911 Debris Discovered Near Ground Zero

As ABC News reports, debris from September 11th was found in an alley behind a mosque near the World Trade Center. The medical examiner’s office plans to search through the airplane landing gear for human remains. The rusted landing gear piece is believed to be from one of two hijacked airliners that decimated the twin towers in 2001, exploding with fiery debris and killing thousands of people.

The chief medical examiner’s spokeswoman, Ellen Borakove, said the area will first be tested as part of a standard health and safety evaluation for possible toxicity. Retired fire department deputy chief Jim Riches, who lost his son in the terror attack, visited the site on Saturday.

“The finding of this landing gear,” he said, “just goes to show that we need federal people in here to do a comprehensive, full search of lower Manhattan to make sure that we don’t get any more surprises,” as happened in 2007 when body parts were discovered in nearby sewers and manhole covers.

Of the nearly 3,000 victims, Riches noted, about 1,000 families have never recovered any remains.