CNBC Anchor Ron Insana: Building 7 a ‘Controlled Implosion’

On the 18th anniversary of 9/11, CNBC senior analyst and former anchor Ron Insana went on Bernie and Sid In the Morning on New York’s 77 WABC Radio to share his haunting experience of that horrible day.

Approximately eight minutes into the interview, Insana made a statement regarding the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7 — which collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11 — that is truly stunning, especially considering his access to the scene and his job as a prominent news anchor:

Well, remember 7 World Trade had not yet come down. And so when I went down to the [New York Stock] Exchange that Wednesday morning [September 12], I was standing with some military and police officers, and we were looking over in that direction. And if it had come down in the way in which it was tilting, it would have wiped out everything from where it stood to Trinity Church to the Exchange to, effectively, you know, the mouth of the Hudson. And so there were still fears that if that building had fallen sideways, you were going to wipe out a good part of Lower Manhattan. So they did manage for one to take that down in a controlled implosion later on. And the Exchange was up and running the following Monday.

[Emphasis added.]

Before addressing questions about Insana’s timeline, let us establish the aspects of his story that are clear and unambiguous. First, he clearly identifies Building 7 as the building he is talking about. Second, he clearly states that Building 7 was taken down in a “controlled implosion,” which flatly contradicts the official explanation that it collapsed due to office fires.

Insana’s matter-of-fact remark is particularly significant because the manner in which he delivers it and the context in which he came to believe that Building 7 was brought down in a “controlled implosion” suggest that he was told this information and that it may have been fairly common knowledge at the scene. (The only other possibility is that he deduced it was a “controlled implosion” based on his own observation of it.) Indeed, Insana is not the only person to report that a demolition of Building 7 was being considered or was imminent.

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