NEW YORK - Rescuers on Sept. 11 were forced to make rapid-fire, life-and-death decisions based on incomplete communications, according to a new report by the federal commission investigating the attacks.

Two days of hearings by the commission investigating the terrorist attacks began today with a stark warning from the commission's staff: "The details we will be presenting may be painful for you to see and hear."

Within 20 minutes of the hearing's start, family members of the World Trade Center victims were dabbing their eyes and offering each other support. More than 2,700 people were killed in the attack.

There were scores of family members in the audience as the commission showed footage of the first hijacked plane slamming into the tower, and played videotaped testimony from survivors.

Revisiting the jarring sights and sounds of the attack and its aftermath was a vivid departure from previous commission hearings. Some of the videotapes showed the confusing, rushed recovery efforts.

One critical issue - early public address announcements in Tower 2 telling workers to remain at their offices - was recounted verbatim by a survivor.

The panel's findings on planning and emergency response set the stage for two days of dramatic testimony at the New School University, about 11/2 miles from ground zero. Several current and former New York officials were to testify, including former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

A 26-page staff report reconstructing events through first-person survivor accounts found:

- A fire chief failed to notice a critical second button on a device that carried radio signals up the buildings, leaving the chief to wrongly believe the equipment wasn't working. It was, and was later used by other fire personnel in Tower 2.

- Other communications gaps that day included a lack of coordination between the police and fire departments, a crush of radio traffic that sometimes blotted out information, and an inability to share information effectively between on-scene officials and 911 phone operators.

- A helicopter rescue of trapped workers on the upper floors was not a practical option, due to various equipment attached to the roof, and the heat and smoke of the fire below.

- While many of the safety procedures put in place after the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center helped employees escape, others proved ineffective or possibly even dangerous in response to a very different type of attack eight years later.

- One survivor, Brian Clark, president of Euro Brokers Relief Fund, said the PA system advised: "Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen, Building 2 is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building 2. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the re-entry doors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building 2 is secure."

The report offers no concrete explanation for that direction. But it does suggest two possible reasons: a concern for workers being injured by falling debris from the other tower, and the knowledge that in the 1993 bombing, many of the injuries were sustained in the crowded evacuation of the building.

Those testifying at the hearings include current and former officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York fire, police and emergency management departments, the Homeland Security Department and the Arlington, Va., fire department.

In the years since the attacks, a rising chorus of New Yorkers has demanded a tough-minded probe of the city's emergency response, a public airing of shortcomings that would assign responsibility for a series of systemic flaws.

While the report does find fault in a few instances, it largely sympathizes with officials and rescue personnel forced to improvise in the face of an overwhelming catastrophe.

The commission also scrutinized the long-standing rivalry between the NYPD and the Fire Department, saying that in many instances the two agencies did not communicate effectively or quickly.

On the day of the attacks, neither agency "had demonstrated the readiness to respond to an incident commander" from another department, the report concluded.

While some 2,749 people died, Giuliani has described the efforts - in which 25,000 people were saved - as the "greatest rescue mission in the history of the United States." Giuliani is to testify Wednesday.

Last month, commissioners heard from President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, former President Bill Clinton and ex-Vice President Al Gore, as well as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Associated Press Writers Devlin Barrett and Sara Kugler contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/