Moussaoui jurors hear painful testimony

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The grandfather of the youngest victim of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, testifying at Zacarias Moussaoui’s sentencing trial Monday, described watching on television as the plane carrying his son and granddaughter hit the World Trade Center.

The wrenching first-person account of the day’s horrors came on the same day that the judge in the death-penalty trial warned prosecutors against relying too heavily on such emotional testimony to influence Moussaoui’s jury.

NBC News’ Pete Williams reported that because of objections from family members of those who died onboard Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema had ruled that the audiotape of the cockpit voice recorder will not be released after it is played in court for the jury.

Instead, the written transcript will be released to the public. The cockpit tape will be played in court on Tuesday or Wednesday, Williams reported.

The grandfather who testified, C. Lee Hanson, said his son, Peter, was calling from the plane. “As we were talking he said, very softly, ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!’” The 73-year-old Hanson was describing the moment before he watched the plane become the second to hit the twin towers on that fateful day.

A trip to Disneyland
A few minutes before, Hanson said, Peter had told him he thought the hijackers were going to crash the plane into a building, and his son told him, “Don’t worry, Dad. If it happens, it will be quick.”

Sue and Peter Hanson were on their way from Boston to Los Angeles to visit the grandparents and take their then-2½-year-old girl, Christine, to Disneyland.

AP file Zacarias Moussaoui in an image released by the U.S. District Court and  introduced at his sentencing trial.

The grandfather said that medical examiners asked him in the days after the attacks to retrieve DNA samples from the family home to identify remains.

The grandfather said it was “probably one of the worst things I ever did in my life. I was picking hair out of hair brushes, putting toothbrushes into bags.”

He said the only remains that were ever found was a bone of his son, a few inches long.

‘All I see is smoke’
Prosecutors played a 911 emergency call made by a woman trapped on the 83rd floor of the World Trade Center's south tower on Sept. 11.

"It's very, very, very hot," Melissa Doi frantically told the 911 operator. "All I see is smoke. I'm going to die, aren't I? I'm going to die, I know I'm going to die."

The operator tried to calm her, saying rescue workers were on the way. Doi could be heard yelling "Help! Help!" at the end of the tape.

Another 911 tape was played with a video of the south tower before and as it collapsed. Kevin Cosgrove was trapped there and could be heard angrily asking the 911 operator when and how he would be rescued.

"I can barely breathe now. ... I can't see. ... I need oxygen," he said. He yelled "Oh, God" as the tower started to collapse and the call cut off.

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