Ny B7 Families Fdr- 7-11-03 Letter From Kathleen Britton- Wtc Destruction- Reports Of Explosions

Thomas HKean CHAIR

Date:

Lee H Hamilton VICE CHAIR

Richard Ben-Veniste

TO:

TEAM

MaxCfcland Fred F.Fielding

FROM: Dianna Campagna

Jamie S. Gorelick Sbde Gorton

The attached correspondence from

John Lehman

is being forwarded to you for information and consideration. A copy has

Timothy J. Roemer

also been sent to Team(s)

James R. Thompson

have any questions, please call me on 331-4082. Thank you.

^^^

for their information. If you

Phflip D. Zelikow EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

TEL (202) 331-4060 FAX (202) 296-5545 www.9-1 Icommissiongov

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XatfUeen written

July 11,2003

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iXfhomasH. Kean, Chair National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 301 7th Street, SW - Room 5125 Washington, DC 20407 Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chair National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States 301 7th Street, SW - Room 5125 Washington, DC 20407 Dear Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton: I am forwarding information to you that I believe is relevant to your investigation of the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, relevant to your charter to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11th, and relevant to your mandate to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks. As you will see from the following documentation, I lived in Battery Park City and worked at the World Financial Center. I saw the second plane hit the south face of Tower 2, from one block (approximately 300 feet) to the west. I witnessed people jumping from the upper floors, including Windows on the World. I returned to my home because I could not help those who were dying. My condominium in Battery Park City was a few hundred yards to the southwest of Tower 2. My neighbors and I witnessed massive explosions in each Tower barely seconds before each collapse. I do not believe the explosions we witnessed were caused by the plane crashes, the burning jet fuel, anything legitimately in the Towers, or the collapse -of the buildings. I believe additional explosives were brought in, possibly that morning, as a backup plan in case the planes did not hit their targets or the buildings did not quickly collapse. After talking with my cousin, then an Inspector on the New York Police Department, now retired, about what I witnessed and my frustration at the lack of a standard neighborhood canvass of witnesses, I sent a full, written, account, by certified mail, detailing what I saw to those then responsible for the investigation. I was contacted by investigators from both the Fire Department of New York (the "FDNY") and the New York Police Department (the "NYPD"). I was directly told by the NYPD investigator, whom I will not name, that the investigators believed there was credibility in what I reported, but that I would never see that information in the official reports of what caused the collapse of the Towers. I appreciate your efforts as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. I sincerely hope you will consider the eyewitness account I have provided. I believe it is critical to the nation's efforts to guard against future attacks that we, as a nation, know the true reason(s) the Towers collapsed. What I believe has not been explained in the official reports is the cause of the massive explosions, seconds before the collapse of each building, well after the planes hit the Towers. These explosions were witnessed by many people in Battery Park City. I was told by both the FDNY and the NYPD that these explosions were not captured by television crews. What I believe has not been explained is how my cousin, and others I spoke with afterward, saw the explosions on TV when the investigators told me the explosions were not captured by the media. What I believe has also not been explained is why the FDNY Battalion Chiefj who was communicating with the Command Center in the lobby of Tower 2, sent his men up, rather than calling for an evacuation, if the building was in imminent danger of collapsing, as it did just after his call to the lobby. What I believe has not been explained is why the fire in Tower 2, which I was seeing from the same side of the building hit by the plane, appears much less intense than the fire in Tower 1, which I was viewing from the opposite side of the building hit by the plane, given the official explanation that the intensity of the fires caused the collapse and Tower 2 collapsed first because the plane was going much faster, so its fire was more intense. What I believe has not been explained is why the fire, as documented in photos I took, less than 10 minutes before the collapse, show the fire in Tower 2 had not burned through the crash floors and appears much smaller than that of Tower 1, given the explanation that the fire in Tower 2 was more intense.

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I believe it is critical to the safety of first responders, such as the FDNY and the NYPD, to determine whether the initial conclusion, that the fires, caused by the plane crashes, caused the collapses due lo structural failure, in feet tells the complete story of what brought down the Towers J; I believe the families of those who were killed, especially those who died in the Towers, and the residents of Battery Park City, who witnessed the explosions add know the full story has not been told, deserve to know the true cause of the collapses which damaged our lives forever. I believe anyone who works in a multiple story office building or Ijves in a high rise residential building, along with those who provide security for tall buildings and/first responders w)io may have! to enter a building under terrorist attack, deserves to know what happened as well / i I can be reached as follows, should you have any further questions: by phone atj I Ibvfaxatd i, or by e-mail at | | Thank you in advance for your consideration of the information I am providing to you. Sincerely,

Kathleen Britton

[ by cell phone at|

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JCatfiCeen Sritton

May 14,2002 Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta Fire Department New York 9 Metro Tech Center Brooklyn, NY 11201 Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly New York Police Department 1 Police Plaza, Room 1400 New York, NY 10271 Robert S. Mueller, m Office of the Director Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover Building 935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20535-0001 Cc:

Fire Chief Daniel Nigro Fire Department New York 9 Metro Tech Center Brooklyn, NY 11201 Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg City Hall New York, NY 10007 Leslie E. Robertson Leslie E. Robertson Associates 30 Broad Street, 47-48th Floor New York, NY 10004-2304

Dear Sirs: I am writing to you as an eyewitness to the tragic events of the morning of September 11, 2001. I am concerned because, to my knowledge, none of the residents of Battery Park City were interviewed as part of what I understand to be a standard neighborhood canvass during a police investigation. In addition, news reports indicate the official conclusion as to the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers is likely to be that the explosion of the jet fuel in the planes brought down the Towers. I believe the failure to obtain eyewitness testimony from Battery Park City residents may have caused the investigation to overlook a critical possible cause of the destruction of the Towers. I have lived on Rector Place in Battery Park City for nearly twelve years, since September of 1990. I worked for Merrill Lynch, at 4 World Financial Center, as an Assistant Vice President in Investment Banking Administration, until December 13, 2001. I am currently a Director of BPCUnited, a post 9/11 World Trade Center neighborhood resident's organization. I was at home in my condominium at 377 Rector Place on the morning of September 11, 2001, just leaving for work, when the first plane hit Tower 1. I ran to the windows in my bedroom, which face both east and south, to look at the

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Towers. I immediately thought "On, no. Not again,", flashing back to 1993. It was apparently too soon for the smoke to rise over Tower 1, so everything in lower Manhattan, the western part of New York harbor, including the Statue of Liberty and Staten Island, and the area of New Jersey near Newark airport appeared normal. I therefore thought I was mistaken about what I just heard, so I left for work. Just as I reached ground level, at the comer of Albany and South End Avenue, my mother beeped me to "Please call home concerning the explosion at the WTC". I looked directly up, and, by then, the fire on the impact floors had reached the west face of Tower 1. A bystander told me, in response to my question as to whether we knew what had happened yet, that a jet had accidentally crashed into the Towers. I instinctively replied, because my brother flies passenger jets (737s and 757s) for a carrier based out of Midway, that no commercial jet pilot could possibly fly into one of the Towers by mistake on a clear morning like that. I also knew, from living here for so many years, no flight patterns were close enough that this was likely to be an accident caused by mechanical difficulties. I nevertheless continued to work, stopping to mail a bill and then to find my splint, which I apparently dropped in shock when I first saw the fires, on the way. I was one block away, walking north along South End Avenue, at the western end of Liberty Street, when the second plane hit Tower 2. After recovering from the initial shock of the second attack, I continued on to the World Financial Center to call my mother, who was still waiting for me to call home to tell her I was safe. WFC Security was already evacuating my office building, so I turned back south and went next to St. Joseph Chapel, my church. There was only one person there, praying. Rev. Msgr. Joseph Zammit, an NYPD Police Chaplain who used to say the 8:15 a.m. Mass, later told me he had already gone to the WTC with his oils to help the victims and the survivors. The office was locked because the only staff member did not usually arrive for work until 10 ajm., so, after saying a prayer, I went back outside. I next spoke briefly with some people from the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, who were staying at the Marriott, had been attending a conference, and who had just evacuated from Tower 2. We saw windows being punched out of the lower floors of Tower 2 by survivors who apparently could not breathe. We also saw people jumping from Tower 2, some on fire. After asking those who had just left Tower 2 if there was anything we could do to help, and deciding that we could not help those still trapped in the Towers, I gave the visitors from Atlanta directions out of Battery Park City and advised them to leave the area immediately. I then returned home to call my mother and to prepare to leave the area as well. While I was in my condominium, nearly an hour after the jets crashed into the buildings and the jet fuel in those planes exploded upon impact, while staring directly at Tower 2,1 saw a massive explosion, a number of floors below the fire floors and below the area of impact. That secondary explosion was much larger than the explosion I saw upon the impact of the second jet. This second explosion caused the many residents who had been watching the Towers from the rooftop garden on the building next door to mine to run for safety, whereas the impact of the jet had not caused many of the residents standing around me near Gateway Plaza to flee. I continued to stare as Tower 2 hung, tilted slightly, and then fell. I received a call from my cousin, who studied architecture for his undergraduate degree, after the explosion but before the collapse, asking if it there had just been a secondary explosion in Tower 2. I answered yes, then returned to the phone call from my cousin's daughter. Her father, my cousin, was at that time an Inspector on the NYPD, who has since retired. My cousin's daughter and wife were helping me to communicate with my family and my finance's family by relaying messages because of the problems with the phone lines in Manhattan, which were jammed. Some friends, relatives, and neighbors have since told me that they also saw the secondary explosion in Tower 2 on television or in person. The same sequence of events occurred several minutes later in Tower 1, after the dust cloud that enveloped my building following the collapse, had cleared. It is important to me that you know the secondary explosions, which you could see from the south side of the Towers, occurred immediately prior to the collapse of each Tower. A number of Battery Park City residents who witnessed both sets of explosions in each building do not believe the second set of explosions was caused by or was related to the jet fuel, although we have several different theories as to the cause of the explosions. Please remember, we are among the few eyewitnesses who were not running for our lives because we were already home and had nowhere else obvious to run. Those of us who were here and had a view of the Towers from our homes, as I did, were therefore staring in shock, disbelief, and horror at the unfolding tragedy. The World Trade Center was central to our lives and dominated our

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neighborhood, serving as ouri downtown, providing transportation, shopping, medical facilities, and entertainment. Watching its destruction, along; with the enormous loss Of life, is something we will never be able to forget. Some of us therefore have talked about jhe '^explosions, have written in local publications like the Battery Park City Broadsheet about the explosions, and wonder lampngst ourselves why these explosions have never been mentioned since the day of and the day following the Attack, lei alofte be addressed in your investigation; I am writing as a citizen of New York for nearly twenty years. I am concerned that the true cause of the destruction of the Towers be determined,; to thfc extent possible, because of the impact this detennination will have on the procedures for fighting fires in skyscrjapers imd OQ future building codes. I personally believe that additional explosives may have been brought into the buildings ithe morning of September 11, 2001, in order to ensure the destruction of the Twin Towers should the impact and explosion of the planes and the ensuing fire prove not to have been enough. Regardless of my suspicion, however, llbelieve! the FDNY, the NYPD, the families of those who were killed, those of us who were eyewitnesses and survived, as well as the citizens of New York, the United States, and many countries around the world deserve to know, to the extent possible, what truly brought down the Towers.

1

I can be reached asfollows,should you have any questions: by phone at'| 1 by cell phone at [ | [by fax at! I I or by e-mail at'l I I am tentatively scheduled to move to Nnrth Carolina on June 1, 2002. After my move, I can be reached by phone at] [or by e-mail at Sincerely,

Kathleen Britton

Katfiken 'Britton

July 30,2002 ^Campbell

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Fire Department New York 16 Hooper Street

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Enclosed please find the photos I took of the Towers on September 11, 2001; fiomimy bedroom window. These photos, as I mentioned in my letter of May 14, 2002, were taken nearly an hour after the jets crashed into the buildings, and maybe 5 - 1 0 minutes before the large explosion. Clearly, both Towers have large fires, with the fire in Tower One actually larger than the fire in Tower Two, but neither appears to me to be jfiilly; engulfed in flames even on the fire floors, nor about to implode from the fire alone. In fact, you can't even see flame in Tower 2; only smoke. Again, I was staring directly at Tower 2 and saw a massive explosion, a number of floors below the fire floors and below the area of impact. I believe it was at or just below the mechanical floors pictured just above the roof of World Financial Center One in the foreground. The secondary explosion my neighbors and I saw was much larger than the explosion I saw upon the impact of the second jet. This second explosion caused the many residents who had been watching the Towers from the rooftop garden on die building next door to mine to/run for safety, whereas the impact of the jet had not caused many of the residents standing around the near Gateway Plaza to flee; I continued to stare as Tower 2 hung, tilted slightly, and then fell. The same sequence of events occurred several minutes later in Tower 1, after the dust cloud that enveloped my building following the collapse, had cleared. : I do not believe the explosions I saw Were a consequence of the collapse of either building due to extreme heat or fire. I believe the explosions I saw cawed the collapse. I believe the explosion 1 saw was caused by a deliberate detonation of explosive material. Nothing I have read or seen has changed my mind nor /has adequately explained to me what I saw. I also believe the investigation should have included a standard neighborhood canvas of eyewitnesses who were not in the buildings or running from the collapsing buildings and therefore had; the perspective and a relative sense of calm to observe the sequence of events. Hundreds of Battery Park City residents were taking photos or filming. I realize many of those residents may have moved at this point, however, had the investigation started with fact gathering rather than starting with conclusions and gathering facts that fit those conclusions, the opportunity to find the true cause of the collapse of the Towers would not have been lost. ; j I appreciate your efforts during this investigation. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the Fire Department of New York, that I am mistaken about the cause of the collapse. Unfortunately. I do not believe I am. I can be reached as follows, should you have any further questions: by phone at I Iby cell phone at I I by fax at j \ possible publication in a book I am writing.

Kathleen Britton

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KatRken "Britten

August 5, 2002 PatCampbell Fire Department New York 16 Hooper Street Dear Mr. Campbell:

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\ understand you were able to speak to Manoh

explosions in and subsequent collapse of the Twin Towers, Please remember, again, that I saw hundreds of Battery Park City residents filming and taking photos just before the explosion in Tower 2, although it rnay be difficult to find those witnesses now. / ; \r reading recent reports in the press that Ba 78th floor of Tower 2, organized an evacuation of injured, and formulated1 a plan for fighting the fire, I am even more convinced that the true cause of the explosion has not been identified. Surely an FDNY Battalion (Chief, one of the most experienced and qualified in the world to fight high rise fires, would havei recognized a fire so widespread as to be unfightable and would have ordered his men out rather than formulating a plan to fight the fires. It is my understanding, from press reports, that the FDNY climbed much higher into both Towers, at least 28 floors higher than investigators realized in Tower 2, because they ignored this tape until last month. I do not believe the explosions I saw were a consequence of the collapse of/either building due to extreme heat or fire. I believe the explosions I saw caused the collapse. I believe the explosion I saw was caused by a deliberate detonation of explosive material. Now that I have learned of even more evidence overlooked during the investigation, I am even more convinced that, had the investigation started with feet gathering rather than starting with conclusions and gathering facts that fit those conclusions, the opportunity to find the true cause/of the collapse 0f the Towers would not have been lost I appreciate your efforts during this investigation. I sincerely hope, fpr the sake of thfe Fire Department of NeVy York, that I am mistaken about the cause of the collapse. Unfortunately, I do not believe I am. I can be reached as foil should vou have any further questions: by phone at | [ by cell phone at I | by fax at j I | or by e-mail at) j Sincerely,

Kathleen Brrtton