9/11 "black box" cover-up at Ground Zero? -- a Campaign
Extra!/PDN exclusive
appearing in today's Philadelphia Daily News.
Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World
Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of
the four "black boxes" from the jetliners that struck the
towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account.
Both the independent 9/11 Commission and federal authorities
continue to insist that none of the four devices - a cockpit
voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the
two planes - were ever found in the wreckage.
But New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in
a recent book -- self-published by several Ground Zero
workers -- that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain
vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the
four.
His account is supported by a volunteer, Mike Bellone, whose
efforts at Ground Zero have been chronicled in the New York
Times and elsewhere. Bellone said assisted DeMasi and the
agents and that saw a device that resembling a "black box"
in the back of the firefighter's ATV.
Their story raises the question of whether there was a some
type of cover-up at Ground Zero. Federal aviation officials
- blaming the massive devastation - have said the World
Trade Center attacks seem to be the only major jetliner
crashes in which the critical devices were never located.
A footnote to the 9/11 Commission Report issued this summer
flatly states: "The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and
United 175" - the two planes that hit the Trade Center -
"were not found."
And officials for the FBI - which oversaw the cleanup at
Ground Zero - and the New York City Fire Department repeated
this week that the devices were never recovered.
The "black boxes" - actually orange - could have provided
valuable new information about the worst terror attack to
ever take place on American soil.
The cockpit voice recorder uses two microphones to capture
the sounds of the cockpit for the last 30 minutes of a
doomed flight on a tape loop. In the case of the hijacked
9/11 jetliners, the devices should have captured any
conversations or actions involving the hijackers, as well as
radio transmissions.
The flight data recorder records things like airspeed,
heading, and altitude. Both devices - located in the tail of
the airplane - emit loud "pings" so they can be located even
in ocean jetliner crashes, like the 1996 explosion of TWA
Flight 800 off Long Island.
They are built to survive an impact of enormous force - 3400
Gs - and a fire of 1100 degrees Celsius for one hour,
somewhat higher than official estimates of the World Trade
Center blaze.
"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back. I
can't recall another domestic case in which we did not
recover the recorders," Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the
National Transportation Safety Board, told CBS News in 2002.
However, officials said little of the jets was recovered.
DeMasi was with now defunct Engine Company 261 in 2001. He
wrote up his recollections of the Ground Zero recovery in a
glossy book self-published by a group that calls itself
Trauma Recovery Assistance for Children, or the TRAC Team.
The book was published in 2003 but received little notice.
(There's more on the book and how people can get it at this
site.) DeMasi, an all-terrain vehicles hobbyist - said he
donated 4 ATVs to the clean-up and became known as "the ATV
Guy."
"At one point, I was asked to take Federal Agents around the
site to search for the black boxes from the planes," he
wrote. "We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked
at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance
area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of
equipment and strapped it into the ATV..."
"There were a total of four black boxes. We found three."
Efforts over several days to locate and interview DeMasi,
who is now said to be with the FDNY's Marine Unit, were not
successful.
But his account was verified by another member of the
so-called TRAC Team, recovery site volunteer Bellone. He
recalled FBI agents arriving for the search one day in early
October, setting up their equipment near Brooks Brothers. He
said he didn't go out with them on the ATV but observed
their search.
At one point, Bellone said he observed the team with a box
that appeared charred but was redish-orange with two white
stripes. Pictures of the flight recorders on the NTSB and
other Web sites show devices that are orange, with two white
stripes.
"There was the one that I saw, and two others were recovered
in different locations - but I wasn't there for the other
two," Bellone said. He said the FBI agents left with the
boxes.
If the account by DeMasi and Bellone is true, it's not clear
what motive federal authorities would have for claiming they
weren't found.
By the same token, however, it's not clear what incentive
either man would have to lie.
An FBI spokesman in New York, Jim Margolin, said after
checking with the leader of the Ground Zero investigation
that none of the boxes were recovered.
Frank Gribbon, the FDNY spokesman, also said "no one in the
Department is aware of the recovery of any of the airline
"black boxes" at the WTC site."
Bellone has encounted some unrelated problems in connection
with the TRAC group, however. In April, the New York Post
reported (story not available online) that TRAC owned money
to a number of creditors, including the company that
published the book. Fire officials also told Bellone, who
was made an honorary firefighter by a New York engine
company, that he couldn't wear an official uniform on school
visits.
"Cheney masterminded 9/11."
~ Stanley Hilton lead attorney for the 9/11 victims, Bob Dole's advisor.
http://www.pnionline.com/dnblog/extra/archives/2004_10.html