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| “I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box.” |
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| A Life in Training Spring 2002 By Heather O. Milke <snip> Kilsheimer traversed the charred corridors of the scarred structure, oftentimes unsure of what he’d find. In fact, “I stepped on the plane’s black box by accident.” <snip> |
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| Web Exclusive: Washington’s Heroes [On the ground at the Pentagon on Sept. 11 28 September 2001 By Debra Rosenberg <snip> ‘IT WAS A WAR ZONE’ Carlton Burkhammer was at work at Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Station 14 when he heard about the World Trade Center crashes. Part of Fairfax County’s elite urban search and rescue team, Burkhammer prepared to suit up and head to New York City. One of the nation’s most experienced rescue teams, the squad had been deployed in disasters all over the world: Oklahoma City, embassy bombings, the Turkey earthquake. <snip> Early Friday morning, shortly before 4 a.m., Burkhammer and another firefighter, Brian Moravitz, were combing through debris near the impact site. Peering at the wreckage with their helmet lights, the two spotted an intact seat from the plane’s cockpit with a chunk of the floor still attached. Then they saw two odd-shaped dark boxes, about 1.5 by 2 feet long. They’d been told the plane’s “black boxes” would in fact be bright orange, but these were charred black. The boxes had handles on one end and one was torn open. They cordoned off the area and called for an FBI agent, who in turn called for someone from the National Transportation Safety Board who confirmed the find: the black boxes from American Airlines Flight 77. “We wanted to find live victims,” says Burkhammer. But this was a consolation prize. “Finding the black box gave us a little boost,” he says. |
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| Black Boxes Located in Pentagon Rubble Friday, September 14, 2001; 9:21 AM By Leef Smith Washington Post Staff Writer Both the black boxes from American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon on Tuesday were recovered early this morning, Arlington assistant county manager Dick Bridges said today. Members of the FBI Evidence Response Team found both black boxes – data and voice recorders – at 3:40 a.m. today. "It's a step forward in the investigation ... it's a step forward for America," Bridges said. He described the data box as "charred" and the voice recorder as "bad." He said the boxes were found where investigators had expected they would be but wasn't more specific. "It wasn't any real secret where we were expected to find the boxes. It was just a matter of getting to them," he said. He said earlier reports that there had been a signal from one of the Pentagon boxes were false. "This is a step forward, as opposed to stasis," Bridges said. "It's a significant development, and we're moving ahead." On the workers who found the boxes said he was pleased to have found the data recorder, "but by the same token, I'd much rather find someone alive." |
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| The Phoenix Project: Pentagon Reconstruction - September 11, 2001 - September 11, 2002 By Allyn E. Kilsheimer <snip> Our engineers were part of the process from midday on September 11. The building was so badly damaged that simultaneous engineering assessments, demolition and recovery efforts were required. <snip> |
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| REBUILDING THE PENTAGON January 16, 2002 <snip> RAY SUAREZ: Chief among those hires was Alan Kilsheimer, a structural engineer with years of experience in blast recovery. He arrived on site the afternoon of the 11th and has been on the rebuilding job 18 hours a day since. <snip> |
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| From Ruins, Pentagon Rises Renewed Determined Crews Keep Their Promise to Return Workers By Steve Vogel Washington Post Staff Writer September 8, 2002 <snip> When It Hit When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, Evey (note: the Pentagon Renovation Manager) was more than 100 miles down Interstate 81 and heading south. His brother-in-law had died the day before, and he was driving to North Carolina for the funeral with the car radio turned off. Evey had taken over the Pentagon renovation program in 1997, coming from jobs as a top contracting chief for the Air Force and before that for NASA, where he negotiated contracts for the international space station. After three years of work, the Pentagon program was five days from completing the renovation of the first of five wedges. Just inside Tennessee, he stopped at a Wendy's for an early lunch. Ashen-faced employees came to the counter and told him the news. Evey raced back north, talking into two cell phones at once. <snip> Kilsheimer was at a meeting on Connecticut Avenue when he got a phone call from his office, KCE Structural Engineers, the company he founded 33 years ago. Someone had called from New York City and said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and that they needed him up there. By the time Kilsheimer reached his office near Dupont Circle, there was a message from the Pentagon, saying that a plane had hit the building and that he was needed there. Kilsheimer debated briefly, calculating the impact a commercial jet laden with fuel would have on a skyscraper. The towers were going to collapse, he felt certain, and there was nothing he could do about that.* The Pentagon was practically his back yard. He instructed his office to call New York and say he'd help as he could, but he was on his way to the Pentagon. <snip> Evey made it back in six hours and stopped briefly at his home in Springfield. <snip> Kilsheimer drove as close as he could to the Pentagon, but it still took him two more hours to work his way on foot to the site. Late that afternoon, they took him to see Evey, who gave him simple instructions: Help the emergency workers. Kilsheimer's expertise with collapsed buildings was needed. |
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| Pentagon officials contacted Kilsheimer right after the crash. He had gained an exceptional reputation for analyzing structural failures around the world, and had done that for the government after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995 and the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. |