Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that
explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech
explosion expert said Tuesday.
The collapse of the buildings appears "too methodical" to be a chance
result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice
president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.
"My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit
the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings
that caused the towers to collapse," Romero said.
Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research
and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects
of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures. Romero said
he based his opinion on video aired on national television broadcasts.
Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled
implosions used to demolish old structures.
"It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event
like that," Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. Romero
said he and another Tech administrator were on a Washington-area subway
when an airplane struck the Pentagon. He said he and Denny Peterson,
vice president for administration and finance, were en route to an
office building near the Pentagon to discuss defense-funded research programs
at Tech. If explosions did cause the towers to collapse, the detonations
could have been caused by a small amount of explosive, he said.
"It could have been a relatively small amount of
explosives placed in strategic points," Romero said. The explosives
likely would have been put in more than two points in each of the towers,
he said. The detonation of bombs within the towers is consistent with a
common terrorist strategy, Romero said.
"One of the things terrorist events are noted for is a diversionary
attack and secondary device," Romero said.
Attackers detonate an initial, diversionary explosion that attracts
emergency personnel to the scene, then detonate a second explosion, he
said. Romero said that if his scenario is correct, the diversionary
attack would have been the collision of the planes into the towers.
Tech President Dan Lopez said Tuesday that Tech had not been asked to
take part in the investigation into the attacks. Tech often assists in
forensic investigations into terrorist attacks, often by setting off similar
explosions and studying the effects.
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