A difference of opinion between engineering experts has emerged as the latest wrinkle in the multibillion-dollar legal battle over whether the destruction of the World Trade Center constituted one or two insurable events.
Their studies, which could be interpreted to decide whether it took one or two jumbo jet impacts to collapse the World Trade Center, deal with whether the two buildings were structurally independent of each other or were intricately connected.
The two competing engineering reports released publicly last week are being touted as supporting the respective positions of both sides in the multibillion-dollar WTC insurance litigation.
Both findings were provided earlier to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency determining whether any building safety lessons can be learned from the Sept. 11, 2001, destruction of the WTC.
