Rodriguez - freight elevator shaft

[Kevin Fenton]

I just found this interview with the operator of a freight elevator who was at work when WTC 1 was hit. It is relevant to the Rodriguez story - Rodriguez was in the basement and helped a colleague who was burned there when there was an "explosion" from a freight elevator shaft following the impact.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/sept11/2002-09-10-surivivor-griffiths_x.htm
"Arturo was running 50A, the big freight car going from the six-level basement to the 108th floor. When American Airlines Flight 11 struck at 8:46 a.m., Arturo and a co-worker were heading from the second-level basement to the 49th floor.

"Arturo heard a sudden whistling sound and the impact. Cables were severed and Arturo's car plunged into free fall.

"The only thing I remember saying was 'Oh, God, Oh, God, I'm going to die,' " he says, recalling how he tried to protect his head as the car plummeted.

"The emergency brakes caught after 15 or 16 floors. The imploding elevator door crushed Arturo's right knee and broke the tibia below it. His passenger escaped injury."

I think that this shows that something nasty was heading down a lift shaft that went from the impact floors to the basement floor where the janitor was burned. It certainly appears to be fuel spilled from the plane.

His wife was also an elevator operator and escaped from the 78th floor that day. She said:
"All that morning, Carmen had been carrying hundreds of passengers from the 78th-floor sky lobby to the bond-trading offices of Cantor Fitzgerald on the 101st to 105th floors and the Windows on the World restaurant above that.

"A full elevator had just left the 78th floor, and Carmen was about to carry up six or seven stragglers. The plane struck as the doors of her elevator closed. They could hear debris smash into the top of the car; then the elevator cracked open, and flames poured in. Carmen jammed her fingers between the closed doors, pulled them partly open and held them as passengers clambered over and under her 5-foot-6 frame to escape.

"Before finally throwing herself out onto the lobby floor, she glanced back to be sure the elevator was empty. That was when fire scorched her face with second- and third-degree burns, and literally welded her hooped right earring to her neck. Her hands were badly burned.

"Carmen was helped down the 78 floors to an ambulance just as her husband was carried out of the basement on a piece of plywood and a hand truck, each certain — after seeing the burning buildings from the street outside — that the other was dead."

I think this shows that fuel and debris affected both passenger and freight elevator shafts following the original impact.

[spooked911]

1. Actually, I see nothing indicating fuel here.

It seems to me explosives set off on similar floors as where the planes hit could have had the same effect. The key thing in these anecdotes is some sort of fiery explosion and ensuing flaming debris.

[Kevin Fenton]

3. Forget this

I found out about the elevator company and that the same thing had happened in the south tower later. I don't think this is relevant any more.

[philb]

2. The only passenger elevators affected by the plane were those above Fl 78

most elevators stopped at 24 or 78; a lesser number went from 78 to the floor where the plane hit.

the freight elevator is the only one that went all the way down from the plane impact area

the fuel explosion in the freight elevator seemed to be more of a quick flash than an explosion that did much damage beyond the flash

people in the elevator and near it in the basement survived with only burns

some on the 78th floor skylobby area where elevators connected to plane impact area were badly burned or killed by the initial flash explosion down the elevator shafts;
but many survived also.

there doesn't seem to have been much damage caused below floor 78.

the firemen give an indication of the amount of damage in the lobby and lower levels over time; as some arrived early and some later and all described what they saw along the way.
http://www.flcv.com/firemen.html

[mirandapriestly]

4. Robert Jones from Ace Elevator said this

(whether it's true or not, I don't know.)
"We heard the explosion and within a matter of seconds after that impact, I heard – and as well as everybody else heard – this noise, this increasing sound of wind. And it was getting louder and louder. It was like a bomb, not quite the sound of a bomb coming down from a bomber. It was a sound of wind increasing, a whistling sound, increasing in sound.

...

But I found out later, when the plane came through the building, it cut the hoist ropes, the governor ropes, of (the) 6 and 7 cars, which was the observation cars.

Every night they would park those two cars up on the 107th floor. At the time the plane impacted B Tower, the observation deck wasn’t open yet, which was another life-saving factor. At the time it impacted the building, they hadn’t opened the observation deck.

...

What we heard was 6 and 7 car free-falling from the 107th floor and they impacted the basement at B-2 Level. And that’s the explosion that filled the lobby within a matter of two or three seconds, engulfed the lobby in dust, smoke.

And apparently from what I talked to with other mechanics, they saw the doors, the hatch doors blow off in the lobby level of 6 and 7 car. "

http://www.recordonline.com/adayinseptember/jones.htm

[philb]

6. Early arriving firefighters at WTC1 didn't find major problems in lobby

FIREFIGHTER PAUL HYLAND elevators working in WTC1

We went in, busted through one of the windows, opened up, made like a door. The maintenance guy said I think the elevators are working, or it was the Chief said it. The Chief went around and says take a look at some of the elevators. I think we had a maintenance guy with us at the time. He said these low-rise are working, it will get you up to 16. So we went up to 16, which was great because, walking 16 flights, we wouldn't be able to operate.

LIEUTENANT WAYNE MERA FDNY elevators working at WTC1

We were walking up Vesey and we saw parts of the plane on the ground still burning. So we turn down onto West Street and get to the north tower. We entered the north tower and reported to Chief Picciotto. He said we've got a report of people trapped on the 21st floor. So that's where we ended up going. We took the low-rise bank of elevators up to the 16th floor. It was a flying shaft from 1 to 8, so we stopped at 9 just to make sure it worked. Thank God it did. We went up to the 16th floor. We got off.


CAPTAIN JOHN KEVIN CULLEY lobby of WTC1 before 2nd plane hit

In the lobby of tower 1, all the usual people, the 1st Division, 1st Battalion, reporting in units, I can't remember specifically, the Fire Safety Director, who I recognized, FBI agents, people on the staff, building staff, particularly people that were involved with helping us read the elevator panels. Our first thought, normal high-rise operation is you want to get people up to the floors, the fire floors. That's normally done on elevators and we had a problem. There were no elevators in operation. What made it more of a problem is that all those elevators were shut down and there were people in them. So we were actually -- once I had staff that could operate the panel, they could speak to each individual elevator, ask how many people are in the elevator, what floor they were on.
Q. Can you describe what you visually were seeing around
A. Once the plane hit, there was no debris, or it fell. What we did have coming out of the building were people.

LIEUTENANT JAMES WALSH FDNY
WTC1 elevators
WHAT ELSE OBSERVED IN THE LOBBY WAS THAT THERES BASICALLY TWO AREAS OF ELEVATORS. THERES ELEVATORS OFF TO THE LEFT HAND SIDE WHICH ARE REALLY THE EXPRESS ELEVATORS THAT WOULD BE THE ELEVATORS THATS FACING NORTH. THEN ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE THERES ALSO ELEVATORS THAT ARE EXPRESS ELEVATORS AND THAT WOULD BE FACING SOUTH. AND YOU COULD SEE THE SHAFTS of THE ELEVATORS ON THE EXTREME NORTH SIDE AND THE OTHER EXPRESS ELEVATOR ON THE EXTREME SOUTH SIDE. THEY LOOKED INTACT TO ME FROM WHAT COULD SEE THE DOORS ANYWAY

[k-robjoe]

5. Time aspect

From this, it seems that the fuel coming down would take a couple of seconds. But Rodriguez says he heard the explosion below, before he heard the explosion from above. He might be wrong, but it seems from this that the explosion below ought to be several seconds after the explosion from above, if it was the burning jet-fuel.

Also. The elevator car would block the way. Like they both experienced.

[philb]

7. I think it was similar for Precoraro- the WTC1 building engineer

Mike Pecoraro, building engineer, - WTC tower 1 explosions
http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029

When the two arrived at the C level, they found the machine shop gone. "There was nothing there but rubble, "Mike said. "We're talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press ? gone!"

They decided to ascend two more levels to the building's lobby. As they ascended to the B Level, one floor above, they were astonished to see a steel and concrete fire door that weighed about 300 pounds, wrinkled up "like a piece of aluminum foil" and lying on the floor. "They got us again," Mike told his co-worker, referring to the terrorist attack at the center in 1993. Having been through that bombing, Mike recalled seeing similar things happen to the building's structure. He was convinced a bomb had gone off in the building.