Sun manager perishes in crash, but employees safe

Sun Microsystems said one of its employees was a passenger on American Airlines Flight 11, the first hijacked flight to hit the World Trade Center, and is presumed dead, but all of the approximately 340 company employees who worked in the high-rise building had been accounted for and were safe.

Phil Rosenzweig, 47, a director in Sun's software organization who had been with the company since 1991, worked in Burlington, Mass., and was on his way to Los Angeles, Sun said. American Flight 11 was the first flight to hit the World Trade Center, slamming into the north tower at 8:45 a.m.

"Our prayers and thoughts are with Phil's family and loved ones," Scott McNealy, Sun's chairman and CEO, said in a statement.

Sun leased space on the 25th and 26th floors on the south tower, which was hit by another hijacked plane minutes later. About 340 field workers in its Global Sales and Enterprise Service groups used those offices as their base, Sun said. All of the employees are accounted for and safe, the company said.

"Although we are relieved that our World Trade Center employees are safe, we are devastated by the tremendous losses that are being suffered," McNealy said.

Various other World Trade Center tenants were still trying to get a handle on the fate of their employees.

Leading investment bank Morgan Stanley was the complex's largest tenant with some 3,500 employees in 25 floors. Most of the workers were back-office, support and marketing staff, Judy Hitchen, a company spokeswoman, told Reuters.

"It appears the vast majority" of Morgan Stanley's workers got out safely said Chairman Philip Purcell, according to the Reuters report.

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