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'I Know What I Saw...'
Boston Herald via Rense.com ^ | 11/13/01 | Peter Gelzinis

Posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:50 PM PST by smorgle


                                              




             
'I Know What I Saw...That Was No Mechanical Problem...No Way!'
By Peter Gelzinis BostonHerald.com 11-13-1 ROCKAWAY BEACH, NY -"I will never believe it was an accident. They'll never convince me of that." Eugene Sanfilippo kept looking past the microphones and notebooks, down 131st Street toward Jamaica Bay and a vision that the rest of us could not see. It was past three in the afternoon, the sky above this sliver of Queens was clear, but all this lanky, 45-year-old bus mechanic could see was a huge orange ball of flame; he could still feel the unbearable heat; he could hear people screaming; he could taste the acrid black smoke. And he was still afraid. "When I heard the explosion, I thought we were under attack," Sanfilippo said. "My first impression was that they'd hit us with a nuclear bomb. I figured it was just like the World Trade Center. And I watched that burn from the (Jamaica) bay." Miles away from where Eugene Sanfilippo stood, at the edge of a new Ground Zero, a mayor, a president's spokesman and a slew of FAA officials were urging us to think "accident." But they were not standing in Rockaway Beach. They did not lose neighbors and friends across the bay in Manhattan on Sept. 11. Black crepe still hangs here, along with the memories of funerals for roughly 80 cops, firefighters and stockbrokers. To look into Eugene Sanfilippo's eyes was to see there were no coincidences. "Every day," he said, "I fear more and more for the safety of my family. Why should we be made to suffer this way?" Tommy Rayder, who works at JFK Airport, kept looking past the fire barricades, toward a place where the autumn leaves had been burnt off the trees. The homes that were gone belonged to neighbors Tommy knew, "because in this part of the city, we all know everybody." "I want to believe it was mechanical. I'm hoping it was an accident. These days," Tommy Rayder sighed, "an accident is what you pray for. "That's a weird thing to say isn't it? Here, a jet plane comes down in the middle of a neighborhood, and you pray it's an accident because you can't bear to think they'd do it again to us. "Not here, not in Rockaway. You figure it couldn't happen again cause we already suffered enough." Standing a few feet away, James Gill tried as best he could to comfort his wife who appeared to be deep in the throes of this new suffering. "We are up on the Cross Bay Bridge," James Gill said, "driving over from Richmond Hill to look at a house. "My wife saw the whole thing. What she saw was an explosion, way forward on the engines, sort of just behind the cockpit. "I had to pull over, just there on the bridge. Amanda was hysterical. She dialed 911 on the cell phone, and just started to scream, `Help me! Help me!' " After being rocked by the sound of an initial explosion, James Gill said he looked up to see American Flight 587 in flames and attempting to bank, only to wind up in a flat death spiral. "I was in munitions in both the Army and also the Navy. I know what I heard and what I saw. That was no mechanical problem. No way!" Howard Greenberg rushed home from his law office in Manhattan to find his wife shell-shocked. After seeing the plane fall, and believing it was going to kill both her and her children, Howard Greenberg said his wife spent the next few horrific hours running over body parts in the direction of her neighbors' burning homes. She was carrying blankets and water. "I'm afraid," Howard Greenberg said, "that my wife believes this is another incident. She'd probably tell you that herself if she was able to talk. I'm afraid that's impossible. "Personally I might like to believe that it was something else, but when you've been told that this whole area is being considered as a crime scene, and that FBI agents are looking in your yard and on your roof for evidence, for pieces of jet wreckage or human beings, then it becomes hard to make a case for coincidence. "Now that all may change, but right now this is simply too much to fathom." After being told to vacate her home, Lilly Reynolds looked into the faces of the strangers swarmed around her. "You know, after so many of our neighbors and friends died in September we were just getting back to some idea of normal, then this happens. "My God, you say, they've done it again. What else are we supposed to think?"


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: flight587
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For what it's worth
1 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:50 PM PST by smorgle
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To: smorgle
"I will never believe it was an accident. They'll never convince me of that." -- 45-year-old bus mechanic

But the cosmotologist down the street thinks it was metal fatigue due to improperly cycled annealing.

2 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:52 PM PST by jlogajan
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To: smorgle
Swamp gas.
3 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:52 PM PST by Procyon
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To: smorgle
Why does every incident that takes place draw the attention of freaks? If you follow the logic of some people, there has never been an accident, ever! What are they suggesting this time? A UFO? A shootdown? Bigfoot?
4 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:53 PM PST by paul544
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To: jlogajan
My butcher knows for a fact that it was them damn geese.

The goose clavical bone, wedged correctly into the rotor, would cause exactly that kind of damage, he says.

5 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:53 PM PST by dead
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To: paul544
Why does every incident that takes place draw the attention of freaks?

And how do most of them manage to find their way to FreeRepublic???

6 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:54 PM PST by jlogajan
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To: smorgle
When Eugene Sanfilippo speaks, America listens.
7 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:54 PM PST by Cagey
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To: smorgle
Too many people saw the thing explode. The tail falling off (latest bogus story) doesn't cause an explosion.

But then again hundreds of eyewitnesses saw TWA 800 get shot down by a streaking missile -- and the FBI acted like they were all delusional.

8 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:54 PM PST by spycatcher
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To: paul544
How about metal eating termites?
9 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:54 PM PST by The Chief
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To: Cagey
ROTFLOL!!! File away for next "Best of FR" thread.
10 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:55 PM PST by smorgle
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To: jlogajan
Well if noted authorities such as a cosmetologist and a bus mechanic disagree it's time to settle this matter once and for all and call in the ultimate arbiter...

Miss Cleo!

11 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:55 PM PST by PBRSTREETGANG
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To: paul544
Why does every incident that takes place draw the attention of freaks? If you follow the logic of some people, there has never been an accident, ever! What are they suggesting this time? A UFO? A shootdown? Bigfoot?

Well, we are experiencing an horrific meteor shower.

Oh wait! That only happens at night doesn't it?

12 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:56 PM PST by N. Theknow
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To: smorgle
I'm not seeing where they "saw" anything that couldn't have been mechanical failure. Gill apparently heard an explosion, but explosions CAN be caused by mechanical failure. We don't have anything here from anyone that apparently saw a begin to end version of the crash, that means there's nobody to say what the order of events were.
13 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:56 PM PST by discostu
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To: smorgle
I say let's settle this once and for all by asking the ultimate expert: the tin foil salesman!
14 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:57 PM PST by Revolting cat!
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To: spycatcher
But then again hundreds of eyewitnesses saw TWA 800 get shot down by a streaking missile -- and the FBI acted like they were all delusional.

Or they didn't talk to them at all.

15 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:57 PM PST by OK
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To: spycatcher
Too many people saw the thing explode. The tail falling off (latest bogus story) doesn't cause an explosion. But then again hundreds of eyewitnesses saw TWA 800 get shot down by a streaking missile -- and the FBI acted like they were all delusional.

I see a VERY big difference. A streaking missle across a dark/dusk sky is easy to see. Very easy. All I see concerning this event is hysterical New Yorkers all telling different stories, talking about being attacked by nukes and becomming avaiation experts over night. I doubt this happened the way most "eyewitnesses" think. Its not like the Trade Center video where you can rewind and rewind, to see it again.

Accidents happened before 9/11, and they will continue. Heck, one probably happened on 11/12!

16 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:57 PM PST by FreeTally
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To: smorgle
My money's on one of those gremlins, like in the classic Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner.
17 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:57 PM PST by Wolfie
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To: smorgle; MindBender26
"My first impression was that they'd hit us with a nuclear bomb. I figured it was just like the World Trade Center. And I watched that burn from the (Jamaica) bay."

What's interesting here is not what this guy said- after all, he's talking off the top of his head, trying to get his thoughts together, fine. But what about the reporter?

"My first impression was that they'd hit us with a nuclear bomb. I figured it was just like the World Trade Center.

Why is this line here? He thinks this was a nuclear strike, just like the WTC???? What possible sense does this make? Miles away from where Eugene Sanfilippo stood, at the edge of a new Ground Zero, a mayor, a president's spokesman and a slew of FAA officials were urging us to think "accident." But they were not standing in Rockaway Beach.

Nor were they standing in Ulan Bator, nor sitting in Fiji, nor reclining in Ultima Thule- so Ph^qing what? What does that have to do with the veracity of their statements?

To look into Eugene Sanfilippo's eyes was to see there were no coincidences.

Why does the look in ES eyes, a guy who apparently thinks the WTC was the result of a nuclear strike, have anything to do with whether or not this was a conincidence?

This may well have been a terrorist strike- I have no idea. But this kind of stuff makes me want to gouge my eyes out of my head and run naked, screaming, down the street. Idiots. And what's worse, idiots who, to the best of my knowledge, are capable of procreating. Apes.

18 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:57 PM PST by fourdeuce82d
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To: The Chief
How about metal eating termites?

Don't forget they were metal eating termites created in a lab in Iraq!

19 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:58 PM PST by Austim
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To: smorgle
Was this an accident? I really don't know. What I do know is that the government wants us to believe that it is an accident. I will be very skeptical of whatever they say.
20 posted on 11/16/2001 1:09:59 PM PST by Michael2001
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