WTC Rescue Workers Silenced After Discovery Of Black Boxes

propagandamatrix.com ^ | December 13 2004 | Greg Szymanski

[B4Ranch]

American Free Press/Greg Szymanski | December 13 2004

A 9-11 rescue worker recently came forward to say he was told by FBI agents to “keep my mouth shut” about one of the “black boxes” a fellow firefighter helped locate at ground zero, contradicting the official story that none of the flight and cockpit data recorders were ever recovered in the wreckage of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers.

Honorary firefighter Mike Bellone claims he was approached by unknown bureau agents a short time after he and his partner, Nicholas DeMasi, a retired New York firefighter, found three of the four “black boxes” among the WTC rubble before January 2002.

The pair first claimed in an August 2003 book entitled Behind the Scene: Ground Zero to have found the data recorders.

DeMasi said the “black boxes” were found while he traversed “ground zero” in his all-terrain vehicle (ATV) with three federal agents.

FBI and New York fire officials have denied ever finding the voice and data recorders.

Now Bellone claims agents were adamant about keeping the discovery a secret.

“They confronted me and told me to not to say anything,” recalled Bellone, referring to one of three reddish-orange boxes with two white stripes he saw in the back of DeMasi’s ATV. “I said, ‘Give me a good reason.’ When they couldn’t, I told them I wouldn’t shut up about it.

“Why should I? I have nothing to hide and nothing to gain. It’s the truth, and Nick and I are sticking to our story as we always have.”

Bellone said he and DeMasi were not the only 9-11 rescue workers to see the “black boxes.” He said there were several other witnesses and said he knows they have been silenced by federal agents.

“I know two or three others saw what went down, but they are not talking,” said Bellone. “They got to those guys after they talked to me. The only reason I can figure they are trying to hide the truth is that the government knows it screwed up, and the recorders would prove it.”

Asked to give names of the other witnesses, he said he wouldn’t break a fellow worker’s confidence by revealing his identity.

“I can tell you this, though, it was all very strange. I worked on the spaceship Columbia cleanup, and you know when something important is found and when something is not,” he said.

The day the “black boxes” were secretly carted away, agents acted like “something big was going down,” he added.

Bellone said he never learned the FBI agents’ names as this type of personal contact and information wasn’t exchanged between the civilian workers and government officials working side-by-side at ground zero.

“They had on their FBI jackets, but I’m sure I could pick them out of a lineup or recognize their pictures,” said Bellone.

The pair’s bombshell accusations blow a big hole in the official story as well as the findings in the recent 9-11 commission report.”

In Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline “black boxes”: “The CVR’s and the FDR’s [voice and flight data recorders] from American 11 and United 175 were not found.”

Asked if DeMasi and Bellone were questioned or subpoenaed, commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said: “I can’t tell you now if he was one of the 1,200 people we interviewed or if the book was one of the countless ones we researched. We explored every lead, but I will try to find out if we talked with him and get back to you.”

Bellone said commission members never contacted him or DeMasi and never asked the two to appear before the group even though the book was published well before the hearings commenced.

“I have been contacted by only one newspaper reporter, from The Philadelphia Daily News,” said Bellone, referring to an October 2004 story by reporter William Bunch, who recapped DeMasi’s statements as well as the usual official denials.

Those close to the 9-11 investigation said the recovery of the “black boxes” is important because they may hold vital clues about what really happened on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The cockpit voice recorder uses a pair of microphones to capture all cockpit sounds for the last 30 minutes of a doomed flight. The flight data recorder is also significant since it records altitude, heading and airspeed.

Both recorders are designed to withstand enormous impact and heat. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials said they should have withstood the conditions at the WTC.

And finding the boxes after a crash seems to be standard procedure, according to the NTSB.

“It’s extremely rare that we don’t get the recorders back,’ said NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewicz. “I can’t remember another case which we did not recover the recorders.”

Bellone is retired and was made an honorary New York fireman for his efforts after 9-11. DeMasi has recently retired from Engine Co. 261, nicknamed the “Flaming Skulls.”

[GovernmentShrinker]

The personal items belonged to people who were a LONG way from the impact floors, including many people who were in the multi-level underground shopping and parking areas, and others who were already outside the buildings after evacuating when the towers fell -- in other words, a good 80 stories away from the impact. None of that stuff came from the impact floors. Maybe some diamond jewelry could have survived from the impact floors, but even that would have been heavily encrusted with residue from the fire when found.

[bootless]

So, does it mean B.S.? I see the bull's horns there. :-)

[bootless]

I think they listened to the ATC tapes? But yeah, I seem to recall (perhaps incorrectly) that they listened to the cockpit tapes. Perhaps the boxes they're talking about here are the flight data recorders...?

[B4Ranch]

Were you thinking the CVR-FDR's were in the cockpit?

One of these, the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), records radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit, such as the pilot's voices and engine noises. The other, the Flight Data Recorder (FDR), monitors parameters such as altitude, airspeed and heading. The older analog units use one-quarter inch magnetic tape as a storage medium and the newer ones use digital technology and memory chips. Both recorders are installed in the most crash survivable part of the aircraft, usually the tail section.

For more information see http://www.ntsb.gov/aviation/CVR_FDR.htm

I don't recall reading anything about the CVR-FDR being bright and shiny like this new one.

[B4Ranch]

DD>>I could swear the boxes were found.<<

KC >>No, they listened to cockpit tapes too, right up to the crash. Parts that were not released to the public.<<

How could that be? I think you have Flight 93

>>"In Chapter 1, footnote 76, there is the sole but definitive reference to the airline “black boxes”: “The CVR’s and the FDR’s [voice and flight data recorders] from American 11 and United 175 were not found.”"<

[GovernmentShrinker]

I was thinking they are on the PLANE. Nothing that was on those planes, or on those floors during the fire, would have survived with its exterior remaining recognizable. These boxes are designed to protect the data on the inside through some pretty severe conditions -- they are not designed to protect the exterior paint jobs through these sorts of conditions. Which brings us to another problem with this story: the boxes are designed to be located by transmitting a signal which can be picked up by crash investigators (i.e. they are not designed to rely on their external appearance to be found). If the data in these boxes was still intact, and if the exteriors were still recognizeable, the transmitters would most likely have been working as well (since they too are designed to withstand extreme conditions), and federal investigators would have been making a beeline for the boxes in the rubble -- not sitting around waiting for some firefighters to stumble upon them.

The story just doesn't hold water. These guys found something they THOUGHT were the flight data recorders, but were almost certainly something else.

[MineralMan]

"So, does it mean B.S.? I see the bull's horns there. :-)"

That's it. It's pretty universal as an ASL sign, but you won't find it in any ASL dictionaries. I thought the girl was kinda cute, too.

[Iconoclast2]

Press reports at the time indicated piles of molten metal in the bottom of the building.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Yes, I meant flight 93, thats the only boxes that were found, and the relatives got to hear more of the tape then the public at large. The boxes from the airliners that went into the WTC would have been ground up with the airliners themselves. How much of the aircraft were ever found? Not much I would bet.

[wtc911]

As I posted earlier, I worked in the Pit on the 12th and 13th. While not much survived some surprising things did including Computer screens, shoes and in one case a clear plastic picture frame with the picture still in it.

[wtc911]

Nothing that was on those planes, or on those floors during the fire, would have survived with its exterior remaining recognizable.

Wrong. I personally picked up items in the Pit that were from the floors that were hit and were easily identified as such, not many but some.

[Malsua]

Press reports at the time indicated piles of molten metal in the bottom of the building.

The Fire in the upper floors didn't melt the structural steel. It simply softened it up and gravity did the rest.

Pools at the bottom are a different thing all together. Drop half a million tons from 1300 feet and you're going to create a massive amount of heat. Enough to melt just about everything.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Most likely things from the perimeter of the floors, that were blown out windows by the force of the explosion. But it's unlikely that the data recorders would have behaved that way, since they're inside the plane. The intense heat they would have been exposed to, given the fire in a more or less enclosed space which melted steel girders, would certainly have roasted the paint off them.

Maybe some lucky coincidence could have blown a recorder clear of the fire within the first seconds, but these guys are claiming they found THREE recorders, so that would have been at least one from each of the planes (since 2 boxes per plane). What are the chances that 1) lucky coincidences caused one or more boxes from BOTH planes to be blown clear of the fires and spared totally disfiguring damage, and 2) the same pair of firefighters found 3 of the total 4 boxes, despite their coming from two different planes that hit two different towers that collapsed at different times (I certainly don't have to tell you how big that pit was, or how many workers were combing through it), and 3) all of the "several" other rescue workers they showed them too decided to hush up when the feds asked them to. I just don't buy it.

[Iconoclast2]

The interesting thing is that physics buffs can calculate the potential energy released from the building collapse. All the calculations of which I am aware show that the numbers don't add up, particularly when one takes into account the energy required to turn many floors of concrete into a pyroclastic cloud of dust. Then there are the peculiar seismographic readings, showing the biggest spikes at the beginning of the collapses, not the ends. . .

[wtc911]

GovernmentShrinker wrote: Most likely things from the perimeter of the floors, that were blown out windows by the force of the explosion.

No, I said in the pit, the center and some of the items were ten feet below the surface in pockets.

GovernmentShrinker wrote: Maybe some lucky coincidence could have blown a recorder clear of the fire within the first seconds, but these guys are claiming they found THREE recorders, so that would have been at least one from each of the planes (since 2 boxes per plane). What are the chances that 1) lucky coincidences caused one or more boxes from BOTH planes to be blown clear of the fires and spared totally disfiguring damage, and 2) the same pair of firefighters found 3 of the total 4 boxes, despite their coming from two different planes that hit two different towers that collapsed at different times (I certainly don't have to tell you how big that pit was, or how many workers were combing through it), and 3) all of the "several" other rescue workers they showed them too decided to hush up when the feds asked them to. I just don't buy it.

I don't believe them either, and for what it's worth I saw no ATVs anywhere near GZ and it would have been impossible to take one into the rubble while I was there. It took me ten minutes of careful stepping/crawling along a narrow "safeway" just to reach the pit.

[GovernmentShrinker]

You saw barely damaged items in the pit that you could trace to the impact floors? And you can be sure that they didn't blow out the windows of those floors at the time of the explosion, and end up in the pit later, after the towers collapsed?

[wtc911]

yes.