Three at BYU praise Jones

PROVO — Three Brigham Young University employees who joined a national scholars group formed by suspended BYU physics professor Steven Jones say legitimate questions about the collapse of the World Trade Center towers still deserve investigation.

Kenneth Kuttler, Dillon Inouye and Jeffrey Farrer have different levels of commitment to the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which has 80 full members and a number of student members, including six students at Utah colleges and universities — two each at Utah Valley State College and Salt Lake Community College, one at BYU and another at Snow College.

Farrer, who works in BYU's physics department, asked to have his name removed from the group's Web site on Sept. 7, the same day BYU placed Jones on paid leave to review his involvement in the "9/11 truth movement." He said Jones tried to convince him not to withdraw from the Scholars for 9/11 Truth.

"He thought it would give the critics of that group more ammunition, and I'm sorry for that," Farrer said, "because I think what they're trying to do is a noble thing and it's brave. There's the possibility that a lot of them will ruin their careers by doing this."

Experts continue to explore why a third building fell on Sept. 11, and why it fell so fast. WTC7 was across the street from the two towers struck by planes. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is expected to release a report on WTC7's collapse early next year.

A computation by BYU's Kuttler, a math professor, is posted on www.scholarsfor911truth.org. It shows WTC7 should have taken at least 8.3 seconds to fall. Including resistance due to intact steel columns, it should have taken even longer.

The 47-story building collapsed so quickly that the roof hit the ground in 6.5 seconds, nearly free-fall speed.

"That's about the time (6 seconds) it would take a steel ballbearing to fall from the top of

the building to the ground," Kuttler said. "There's practically no resistance. This has caused some people to believe that something other than damage and gravity caused that building to fall. I don't see what other conclusion you can draw."

Critics of the self-named truth movement say WTC7 was struck by steel beams when the other towers collapsed and fell because of intense fires fed by diesel fuel stored in the building.