NBC: 9/11 plane victims’ families to hear tapes

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5078913/

The Justice Department will hold a two-hour briefing for family members who lost relatives on the four planes that were hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, NBC News has learned. The meeting, to be held June 4 in Princeton, N.J., is sure to be emotional for the 100-plus family members who plan to attend. The meeting will be closed to the media.

Prosecutors will play audio recordings of phone calls between individuals on the planes and family members or co-workers on the ground — recordings that have never aired anywhere before. For example, NBC has learned that the Justice Department will play a tape that an American Airlines official made on 9/11 that is a blow-by-blow account of the final words of Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11. Sweeney is reknowned for having calmly called her co-workers on 9/11 and providing the seat locations for Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers, physical descriptions of the terrorists, and what she said appeared to be a bomb on board the plane.

The Justice Department also intends to play an audiotape of a conversation between Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, and Nydia Gonzalez, an American Airlines reservation manager. The commission investigating the attacks played 4-½ minutes of the tape at a hearing in January, but the Justice Department intends to play the entire 23-minute tape at the closed briefing, according to 9/11 family members.

A Department of Justice letter to family members warns that they may hear material of a graphic nature and says it will be providing mental health professionals for counseling at the briefing. The prosecutors in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui case will conduct the briefing, the letter says. "The sole purpose of the briefing is to describe for you the evidence gathered during the investigation of this case regarding the events that transpired on each of the flights before they were crashed," the letter says. Moussaoui is charged as a conspirator in the 9/11 attacks.

They should be aired to the entire Nation.

this is something that affects us all. I want to hear these tapes, i want to hear what was on the black-boxes, do i expect to under this administration - or any future admin - no.

folks of why we are AT WAR. They will get tons of coverage over this, but we have no way of verifying if they are the whole transcript.

Many folks will be very upset by this and CNN will give lots of airtime to this.

WHY NOW? is the question...and the answer is like everything these people do...publicity and diversion.

I feel sad that those families who wanted to hear their loved ones voices have had to wait this long. And, sadder that it's a stunt.

My heart is with those families. I, don't think I would want to hear, after all this time, what must have been a nightmare for those passengers on those planes.

What is their strategy here? </me shakes head to clear it>

His lawyers have taken the case to appeals at this point regarding his right to question or depose witnesses that are in the govt's custody, or else not face the death penalty.

I speculate that there will be some further obfuscation considering that so much of whatever they may have found out would have been obtained by illegal methods (torture), and therefore is not admissible. Needless to say, this would be a lousy time for Ashcroft to run into anything like that.

Maybe the prosecutors see some splashy way to tie him to 911 by associating themselves with this tape in order to apply pressure to the court?

Can anyone explain me what's in Princeton besides that 'non-profit' College Board Exam dealy and the university?

Is there a US District court there or something?

I seem to remember events in Maryland and New York (State) more clearly on the date in question.

It's possible - and I AM willing to speculate - they've chosen this quaint venue in order to best tamper raging* emotions. I notice the article says NOTHING about reasons for the choice of location.


(*Re: 990 days and still asking: Where's Lt. Columbo ?)

I wanna hear the tape of the air traffic controllers debreifing. You know ... The one their supervisor smashed and cut into a 100 pieces. Then placed meticulously in a hundred different garbage cans.


I wanna hear THAT tape!!!!!!!

an indictment against that supervisor for obstruction of justice vis a vis destruction of evidence.

I have EVER read.

One has no choice to wonder how he came to this decision, and why. Why did he believe he had to destroy it at all costs?

The plan seemed almost prepared in advance to have been executed so smoothly, so cleanly, to put that vital information out of reach.

Send him to Abu Ghraib, let Graner "soften him up!"