Mr. Ron Craig, teacher of pyrotechnics and explosives at Ryerson University and fire and explosion investigator, came out as a spokesperson against the controlled demolition hypothesis 2007. We heard Craig will be debating with Richard Gage on Sunday and thought the community might want to know more about Craig's arguments, since as far as we know, none have been published on the web. We have tried to represent Craig’s arguments as fairly as possible, we have added some context and comments in square parenthesis.

Adnan Zuberi and Adam Parrott (authors of this article) have several experiences with Ron Craig. Firstly, we hosted him at the University of Waterloo 9/11 Research Group event in March 2009, where Craig framed explosives as the conventional explanation of the towers demise and gravitational collapse as the “correct” alternative explanation. Secondly, we attended his lecture at the Centre for Inquiry in Toronto and Craig’s presentation was largely the same. Thirdly we met him on the Richard Syrett Show in September 2009 in a debate-like format (yet to be released). We find that Mr. Craig is a likeable and polite person and we invite him to join other 9/11 researchers in the community by publishing his work so that it may be properly scrutinized.

Craig’s Tactics

Craig does not distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate 9/11 websites and simply refers to “9/11 websites” as though they were all equally illegitimate. This provides him with ample opportunity to selectively choose information to set up straw man arguments and discredit his opponents by association.

Craig remains unpublished even though we have asked him on all three occasions to publish his calculations and assumptions. None have been forthcoming after a reasonable time. He has banked on his membership to official-sounding associations and experience to lead the audience to believe that his calculations are correct. In this way we feel he is using a professional veil to hide from scrutiny.

Craig will not admit to defending “official account of 9/11”, since he thinks this pool of data (including government reports) is somehow poisoned by criticism. This is actually a testament to the hard work of the 9/11 truth movement, thanks Ron. So Craig does not rely on data produced in government reports. Craig claims to have conducted his own separate analysis.

During his presentations, Craig likes to read his calculations and sometimes this will go on for minutes. What follows turns into a mess that is hard to follow and we think this might simply bore someone into believing him, as long as enough of the right phrases are repeated. Craig’s favourites to repeat are “fire and explosion investigation” and “scientific method”.

Main Arguments: What Craig thinks about...

Explosives
When conventional explosives are set off, they change quickly from a solid to a gas, generating heat and pressure. The result is a shock wave that pushes air away in all directions from the explosive origin, called the positive phase. This phase is characterized by a hot, high velocity outward wind that last for a short period of time. While the energy released by an explosive dissipates, a vacuum is formed in the center and air rushes back inward to fill in the vacuum in what is called the negative phase. Heat from the explosive raises the air to temperatures exceeding 700 degrees Celsius. Both blast pressure and heat last for short period of time.

When it comes to cutting steel, an explosive cutting charge, shape charge or linear charge will provide an effective force to cut steel. Unshaped explosives will deform steel but will not effectively cut it.

Thermite and Nano-Thermite
Thermite is a mixture of Iron Oxide, Aluminum and an oxidizer like Barium Nitrate (approximately 30% Barium Nitrate). None of the tests by Harrit et al. found Barium Nitrate in the red/gray chips analyzed, therefore, thermite was not used to destroy the WTC. In addition, thermite is a pyrotechnic material that burns rather than explodes.

The molten metal flowing out of the building was not thermite, but rather other chemicals that burn together, such as aluminum and plaster. This is a common occurrence, however, more research is needed.

Nanothermite cannot be an explosive. Kevin Ryan’s claims about faster energy release in nanothermite when compared to thermite and its use as an explosive are scientifically untrue.

Dust Clouds
The most common ingredient used in the WTC was drywall: there was a lot of gypsum and it’s the drywall that creates all the dust when a building collapses.
Concrete was not blown into dust but was reduced to small chunks and concrete rubble. The squibs are created by the force of the collapse.

Molten Metal
The molten metal in the rubble would require a constant heat source, and it would take hundreds of thousands of pounds of thermite to keep the metal at its melting temperature.

Fire code NFPA 921 states that during a fire, a metal with a relatively low melting point can soften or liquefy in contact with other metals. If a lower melting emperature metal contacts the surface of a high melting temperature metal, the two metals can combine to create an alloy which can have a low melting point. NFPA 921 says that this is not an indication that accelerations or unusually high temperatures were present in the fire.

[A student asked Craig during the Q/A session at the Centre for Inquiry about Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl who said “I saw melting of girders in [the] World Trade Center”] Craig responded that he has no idea why the engineer would say that and that just because the engineer stated that doesn’t necessarily mean that there was molten metal found.

History of Fire-Induced Collapse of Steel-Framed Buildings
[Craig showed an unreferenced video of a building partially collapsing that he claims is a steel-framed high-rise.] In many situations firefighters fought an office fire for three hours – fires do not creep around. There is no evidence that the truss connections were ever fire tested.
[However, Shyam Sunder of NIST stated that no high-rise steel frame building has collapsed due to fire in the WTC 7 Final Report Press Briefing.]

Craig on Eye-Witnesses
There is no evidence of PBI (Primary Blast Injury) such as projectile injuries and damage to ear drums. Eyewitnesses are generally unreliable.

Craig on Free-fall of WTC 7
Craig distances himself from the issue of free fall by stating that the buildings fall at the rate they fall at and it’s an issue for physicists.

[When asked by Prof. Keefer and others at U. Waterloo about WTC 7 descending in free-fall,] Craig said it needs to be further researched or investigated.
[However, in our September 2009 discussion on the Syrrett show, Craig stated that WTC 7 came down due to a chain reaction failure of the columns. There was no explanation as to how a chain reaction can explain global collapse in free-fall.]

Who is Responsible
There was a lot of empty space in the WTC towers that resulted in the lack of structural integrity during the fires and concluded that the Port Authority’s goal was to maximize rental space. The Port Authority should be held responsible.

NIST and a new Investigation
Craig distances himself from NIST. He has read NIST’s reports on WTC 1, 2 and 7. In his presentations at U. Waterloo and CFI, he reasons that his research does not use NIST’s reports because critics argue that NIST is not independent from government. Craig says that he supports an investigation into 9/11.