FEMA’s Fuselage Fib

Fib: an unimportant lie. Because this will inevitably lead many readers toward doubting the plane parts’ authenticity, I must preface by saying the “official” image of the United flight 175 fuselage atop WTC 5 is in fact authentic aircraft fuselage fallen from the plane with tail number N612UA. The fib is a small matter of accuracy. What you see below is two pieces of fuselage, not one. And Gene Corley didn’t take the picture like FEMA’s site says — and like the exif data of the image says.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a5654/debunking-911-myths-planes/

This is the only place where Gene Corley is not credited with the photo. And below I’ll show that Baker — or his camera, at least — did in fact take the picture. From popularmechanics.com we read:

While heading a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) probe into the collapse of the towers, W. Gene Corley studied the airplane wreckage. A licensed structural engineer with Construction Technology Laboratories, a consulting firm based in Skokie, Ill., Corley and his team photographed aircraft debris on the roof of WTC 5, including a chunk of fuselage that clearly had passenger windows. “It’s … from the United Airlines plane that hit Tower 2,” Corley states flatly.

The PBS-NOVA documentary “Building on Ground Zero” (2006), shows Gene using a Nikon (film, not digital) camera at a scrapyard in 2001/2002. Thanks MrKoenig1985 for pointing that out!

But it says in the exif data of the original photo on fema.gov that Gene took the photo. Yet when we look in the six “Baker” subfolders as released by NIST in the main folder “WTCI-63-FEMA”, CD1 (James Gourley’s NIST FOIA 09-42 -> Release 37 -> 42A0525 – G38D4 on 911datasets.org), these photos were shot by a Canon PowerShot S300 camera. But the FEMA fuselage image isn’t there.

William Baker was a FEMA team member and partner at a major architecture firm – Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP., per the FEMA Building Performance Study, cover and contents, May 2002.

The official FEMA photo in the above Popular Mechanics article is one of 5 photo/video sources showing the same fuselage, all shot on top of WTC 5. No museum has exhibited this piece, for whatever reason. These 2 pieces, I should say.

Note the caption in the 2010 Popular Mechanics article above: “a piece….” The other source for the image is of course the 2002 FEMA report (FEMA 403, p. 32 here): “a portion of the fuselage….”

Again in their graphic showing airplane debris locations, “fuselage section” singular (page 6 of Chapter 1).

But we have 4 other image sources that show two pieces. From these, we can estimate an outline of them (updated version of waypastvne’s attempt here):

Actual Flight 175, original photo source airliners.net

1. Uploaded to the studyof911.com gallery in 2006 by anonymous (no metadata, low res).

2. A newly-released 2012 NTSB FOIA Appeal PowerPoint document authored by George Black Oct. 25, 2001.

I was able to extract the original photo from the ppt file seen above (Does not look like NTSB record–N612U_9_11.ppt), producing the metadata: NIKON E900 camera, f/4.3, 1/203 sec. No flash. 1280×960 pixels. Note the tail number was N612UA. Sorry there are no notes on this image from the NTSB, or why it didn’t look right. One other current web source for this image has pointed out why. It’s because he/she mistakenly thought some white debris behind the edge of the larger piece was a B or P. (Found here, thanks to “Cataloging the crimes of 9/11” and the Pilots for 9/11 Truth forum.

3. Gary Steficek, engineer and volunteer investigator for the Building Performance Assessment Team of FEMA, although he wasn’t listed as a Team member in the FEMA report cover. He was thanked in the acknowledgements, however, under “Structural Engineers Association of New York – Salvage Yard Volunteers.” Which is why we find his images in NIST FOIA 09-42, 911datasets.org release 32, 42A0367 – G33D1, Steficek-2001-10-18.

We can see the left-most portion of the American flag, found where it should be:

Few people saw this image prior to 2011 when it was released by NIST on FOIA. It hasn’t been published to my knowledge. Since this image is dated Oct. 18, we can assume Steficek’s video was also shot that day.

4. Gary Steficek’s video shows the parts for all of 10 seconds.

Source file comes from NIST FOIA 09-42 911datasets.org release 28, 42A0310 – G28D15.

The smaller piece of fuselage stands on its right side, back side visible as it leans against the larger piece. The arrow in red spray paint was likely put there by search and rescue teams using that color… weeks ago. As the camera pans across the arrow in the video we see painted, “AIR CRAFT” in the same colors painted on the wall nearby:

Image taken Sept. 24. Source: flickr.com, dukeofcrydee. Look closely to see the large fuselage piece where others photographed it later.

One image exists taken after the plane hit and before the collapses. Original resolution is low, so we can’t zoom in clearly.

Image by Natasha Sealy-Fraser, from NIST FOIA 09-42 release 11.

Something is there, but this is the best view we have. Also there are hidden areas to consider. It’s logical the two pieces landed separately, at a greater distance than photographed, considering the glossier paint of the smaller. It may have had shelter from the toxic WTC dust beneath some other debris… or perhaps it wasn’t burned as badly.

I can’t prove the parts weren’t planted, but if they were that means 80+ passengers from the two flights were identified by the New York Medical Examiner falsely. See my previous article listing the known passengers identified by DNA or other means. See video, also. I don’t know how the no plane theorists think They planted the engine seen smoking on the street, after flying rather conspicuously from the corner of WTC 2’s floor 81.

Was the photo just lined up this way coincidentally, and everybody just assumed it was one big piece because it looks like it? Or was it staged to look that way?

Was Photoshop used to alter the famous FEMA photo?

We have the exif data to prove it was saved using Adobe Photoshop, in 2005. Yet the image looks identical in the 2002 FEMA report. Did Gene use Photoshop in 2002 also?

We can see where the two pieces meet, a sheet metal obstacle prevents realization of the truth. Just above that edge we see some darker coloring noted by one researcher: “The left part of the debris in the […] pic does have some peculiar coloring, almost as if the image was manipulated, for whatever reason.” (“New Picture of WTC5 Plane Part, New Questions,” Humint Events Online, 9/19/2008)

Is this is why these plane parts have never been in a museum? Is this is why the Moussaoui trial exhibits full of gigabytes’ worth of 9/11 evidence DID NOT include the FEMA photo, even though it shows the partial registration/tail number of Flight 175?

See my discussion with the folks at International Skeptics who shook me out of certain belief that Photoshop was used. Like the title suggests: FEMA fibbed. At least now we know it was two pieces. And William Baker’s camera took the photo.