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Newcastle University Professor to spearhead World Trade Center insurance investigation

October 19, 2001

A Professor from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne has been confirmed as the man who will advise Lloyds insurance company as they begin to assess insurance claims expected to exceed £1.5 billion dollars in the wake of the attack on New York's World Trade Center on 11 September.

John Knapton, Professor of Structural Engineering in Newcastle University's Department of Civil Engineering, has been asked by St Paul Syndicate Services, a group of Lloyds insurance syndicates, to study the chain of events that led up to the collapse of the towers.

Professor Knapton will liaise closely with the investigation committee appointed by the US Federal Government, monitoring their findings and communicating the results to the syndicate. Although there is no question that the investigation will interfere with the payment of the claims, St Pauls will need to understand how the Towers collapsed and whether they were designed and constructed correctly, which may in turn lead to their asking other parties to contribute should there be evidence of poor design or construction. In the same way, they might enter into discussions with United Airlines, Boston Airport and the Federal Aviation Administration, should they consider that lax security contributed to the attack.

Professor Knapton will be keeping track of the many investigations which have already been established into the performance of the Towers and neighbouring buildings. He says: 'Initially, it appears that the Towers performed well. They survived the both the impact of the aircraft and the massive structural damage caused when the fuel exploded'.

'What led to the collapse of the towers was the ensuing inferno, which would have burned at up to 1,000 degrees, causing the steel infrastructure to melt. Steel begins to soften at a mere 800 degrees, and when this happened the upper storeys crashed through the three or four floors in which the structural steelwork had melted. By the time this mass reached the solid structure below the fires, it would have been travelling vertically downwards at 40mph', explains Professor Knapton.

The lower floors could never stop the momentum of the 300,000 tons of concrete, steel and furniture so they collapsed one by one, with each successive floor adding to the weight of descending rubble. Professor Knapton continues: 'The entire building was reduced to a solid mass of rubble filling the seven storeys of basement space, and tragically including some 5,000 bodies'.

The only recognisable structural elements left standing were the perimeter columns which 'unzipped' into their original three column-wide fabrications and which have become a symbol of the defiance of the rescue workers.

Newcastle upon Tyne, University of

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