A Manhattan federal judge yesterday said he favors keeping more than 1 million pages of 9/11 documents secret, despite efforts by victims’ families to create a public record of the security lapses that allowed the attacks.
Judge Alvin Hellerstein said his more immediate goal is to set a trial date for families who rejected money from the federal Victims’ Compensation Fund and refused to settle suits against the airlines whose jets were hijacked.
He didn’t rule on the motion to lift an order keeping documents secret.
The families of Mark Bavis, 31, Barbara Keating, 72, and Sara Low, 28, are hoping for a trial that would expose the failings of airline security that allowed the attacks.
“This just didn’t happen because the 19 thugs were so smart,” said Michael Low, whose daughter was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. “Some of them were terribly inept.”