The man inside Building 7: Richard Rotanz on his role at Ground Zero
OEM official describes seeing elevator car blown out of shaft on the eighth floor
By Craig McKee
When it comes to calling for a new 9/11 investigation, Richard Rotanz is unique.
The retired FDNY fire captain and First Deputy Commissioner of the Office of Emergency Management in 2001 does not support the AE911Truth position that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed using explosives, but he does think a new investigation should be done of what did bring them down.
Rotanz joins host Andy Steele and co-host yours truly on the latest episode of 9/11 Free Fall to share his harrowing experiences at Ground Zero and to explain why he agreed to add his name to a document summarizing the WTC evidence produced by members of the Truth Movement. This document is being used in the effort to get a presidential commission formed to reexamine 9/11.
Rotanz explains in the interview that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) failed to adequately investigate why WTC 7 came down, which is why he agrees with the Truth Movement that a new inquiry is needed and that it should look at the activities of all government agencies in New York City that day.
On NIST’s failure, he wonders aloud: “Were they held back? I couldn’t tell you. I can’t speculate.”
Rotanz’s account is important because he is one of the very few people who can talk about what he saw inside Building 7 after both Twin Towers had already come down. He describes being inside Building 7 when he saw and heard the first jet roar past just prior to hitting the North Tower. He says he left WTC 7 and headed towards the North Tower to set up a command post, all the while having to watch for bodies of those who jumped from the tower. In fact, he said the first firefighter killed was killed by a falling body.
He had to abandon the command center after the South Tower was hit. When he returned to Building 7 and after the Twin Towers had both come down, he recommended to security staff that Building 7 be evacuated along with WTC 4 and 5. He and a colleague went up to the eighth floor of WTC 7 and saw an elevator car that had been blown entirely out of its shaft, coming to rest down the hall about 30 feet from the shaft, which had been damaged on several floors.
Rotanz claims that this was caused by debris that had fallen from the North Tower.
“In the south wall we saw huge gaping holes the size of Mack trucks,” he said, adding that while inside Building 7 he came to fear that it would at some point collapse.
But in some ways his account raises more questions than it answers. How could falling debris from the North Tower destroy an elevator shaft inside the building? And how could this blow the elevator car 30 feet away down a hallway?
Despite Rotanz’s belief that there was no controlled demolition of all three towers, he is open to the event being reinvestigated. And he was willing to put his name on a document that many could dismiss as just another “conspiracy theory.”
And who knows, he might reconsider whether explosives were used once he becomes familiar with more of the evidence.