Posted on 12/13/2004 7:37:47 AM PST by 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.”
To Embarass the Bush Administration
He also helped the Wright brothers after their intial crash landing at Kitty Hawk.
Now, I'm not saying there were no ATVs traversing the pile circa January 2002. For all I know there could have been.
I'm just finding it very odd that, with cameras on the site 24/7, I never ever noticed an ATV at that time, when the fires had just been put out and the pile was very very unstable.
Assuming that parts of the aircraft didn't exit the other side of the building (including the tail of the plan, where the box is located), I'm sure that even as indestructible as those boxes are, they would've been flattened by all the rubble on top of them as well.
For those who believe that the steel in the WTC melted, unlike in every other steel frame building fire:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041112144051451
(Just because a bunch of anti-Bush fanatics raise questions about WTC doesn't mean the questions are silly. There may be much more to 9/11 than meets the eye for reasons having nothing to do with Bush. To me it is odder to suggest that the "black boxes" weren't found than that they were, and the government chooses to conceal that fact for some reason.
Why indeed. With the obvious caveat that the source here is uber-suspect, it has always been incredibly fishy that these boxes weren't found. They're made to survive and virtually always do. The only thing I can figure is that the actual data might accentuate the gross incompetence on display by all concerned on that morning, and shake confidence in an already reeling airline industry. Those planes almost certainly deviated from their prescribed flight plans LOOOOOOONNNNNNG before they hit those buildings, yet no major alarm was raised.
MM
I wondered the same thing.
It's rather convenient that this conspiracy theory doesn't cover the recovery of flt 93's black box.
"If anyone found those boxes it would most likely have been at the Great Kills landfill on Staten Island. This is where they found 10,000 plus personal items and thousands of body parts (many of which have yet to be identified)."
Indeed. They sifted through the debris with a fine-toothed comb there. A truly gruesome job for the workers, who never really got recognized for their work.
We've got links to Alex Jones and Barrie Zwicker on this thread, and it's still here, so now *I* am impressed. :D
Aha! The black boxes from WTC were used to rig the electronic voting machines in Ohio and Florida! Finally! The proof!
The "Bush Code" was secretly hidden in the black boxes to be put into the electronic voting machines for the second term elections! Karl Rove planned it all right from the start when the fiasco in Florida first started.
Then the people in charge of transporting the code got the heeby-geebies and threatened to spill the beans. And THAT's when Bush ordered the planes to fly into to WTC!
It all comes together now! This is hugh! They think the whole country is morans who would never figure it out. Ha!
May I have another Kool-Aid please? Here, just pour it into this handy tin foil hat that doubles for a cup!
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Not necessarily. I saw and moved computer screens in the Pit that survived the collapse, not many but a few.
My wife is an audiologist and uses ASL everyday. I only know a couple of signs, and that is one of my most used.
Advertising revenue, this thread sponsored by Reynolds Wrap.
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. ****************************************************** I don't think the pings are audible, they could be. * ******************************************************
Michael Moore will have a sequel in the works.
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.
An “honorary firefighter” personally managed to find “three of the four” black boxes amongst the millions of tons of flaming debris.
Idiocy.
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