911 jumpers
From 110 storeys, a distance of over 1,300ft, it was impossible at first to see what it was that was falling. One witness said it looked like confetti.
Perhaps it was debris: in a desperate attempt to escape as the World Trade Center towers burned around them, workers were hurling chairs or tables through the windows to reach fresh air before they were rescued. In those early minutes, a rescue operation seemed plausible.
Then two women on the ground, staring up at the gaping hole left in the North Tower by American Airlines Flight 11, clutched at each other and started screaming. It was people that were falling from the towers. Trapped above the point of impact, many witnesses concluded that they were jumping. “The Jumpers”, as they became known, were one of the most graphic and controversial elements of 9/11.
Thomas Dallal, a photojournalist at the time, was on the ground near the North Tower. He photographed the two women crying, put a long lens on his camera and turned back to the tower snapping away at the uppermost floors. One of his photographs, to be named “Impending Death”, has become an iconic image from that day. It shows around 50 figures leaning out of the broken windows of the North Tower shortly before it collapsed.
People jumped or fell from all four sides of both towers. USA Today estimated that around 200 people died in this way. The New York Times ran a more conservative estimate of 50.
It took 10 seconds for each person to fall, it was calculated, as they accelerated at 32ft per second achieving a speed of 150mph. Some who witnessed the jumpers see only desperation. Others see freedom: choosing how to die as a final act of defiance.
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