On the second day of hearings by a federal panel investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a structural engineer offered some deceptively simple advice yesterday: “You cannot allow large airplanes to fly into buildings.” His point was that it is more important to focus on prevention than on trying to build skyscrapers strong enough to withstand direct hits by large aircraft like those that brought down the World Trade Center. Like the other nine witnesses who spoke to the panel yesterday, the engineer, William F. Baker, offered a wealth of detail about what happened on Sept. 11 and afterward, along with some suggestions about how to better prepare for terrorist attacks in the future. The hearing, held in a half-empty auditorium in the United States Custom House in Lower Manhattan, was calmer and less emotional than on Monday, when several victims’ relatives and direct witnesses of the attacks spoke. The relatives were among those whose protests led Congress to create the panel last year, and some who attended Monday’s hearing angrily blamed government officials for not doing more to prevent the attacks. Full Story
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