Part of a 9/11 plane’s landing gear is believed to have been found in Manhattan on Wednesday wedged between a luxury apartment building and a planned mosque site.
The twisted, rusted five-foot-tall chunk of landing gear is believed to be from one of the planes hijacked on September 11, 2001 and crashed into the World Trade Center towers .
The plane landing gear still has cables and levers attached. It is roughly three feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. A Boeing Co. identification number is clearly visible on the plane piece as well, meaning that authorities will be able to find out which plane it came from.
New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne added on Friday , “The odds of this being wedged between there is amazing. It had to have fallen just the right way to make it into that space.”
Browne added that it is not surprising it took so long to find the 9/11 plane’s landing gear piece after more than a decade, because of its location. Other wreckage from the World Trade Center attack has been discovered in the area in years past.
The 9/11 plane part was discovered by surveyors who were inspecting the lower Manhattan site of a planned Islamic community center on behalf of the building’s owner. the same building was hit by a piece of landing gear on September 11, 2001. That piece punctured the building’s roof.
An inspector on the roof noticed the debris on Wednesday and called 911. Police arrived and secured the scene, documenting it with photographs. Police detectives and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will work to discover whether the landing gear came from the United Airlines flight or the American Airlines plane that slammed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001.
Police also stated that the medical examiner’s office will complete a health and safety evaluation around the building to see if they should sift the soil around the lower Manhattan buildings for possible human remains. City officials continue to turn up debris from the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including human remains.
Parts have been discovered on rooftops, in storm drains, and now in small alleyways as well. This month, the medical examiner’s office announced the discovery of 39 potential human remains. They were round in 9/11 debris hauled from Staten Island years ago. The painstaking work by the office has led to 34 new positive identifications of victims.
It is unclear when the 9/11 plane’s landing gear will be removed from its resting place in the alleyway.
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