"An airplane hit wouldn't bring down the building" seems rather similar to "the Titanic is practically unsinkable!"

First, you don't get to make up your own hair-splitting distinction and dismiss all the examples as failing that. Show where "partial collapse" has been defined, and show, with references, that each of the examples given is a partial collapse and that the WTC wasn't a partial collapse by that definition.

Secondly, what is the point of the second reference. It demonstrates that the designers considered a 707. That's not the same as a 767. In any case, it doesn't address the question.

707s and 767s are pretty much the same weight. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_707 en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_767

No loadbearing steel components failed in the other examples. They aren't collapses.

Don't just claim it. Prove it.

That's what their answers indicate. No loadbearing steel components are mentioned failing. You can find similar answers elsewhere; nobody has found a steel building collapse from fire.quora.com/…

Thank you for that link, @Mustang: It points to the "Sight and Sound Theatre" collapse which was a large steel building that collapsed from fire, and that document in turn refers to the McCormick Place exhibition hall fire - a large steel building that collapsed from fire.

And in neither case did any steel component fail. Just a roof collapse.

I suggest you have a look at the document Oddthinking linked to in his last comment. Page 21 (or 26, depending on which numbering) shows two pictures of what are unmistakenly broken structural steal beams. In case you don't believe me, the captions of the pictures mentions: 'Also shows structural steel failure on the main stage' and 'showing the roof and structural steel failure in the auditorium.' Those definitely are steel components failing.

You're comparing a stage in a theater to an actual building. Is that your point?

You were stating 'in neither case did any steel component fail' and I merely pointed out that that is wrong. Furthermore, if you look at the picture, you will notice that the roof beam are also made of steel. So yes, it might be 'just a roof collapse', but the roof was made of steel. Furthermore, the document even states on page 9: 'The fire spread vertically from the storage area to the stage, causing the steel to lose its tensile strength. Temperatures of 1,000° F can cause buckling and temperatures of 1,500° F can cause steel to lose strength and collapse.'

"If you look at the picture" - Nowhere does that report claim the collapse of a steel building or that the roof was "made of steel". You're just making stuff up at this point.

"The McCormick Place exhibition hall [..] was a public assembly occupancy built with fire protected steel construction and no sprinkler system.", "The theater was built of steel rigid frame construction to allow for the large open space of the auditorium, unobstructed by columns.", " The prop assembly building was built using a steel rigid frame and steel clad exterior and roof." Just a few examples from the document. But even if it weren't, you're statement was about 'in neither case did any steel component fail', which it obviously did, your statement didn't specify anything about roof.

Also, those sentences have nothing to do with your points.

My answer is just two links.

@Mustang "And in neither case did any steel component fail." That appears to be directly contradicted by the document.

I still don't understand the distinction between "partial collapse" and "collapse". The title of the FEMA document contains the phrase "Building Collapse". The opening sentence explains "a fire caused the collapse of the state-of-the-art, seven-year-old Sight and Sound Theater".

Your argument seems to be suffering from the "One True Scotsman Fallacy".

When a building collapses, that means that it actually collapsed. Not a hole in the roof.

Arguably, the WTC only partially collapsed because of fire. The stories above the fire collapsed from the fall. The stories below the fire collapsed from having stories fall from them with great force. But only part of the collapse was directly from the fire.

If you're trying to win on some semantic point I'll let you do that.

Was the theatre any more than a roof and a stage?

I believe you are using rhetorical tricks to mislead the reader. I don't think it is a semantic point. The argument is that the fire could not have caused a collapse of the WTC, because fires have never done anything like that before. As more and more examples of similar situations are presented, more and more rules are introduced about why they don't really count.

Eventually, the strength of the original argument is weakened, because the fact that no other identical tower failed in identical ways is not really that surprising.

There have been tons of building fires much more intense than wtc. It should be easy to find examples of them collapsing.

The "wtc was special" argument is basically "wtc engineers didn't know what they were doing and built an unsafe structure ".

Which doesn't sound right.

Who is saying the WTC was special?

"tons of building fires much more intense than wtc" <- Note: To pass the filter you are setting, it must be tons of steel-constructed skyscrapers fires more intense than WTC.

Here's some similar fires. 911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html

. In these precedents, the fires consumed multiple floors, produced extensive window breakage, exhibited large areas of emergent flames, and went on for several hours. The fires in the WTC towers did none of these things.

@Mustang - I'd like to note that the page you linked to says they were more severe than the WTC fire, but it never defines what it means by that or explains it for each listed fire. By the naive definition of "severe", a fire which causes a building collapse is more severe than one that doesn't.

So, were they "more intense than WTC"?

I mean, I can claim that a burning match is more intense than the sun, but that doesn't make me right.

Unless I define "intense" as "ability to apply localized heat to a point", in which case I would be right - you can light a candle from a match, but not from (unconcentrated) sunlight.