File:Flight 11 Wheel 1.jpg

Figure 6-16 shows a full three-story three-column-wide steel panel section... lying on the corner of Cedar Street near its intersection with West Street.

This spot is to the south of and roughly 690 ft from the south face of WTC1. Close inspection shows that the panel section was released when the spandrel-to-spandrel connections failed by the bolts tearing through the edges of the spandrel plate. At the top and bottom of the panel section, the bolts used to connect the columns were sheared off. The photograph was taken prior to the collapse of either tower. The most likely source location for this panel section has been identified as the center of the south face of WTC 1 (i.e, columns 329 to 331) and extending from the middle of the 93rd floor to the middle of the 96th floor. This conclusion is based on the appearance of damage in this area that can be seen in Figure 6-13 and the fact that building plans indicate that a full panel section occupied this location on the steel facade. Even though much of the south face of WTC1 was visible at various times in photograph or videos, there were no indications of such a large missing section elsewhere on the face. Even so, the location assignment should be considered tentative since, as discussed in Section 6.4.2, the area was obscured by smoke in all of the close-up images of the area that are available in the NIST database. Assuming the location is identified correctly, the wheel is embedded in a window (95-329) that was located on the 95th floor.

There are two types of retractable landing gear on a Boeing 767-200ER, a single nose gear formed by a support strut holding two wheels near the front of the main body of the aircraft and two sets of main landing gear on the wings consisting of four wheels attached to carriages mounted to heavy support struts. The wheels used on the two types of landing gear have different appearances. By comparing the configuration of the wheel embedded in the steel panel section with photographs of landing gear for a similar Boeing 767 for which access was provided to the Investigation (NIST NCSTAR 1-2B), it was determined that the wheel came from one of the main landing gear. This conclusion is based on the number and placement of the bolts in the wheel hub.