Ten New York Times 911 WTC FDNY Controlled Demolitions Quotes

The following are ten quotes from the WTC Task Force Interviews "Oral Histories" as published in the New York Times.

See here for many more quotes, and links to the Times website

FDNY CAPTAIN: "Somewhere around the middle of the world trade center, there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building."

FDNY BATTALION CHIEF: "It looked like it was a timed explosion"

FDNY buttISTANT COMMISSIONER: "I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down."

Q. "Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?"

A. "No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw"

FDNY DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: "We looked up at the building straight up, we were that close. All we saw was a puff of smoke coming from about 2 thirds of the way up. Some people thought it was an explosion. I don't think I remember that. I remember seeing, it looked like sparkling around one specific layer of the building. I buttume now that that was either windows starting to collapse like tinsel or something. Then the building started to come down. My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV."

FDNY FIRE MARSHAL: "I thought it was exploding, actually. That�s what I thought for hours afterwards, that it had exploded or the plane or there had been some device on the plane that had exploded, because the debris from the tower had shot out far over our heads"

FDNY buttISTANT COMMISSIONER: "I should say that people in the street and myself included thought that the roar was so loud that the explosive - plants were going off inside the building."

"As I said I thought the persons planted explosives somewhere in the building. That's how loud it was, crackling explosive"

FDNY CHIEF: "You could see the windows pop out just like in the picture, looked like a movie. I saw one floor of windows pop out, like poof, poof. I saw one and a half floors pop out. It looked almost like an explosion. The whole top was teetering, and I really thought just the top of the building was falling off."

FDNY FIREFIGHTER: "I was distracted by a large explosion from the south tower and it seemed like fire was shooting out a couple of hundred feet in each direction, then all of a sudden the top of the tower started coming down in a pancake."

Q. "where was the fire? Like up at the upper levels where it started collapsing?"

A. "It appeared somewhere below that. Maybe twenty floors below the impact area of the plane. I saw it as fire and when I looked at it on television afterwards, it doesn't appear to show the fire. It shows a rush of smoke coming out below the area of the plane impact. The reason why I think the cameras didn't get that image is because they were a far distance away and maybe I saw the bottom side where the plane was and the smoke was up above it."

FDNY FIREFIGHTER: "I just remember there was just an explosion. It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions"