Possible 9/11 landing gear found between mosque site and highrise
Expanded search will also check for human remains
NEW YORK A rusted, nearly two-metre-tall piece of landing gear believed to be from one of the hijacked planes destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks has been discovered wedged between a mosque site and a luxury highrise apartment building near the World Trade Center.
The twisted metal part has cables and levers on it and is about a metre wide and half that deep. It includes a clearly visible Boeing Co. identification number, New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said Friday.
“The odds of this being wedged between there is amazing,” Browne said, adding it was not surprising that it went undiscovered for more than a decade, given the location. “It had to have fallen just the right way to make it into that space.”
Browne said other World Trade Center wreckage had been discovered nearby in years past.
Police detectives and National Transportation Safety Board investigators will determine whether the equipment is from the American Airlines plane or the United Airlines plane that slammed into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, destroying the towers and killing thousands of people.
The piece of equipment was discovered Wednesday by surveyors inspecting the Lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community centre, at 51 Park Place, on behalf of the building’s owner, police said. The inspector was on the roof and noticed the debris and then called 911. Police secured the scene, documenting it with photos.
The spot where the landing gear was found is about three blocks from ground zero. When plans for the mosque and community centre were first announced several years ago, a furor erupted. Opponents protested that putting a Muslim facility near ground zero showed disrespect. Supporters cited freedom of religion and said it wasn’t too close to where Islamic extremists attacked on Sept. 11.
Sharif El- Gamal, the president of Soho Properties, which owns 51 Park Place, said workers called the city and the police as soon as they discovered the landing gear. He said the company is co-operating with the city and the police to make sure the piece of equipment “is removed with care as quickly and effectively as possible.”
The medical examiner’s office will complete a health and safety evaluation to determine whether to sift the soil around the buildings for possible human remains, police said.
Patricia Riley, whose sister Lorraine Riley was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, said the landing gear discovery was “very strange.”
“12 years later we are still finding remnants of the attack on our country,” she said. “For years to come we’ll continue to find things that we didn’t see before. Hopefully, they’ll serve as a reminder that we have to stay vigilant.”
Outside the Islamic centre building, known as Park51, a police officer stood next to the door on Friday and a police barricade was set up to contain the many journalists who had gathered to try to see the piece of the plane.