faced with the later?

good infos, chopoz!

as i've just finished some work about it, here are my points:


-you're absolut right on car 6 and 7, besides car 50 they were the only ones going from the basement up to the impact zone (nist only mentions car 6 and 50 to do so, but is wrong on that)
-you're right that the shafts of car 6 and 7 ended in basement 3

she was in tower 1, but not in elevator 6. she was in main freight car 50, together with arturo griffith.

this female is marlene cruz. she was burnt because the fireball occured after the first explosion(s). as far as my research goes, the basement explosions and the fireball going through shaft of car 50 and reaching the lobby, are two different events.

you're absolute right on that.

i think they mixed it and she was in the south tower. see here: http://www.debunking911.com/quotes.htm

however, it's interesting that the nist didn't include this elevator in their reports to the ones working. according to nist only one elevator in the south tower was operable (the one used by chief palmer, going up to the 40th floor) and only one in the north tower, one of the lower elevators. (see nist ncstar 1-8, p.79)

i think we can rule out that she used car 7, because she was actually in the south tower. furthermore, according to nist regarding car 6 and 7:

and here are the core plans from the basement levels. i've marked car 50, 6 and 7. easy to notice that car 6 and 7 ended in basement 3.








i will include some of your posted floor plans in my work. if you're interested what i've researched about the basement explosions, just pm me, as it is not ready for publication yet.

again, good work chopoz. :)

i'm just a bit confused:

according to nist and the blueprints, the lowest openings were in basement 1 (service level). according to the blueprints (nist doesn't give this information), their shafts went as deep as basement 3 (sublevel 2).

so this would mean that the bottom of the shaft was in b3 (sublevel2), but the shaft was accessable from b4 (sublevel3) through the service door (figure section 22-22, elev.6 and 7)?

but doesn't the pic of the core-plan of sublevel 3 (which i confused in my first post as b3) imply that the shaft extended to b4 (sublevel3). also on this drawing:



we can see that car 6,7 and 50 were the only shafts reaching from the basement up to the impact zone. but this figure also implies that the shafts of 6 and 7 extended down to b4 (sublevel3).

it would be good to establish this once and for all.

now, according to walsh, the side-bank elevators were intact. elevators in the central bank were blown. the only elevator in the central bank which reaches the impact zone is car 50. 6 and 7 are on the south bank side.
there are no more elevators in the central bank besides car 50 extending to the impact zone. if walsh is right and there were several elevators destroyed in the central bank, a downcoming fireball could not be the cause for their destruction.
walshs testimony is (at least partially) confirmed by the footage of the naudet-brothers. in it, we can see that the north elevator bank is not damaged. so walsh was right on that, given a high chance that his testimony is also correct about the south bank. unfortunately, there's no footage of the south elevator bank.

IF SOMEONE IS AWARE OF FOOTAGE OF THE SOUTH ELEVATOR BANK OF THE LOBBY, PLEASE PROVIDE!!

here for reference:

i'll confirm that marlene cruz was in elevator 50 in wtc 1. she ended up on b3 where she was rescued. heres a video of her testimony along with a couple other abm workers, one of which (arthur delbianco) describes how he was going to do some work on the 106th or 107th floor, but after the impact he stopped at the 78th floor picked up as many as he could then headed to the ground floor. i don't have the blueprints in front of me here at work, but logic would dictate that he was on an express elevator if he was trying to get to the 106th floor directly from the sublevels. i'll admit it is possible that he was using multiple elevators and since i cant look to see if the elevators that go to 78 are the same elevators that go to 106 and 107 i cant be 100% sure he was on an express.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8095954436526710224

i have more info about the elevators but will have to wait till i get home to have it in front of me.

Thanks NK44 and great work, i have to say i've always enjoyed reading your posts.

For some reason i thought Arturo and Cruz gave conflicting stories, so for this reason i discounted the 2 being in the same car, i will have a look later, but perhaps i was wrong about that.

With regards to Mary Baldizzi, thanks for clearing that up, becuase last night i found conflicting information from one of my posts on the old forum.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/...ecord.asp?ID=81


So it would appear that we won't find survivors of elevators 6 & 7.

On the subject of Mary Baldizzi,
If she were in WTC 2, and as per your NIST quote,

http://archive.recordonline.com/adayinseptember/jones.htm

Even in WTC 2, Mary would have only had 2 options to get from floor 104, to the lobby, car 6 and the freight car 50. NIST and this report tell us that 6 & 7 were severed and exploded.
Seems unlikely Mary and her co workers would have gone for a freight elevator. But thats another can of worms....

Ooops, my bad. That should read B4, i got myself confused with exactly what i mentioned in my first post. Was referring to sub level 3 (B4).

With the help of a magnifying glass, i was able to read most of the details on the bluebrints. The below elevation drawing of cars 6 & 7, shows indeed that the shafts terminated on B4.

Can't help you there, but, a member of this forum, seatineb, whom i have invited here to post, has been doing some nice work on this fireball scenario too.

Here is a screen cap he posted from the naudet brothers.



Doesn't give us much, but shows charred walls and ceiling from the local elevator area.

Excellent work Chopoz......

One thing is for sure ....the shafts of the local elevators were not continouse from the lobby to the top of the building......

I found and scanned this awhile back from WTC architect Minoru Yamasaki's book:

A Life In Architechture(1979)

Yamasaki explicitly says that it was the shafts of the local elevators that were stacked upon each other.........and not the elevators that were stacked upon each other within the shafts.....that the debunkers propogate.


Page 118

more info concerning the elevator fireball. this is directly from the commisions report page 309

Lobby & 3rd floor: Firefighter Peter Blaich

From http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/9...gz/blaich.html

http://www.ny1.com/pages/RRR/911special_survivors.html

The above proves nothing.

Not once in this thread has anyone claimed the jet fuel could not have come down the shafts and burnt people.

There is however, doubt that the extensive damage to the lower levels was caused by the jet fuel. Furthermore, there is doubt that the multiple witness accounts of hearing/feeling explosions within moments of each other, were the result of the plane impacting followed by an explosive fireball down the elevator shafts.

The only point of interest to me in your post was this,

This account is very confusing for me,
As mentioned earlier in this thread the only 3 shafts which extended from the basement levels to the impact zone was shafts 6,7, and 50. This can also be said for floor 3, which is mentioned in the account of firefighter Peter Blaich. Peter Blaich describes opening up a burnt elevator car on floor 3. Because we can account for car 50, this leaves only 6 & 7.

However, car 7 does not service floor 3 as shown below in the blueprints, so therefore we can rule out car 7 because Peter describes opening elevator doors. I have also marked what the blueprints show as stairwell 2, which i am assuming is stairwell B.



This leaves only car 6 which stops on floor 3, extends to the impact zone, and is unaccounted for.

However, this is where it becomes confusing....

As per my earlier quote from the story of Beatriz Susana Genoves,

http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/...ecord.asp?ID=81

and then further, we have NIST

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-8.pdf pg.43

So here we have 2 sources telling us that car 6 & 7 were out of order. We know the car 50 was accounted for and the occupants survived. So what is the explanation for a burnt car with occupants inside on floor 3?

anyone???

Weren't many of the shafts going all the way from the top to the basement of the building. Even though the elevators didn't run all the distance. For example in most shafts there were elevators servicing lower floors and also in the same shaft an elevator servicing the higher floors.

no. the space within the floor may have been the same, but each mechanical floor was sealed only 3 shafts went from top to bottom. 50, 6, and 7. the blueprints affirm this.

So they say that the north west of the main lobby was affected by the" elevator fireball" when as we know from the diagrams on this thread that that part of the floor was nowhere near any elevator shaft which could have reached the crash zone.


I have marked the only elevator shafts which went as high as the Aircraft impact site, and the zone where the "fireball" damage was witnessed
Therfore if it was a fireball, it was caused by some other event not connected to avaition fuel. Because that area is quite well masked off from the only shafts possible.

sorry, I got something wrong....... :(