Couple says flag raised on Sept. 11 came from their yacht, docked near trade center

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Posted 8:09AM on Monday, March 4, 2002

NEW YORK - The American flag that was seen being raised over the smoking rubble of the World Trade Center has now been claimed. Spiros Kopelakis and his wife, Shirley Dreifus, say they are the owners of the flag, which became a patriotic symbol when a photographer captured three firefighters hoisting it over ground zero. Kopelakis and Dreifus have asked the firefighters to sign an affidavit stating that they removed the flag from their charter yacht, which was docked near the trade center. The couple, who said they have lost 95 percent of their business since Sept. 11, insist they are not seeking any financial gain from the flag. They said they simply want the public to know that it came from their yacht, which was badly damaged by falling debris. "We don't want to be compensated for the flag, we just want to be recognized," Kopelakis said Sunday. "We want this flag to be treated in the right way." The couple has asked the firefighters -- Dan McWilliams, George Johnson and Billy Eisengrein -- to look at photographs of their yacht, the 130-foot Star of America. "There were only three boats there, and ours was the only one with a missing flag," Dreifus said. "I don't think it's a great mystery." The couple said they would like to see the 3-foot-by-5-foot flag displayed in a museum or as part of a trade center memorial. The firefighters have said they removed the flag from a yacht docked at the North Cove pier on the Hudson River and erected it at the trade center complex, a few blocks away, to boost the morale of the Sept. 11 rescue workers. A lawyer for the firefighters, Bill Kelly, said he has already arranged for his clients to try to identify the yacht. "If they can sort of confirm that's the boat, I'm sure there would be no problem," he said. "But I'm not even sure they'll be able to do that because there were several of those yachts back there." The flag, which is currently flying aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, has been seen across the world. The photo of the firefighters raising the flag atop the trade center rubble was taken by Tom Franklin, of The Record of Hackensack, N.J. It has been likened to the famous 1945 Associated Press photo of six American fighting men raising the flag at Iwo Jima during World War II. Dreifus and her husband said they were at home, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center, the morning two planes slammed into the twin towers. The office of their yacht charter business, Majestic Star, was located on the 89th floor of the north tower. Their employees evacuated the building.