New York Local News

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ― The city is releasing more than 1,600 previously undisclosed Sept. 11 emergency calls -- several by rescuers who later were killed -- after fire department officials said they discovered hundreds of internal dispatches of firefighters who went to rescue people from the burning World Trade Center.

The 1,613 calls being made public Wednesday also include 10 previously unreleased 911 calls made by people trapped in the twin towers, although those calls will include only the voices of the operators who heard their pleas.

City officials are under court order to provide all emergency calls made from and around the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The New York Times and families of Sept. 11 victims had sued the city for access to firefighters' oral histories and emergency calls.

The transcripts of about 130 911 calls from people trapped in the towers were released earlier this year, including only the voices of the operators, emergency responders and other public employees. The callers' voices were cut out after city attorneys argued that their pleas for help were too emotional and intense to be publicized without their families' consent. Thousands of pages of emergency workers' oral histories and radio transmissions were released last August.

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta ordered his department to search for all undisclosed recordings when another tape turned up shortly after the 911 calls were turned over in March. City officials listened to all calls to emergency and fire dispatchers between 8:45 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. on Sept. 11 -- from when hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers to when the towers collapsed -- to find the new recordings.

The fire department said Tuesday evening that when it first turned over its emergency calls, officials "misinterpreted instructions they were given on what kinds of calls to copy" and "failed to capture" other 911 calls they knew had to be made public.

"The department regrets the delay," it said in a statement.

Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents Sept. 11 families, called on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pledge that no more emergency recordings from that day exist.

"We need the mayor to assure the family members that this is it, that this is everything we have," Siegel said. "If it was 10 or 20 tapes, one could understand that they overlooked some. But if you're talking hundreds, and possibly as many as 2,000 tapes, the serious substantial question is how did this happen?"

A spokesman for the mayor declined to comment Tuesday.

The Fire Department of New York said most firefighters' calls are questions about where to report for duty. Nineteen firefighters and two emergency medical technicians who died are identified by name on the new tapes, and their families have been notified, the department said. Because they are public employees, their entire recordings will be released on Wednesday.

The city withheld three 911 calls in March to be used during the sentencing phase of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui's trial a month later. Jurors in the Moussaoui case heard excerpts of calls made by Melissa Doi, who spent more than 20 minutes on the phone with a 911 operator from the 83rd floor of the south tower, and Kevin Cosgrove. Both were killed in the attack.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?" Doi asked the dispatcher. "Please God, it's so hot. I'm burning up."

The remainder of the call will be released, but with only the 911 operator's voice.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)