September 11, 2001 
 
 
Explosives Planted In Towers, N.M. Tech Expert Says 
 
By Olivier Uyttebrouck 
Journal Staff Writer 
 Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest 
that 
explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech 
 
explosion expert said Tuesday. 
 The collapse of the buildings appears"too methodical" to be a 
chance 
result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice 
 
president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. 
 
"My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes 
hit 
the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the 
buildings that caused the towers to collapse," Romero said. 
 Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and 
Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the 
effects of 
explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures. 
 Romero said he based his opinion on video aired on national 
television 
broadcasts. 
 Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of 
controlled 
implosions used to demolish old structures. 
"It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an 
event 
like that," Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. 
 Romero said he and another Tech administrator were on a 
Washington-area 
subway when an airplane struck the Pentagon. 
 He said he and Denny Peterson, vice president for administration and 
 
finance, were en route to an office building near the Pentagon to 
discuss 
defense-funded research programs at Tech. 
 If explosions did cause the towers to collapse, the detonations 
could 
have been caused by a small amount of explosive, he said. 
"It could have been a relatively small amount of explosives placed 
in 
strategic points," Romero said. The explosives likely would have been 
put in 
more than two points in each of the towers, he said. 
 The detonation of bombs within the towers is consistent with a 
common 
terrorist strategy, Romero said. 
"One of the things terrorist events are noted for is a diversionary 
attack and secondary device," Romero said. 
 Attackers detonate an initial, diversionary explosion that attracts 
emergency personnel to the scene, then detonate a second explosion, he 
said. 
 
 Romero said that if his scenario is correct, the diversionary attack 
 
would have been the collision of the planes into the towers. 
 Tech President Dan Lopez said Tuesday that Tech had not been asked 
to 
take part in the investigation into the attacks. Tech often assists in 
forensic investigations into terrorist attacks, often by setting off 
similar 
explosions and studying the effects. 
 
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