- 6 months ago
Disaster Transbian episode 18
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00:00Hello? Is anybody home?
00:08Well, you don't know me, but I know you
00:16And I've got a message to give to you
00:25Here come the plane
00:30So you better get ready
00:41Ready to go
00:44You can come as you are
00:52But pay as you go
00:54And I said, okay, who is this really?
01:17And the voice said
01:21This is the hand
01:25The hand that takes
01:30This is the hand
01:37Types of knives authorities believe the hijackers used
01:40This is the hand
01:49This is the hand
01:51The hand that takes
01:56Here come the planes
02:01Is there American planes?
02:07Made in America
02:09Smoking or non-smoking?
02:13And the voice said
02:26Is that American 11 trying to call?
02:28Buddy
02:29We have some planes
02:32Just stay quiet and you'll be okay
02:34We're turning to the airport
02:36American 11
02:38American 11, are you trying to call?
02:39Nobody move
02:40Everything will be okay
02:42If you try to make any move
02:44The danger is self
02:46And the airplane
02:47Just stay quiet
02:48There he is
02:49A baby
02:49Hey
02:51Hips
02:52Hips
02:53Six
02:54Tym
02:55Operation
02:55Let it
02:58Now
02:59A
02:5959
03:00Video
03:01Subman
03:02What?
03:02A
03:031
03:042
03:04A
03:053
03:06A
03:072
03:09A
03:102
03:133
03:142
03:153
03:15Because when love is gone, there's always justice, and when justice is gone, there's always
03:43weapons, Sergeant Powell.
03:44Hi, Boston Center, TMU.
03:45We have a problem here.
03:47We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need
03:52someone to scramble some S-16s or something up there to help us out.
03:56Is this real-world or exercise?
03:58No, this is not an exercise on the past.
04:01Oh, shit!
04:08Holy shit!
04:12Holy shit!
04:16Holy shit!
04:21Holy shit!
04:26The world trade said that tower number one is on fire.
04:44The whole outside of the building was just a huge explosion.
04:53Sneha and Phillip.
04:55Born October 7, 1969, legally died on September 11, 2001, was an Indian American physician
05:04who was last seen on September 10, 2001 by a department store surveillance camera near
05:10her lower Manhattan home.
05:15She may have returned to the building at some point that night or the next morning due to
05:21the close proximity of the World Trade Center and her medical training, Phillip's family
05:26believes she perished trying to help victims of the following day's terrorist attacks.
05:33Two investigations were conducted, the first by Ron Lieberman, Phillip's husband, and private
05:39investigator Ken Gallant, a former FBI agent.
05:43Initially presumed her disappearance and possible death were unrelated to the attacks, but
05:49later concluded it was the most likely outcome.
05:52An investigation by the New York City Police Department, begun much later, delved into her
05:58life leading up to September 11, and found details of marital problems, job difficulties,
06:05and alcohol abuse, and alcohol abuse by Phillip, as well as a pending misdemeanor charge against
06:10her in the months before her disappearance.
06:12This led them to conclude it was just as likely that she had met a different fate, though the
06:18report's author testified later that he believed Phillip probably died in the attacks.
06:24Lieberman and Phillip's family have strongly disputed some of the facts and many of the conclusions
06:32of the police report, insinuating that the police did poor work or even fabricated some of their
06:39evidence.
06:40Phillip's family have pointed out that there are many other 9-11 victims whose remains were
06:44never found, and other victims who were added to the list despite equally tenuous connections
06:51to the attack.
06:52No physical evidence has been found to suggest that Phillip was killed in the attacks.
06:58Citing the evidence from the police report, a surrogate court judge had denied her family's
07:05petition to have her declared a victim of the attacks, suggesting it was equally possible she
07:11may have intentionally disappeared or been murdered by someone she met on her frequent nights out.
07:18However, on January 31, 2008, a New York State Appeals Court overturned a lower court ruling
07:25and declared that Phillip had been a victim of the attacks, officially making her the 2,751st victim
07:34of the Twin Towers collapse.
07:37Sneha Ann Phillip was born in the Indian state of Kerala.
07:42She later moved with her parents to upstate New York, settling first in the Albany area,
07:48and then in Hopewell Junction, a small hamlet in Dutchess County.
07:53Following her graduation from Johns Hopkins University in 1991, Phillip decided to pursue
07:59a career in medicine and enrolled in the Chicago School of Medicine in 1995.
08:05There she met Ron Lieberman, a student a year behind her from Los Angeles, and began dating him.
08:13The two shared creative interests outside of their intended career.
08:17He was a musician, and she was interested in painting.
08:20Phillip took a year off, traveling around Italy, so the two could graduate together.
08:25They moved to New York City, where they had both gained internships.
08:29Lieberman was at Jacoby Medical Center in the Bronx, while Phillip did hers at Cabrini Medical Center,
08:36close to their small apartment in the East Village.
08:39The couple was married in May 2000 at a small ceremony held in Dutchess County,
08:45combining Jewish and St. Thomas Syrian Christian elements.
08:49Lieberman gave his bride a minu, a traditional Malayali Syrian Christian wedding pendant,
08:56shaped like a gold teardrop, with a diamond set in it.
09:00They moved to a larger apartment in Battery Park City shortly afterwards.
09:05So anyway, we go on now, and how are you? I know you're in shock.
09:10I'm really in shock. I've never, I don't know what to say. I really don't know.
09:16But they really, really had quite a storm last night. Lightning bolts coming down, you know, and it really was something.
09:21I made it just inside, just in time. I was with the kids, and we, oh my gosh, something just exploded.
09:27There's a close-up view, I guess. Something just exploded.
09:29Maybe that plane had something in it. And there's phones going off.
09:34Are we getting an explosion happening inside? There was an explosion there, huh?
09:38And you can see the flames.
09:42Uh, when something like this happens, it's such a, an air, a mass destruction, you have to wonder about.
09:48Of course, the, oh, it looks like both buildings.
09:52That's both buildings.
09:54This is the next building.
09:56This is the next building.
09:58Jumped over to the next building, huh?
10:00Fuselage exploded on the plane and...
10:06And shot into the next building.
10:08Leaped into the next building.
10:10This is just the worst...
10:12Yeah, just yesterday, the other day, we were talking about the, the job that New York City and every city's fire department has.
10:19And this is gonna be a tough one.
10:21Cause that's almost at the top of that, uh, building.
10:25There are so many people in there.
10:27Um, I, I...
10:30And what happened, you know, right after the work day begins.
10:33Right after the work day begins.
10:34It's being said that a second plane hit the other tower.
10:38That looks, sounds like deliberate to me.
10:41I mean, I hate to say anything on, on live TV.
10:44A third plane.
10:46Oh, yeah, this is really something.
10:50Three planes.
10:52How many, Gilman?
10:53Two or three?
10:54No, we, I don't, we don't know.
10:55Right now, that was a replay of the...
10:57Yeah, that was a replay of the second one going into the, of the tower.
11:03Wow, I just can't believe what's happening here.
11:05Why don't we go to commercial?
11:06Why don't we go to a commercial break, regroup, and, uh, get our, uh, get, uh, the story straight, okay?
11:11We'll be right back in a moment.
11:13Sure, we have, uh, the shot of it.
11:21Now, that's the wide shot of it.
11:23You can see live shot in the tower.
11:26And there is the other plane that went right into it a few, just a few minutes ago.
11:32Now, that's the second plane to hit that, those buildings.
11:39Unbelievable.
11:40Unbelievable.
11:41Somebody had to plan that.
11:45Oh, who chain!
11:55Oh, well, no, no, no, no, no, no.
11:58Oh, no!
12:00Oh, my God.
12:01Oh, my God.
12:02And you're the same.
12:03Oh, my God.
12:04Oh, my God.
12:08Oh, my God.
12:09Oh, my God.
12:10Oh, my God.
12:11Oh, my God.
12:12Oh, my God.
12:13Hawaii, ah, oh.
12:14What happened?
12:16What? The building collapsed.
12:18Part of the building collapsed.
12:20At least that's what I think happened.
12:22Everybody's running like...
12:24Let's get it out. Let's get it out.
12:26Let's get it out.
12:28Let's get it out.
12:30Go, go, go!
12:32Go, go, go!
12:34I'm lost!
12:44Go, go.
12:46Go, go!
12:52Go, go!
12:54Go, go!
13:04Go, go!
13:06Can I ask you a couple questions or rather not?
13:36Can I ask you a couple questions?
14:06Let's go.
14:36Let's go.
15:06Let's go.
15:08Let's go.
15:10Let's go.
15:12There's gotta be fire in the trap back there though.
15:42There's gotta go.
16:12Philip was last seen on September 10, 2001 on a day when she was off from work.
16:26According to Lieberman, she was planning to spend the day cleaning up the apartment in
16:30anticipation of a dinner visit by her cousin two nights later.
16:35Philip had a two-hour online chat with her mother during which she mentioned that she
16:40was planning to visit the Windows on the World restaurants on top of the nearby North Tower
16:46of the World Trade Center, where a friend was to be married the next spring.
16:52At 4 p.m., she signed off and went to drop off some clothes at a neighborhood dry cleaners,
16:58then went to a Century 21 where she used the couple's American Express card to buy lingerie,
17:04a dress, pantyhose, and bed linens.
17:08Afterwards, Philip bought three pairs of shoes at an annex to the store.
17:13A security camera at Century 21 recorded her during the shopping trip.
17:17The taped image and the credit card records are the last confirmed records of Philip's
17:22presence anywhere.
17:24Lieberman returned to the couple's apartment after midnight that night and noticed Philip
17:28was not there.
17:29He believed she was staying out late or all night, as she had been doing, and resolved to
17:34remind her the next time he saw her to call him under those circumstances.
17:40Lieberman went to bed as he had to get up early the next morning for work.
17:45Later investigation found that someone had called Lieberman's cell phone from the apartment
17:50at 4 a.m.
17:51Lieberman did not remember it, but thinks he may have awoken briefly to check his voicemail.
17:57When he got up for work at 6.30, Philip had still not returned.
18:03That evening, after the September 11 attacks, Lieberman was able to use his medical credentials
18:10to get through the security perimeter and return to their apartment.
18:14Since the window had been left open, dust from the collapsed towers had accumulated throughout.
18:20There were tracks in it from the couple's two kittens, but none from any human.
18:26Philip was one of hundreds of people reported to police as missing after September 11.
18:32Like those of other victims, her family posted flyers all over the city in an effort to find
18:37her.
18:38Philip's case was the only one not connected to the attacks and, in order to generate media
18:44interest, her brother falsely claimed to the media that he had last heard from her during
18:49the attack.
18:51She has never been found or otherwise accounted for.
18:54Lieberman called American Express and, upon learning about the credit card purchases on
18:59the previous evening, posted flyers in other Century 21 stores.
19:04Later that week, a clerk from the Lower Manhattan store, who had been relocated to Brooklyn, called
19:09to say she remembered Philip, who had come in frequently.
19:14On the evening of September 10, the clerk recalled that Philip had been accompanied by another
19:19young woman, possibly Indian.
19:23After reviewing videotaped footage for three weeks, Lieberman found the recording of his
19:29wife browsing in the coat department, but without anyone else.
19:33Since police detectives initially seemed to be unhelpful to Lieberman and assumed that Philip
19:39had died with the other victims, he hired private investigator Ken Gallant, who found two pieces
19:45of evidence suggesting that she may have returned to the apartment building early on the morning
19:50of September 11.
19:52The first was the call from the home phone to Lieberman's cell.
19:56The second was videotaped from the security cameras in the lobby, time-stamped at 843 AM,
20:03just three minutes before American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into the North Tower, and within
20:10the 7 to 9 AM time frame during which Philip typically returned after her nights out.
20:16That was an explosion, what the hell was that?
20:23That was an explosion.
20:24That was a plane crash.
20:26It shows a woman entering the building, waiting near the elevator, and leaving after a few minutes.
20:33Due to the poor contrast from the sunlight in the lobby, the woman was visible only in silhouette,
20:40but her hair and dress were consistent with Philip, as seen in the Century 21 tape from the
20:45previous evening.
20:47Philip's family also says the woman exhibits similar mannerisms.
20:51She is, however, not carrying any of the bags that she would have had from her shopping trip,
20:57and again, she is apparently unaccompanied.
21:00Philip could not positively identify the woman as his wife, but an NYPD investigator believes
21:06it was her.
21:08Gallant at first considered the possibility that Philip had used the attack to flee her
21:13mounting personal problems and start a new life under a new identity.
21:18However, her computer's hard drive revealed no evidence of any such plans or contacts, and
21:24she had also left her glasses, passport, driver's license, and credit cards, except for the American
21:31Express card behind.
21:34Lieberman kept the account open in case any leads developed from attempts to use it, but
21:39none ever did.
21:41Gallant and Lieberman eventually concluded that Philip witnessed the attack and, as a physician,
21:48rushed to the site to render aid and subsequently perished there, either within the towers or in the
21:53ensuing collapse.
21:56The NYPD was not able to begin investigating the Philip case for some time after the attacks.
22:02When it did, it found many details about Philip's life prior to September 11th that suggested
22:08she may have been elsewhere or already dead when the towers fell.
22:14Earlier in the year, Cabrini Medical Center had declined to renew Philip's contract, citing
22:20repeated tardiness and alcohol-related issues, effectively firing her.
22:26Shortly after she had been informed of that decision, Philip went out to a bar with other
22:31Cabrini employees.
22:32The outing led to her spending the night in jail.
22:35She complained to police that a fellow intern groped her during that time.
22:41The prosecutor who investigated the case and instead charged Philip with third-degree falsely
22:47reporting an incident, a misdemeanor under New York law.
22:51He offered to drop the charge if she recanted the original complaint, but she refused and
22:57was held overnight pending release.
23:00After her dismissal from Cabrini, Philip began spending nights out at gay and lesbian bars
23:06in the city, some known for their rough clientele.
23:10According to police, she would sometimes leave with women she met at these bars.
23:15Police also stated that Philip's brother discovered her and his then-girlfriend having sex, which
23:21her brother disputed.
23:24Philip got another internship in internal medicine at St. Vincent's Medical Center on Staten Island.
23:30But was running into similar problems there.
23:33She had already been suspended for missing a meeting with a substance abuse counselor.
23:39On the morning of September 10th, Philip had been formally arraigned on the criminal charge
23:44and pleaded not guilty.
23:46The police report says she and Lieberman fought loudly at the courthouse afterwards about her
23:51problems and nights out.
23:54Which ended with her walking away and leaving him to go home alone and get ready for work.
23:59After reviewing it, the city medical examiner removed Philip from the official list of victims
24:05in January 2004, one of the last three.
24:09Philip's husband, brother, and family dispute much of the NYPD's interpretations of the documentary
24:15evidence.
24:17They claim Philip was fired from Cabrini not because of alcoholism, but because she had been
24:22a whistleblower who complained about racial and sexual bias.
24:27The hospital later told a reporter it had no evidence of any formal complaints by her.
24:32Lieberman says that while his wife frequented lesbian bars, it was because she did not want
24:37a repeat of the situation that had happened with her coworker.
24:41She never had sex with the woman she went home with, he claims.
24:45And they would often merely listen to music, sleep, or paint.
24:49I don't know, sounds pretty sapphic to me.
24:51Lieberman said that even though Philip had gone home with women she met at bars, no sex occurred.
24:57She spent nights with the women, but they would work on art projects, listen to music, and sleep
25:03instead of having sex.
25:05He recalled a specific incident where she met an artist at a bar and came home covered in paint.
25:11Lieberman would say, quote, these allegations of her being bisexual are ridiculous, unquote.
25:18If Lieberman was correct about Philip's activities, it would also stand the reason that she took
25:22taxicabs for the ambience, not to get anywhere, she went to the hairdresser to smell the chemicals,
25:29and visited the laundromat to watch other people's clothes dry.
25:32I want to run my fingers up your pussy.
25:41Philip's drinking was a temporary phase to ease her through the depression she was experiencing
25:46after being fired by Cabrini and would stop once her life got back to normal, as he believed it was doing.
25:53Philip's brother says the report of him catching her with his girlfriend is completely fabricated
25:58and that he never even spoke with the detective who wrote it.
26:02Similarly, Lieberman says the couple never fought at the courthouse after her arraignment.
26:07The police, they believe, were extrapolating from what little they could find in an effort to make up
26:12for their early inattention to the case.
26:15In 2003, after the NYPD investigation concluded, Lieberman filed a court petition in New York County
26:23Surrogates Court, which handles probate matters, to have his wife declared a victim of the 9-11 attacks.
26:30New York state law requires clear and convincing evidence of a possible victim's exposure to any lethal peril
26:38in order for any presumption of death and subsequent legal provisions,
26:43including benefits from the federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, to apply.
26:49Lieberman believed that his wife's profession would have led her to rush to the nearby World Trade Center,
26:55if she was in the vicinity, and offer aid to the victims.
27:00Philip's mother further testified to their online chat,
27:04in which she said she was going to visit Windows on the World
27:07and possibly do some shopping at the Trade Center's mall.
27:14The
27:15World
27:32We are all three up there at the Twin Towers.
27:37This is where I'll take you, put all the way up to the top.
27:42The author of the NYPD report testified that he believed Philip probably died in the attacks.
27:58Ellen Winner, appointed guardian ad litem for Philip, introduced the NYPD report and
28:04argued that there was no clear evidence she was at or near the World Trade Center during
28:10the attacks.
28:12On June 29, 2006, Judge Renee Roth ruled that it could not be established that Philip died
28:18on September 11, and instead set the date of her legal death at September 10, 2004, three
28:26years after she was reported missing, per state law.
28:30Philip's family appealed, contrasting her case with that of Juan La Fuente, another possible
28:35victim whose petition the court's counterpart in Dutchess County, where he lived, had accepted.
28:41Like Philip, his exposure to the attacks is based on circumstantial evidence.
28:49He, too, had recently lost a job and struggled with depression, and as a volunteer fire marshal
28:56in Poughkeepsie might himself have had a reason to offer assistance at the World Trade Center.
29:02His office was eight blocks north of the World Trade Center site, but the court accepted testimony
29:08from someone who frequented the same local deli, claiming he had overheard La Fuente say he had
29:14a meeting at the Twin Towers that morning.
29:17The court ultimately determined that La Fuente died in the attacks, believing that he was in the North Tower
29:23when Flight 11 made impact. Philip's family believes La Fuente's petition, with similarly minimal evidence of the alleged decadent's
29:31presence at the site of the attacks, was accepted primarily because his wife, Colette, was mayor of Poughkeepsie at the time,
29:40and the case was heard there rather than in Manhattan.
29:45Despite it being suggested that the chances of success were low, Lieberman and the Philip family's lawyer went ahead with an appeal.
29:54On January 31st, 2008, a five-judge panel reversed Judge Roth's decision, finding the simplest explanation
30:02to be the most likely that Philip died trying to help people at the World Trade Center.
30:08Judge David Sachse, writing for the other three majority judges, stated this is a disturbing case.
30:14Sachse observed that the central problem was the lack of direct evidence putting Philip at the site of the attack.
30:21However, he said, while the city of New York applied the clear and convincing standard set forth in statute,
30:30even assuming that the clear and convincing standard is applicable, the standard does not require an absolute certainty.
30:37It merely requires that the evidence made the conclusion highly probable, even without direct proof
30:43irrefutably establishing that her route that morning took her past the World Trade Center at the time of the attack.
30:49The evidence shows it to be highly probable that she died that morning and at that site,
30:55whereas only the rankest speculation leads to any other conclusion.
30:59Judge Sachse dismissed the claims made in the NYPD report, saying they constituted hearsay,
31:06and had not been properly introduced in the original hearing, instead of pending by winner to a post-hearing report.
31:13Nor did she properly follow up on assertions made in the report during the actual hearing.
31:19Thus, any reliance by the court on purported facts asserted in those reports, but unproved at hearing, was improper.
31:27If La Fuente had been found to have faced exposure to the attacks, then Philip could too, he concluded.
31:33Sachse considered it unlikely that she had deliberately disappeared due to the lack of evidence of preparations,
31:40and agreed with Lieberman, Gallant, and Stark that had she died some other way, some evidence would have turned up in the years since the attacks.
31:49The dissenting judge Bernard Malone Jr. said,
31:53Since it is not known where the descendants spent the night of September 10th, it requires speculation to say, as Petitioner does,
32:01that her roots home, southwest of the World Trade Center, took her across or dangerously near the World Trade Center grounds,
32:09or that at 8.48 a.m. when the attacks began, she was even in the vicinity of the World Trade Center.
32:16Malone contrasted Philip's case to La Fuente's by noting that he had had a more predictable daily routine,
32:23a more stable life, and that there was independent evidence confirming the meeting at the World Trade Center he might have been on his way to.
32:31The degree of speculation is greater here, he said.
32:34Philip was thus officially declared the 2,751st victim of the Twin Towers collapse.
32:43The decision leaves only one missing person whose possible death at the World Trade Center is unresolved.
32:49Fernando Molinar, a Mexican immigrant, had not been seen or heard from since September 8th, 2001,
32:57when he told his mother on the telephone that he was starting a new job at a pizzeria near the World Trade Center.
33:03A similar petition to surrogate's court on his behalf also was rejected.
33:08Since the Victims Fund made all its payments and closed in 2003, Lieberman will not receive any money.
33:17The decision does mean that Philip's name can be added to official memorials to the victims.
33:23One to Philip specifically has already been established at Dutchess Community College, where her mother works as a computer programmer.
33:31Her family buried an urn full of ashes from ground zero at a cemetery near their home.
33:37Six months after the appeals court decision in July 2008, the family was officially notified by the city that Philip had been added to the victims list.
33:48No physical remains have been found for over a thousand victims of the attack at the World Trade Center,
33:53but Philip's family retained hopes that the jewelry she wore at the time of the attacks, which included diamonds,
34:00that would have easily withstood the temperatures of the ground zero fires, would eventually be recovered and matched to photos the family provided to the city clerk.
34:09At the National September 11th Memorial, Senea Ann Philip is memorialized at the South Pool on panel S-66.
34:19Philip's parents have kept her room at their house in Poughkeepsie the same as it was when she lived there,
34:25as a memorial, with some added photos and her diplomas.
34:29Due to the walking involved, her family no longer attends memorial ceremonies at the tower.
34:35Anzu Philip, her mother, prefers to visit the memorial on her daughter's birthday.
34:41Lieberman remains close to his former in-laws and remarried in 2010 with their encouragement.
34:47Two memorial funds have been established in Kerala in Senea's name.
34:52The Senea Philip Memorial Fund, started by her family, pays for the treatment of indigent patients at a clinic outside Uluva.
34:59The Martama Doctors' Association has also started a fund in her name.
35:06The Martama Doctors' Association has also started a fund in her name.
35:16He added the
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