I just heard on the news that the 911 calls from the world trade center on 9/11 were released to the public. Awhile back, phone call transcripts from the passengers while the planes were still in the air were also released.

I am disgusted and appalled that there is a public desire to hear someone's last panicked words to a dispatcher, or last heartbreaking words to a loved one.

Why? Who wants to hear these calls and what is the purpose of it all?

Or is this another grossly obvious ploy to boost dubya's poll numbers?

heres one of the calls

http://forums.theskyiscrape.com/vie ... hp?t=38083

Is this like a new, more tactful version of Cal?

I thought the calls were being released to family members, who then had final say as to whether they would release to the public.

I hate Bush as much as anybody, but come on. The New York Times and a group of victims' families sued to have these tapes released.

cmon now ara, you know damn well bush is behind everything, even behind that mutant centipede in quints thread, he authorized the genetic gene splicing to create such an animal

NYC Releases 9/11 WTC Emergency Calls

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer
27 minutes ago

Nearly nine hours of emergency calls, some made from inside the doomed World Trade Center, were released Friday by city officials, detailing the responses of 911 operators to frantic callers caught in the chaos of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack.

"You saw an explosion at the twin towers?" asked an operator receiving the first call on Fire Department transcripts. The time was 8:47 a.m., one minute after the first plane hit.

The voices of the operators — but not the callers — were released after The New York Times and relatives of the victims sued to get them.

An appeals court ruled last year that the calls of victims in the burning twin towers were too intense and emotional to be publicly released without families' consent. But a state judge ruled Wednesday that the city must provide the names of the 28 people, along with other excerpts that could help identify more callers.

The newspaper, joined in its lawsuit by relatives of several Sept. 11 victims, is hoping the tapes will offer clues to the experiences of the 2,749 people who were killed after hijacked jetliners crashed into the towers. Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents the victims' families, said he wants to learn whether operators' instructions affected evacuations.

"We will potentially hear Operator A say, 'Go to the roof,'" Siegel said. "We might hear Operator B say, 'Stay in place. We're coming to get you.'"

Sally Regenhard, who lost her firefighter son and is one of the plaintiffs, said the public should be allowed to hear both sides of the conversation to get a true picture of what happened inside the towers.

"What we're getting is only half of the truth, half of the story," Regenhard said.

She also said families should be able to listen to the callers who were not identified, to try to hear their loved ones' voices. "Only a mother could listen to recordings and maybe hear some glimmer of your child's voice, even though his name may have been garbled," she said.

The appeals ruling allows the public release of the 28 tapes only if families consent. So far, at least three families have asked to listen to their loved ones' voices.

Christopher Hanley's call came in to the call center at 8:50 a.m. — four minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

"Yeah. Hi. I'm on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center. We just had an explosion on the, on the like 105th floor," Hanley, 35, tells the dispatcher. Later, he says, "We have smoke and — it's pretty bad."

The dispatcher tells him to "sit tight. Do not leave, OK?"

Hanley later died in the tower. His parents, Joe and Marie Hanley, told The New York Times they didn't want to hear the tape at first but changed their minds. On the tape, their son, who worked for Radianz, then a division of Reuters, spelled out his last name.

After taking his name, the police dispatcher transferred the call to a fire department dispatcher, who tells Hanley to keep the windows open. Hanley responds: "We can't open the windows unless we break them."

"OK," the dispatcher says. "Just sit tight. Just sit tight. We're on the way."

"All right," Hanley says. "Please hurry."

Hanley's parents said they were proud of their son for remaining calm.

"He was strong and thinking so clearly and beautifully," Marie Hanley told the Times. "Patient with the Fire Department and 911. It brought everything back up again."

again, why does anyone, witht he exception of the family members in question, ever need to hear these tapes?

i don't get it.

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones."

Well that's fine if you don't get it, and nobody is forcing you to listen to them anyway. But as one mother said in the article above, she thinks it's important for the public to have access to everything that went on that day. It's also important I think for people to analyze what went right/wrong that day in case it happens again in the future. Someone in the article says that some dispatchers were telling people to stay put, some were telling them to head to the roof. I think it should all be public record so that historians will have an understanding of what happened years from now too. Yes, it was a horrible tragedy. Yes, there are probably many calls of people panicking and freaking out. Yes, the average person probably doesn't want to subject themselves to listening. That doesn't mean the information should be held by the government. This is a free society where we shouldn't rely on the government to filter information from us.

okay, those ar eall great reasons for the tapes to be made public, and i am not in favor of keeping them a secret...

but how is this appropriate for the morning news? if you want a record of the calls for analyzation or historical purposes, then go for it. but the average joe schmoe does not need to hear them. a synopsis of it all is bad enough.

when i heard that these tapes were going to be played, i turned off my TV. i won't watch any more news until i think it is free and clear of this disgusting rubbernecking.

and i did not read the article posted in this thread. there is just something about all of this that makes me very uneasy. i guess i'm just weird.

I agree that it's not appropriate for the media to be playing the tapes, but in this day and age I'm not the least bit surprised.

some have been played at the moussaoui case. the only one i've heard is the one in the story below, about halfway down.

it's absolutely disturbing.

to quote: 'i'm gonna die, aren't i? i'm gonna die...i'm gonna die, oh please dear god...'

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12266270/

I can't wait to toss a few of these in on the summery mix CDs I make my friends. OH imagine the suprise when one of these drops right after "Sloop John B"!!!