But Mr. Eagar says this is just a red herring: Accidental thermite reactions are a well-known phenomenon, he says. It just takes a lot of exposed surface area for the reaction to start.
And then what is the source of oxygen when this mythical reaction gets going? (Go check out what the composition of steel is; not much oxygen there. Forced-oxygen fires at all the crucial locations to initiate a "symmetric" collapse - I don't think so!)

Besides which, Dr. Jones showed reasonably well in preliminary investigations that this is not the case. I don't see Mr. Eagar pointing to any experiments that support his claims.

So, if it really is such a well documented phenomenon, as suggested by Mr. Eagar (what a name, eh?; awfully close to eager), let’s ask him to provide some references for this claim. I'll bet it is mostly bogus with regard to what we are considering here, cutting lots and lots of steel all at once throughout an entire floor perhaps deep enough to initiate "symmetric" collapses. (Even if there can be small, nanoscale, thermite-like reactions, there would not be a source of oxygen to sustain the reaction and so it is likely that these reactions would only cause surface damage to the steel, would be my best guess.)

Talk about people stepping beyond the bounds of their areas of expertise. But really, even a materials engineer at MIT should be expected to "know" this much, especially when speaking out about it as an expert, so I'd suggest that he is delusional or lying. (Notice that he is referenced as Mr. Eagar. Is he a professor or just a government stooge?)