those perimeter columns weren't exactly chumps you know.
those plane sliced right through them like they were made of hot butter.
to say those planes caused minimal damage is a stretch.
Cheez. You are perfectly right. Maybe.
The Achilles Heel that the building structure
might have had is the connection between column/spandrel modules with each other. On all but the lowest floors, the connection was a 4-bolt connection.
If the bolts were big enough, the impact of a jetliner would have
not sheared the bolts and therefore would have
not permitted drastic relocation of the column/spandrel modules. The jetliner would conceivably poofed into Aluminum confetti like the now legendary F4 Phantom in the now legendary video.
If the bolts were originally specified big enough, and if specified bolts were actually used, the building could conceivably have shrugged off a jetliner impact like your favorite Roller shrugs off a bug splat on its windscreen when you are driving to the pub.
If the bolts were originally too small, then the jetliner impact would have sheared them, allowing drastic relocation of the columns, etc.
If the bolts were originally big enough, but were surreptitiously replaced with lesser bolts by scoundrels, then jetliner impact could have splatted the columns rather than splatting the jetliner.
The column/spandrel modules were manufactured with access cutouts in the component steel plates for the very reason of giving ironworkers a hole to reach into the modules and bolt them together during erection. At a latter day, all a scoundrel had to do was to punch a hole in a drywall office wall, reach in, and take out the original big bolt and put in a little bolt. Then a dastardly jetliner impact could throw the previously fabulously strong building into a tizzy.
This would have provided a great cover story. Everybody could see on tv how the jetliner knocked out all those columns and left gaping holes. The only thing left is for the scoundrels to figure out how to actually topple the building, even while the terrible looking gaping gaping holes on tv
looked bad enough (but really were not). You see, if the bolts connecting the columns together were too small, it would have
no effect on the
vertical stability of the building. The scoundrels still had to do something to topple them. I have not done calculations, but i feel that it would have been very unlikely that sagging floor joists could have exerted enough inward pull against the perimeter columns to have disrupted them, even if the bolts were small. A professional structural designer learns just how really strong steel bolts are in shear. At this moment I feel that it is highly unlikely that sagging floor joists could have exerted enough pull upon the columns to have sheared the connection bolts between column modules, unless they were absurdly small, or, perhaps, missing. The only way that the floor assembly could have fallen is to have pulled the columns inward strongly enough to shear the column module connection bolts, or to have sheared the bolts connecting the steel bar joists to the columns. The bolts connecting steel bar joists to their support are almost always absurdly
overdesigned. They are almost always far too strong versus what they need to be, in shear. Because they most always need only a certain degree of shear strength, but even a small standard bolt has much more than the amount calculated to be needed. It is somewhat unlikely that the bolts connecting the steel bar joists to the columns failed in shear.
Though i am still maintaining a neutral stance, it is becoming more difficult by the day for me to believe that the non-conspiracy view is a slam dunk.