COLUMN 14AA: THE SMOKING GUN THAT FELL AWAY

COLUMN 14AA: THE SMOKING GUN THAT FELL AWAY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Updated 6/21/07
(Split-off from the support columns masterlist)
----Let’s look at the roughly 12x16 foot hole apparent on the second floor, where the Foam Fraud has wrongly attracted attention as the main fuselage entry point. The ASCE reported "on the second floor, the facade was missing between column lines 11 and 15. This was caused by the impact of the upper parts of the Boeing - mostly tailfin and horizontal stabilizers. While "windows and their reinforcing frames were still in place between column lines 11 and 13," their Performance Report listed Column 14AA as “missing,” the only one so designated on the second floor. [1]

Yet through some magic, many 9/11 Truthers have found the column there and concluded no plane fuselage entered. Which is mostly true, since the main fuselage entered below that, a disconnect that pops up again and again. Here’s where it all comes back to: in the shot above, even the evident wall-removed hole between column lines 13 and 15 seems to have an intact and vertical support running down the middle of it. Ralph Omholt of Physics 911 noted this “vertical column, next to the purported entry hole on the second floor. Not even a small plane could have hit at the purported location, without destroying the column; inwardly. Note the general good condition of the windows; this wasn’t a major impact zone of a B-757.” [2]

Likewise, but more emphatically, Citizens Investigative Team, producers of the documentary The PentaCon, list this column as unequivocally present and one of their prime clues to look elsewhere for the missing 757. CIT co-founder and PentaCon narrator Aldo Marquis shared the above graphic and told me, in the Above Top secret forums:

“The biggest smoking gun besides the undamaged foundation and the no tail section damage is column 14AA. THIS reduces the size of the "fuselage hole.” It is clear that the two windows were blown out. Would it be more likely or less likely to leave a segment of column hanging in the middle of the "fuselage hole?" [3]

Again, this is not the main point of fuselage impact, but rather the tailfin hole, officially, which in a sense also discredits another of their smoking guns - hte lack of a tailfin hole. I set out to explain this to him, along with three other points. Here are the points I made, his responses in the discussion thread, and my responses to his responses (added here, after I decided it was useless to push it there):

Caustic Logic: THIS dangler is your smoking gun #2?
Marquis: “Yes. No amout of warping of the mind or rationalizing will not change that.”
(Well, that about set the tone…)

Caustic Logic: “1) Jim Hoffman: this “hanging object […] appears to consist in part of remains of the steel reinforcements that were part of column 14. […] it might have pivoted as the plane entered the building, and then fallen back into a vertical position.” [4]
Marquis: “"Might". Again, this is ridiculous. People like you and Jim Hoffman are dangerous to the truth. You will calmly suggest irrational suggestions in order that you mold the mind of the reader. I am not going to comment on Jim Hoffman's silly suggestion more than that. I may not be an expert, but neither is he. He is a software engineer. Not an aeronautical engineer or building engineer.”
(He ignored the point here, replacing defense entirely with offense. None of us are experts, but he feels he’s entitled to be right when he can’t even tell a plane’s nosecone impact from its tailfin hole.)

Caustic Logic: “2) Here’s how the plane is alleged to have entered. It doesn’t seem too odd to me that a partial column 14 might have survived the impact, attached at the top end but not the bottom.”
Marquis: “This is more deceptive artistic rendering.”
(Wrong. I only claimed it represented the official story, and it was carefully prepared to match that in all proportions. It may not be100% precise but accurate enough to make my point, which he entirely ignored, again.)

Caustic Logic: [referring to above “deceptive artistic rendering”] “3) Look at that fuselage top – it couldn’t permanently defy the 2nd floor slab plowing into it edgewise, but couldn’t help but dent it at that spot either. The ASCE agrees with me on this point that the slab shows signs of breaching there:” “The removal of the second-floor exterior column on column line 14, probably by the fuselage tail, suggests that the second-floor slab in this area was also severely damaged even before the building collapsed.” [5] I offered the shot below:
“Look at the glow in the center and notice the floor seems to start a ways in. Therefore C14 would have had no floor to anchor to.”
Marquis: “Nothing conclusive about that photo.”
(it’s one of those things you either see or don’t).

Caustic Logic: “4) Oddly enough, there is another famous shot that shows no column at all in that very spot. Pentagon photoshopping? Or dropped dangler? If this was such a mighty column that would have barred entry to a 757, then why did it disappear on its on within 20 minutes (before collapse)? Am I wrong? Did smoking gun #2 fall away of its own accord?”
Marquis: "Adam, we can not continue this dialog if you are going to be decpetive by using lower resolution photos. The column was there after the event. PERIOD."

Not period. Rather, comma, "apparently, in this one photograph." Okay, the pic I used was a little small, but is resolution really an issue when we have a span of evidence like this? Four of the clearest shots of the area I’m familiar with, which I've used above and elsewhere, and which the CIT themselves might've used: One shows column 14AA hanging in there after the fire foam was sprayed. In one (lower left), no foam has yet been sprayed and the damning column is not evident (though there may be hanging elements back in the smoke). The other two show again after the foam was applied no apparent vertical members. No sign. I’m remembering the old Sesame Street segment about which one of these things just doesn’t belong. It's the one with a column. And it’s one of their “smoking guns” no matter what, that led them to look at the eyewitnesses for an explanation of where the plane went if not into the building.

As we had started out:
Caustic Logic: Of course any realizations would be too little too late of course, and I don't expect a course change.
Marquis: Apparently I should expect the same with you.
Apparently we were both right.
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Sources:
[1] Mlakar, Paul et al. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. P 17 PDF version. www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf
[2]Omholt, Ralph. “9-11 and the IMPOSSIBLE: The Pentagon. Part One of An Online Journal of 9-11.” Physics 911. Undated. http://physics911.net/omholt
[3] Posted by Aldo Marquis June 9 2007, 11:36 am, at: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread286140/pg4
(Cited responses on following pages of the thread)
[4] Hoffman, Jim. ERROR: 'Surviving Columns Preclude 757 Crash' http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/columns.html
[5] See 1 – page 37.