The Freedom Tower

Part II

All hell broke loose.

When Stec’s unit got the call, the unit sped south, took the bridge that spans across Jamaica Bay and headed towards Belle Harbor, Queens. The bay is that body of water every passenger who takes off from Kennedy Airport sees just seconds before their planes land at Kennedy. On November 12, flight 587 took off and began to climb on its flight to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic when something went awry. Ten seconds later, this plane with more than 260 passengers aboard, suddenly plunged and crashed into Belle Harbor in the Rockaway section of Queens.

Day in and day out, Stec worked a regular shift putting out fires all over the city, assisting accident victims in car crashes and on their days off, Stec and his men traveled to Ground Zero where they assisted combing through the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center in search of the remains of their fallen brothers.

Battalion Chief Bob Stec, commander of Battalion 20 in the Bronx, took to calling it “the job site” after 9/11. But there was no time to volunteer at the “job site” that morning in November, 2001.

Flight 587 took off and 114 seconds after take off the pilot knew something was wrong, according to the flight recorder tapes. The take off was interrupted by “the wake effect” from a Japan Airways Boeing 747 that had taken off minutes earlier. Just two and a half minutes after takeoff, the flight recording ends. The flight was down. Belle Harbor was an inferno and Battalion 20 was called to the scene to join 60 other units to fight a jet fuel fire that morning.