“Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? . . . NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.” — NIST Responses to FAQs, August 2006
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has had considerable difficulty determining a politically correct sequence of events for the unprecedented destruction of three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings on 9/11 (Douglas 2006, Ryan 2006, Gourley 2007). But despite a number of variations in NIST’s story, it never considered explosives or pyrotechnic materials in any of its hypotheses. This omission is at odds with several other striking facts; first, the requirement of the national standard for fire investigation (NFPA 921), which calls for testing related to thermite and other pyrotechnics, and second, the extensive experience NIST investigators have with explosive and thermite materials.
