9/11 Firefighters: Bombs and Explosions in the WTC

The independent commission probing the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington decided not to hear from the worker group that lost more lives than anyone else to the terrorists: The Fire Fighters. [Workday Minnesota]

[Firefighter Louie] Cacchioli was called to testify privately [before the 9/11 Commission], but walked out on several members of the committee before they finished, feeling like he was being interrogated and cross-examined rather than simply allowed to tell the truth about what occurred in the north tower on 9/11. "My story was never mentioned in the final report [PDF download] and I felt like I was being put on trial in a court room," said Cacchioli. "I finally walked out. They were trying to twist my words and make the story fit only what they wanted to hear. All I wanted to do was tell the truth and when they wouldn't let me do that, I walked out. ... It was a disgrace to everyone, the victims and the family members who lost loved ones. I don't agree with the 9/11 Commission. The whole experience was terrible." [Arctic Beacon]

Edmund McNally phoned his wife Liz twice following the [WTC 2] aircraft impact. Mr McNally said in his second phone call "Liz, this was a terrorist attack. I can hear explosions below me." [NY Times]

Tom Elliott, WTC 2 survivor: They saw only two firemen going up. They told them there had been an explosion near the 60th floor. [csmonitor]

Kim White, WTC 1 survivor: "We got down as far as the 74th floor ... Then there was another explosion, so we left again by the stairwell." [People]

Explosions occurred below the aircraft impact levels in both towers prior to the collapses. The following gives a reason for the explosions:

Smoke from floor 74?

WMV video download

"There's a bomb in the building - start clearing out"..."We got a secondary device in the building"

WMV video download (698kB)

9/11 NBC News broadcast
[wma download]

"Shortly after 9 o'clock ... [Albert Turi the Chief of Safety for the New York Fire Department] received word of the possibility of a secondary device, that is another bomb going off. He tried to get his men out as quickly as he could, but he said there was another explosion which took place, and then an hour after the first hit - the first crash that took place - he said there was another explosion that took place in one of the towers here, so obviously according to his theory he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building.

Two WTC impacts. Three explosions reported.

One of the secondary devices he thinks that took place after the initial impact he thinks may have been on the plane that crashed into one of the towers. The second device - he thinks, he speculates - was probably planted in the building. ... But the bottom line is that he, Albert Turi, said that he probably lost a great many men in those secondary explosions, and he said that there were literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people in those towers when the explosions took place."

Firefighter Schroeder recollects in great detail how he was one of the first firefighters to rush to the complex. “We first assembled on West Street, where we saw someone burnt beyond recognition. We were like ‘What is going on here?’ and then went straight into the Marriot building” From there, Firefighter Schroeder made his way to the lobby of the North Tower. “It looked like a bomb went off, and we started making our way up the stairs to rescue as many people as we could.”

As they were making there way up the floors, Firefighter Schroeder heard a huge explosion. “The elevators just blew right out. We couldn’t believe it. The plane hits 80 floors up but the elevators explode at least five minutes later? It was unreal.”

Firefighter Schroeder made it all the way up to the 23rd floor before barely hearing on the failing radios that another plane was coming in. That plane would hit the South Tower though for some reason “We were tossed like a rag doll by another explosion in our building. People were making there way down the stairwells burnt like you couldn’t believe. We were all shocked because it seemed as if there was fire everywhere, on so many floors. It just didn’t make sense”. [Prison Planet]

Lou Cacchioli, Firefighter in WTC 1: At that point, Cacchioli found one of the only functioning elevators, one only going as high as the 24th floor ... "Tommy Hetzel was with me and everybody else also gets out of the elevator when it stops on the 24th floor," said Cacchioli, "There was a huge amount of smoke. Tommy and I had to go back down the elevator for tools and no sooner did the elevators close behind us, we heard this huge explosion that sounded like a bomb. It was such a loud noise, it knocked off the lights and stalled the elevator.

"Luckily, we weren't caught between floors and were able to pry open the doors. People were going crazy, yelling and screaming. And all the time, I am crawling low and making my way in the dark with a flashlight to the staircase and thinking Tommy is right behind me. "I somehow got into the stairwell and there were more people there. When I began to try and direct down, another huge explosion like the first one hits. This one hits about two minutes later, although it's hard to tell, but I'm thinking, 'Oh. My God, these bastards put bombs in here like they did in 1993!' [Arctic Beacon]

"...then somebody said that they saw an airliner go into one of those towers. Then, an hour later than that we had that big explosion from much, much lower down and I don't know what caused that."

WMV video download (268kB)

"I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions." [Craig Carlsen -- Firefighter (F.D.N.Y.)]

The audio track of the following video catches the explosions:

Video showing the lead up to, and the collapse of WTC 2.

WMV video dowenload (2.8 MB)

A point to note about the above video is the sounds of the explosions consist of low frequencies only.

The absence of high frequencies indicates the sounds were not transmitted through the air to the camera's microphone but through the ground - they reached the microphone via the tripod.

This in turn indicates that the explosions occurred below ground level (note where the smoke originates in the video).

'Just before the collapses, a series of deep, below ground explosions, then numerous explosions in the buildings upper floors ...We felt the same deep explosions before the second collapse." [Prison Planet]

Smoke at the base of WTC 2

How could an aircraft impact at floors 78+ of WTC 2 cause numerous large explosions at the base of the building?

Firefighters shocked by a loud explosion.

WMV video download (306kB)

"At 10:30 I tried to leave the building, but as I got outside I heard a second explosion ... And then a fire marshal came in and said we had to leave, because if there was a third explosion this building might not last."

WMV video download (231kB)

"We were trying to get some of the people out, but then there was secondary explosions and then subsequent collapses."

MOV video download (321kB)

"As we were getting our gear on and making our way to the stairway, there was a heavy duty explosion."

WMV video download (181kB)

"We really never even got that close to the building. The explosion blew and it knocked everybody over"

WMV video download (110kB)

More 9/11 News Videos Reporting
World Trade Center Explosions

"At that point, a debate began to rage because. . . many people had felt that possibly explosives had taken out 2 World Trade, and officers were gathering companies together and the officers were debating whether or not to go immediately back in or to see what was going to happen with 1 World Trade at that point. The debate ended pretty quickly because 1 World Trade came down." [Christopher Fenyo - Firefighter]

"I said, ‘Chief, they're evacuating the other building; right?’ He said, ‘No.’ . . . I said, ‘Why not? They blew up the other one.’ I thought they blew it up with a bomb. I said, ‘If they blew up the one, you know they're gonna blow up the other one.’ He said, ‘No, they're not.’ I said, ‘Well, you gotta tell them to evacuate it, because it's gonna fall down and you gotta get the guys out.’ He said, ‘I'm just the Battalion Chief. I can't order that.’ . . . I said, ‘You got a fucking radio and you got a fucking mouth. Use the fucking things. Empty this fucking building.’ Again he said, ‘I'm just a Battalion Chief. I can't do that.’ . . . Eventually this other chief came back and said, ‘They are evacuating this tower.’ . . . And sometime after that . . . I watched the north tower fall." [William Reynolds - Firefighter]

"I spoke with some police officials ... and they told me they have reason to believe that one of the explosions at the World Trade Center ... may have been caused by a van that was parked in the building that may have had some type of explosive device in it."

WMV video download (807kB)

"But at a quarter to 11:00 there was another collapse or explosion following the 10:30 collapse of the second tower. And a firefighter who rushed by us estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." [CNN]

Was WTC 7 supposed to collapse at 10:45 a.m.?