FAA manager destroyed tape made on 9-11

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
The Washington Post

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It is unclear what information was on the tape because no one listened to, transcribed or duplicated it, the report by Department of Transportation Inspector General Kenneth Mead said.

The report concluded that the FAA generally cooperated with the independent panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks by providing documents about its activities that day, but the actions of two FAA managers "did not, in our view, serve the interests of the FAA, the Department (of Transportation) or the public."

The report was conducted at the request of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., after the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, complained that the FAA had been less than forthcoming in turning over documents and issued a subpoena.

The FAA said it had taken disciplinary action against the two employees and that it was cooperating fully with the 9-11 panel.

"We believe the audiotape in question appears to be consistent with written statements and other materials provided to FBI investigators and would not have added in any significant way to the information contained in what has already been provided to investigators and members of the 9-11 commission," FAA spokesman Greg Martin said.

Hours after the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, an FAA manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center gathered six controllers who communicated with or tracked two of the hijacked planes and recorded in a one-hour interview their accounts of what occurred, the report stated.

According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.

Instead, the second manager said he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and January 2002 by crushing it with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into trash cans, the report said.

Mead said his office referred the case to federal prosecutors, but they declined to prosecute because of lack of criminal intent.

The tape's existence never was made known to federal officials investigating the attack, nor to FAA officials in Washington. Staff members of the 9-11 panel found out about the tape during interviews with some controllers who participated in the recording.
 
The New York managers acknowledged that they received an e-mail from FAA officials instructing them to retain all materials related to the Sept. 11 attacks.

But the managers decided not to include the tape in a November 2001 "Formal Accident Package" because one manager said he did not want to break his word to the union official and he did not think the tape should have been made.

Information on the referral of the case to New York prosecutors was provided by The Associated Press.