Slide #51 - Danny Jowenko

Top European Controlled Demolition Expert

In this slide, Gage introduces us to the first of his two experts, Danny Jowenko. He is, as advertised, a controlled demolition expert.

Gage then produces several quotes from Jowenko. Again, this is a case of cherry picking. Gage doesn't misrepresent Jowenko's opinion, but he does hold back a lot of information about this interview that he would rather you not know.

All of this is taken from a more complete version of the interview available here, here, and here at YouTube.

Jowenko Says The Towers Were Not Demolitions

No conspiracy theorist likes to quote Jowenko when it comes to the towers. He clearly sees that those building's collapses started from the impact area. Nothing leads him to conclude that those buildings fell from controlled demolition using explosives, no matter how much the interviewer tries to get him to say so.

Jowenko Is Primed To Accept 7 World Trade As A Demolition

Though it's not shown on any film of the interview I've seen, Jowenko is first shown a clip of Silverstein's "pull it" statement. Several times he refers to it in his interview and it has obviously colored how he views the collapse.

I've prepared a short video about this statement and why it is not evidence of the demolition of 7 World Trade.

YouTube: But Silverstein Said "Pull It"!

Indeed, Gage himself does not use this statement in his presentation, probably because he knows what flimsy evidence it truly is. However, Jowenko's opinion was colored by this falsehood. Garbage in, garbage out.

Jowenko Is Only Shown Select Information

Jowenko is then shown a video of the building falling. There is no indication whether he is shown the complete collapse or a video starting at the favorite cut-in spot favored by Gage and similar conspiracy theorists.

He is also shown a simple drawing of the building's placement of core columns. He is given no information about the cantilevered section to the north, or the crucial transfer trusses in the area of column 79.

Other bits of information are given to him here and there, and the interviewer appears to have pages of the FEMA report on WTC 7 on the table. Close to the end, he's shown the FEMA estimate of column damage. But Jowenko basically refers to the video, the Silverstein quote, and the column drawing during the interview.

Experts who have examined much more evidence than that presented to Jowenko have concluded that 7 World Trade fell due to the damage to its unusual structure combined with the massive fires.

Jowenko Thinks They Did It In One Day

Jowenko thought first that 7 collapsed on a later day. When he is told that the building fell on the same day, he remarks, "Then they worked hard." The interviewer tries desperately to get Jowenko to go beyond this timeline, but Jowenko sticks with a on-the-day hypothesis.

Jowenko Isn't Aware Of How Badly The Building Was On Fire

He proposes a charge on each core column, but this is a scenario that could only work in a building that is not on fire. The fires in WTC 7 are well documented, as I've shown before. The situation he adlibs for this television production just isn't possible.

Jowenko Isn't Aware of the Severe Damage To The South

He thinks that only light debris could have gotten to WTC 7. However, the way the perimeter column panels peeled away from those structures shows how very heavy debris could easily have reached the building.

Furthermore, Ryan Mackey has shown how easily heavy debris could have ricocheted that far. From pages 95-96 of his On Debunking 9/11 Debunking (pdf):

Because the Towers were of great height, it would take a relatively small horizontal velocity to travel 600 feet -- for example, a piece ejected from the 50th floor would remain airborne for at least 6.3 seconds, and thus could travel the 600 foot maximum distance if it had an initial horizontal velocity of only 95 feet per second, or 65 miles per hour. It is easy to see how such a piece could acquire this velocity through either elastic collision, as a fragment thrown off in a violent column failure, or potentially thrown off through leverage if a partially intact assembly was hit off-center and rotated by the falling mass (much as an automobile can launch a shovel a great distance by running over the blade).

Let me consider the first and simplest example, that of a ricochet. Suppose a large piece of steel is broken loose and swept along with the upper block at the very edge. This piece then experiences a hard collision with the lower block -- say the beam-framing of one of the mechanical floors -- and ricochets outside the falling mass, becoming an effectively free ballistic projectile until it hits the ground or another building. If the piece ricochets elastically, which is possible for a steel-on-steel collision, then it can rebound with almost the same speed at which it was falling before the collision. To reach 600 feet distance, the piece can be ejected lower in the structure at which point it will have picked up more speed; or it can be ejected higher, in which case it will ricochet with less speed, but it will have more "hang time" in which to travel.

There are many ricochet solutions possible in the WTC collapses. To pick one at random, a piece pushed at the front of the upper block until ricocheting horizontally at the 50th floor would be ejected with a speed of about 95 feet per second, using the "crush down" velocity profile predicted by Dr. Bazant et al. Upon bouncing off horizontally, it would still have 6.3 seconds to fall, and would reach a distance of 605 feet away from the former Tower perimeter. If the piece bounced at a slight upward angle, but still rebounded elastically, it could reach an even greater distance. (This calculation does not include aerodynamic drag, but a large, dense, slender object like a steel column will have a high ballistic coefficient, and drag will have a relatively minor effect.) Many such possible scenarios can be computed.

Clearly, debris could and did hit WTC 7.

Jowenko Says "I Don't Know, It's Guessing For Me."

Based on a cursory examination of select evidence, Jowenko says that it was a demolition done on that day by a dedicated team. As the interview progresses, he finally admits that he is guessing about all of this:

For me, it is a little bit "watching coffee dregs," I mean, that is not a lot of information. If we had some pictures from the other side, especially those at the side of the twin towers...

Based on the information given to him, a presentation highly slanted toward the conspiracy theorist understanding, Jowenko is content to state that the building was a controlled demolition. Indeed, as Gage points out, someone called Jowenko in February 2007 to confirm that he still held this opinion. However, as the audio confirmation makes clear, there exists no indication that Jowenko has ever examined any more evidence beyond this interview at all.

< Previous Slide | Index | Next Slide >