World Trade Center Building 7 was not struck by a plane, but collapsed hours after the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. A draft report released this week by researchers at UAF [University of Alaska Fairbanks] suggests that the fall was not a result of fires, despite the findings of the National Institute for Standards and Technology ... in 2008. The study was paid for by a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth [representing] over 3,000 architects and engineers who have signed a petition calling on Congress to launch a new investigation into the destruction of the towers. Dr. Leroy Hulsey, a civil engineering professor at UAF, led the four-year study. According to the Institute of Northern Engineering's website, the objective was to examine the structural response of WTC 7 to fire loads that may have occurred that day, rule out scenarios that couldn't have caused its collapse and identify types of failures that may have caused the fall. The UAF team's findings contradict those of the 2008 NIST report, which concluded that WTC 7 was the first tall building ever to collapse primarily due to fire. According to the NIST report, debris from the north WTC tower (WTC 1) ignited fires on at least 10 floors in WTC 7. NIST said the automatic sprinkler system on those floors failed, causing the fires to spread. Despite NIST's findings, critics of the government's account have long argued the building fell in a controlled demolition. "We virtually simulated the building and we looked at that analysis and we also virtually simulated what they did, we couldn't get it to do what they did," Hulsey said.