It turns out that making a building collapse into its own footprint is actually pretty difficult and requires a skilled demolitions team. This team uses the concept of implosion to tactically take down a standing building without damaging the surrounding infrastructure.
A blaster is a person responsible for taking down a building.
Blasters have crews take out non load bearing walls and weakened support columns [in preparation for the demolition].
Blasters have to decide where to place explosives, how much, and which type. The two most common are Dynamite and RDX.
Dynamite is usually used on concrete columns, stuffed into boreholes... the resulting outward pressure is so immense that it creates a shock-wave that shatters the concrete.
When a building has steel-reinforced columns that's when we break out the RDX.
The weight of the higher floors falling causes most of the damage. It's gravity that really brings the building down.
Most buildings are unique and not designed with demolition in mind. This puts a lot of extra pressure on a demo team because every job is a custom job. Every support column has to taken out in a particular order in a very short period of time to get the building to fall in the desired manner. One small mistake can cause massive collateral damages. So what happens when you mess up this highly complicated process?
My favorite botched demolition is #4 on the above video at 2:25. I never knew buildings could roll before watching clips like this.
However, keeping all of this information in mind, there is one exception to the rule.
The World Trade Center terrorist attack is the only example of a steel reinforced structure being brought down by fire alone. It was very lucky that these three buildings collapsed into their own footprint the way they did or the collateral damage would have been massive.
Luckily, the heat of the fires were able weaken the support beams just enough to allow all three buildings to collapse at free fall speeds. If you watch the videos of the WTC buildings falling they almost look like they were taken down by a group more skilled than any other demolition team in human history. All three buildings were perfectly demolished. Talk about luck! What are the odds?
Speaking of luck, did you hear that multiple passports of the hijacking terrorists survived the inferno of a plane crashing into a building?
One belonged to a hijacker on American Airlines flight 11. This is the passport of Satam al Suqami. A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed.
Unbelievable! Stranger than fiction amirite? When it really comes down to it these attacks were a big win for the military industrial complex. It was a pretense for the Patriot Act, stripping the rights away from all citizens, and a justification for endless war in the Middle East. Those warmongers sure get lucky sometimes I tell ya.