*note: because i have not yet gotten ms.lansdowne's interview on tape, i was not going to post the following account. BUT then a few days ago i was browsing my way around the Pentagon Channel's site and found a witness who corroborates Jamal and in turn - corroborates Ms.Lansdowne.
the lansdownes' account:
recently i was doing a search for Don Chauncey, when i happened upon a video clip of news footage (of chauncey) from 9/11. to my surprise, on the same clip was audio of a call from someone named Sean Lansdowne who had called in to the tv station to report that he had seen the plane on its way to the pentagon:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvmtq98Qv6Aunfortunately the tv station abruptly moved on to something/someone else, and cut Sean's call off before he was able to offer any details about what he saw. but arlington is a small place, especially south arlington and everyone who has lived, grown up and gone to school here, pretty much knows each other. so as luck would have it, i actually knew Sean personally and for a very long time at that, dating all the way back to elementary school. over highschool we kind of went separate ways, though i would see him often at parties. then over the past 15 years i may have only seen him a handful of times, randomly running into him at a couple of regular local spots (bars). sadly, the last i saw him, he was in a coffin. he passed away in May of this year, succombing to - of all things - Legionnaire's Disease. it was a huge loss for many people, cuz Sean was well known and very well liked by many many people far and wide. at his funeral it was standing room only, with an additional 300+ people stuck outside the church - cuz there was no room for us inside. it was the most people i had ever seen at a funeral, and i have been to (too) many of them.
the very last time i saw Sean alive was 2 years ago when i ran into him while he was working at jiffy lube on four mile run drive, when i was there for an oil change. had i known he was a plane witness i would have asked him right there and then what he remembered about 9/11. but instead we caught up like old friends who havent seen each other for a long time do. he said he was living at his mother house and gave me his home phone number (he didnt own a cell phone) and i promised to call him sometime so we could hang out, but regretfully - i never did make the time. i was busy raising a baby boy on a part time income and didnt have much time for socializing, so the time passed... and fate played its cruel hand taking Sean forever away from those who loved him, and i cant overstate how many people that was.
after finding out more recently (thru youtube) that Sean had seen the plane, i tried to do a search to find his address, to see what his point of view would have been. i knew where he lived (at 17th street) when we were little, cuz i lived one block from him at the time and would see him daily. but eventually my family and i moved away, so i didnt know for sure precisely where Sean lived in september of 2001. all my online searches for an address for him came up empty. the number he gave me was unpublished, and because he (and his mom) didnt own much of anything, the deeds and real estate assessment databases came up empty for a matching "lansdowne" in 22204, presumably because they were still renters after all these years (and not owners).
luckily (where our 9/11 research is concerned) i had saved that phone number, but had avoided calling it. i feared that if i got an answer, that more than likely someone who misses Sean dearly would be at the other end of the line. so bringing him up would surely cause some heartache, and sadly it did. i ended up talking to his mother for about 45 minutes, where i reminesced about sean in our childhood and how we used to play football or walk home from school together, and how i lived just across the fence from them. even though it was painful for her to talk about Sean she was at the same time finding joy in the memories of him that i shared with her, so i feel that i was able to offer something to her in return to make up for the sadness my intrusion was causing. all in all, the call was more about Sean and his life and her pain, than it was me working to document her 9/11 recollection. but somewhere in those very emotional 45 minutes, i covered her memory of the plane for a few minutes.
one of the things she managed to clarify was that they (she and Sean) were living at where they had always lived, at the corner of 17th and edgewood streets. she also revealed was that she TOO saw the plane that day, she had been standing outside next to Sean when it passed over. Sean had come home from work and they had been watching the NYC/WTC event on television. from the distance they could feel the rumble and intense loudness of a plane approaching. this prompted them to look outside and for the source of the sound. according to her "a plane flashed by" (upon clarification she said that by "flashed" she meant it went over very fast and she only caught a glimpse of it). she also said it was "silver... red, and blue" in color. at no point however, did she say it was an "american airlines" plane, and it did not seem that she was familiar with "the official story" in any micro-detail. i asked if she remembered how many engines it had, and again she said it just "flashed by" and that she didnt take note of the engines, but that what she does recall was "how low it was" and how "everything was shaking". that was all she could remember about the physical event, the rest of her memory was about her emotional reaction to the horror that was unfolding with america under attack.
ms.lansdowne's location for the last 25+ years (and Sean's as well) is 1701 south edgewood street:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&q=1701%2...F-8&sa=N&tab=wl
this is literally next to where Jamal El Kournayti was on 9/11 and witnessed the plane:
http://www.megavideo.com/?v=BD1TKJOKthe 2 locations in relation to each other:
in the above video, Jamal points west towards:
for a brief moment (during the zoom especially) we can see a glimpse of 1701 edgewood:
path overview:
in conclusion, the lansdownes (sean and his mother) corroborate and further validate Jamal's recollections/assertions about the location of the plane.
***
for the record, i had not made a plan to call ms.lansdowne. after having seen/heard the youtube 9/11 clip, i had intended to eventually confirm Sean's 2001 address, but through our mutual friends who were closer to him than i was in his last years. being a perpertual procrastinator however, and admittedly intimidated by interviewing people for (911) information, i just never got around to calling these other friends. so the call to Sean's mother was a completely spontaneous thing. i was looking at my cell's phonebook for another sean's number, and i saw lansdowne's number and decided "what the heck? let me call and see if this number still works". so when ms.lansdowne answered the phone, i was caught off guard and even frozen for a second, cuz i hadnt really planned on what to say next. because of the impromptu nature of the call, i did not record it (nor do i have the resources to do that currently), thus i have no documentation to substantiate the call took place (so feel free skeptoidz - to doubt the authenticity of my allegations, but im NOT making any of this up).
secondly, i was not prepared to actually interview someone as a witness, so i did not have a list of questions ready. added to that, i wasnt really prepared to console a grieving mother, so balancing my 9/11 inquiry with the personal aspect of the call, was very difficult and therefore didnt reveal as much detail about the plane as i had hoped for. i may in the future contact ms.lansdowne again to officially document her recollections and point of view, but because she is still so distraught and overwhelmed by sean's sudden loss, i dont know how soon such an interview might take place - so we'll see.
***
in memory of Sean:
http://seanlansdowne.wordpress.com/ (tribute page)
and from a couple of my old yearbooks:
rest in peace.
***
10:11 PM Nov 9
