NEW YORK - The call came in at 8:50 a.m. — four minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center.
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"Yeah. Hi. I'm on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center. We just had an explosion on the, on the like 105th floor," Christopher Hanley, 35, tells the dispatcher. Later, he says, "We have smoke and — it's pretty bad."

The dispatcher tells him to "sit tight. Do not leave, OK?"

Hanley, who died in the tower, was one of 28 people identified among about 130 emergency calls the city planned to release Friday. Hanley's parents shared the tape with The New York Times, which had sued the city for access to all the calls.

An appeals court ruled last year that the public could only hear the voices of 911 operators and other government employees on the tapes, saying the frantic calls of victims in the burning twin towers were too emotional to be released without families' consent.

But a state judge ruled Wednesday that the city must provide the names of the 28 people, along with other excerpts that could help identify more callers. On Thursday, the city filed an appeal, effectively staying that order. The Times would need to seek an appellate hearing to lift the stay.

The newspaper, joined in its lawsuit by relatives of several Sept. 11 victims, is hoping the tapes will offer clues to the experiences of the 2,749 people who were killed after hijacked jetliners crashed into the towers. Attorney Norman Siegel, who represents the victims' families, said he wants to learn whether operators' instructions affected evacuations.

"We will potentially hear Operator A say, 'Go to the roof,'" Siegel said. "We might hear Operator B say, 'Stay in place. We're coming to get you.'"

Sally Regenhard, who lost her firefighter son and is one of the plaintiffs, said the public should be allowed to hear both sides of the conversation to get a true picture of what happened inside the towers.

"What we're getting is only half of the truth, half of the story," Regenhard said.

She also said families should be able to listen to the callers who were not identified, to try to hear their loved ones' voices. "Only a mother could listen to recordings and maybe hear some glimmer of your child's voice, even though his name may have been garbled," she said.

The appeals ruling allows the public release of the 28 tapes only if families consent. So far, at least three families have asked to listen to their loved ones' voices. As of Thursday, only the tape of Hanley had been released.

Hanley's parents, Joe and Marie Hanley, told The New York Times they didn't want to hear the tape at first but changed their minds. On the tape, their son, who worked for Radianz, then a division of Reuters, spelled out his last name.

After taking his name, the police dispatcher transferred the call to a fire department dispatcher, who tells Hanley to keep the windows open. Hanley responds: "We can't open the windows unless we break them."

"OK," the dispatcher says. "Just sit tight. Just sit tight. We're on the way."

"All right," Hanley says. "Please hurry."

Hanley's parents said they were proud of their son for remaining calm.

"He was strong and thinking so clearly and beautifully," Marie Hanley told the Times. "Patient with the Fire Department and 911. It brought everything back up again."