Member Article

AV Group Expert Joins 9/11 investigation at Parliament

AV Group’s Health & Safety expert James Kelly has been invited to the Houses of Parliament by the Institute of Fire Prevention Offices (IFPO) on 4th May to join a group which is looking at lessons from the 9/11 tragedy in New York.

As an IFPO member and ex-Royal Navy James is amongst a small group of UK experts invited to attend the event which will include fire prevention officers, emergency responders, MP’s and Peers.

The group will consider what happened on 9/11 as well as reviewing recent findings and official investigations. The group will also look at how the WTC building No 7, a steel frame (fire protected) building of 47 floors located a football pitch away from the twin towers, collapsed that same afternoon in an unprecedented 6 second freefall.

Commenting on his invitation to attend the group James said: “It’s a real honour to be selected to attend this event at the Houses of Parliament. I worked in the Royal Navy specialising in Counter Terrorism and Anti-Piracy operations in the Middle East before studying for my Health and Safety qualifications and joining building hire company AV Group here in Denton. The combination of my H&S skills, counter terrorism experience and knowledge of the building industry is all relevant experience which is probably why I was selected.”

The group will be looking to see if the potential exists for UK protected buildings to collapse in the same way, and how we can be prepared for such events.

The events of 9/11 took the lives of 343 Firefighters and 2996 perished. Fifteen years on Architects, Engineers, Firefighters and grieving families are still analysing the tragedy.

The event will be led by Richard Gage, the founder member of the Architect and Engineers movement which is working closely with Firefighters for 9/11 and grieving families. Richard aims to present the latest evidence on 9/11 and is seeking a fresh investigation into the tragedy, similar to the recent inquest into the Hillsborough disaster.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Clare Coyne .