Different Reasons for Doing Nothing

I’m going to use two examples of technical conundrums present in the 9/11 record to make some points. The topics involve different aspects of 9/11, but they are equivalent for the purpose of this discussion.

Topic one pertains to an aeronautics conundrum related to the airplane that struck the second World Trade Center tower. The speed of the plane was reported by the federal agency most qualified to make the measurement as 25% faster than the applicable maximum dive speed. This alone should raise serious questions as to whether it was possible to fly that fast in the first place, let alone be able to strike a relatively small target.

I posted a message on the discussion forum of the top professional society in aerospace, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). My post suggested aeronautical engineers had an ethical responsibility to point out this conundrum, and call for an investigation. If they failed to do that, I accused these engineers of simply looking the other way.

I received a private response from a person in the top-level membership category in the organization, a person I know to be one of the most qualified to head an investigative team, and also a person who happens to be a hard-core Republican. I’m characterizing his response as being a self-rationalization on why to look the other way. His final statement to me after I thanked him for his comments was, “Like politics, this subject is now totally in the domain of the subjective.” Well, flying 25% faster than the maximum dive speed without any detrimental affect on controllability is far from subjective, but this is how this aeronautical expert characterized it.

Topic two pertains to World Trade Center skyscraper demolitions and physics. In this case, the federal agency assigned to investigate said the third building that collapsed (WTC Building 7) exhibited a free-fall drop extending downward more than 100 ft. The laws of physics are very clear—if it is free-fall, then the structure below can’t be offering any resistance. The conundrum is, if one chooses to call it such, that the official report presented an explanation that was in complete conflict with that observation. Architect Richard Gage explained this to a leading progressive figure, Rabbi Michael Learner. Rabbi Learner understood the conflict as explained, and agreed with the conclusion that the official report was obviously wrong. But, he took a pragmatic approach by saying he didn’t see any value in calling for a new investigation, because any new investigation would most certainly be co-opted and lead to nothing of significance.

So, which is the better reason for doing nothing? The hard-core Republican who says everything is subjective once it moves into the realm of politics, or the Progressive, who says attempting to look further will be co-opted by those powers that don’t want the facts to come out?