[This is cross-posted at dailykos]
As reported last May by NY Newsday and AP, links below
On September 11, a couple of hours after the planes struck the Trade Center, six air traffic controllers at the Ronkonkoma, Long Island, NY air traffic control center made a 1-hour long tape that recounted the events that morning.
In November 2001, manager Mike McCormick withheld from the “accident package” to the FAA that very tape.
Then, between December and February, another manager cut that tape into small pieces and distributed them into several trash bins.
Though this story briefly surfaced and got some print coverage in May last year, including page 2 of the Washington Post, it disappeared under other stories, including the crescendo of accusations and recriminations over the Abu Graib tortures – and this was not picked up by national broadcasters.
John McCain ordered up an Inspector General report by DoT to reveal FAA cooperation with the 911 inquiry. He also played with the idea of a hearing, but then thought better of it. Details follow.
The manager who held back the Ronkonkoma tape, Mike McCormick, later went to Iraq to re-establish air control operations there at the time this story saw print. McCormick is a former marine who gave the order at 9:04 am to close NY airspace.
Here’s the gist:
- The supervisor cut the tape, recorded by 6 air traffic controllers a couple of hours after the attacks, into small pieces and threw them away — in multiple trash cans —
at the N.Y. Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma, Long Island, NY. - The 9-11 commission tried to get access to the FAA tape after seeing mention of it on an evidence log.
It couldn’t get access. - John McCain asked for an Inspector General report at the Dept. of Transportation, DoT, to report on the FAA’s cooperation (-or non-cooperation).
The IG report led to these articles in May 2004 and the discovery of the tape’s destruction; the destruction was “not intentional,” says DoT.
- also quoted from the IG report:
“We were told that nobody ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated the tape,” said the inspector general.–> “When one of the six controllers asked to listen to the tape in preparing her written statement, the quality assurance manager told her that the tape was not meant for anyone to hear.” – see end of the 2nd posted article, Newark Star-Ledger, for the excerpted quote.
Tape of 9/11 controllers was destroyed
By Leslie Miller, Associated Press Writer | May 7, 2004
You can look over an AP writeup of the story.
NY area papers’ accounts follow here –>
Here’s an article from May 2004, same subject. The Newsday article is no longer available at its original site link
9/11 air traffic tape destroyed
By Thomas Frank May 6, 2004, 9:58 PM EDT
A tape made hours after the Sept. 11 attacks that recorded statements of air-traffic controllers on Long Island was destroyed and never given to authorities, a federal investigation reported Thursday.
The hour-long tape of six controllers who tracked the planes flying toward the World Trade Center was cut into small pieces a few months later by a manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Ronkonkoma.
The manager, identified by officials as Kevin Delaney, told investigators that making the tape contradicted Federal Aviation Administration policy and that the recordings were “of minimal value” because controllers also gave written statements about the hijackings.
Delaney added that because controllers were stressed on Sept. 11, 2001, they “were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping,” said a report by Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead.
Delaney faces a 20-day unpaid suspension and filed an administrative appeal, an official familiar with the probe said.
The FAA is looking into disciplining center manager Mike McCormick, who withheld the tape from superiors after agreeing to the controllers’ union condition that the tape be destroyed once written statements were recorded. McCormick is now working for the FAA in Iraq helping establish an air-traffic-control center.
The tape’s value is unclear because no one ever listened to it, transcribed it or duplicated it, the investigation found.
Its existence was not known outside the Ronkonkoma center until October, when the independent commission investigating Sept. 11 was gathering records from the FAA and found an evidence log that mentioned the tape. The center monitors high-altitude planes in the metropolitan area.
FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the tape “would not have added in any significant way to the information already provided.” The FAA has given the commission 150,000 pages of documents, 230 hours of tapes from Sept. 11, radar trackings of the planes and digital recordings, Martin said.
Kristen Breitweiser of New Jersey, whose husband, Ronald, was killed in the trade center and who closely monitors the commission, was “furious.”
“That’s destruction of crucial evidence, and the person [who destroyed it] should be held criminally liable,” she said.
Mead said he gave information to the office of Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who declined to bring charges due to “lack of criminal intent and prosecutive merit.”
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who had requested Mead’s investigation, called the destruction of the tape “disturbing” and said he may hold a hearing.
The commission said it would consider Mead’s investigation in its report.
McCormick made the tape starting at 11:40 a.m. on Sept. 11 by having controllers gather in a windowless room and speak into a microphone for five to 10 minutes each. McCormick told investigators he feared controllers would take sick leave, and he wanted a record of their accounts “to be immediately available for law enforcement.”
When McCormick sought approval from Mark DiPalmo, head of the controllers union in Ronkonkoma, DiPalmo expressed concern because tape recordings are not typically made of controllers after an aviation incident, though they are not prohibited.
McCormick assured DiPalmo that the tape would be given only to law enforcement and would be “a temporary measure until written statements could be prepared,” according to the investigation.
Asked Thursday if the tape was to be destroyed, DiPalmo said, “I don’t think I’m prepared to comment on that. The tape was not in my custody.”
McCormick withheld the tape from the “formal accident package” the center gave the FAA in November 2001.
Delaney, who was the center’s acting quality-assurance manager, told investigators he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and February 2002, because “he felt strongly that the tape never should have been made.” He is now a center operations manager.
The probe said the tape was an original record and should have been kept for five years under FAA policy. Destroying evidence, it added, “has the effect of fostering an appearance that information is being withheld from the public.”
The probe also found that the FAA didn’t intentionally withhold documents from the 9/11 commission.
Staff writers Sylvia Adcock and Anne Q. Hoy contributed to this story.
An archived page from NY Newsday can be read directly.
Next news account. The link is unavailable now, so I’ll paste …
Tape of 9/11 air traffic controllers was destroyed
Their accounts of the day were never heard or transcribed, report says
Friday, May 07, 2004
BY ROBERT COHEN
STAR-LEDGER WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON — The firsthand accounts of at least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two hijacked jetliners on Sept. 11, 2001, were recorded on audiotape that day, but the tape was destroyed without anyone transcribing or listening to it, the Department of Transportation revealed yesterday.
A report by the department’s inspector general said the tape was intended as a temporary record of the day’s events until the controllers filed their written reports. After that, the report said, a manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center crushed the cassette in his hand, cut the tape into small pieces and dropped it in trash cans.
The DOT inspector general, Kenneth Mead, investigated the matter after the national commission probing the 9/11 terror attacks attempted to gain access to the tape, only to discover it had been destroyed.
Mead said the destruction of evidence in the government’s possession, particularly during a time of national crisis, has “the effect of fostering the appearance that information is being withheld from the public.”
“We do not ascribe motivations to the managers in this case of attempting to cover up, and we have no indication there was anything on the tape that would lead anyone to conclude that they had something to hide or that the controllers did not properly carry out their duties on Sept. 11,” the report said.
But the inspector general said the actions of the managers were harmful and “do little to dispel such appearances.”
“What those six controllers recounted in a group setting on Sept. 11, in their own voices, about what transpired that morning, are no longer available to assist any investigation or inform the public,” the report said.
The controllers taped statements of five to 10 minutes each. Some of them had talked on the radio to people aboard the two airliners that destroyed the World Trade Center. Others had tracked those aircraft on radar.
An FAA spokesman said disciplinary action has been taken against two managers involved. The names of the individuals were withheld for privacy reasons.
The inspector general said he also referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, who declined to seek prosecution based on “evident lack of criminal intent.”
The report said the manager for the New York control center, in Ronkonkoma on Long Island, asked the controllers to record their experiences a few hours after the Sept. 11 attacks, believing it could be important for law enforcement and would help the controllers prepare written statements.
Before the taping, the report said, the manager agreed to a local union president’s condition that any tapes would be temporary and would be destroyed once the standard written statements were completed. After the taping, the cassette was turned over to the center’s quality assurance manager, who separately promised the union that he would “get rid of” it.
“We were told that nobody ever listened to, transcribed or duplicated the tape,” said the inspector general. “When one of the six controllers asked to listen to the tape in preparing her written statement, the quality assurance manager told her that the tape was not meant for anyone to hear.”
The quality assurance manager told investigators he destroyed the tape sometime between December 2001 and February 2002 because he felt it violated FAA policy that required written statements from controllers who have handled a plane involved in an accident. He also said he felt the controllers were not in the right frame of mind to have consented to the taping.
The report said that FAA officials in Washington and those in charge of the FAA’s New York region had not been aware of the tape’s existence.
The report was sent to Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who asked the inspector general to examine how well the FAA was cooperating with the 9/11 commission. The panel learned of the tape during interviews with New York air traffic control center personnel between September and October.
While losing that tape, the 9/11 commission has had access to other recordings, including conversations on the radio frequencies used by the planes that day. It also had access to written statements from the controllers and has interviewed controllers.
FAA spokesman Greg Martin said the agency “has cooperated throughout this investigation.” He said the conduct of the employee who destroyed the tape violated FAA policy while the other manager “demonstrated questionable judgment.”
Doug Church, a spokesman for the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, said. “We do believe that the FAA needs to develop a standard set of practices to handle these matters in the future.”
There is also info to look over in the Washington Post reporting of the story.
So, do you think the handling of this evidence represented a simple accomodation to labor union concerns? Or was there something troubling on the tape.
