“The Falling Man”- did you know that there are people who’ve tried to get the image banned in the USA?

I will never ever forget this image nor the evolution of the narrative behind it over the past 22 yrs. Apparently his name is Jonathan Briley and the brother of the one of the original Village People members.

I just turn him over and tell myself he's doing a daring Irish jig.

Wasn’t he one of the men who worked in the kitchen area? There is an entire documentary on just this image.

R1 Allegedly

In a strange way there's a twisted beauty about it. A final breath of freedom.

Following on R5's sentiment, I sometimes wonder how long it took people in the buildings to reach the point mentally where the decision to jump seemed the best option. Or if they indeed did so. Were they out of their minds with desperation only, or had they gone through a process of deciding, "I'm never getting out of here alive, and it's going to be horrible, so I'll take matters into my own hands"? It may sound morbid and perhaps ghoulish, but I'm trying to understand more about the state of mind that not only 9/11 victims but also anyone who realizes they're not going to make it arrives at.

OP, can you summarize the article for us? Lots don't have time to read the long of one.

I watched a documentary about this and they talked to the family of someone who was suspected to be Falling Man. The family was adamant that their loved one would never have committed suicide. As if he had a choice! I guess they would rather be burned alive.

In an effort to not dwell on the events of 9/11, I stopped thinking about such matters a few months after and only revisit such thoughts on anniversary days, R6, but cannot escape the thought that the people above the gaping holes left by the airliners must have realized that there was no help on the way, no helicopters were landing on the rooftops to rescue them, any communication they had with the ground was either intermittent or contained no talk of rescues, no evidence that there was anything anyone could do, and no hope. And then the smoke filled their offices, so they gathered around the open windows, and then the floors started getting warm, and they realized that death was coming one way or another and some made the decision to end it immediately. I like to think if I were confronted with my death I would have the wherewithal to make a decision like that, but until faced with it, I don't know if I could give up hope — until it was too late.

If all your skin felt like it was about 110 degrees and your lungs were burning from the smoke.......he probably didn't make a conscious decision.

It’s either burn to death or jump to your death. One is a lot quicker than the other.

His choice was death or death. One was immediately and the other was by burning alive or asphyxiating from the toxic smoke.

Jesus Christ, it's all so horrible to even think about.

I watched that documentary and it was hard for me to understand the family's hostility. I guess only they can understand it. I don't see him as committing suicide though. Whether he jumped or died otherwise he was still murdered. I was fascinated by this guy for a while.

The 9/11 “Jumpers” are the most thought provoking and scariest and most tragic part of that day.

R6, I'm guessing it was more instinct than anything else. You would be so desperate for oxygen at all costs, you wouldn't even think straight.

Osama bin Laden got one hell of a merciful death, considering all the suffering he put others through.

Marcy Borders is the most haunting image for me. She survived the falling towers but was covered in toxic dust. She suffered extreme PTSD until her untimely death from cancer in 2015 at just 42 years old. She incurred $200k in debt for cancer treatments before succumbing.

RIP, Lady Marcy

It was a quality of death decision. Poor souls.

I lived in NYC on 9/11 and I fucking hate seeing that image. I hate the entire grief porn parade that happens on this day. I hate seeing the images of the towers falling on repeat. I watched the towers burn from my office in the West Village. I sat in an apartment in Soho all afternoon waiting to see if my friend who worked in the towers survived. He did, he arrived covered in dust, and that's just one of many such haunting images from that awful day I live with and I don't really need more tossed at me once a year for the rest of my life.

I feel I need to look at these every year to remind me of that point in history....CNN did a good job putting these together.

It is hard when you watch documentaries about 9/11 that make you wonder, "What would I do?" I totally understand the response of families who would not want those of us who watched to speculate about the last thoughts of their loved ones. I don't think those who fell from the towers all jumped. You have to consider the propulsive effects of explosions that were probably happening sequentially. I would only hope that I would suffer a cardiac event once I jumped.

This is something like documentaries about the Holocaust -- how much am I able to withstand. It sounds disrespectful to those poor souls who had to undergo the trauma of choices, all of which are bad. But banning them? No, they are part of a record that must be told.

Why do they want them banned? Revised history?

I think some genuinely fell. Couldn't see where they were walking due to the heavy smoke and out a broken window they went.

R23 no. They were hanging out the windows because of the smoke. They weren’t just standing inside while smoke was surrounding them.

So sad

R24 Don't you tell me no. You weren't there and my idea is not beyond the realm of possibility.

Do any of these people have an opinion about free pornography available on the internet. Not, that I'm opposed to pornography, but this is the battle they choose?

R26 no. In the videos you see them hanging from windows etc.

Geez, reading that article brought all the horror of that day back to me.

I can't imagine what horror these people may have gone through but jumping is not a choice I would make

I do recall one of those asshole tv scamevangelist telling his viewers the guy was gonna fry (for committing suicide). And then telling said viewers to send $ cash. Jaaaay-suuuuus. Says thank you . What a total piece of garbage. Poor man. I hope no one ever has to go through that.

I worked two blocked from the WTC, I saw two people falling to their deaths. It's important to document the truth and that so many people died either from the impact of the plane crashes, from being incinerated or choked to death, falling from the building, or crushed and pulverized in the collapse. Few people expected the towers to collapse, so first responders and authorities were trying to determine which was the way to rescue them before they burned or asphyxiated. Even without the building collapses, the only option may have been for them to go to the roof and get rescued a few at a time by helicopters.

Jesus, that poor man. Such an upsetting image. I feel sorry for his family and friends.

This day puts me in a foul mood. Remembering people being tortured and suffering will do it every time.

Standing on the corner of 23 & 8th I saw the fireball of the second plane hit while looking at the damage from the first — I’m thankful I was too far uptown to see the jumpers.

This is an interesting article about Richard Drew - the photographer who took the image sequence of the falling man. One of the images shows what was following him down and another shows him front on so his face could be identified.

The people who jumped certainly died before impact right? The height and speed of the descent must have caused body part explosions before they landed. Gosh this is horrific

They would go into cardiac arrest before they ever hit the ground.

No you don't R31. S.T.O.P. it was bad enough.

I also think some just fell.

After 9/11, I used to tell myself that I'd only ever work in a building that tall if I learned how to base jump and kept a base jumping parachute in my desk.

Delusional, I know. But, the idea of being trapped and having to choose between burning to death and jumping made me terrified.

Above the impact, the towers acted like chimneys funneling smoke and heat upwards to the intact and populated floors. It must have felt like literal hell. I can imagine disoriented people stumbling out a window into the only light, fresh and cool air available to them.

[quote]Above the impact, the towers acted like chimneys funneling smoke and heat upwards to the intact and populated floors. It must have felt like literal hell.

This is an interesting article.

Would they lose consciousness before cardiac arrest, r38? The Esquire article says the falls took roughly 10 seconds, a seeming eternity.

To think that photographer started his morning shooting pregnant models in maternity wear. I wonder if he suffered PTSD symptoms.

Such a sad scene

It is human instinct to survive so I am going to guess that he jumped because it was too hot or the flames were too close. Having been trapped in a fire, I can tell you that you will do Anything to escape it when it is close to you.

For those of you who are younger, what we learned from 9/11 firefighters is that skyscraper fires often have “jumpers”. It’s a known phenomenon. That doesn’t mean that some didn’t just accidentally go running from the fire and possibly fell. I’m sure that must have happened just a little bit. But the truth is that many many many jumpers were caught that day (the majority perhaps?) by photographers, and yes, they were deliberately jumping. I believe there were even multiple pairs who held hands. Also, look at the photographs with people standing in the building windows…..there was so much debris, shrapnel, and architectural elements in the way, one would likely be required to pick an accessible spot to jump.

Why am I pushing hard on this point? Because it’s important that we tell the story of that day accurately. The truth is that many chose to jump because they had to if they didn’t want death by fire. All the firefighters that morning were continuously clearing the area around the towers because jumpers are a real thing in urban fires. Also, firefighters were trying to get pedestrians out of the jump zone. The sound of the bodies hitting the pavement actually sounded like a freight train was dropped off the towers. I vaguely remember reading that there were over 200 jumpers, but don’t quote me on that.

As far as passing out before you hit, who is to say? Think about extreme bungee jumpers — they don’t pass out, right? So the awful and gruesome truth is that maybe some passed out, but likely just as many were conscious during their free-fall. I’m sorry, but I believe this to be the truth, and the victims can only be honored by us telling the truth about their suffering.

Could there have been a chance the drafts/currents of air blew some people near windows/holes out of the building as well?

R7 For once, an article worth reading in full. Don’t shortchange it.

My question to you r48 — why do you need to believe so badly that most of the jumpers consciously chose their method of death that day?

What about the children, OP!?

R42 stop. Enough with the ridiculous replies over and over. You are showing your lack of education, again. The twin tower windows weren’t fucking knee length. You would have to climb out of it to get out. You’re not just gonna fall.

R50 because they did. It was jump or burn to death. It’s not that hard to understand. Are you that fucking slow? Jesus Christ.

I heard they believe some people were actually pushed out of the windows as the ones who were trapped together were getting more and more desperate for fresh air.

R53, I am high and that was a typo, I apologize! I was trying to ask the opposite, meaning why does that poster have to look for other narratives beyond the fact that most did indeed chose to jump?

R50, I have no need to believe anything. Why do you think you understood my intention, because you didn't.

Is that Burberry?

[quote] I don't really need more tossed at me once a year for the rest of my life.

Oh honey, you’re the exact same asshole you’re complaining about. You weren’t even there.

Grow up.

OP What’s with the two year old article?

R7 This is the initial gist:

They began jumping not long after the first plane hit the North Tower, not long after the fire started. They kept jumping until the tower fell. They jumped through windows already broken and then, later, through windows they broke themselves. They jumped to escape the smoke and the fire; they jumped when the ceilings fell and the floors collapsed; they jumped just to breathe once more before they died. They jumped continually, from all four sides of the building, and from all floors above and around the building's fatal wound. They jumped from the offices of Marsh & McLennan, the insurance company; from the offices of Cantor Fitzgerald, the bond-trading company; from Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 106th and 107th floors—the top. For more than an hour and a half, they streamed from the building, one after another, consecutively rather than en masse, as if each individual required the sight of another individual jumping before mustering the courage to jump himself or herself. One photograph, taken at a distance, shows people jumping in perfect sequence, like parachutists, forming an arc composed of three plummeting people, evenly spaced. Indeed, there were reports that some tried parachuting, before the force generated by their fall ripped the drapes, the tablecloths, the desperately gathered fabric, from their hands. They were all, obviously, very much alive on their way down, and their way down lasted an approximate count of ten seconds. They were all, obviously, not just killed when they landed but destroyed, in body though not, one prays, in soul. One hit a fireman on the ground and killed him; the fireman's body was anointed by Father Mychal Judge, whose own death, shortly thereafter, was embraced as an example of martyrdom after the photograph—the redemptive tableau—of firefighters carrying his body from the rubble made its way around the world.

Then…

“The missing posters were still everywhere, but Cheney was able to focus on one that seemed to present itself to him—a poster portraying a man who worked at Windows as a pastry chef, who was dressed in a white tunic, who wore a goatee, who was Latino. His name was Norberto Hernandez. He lived in Queens. Cheney took the enhanced print of the Richard Drew photograph to the family, in particular to Norberto Hernandez's brother Tino and sister Milagros. They said yes, that was Norberto. Milagros had watched footage of the people jumping on that terrible morning, before the television stations stopped showing it. She had seen one of the jumpers distinguished by the grace of his fall—by his resemblance to an Olympic diver—and surmised that he had to be her brother. Now she saw, and she knew. All that remained was for Peter Cheney to confirm the identification with Norberto's wife and his three daughters. They did not want to talk to him, especially after Norberto's remains were found and identified by the stamp of his DNA—a torso, an arm. So he went to the funeral. He brought his print of Drew's photograph with him and showed it to Jacqueline Hernandez, the oldest of Norberto's three daughters. She looked briefly at the picture, then at Cheney, and ordered him to leave.

What Cheney remembers her saying, in her anger, in her offended grief: "That piece of shit is not my father."

Then this:

“USA Today, whose editors used eyewitness accounts and forensic evidence in addition to what they found on video, came to the conclusion that at least two hundred people died by jumping—a count that the newspaper said authorities did not dispute. Both are intolerable estimates of human loss, but if the number provided by USA Today is accurate, then between 7 and 8 percent of those who died in New York City on September 11, 2001, died by jumping out of the buildings; it means that if we consider only the North Tower, where the vast majority of jumpers came from, the ratio is more like one in six.”

Same here r34. It was such a horribly tragic dark day. I think I stayed awake for a week glued to CNN.

Jacqueline Hernandez is a cunt!

Because the majority of them did choose it R50. It was the better alternative to them, in that moment, than being burned alive. I’m not R47, but I lived through that day in Manhattan and the aftermath, unhurt but not unaffected. Why do you, and it seems a few others here, insist on downplaying the existential terror of their choice and of their deaths?

They didn’t pass out before impact, they didn’t unwittingly stumbled out a very narrow, debris filled windows, or get sucked out by drafts. There was ample coverage that day of groups of people crowded around windows they most likely helped shatter, trying to get air and away from the intense heat and smoke, some even waving white tablecloths from Windows On The World in hope of rescue.

It is beyond horrible but it is the truth.

Some people are so weird about suicide in the face of guaranteed death. A “piece of shit” for jumping? Grief is very strange.

[quote] there are people who’ve tried to get the image banned in the USA?

Ummm yeah. Good luck with that!

This is the picture that I find so sad and fascinating. The woman survived the initial impact and there she stands so small and vulnerable. There is also a guy up and to her right sitting:

Full disclosure. I’m not American, and my view will possibly trigger someone, but my view of people’s attempts to censor information like the burning man pic and descriptions of what happened and whether people jumped or fell or whether they died on the way down - but as an observer of American culture, America is in many ways a free wheeling society where anything goes - freedom of speech etc - but in other ways it is quite conservative where euphemisms take the place of reality. Such as “bathroom” or “restroom” for “toilet”. “Passed” or “passed away” or “met his maker” for “died”. There’s a squeamishness there which I don’t see elsewhere. I’m not judging, just observing. I’m interested to know where this comes from.

Just anticipating some red neck coming in and accusing me of being a cold blooded European - I’m not from Europe. But I continue to find your country’s contradictions fascinating, which is why I’m here and visit there every year.

^^^ “falling” man, not “burning”.

R65, I've always wondered if the woman in that photo is the same "woman falling" pictured in the R36 article.

Also, can you be more specific as to where the man is sitting in the photo you posted?

Norberto Hernandez's family are hateful features freaks in this story. Of course, they suffered but were complicit when sold a suicide tale, which most uneducated Island/Caribbean people cannot tolerate. So denial, anger, and disavowal. And following cash.

They, and Obserers, wrapped themselves in mythology and hatred almost 24/7.

From the article:

[quote]The resistance to the image—to the images—started early, started immediately, started on the ground.

And yet OP still tries - with zero evidence - to place the blame on younger generations.

R59 thanks for posting the excerpts. I find this urge completely understandable : “ …they jumped just to breathe once more before they died.”

R68: Count 6 columns over to the right, starting with the column in front of her. Then go straight up to the top of that column. There’s a guy in a mustard colored shirt.

Ok, thanks R72. I never saw him before. R68

R65 I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at. I don't see anybody. Just the side of the tower in flames/smoke.

There’s fire on the upper left, then below it is a biggish dark rectangle where the building is gone. At the bottom of the right corner of that rectangle stands a woman in light pants and a dark top waving. Six columns over and straight up is the man, r74.

[quote]I also think some just fell.

I watched the towers fall from Soho. Thank god I wasn't close enough to see and hear people falling. I had friends who were and they said the sound of bodies hitting the pavement, exploding, is something they'll never forget. I do remember everyone walking north up sixth avenue and there was one older woman walking down to the trade daughters saying her daughter was down there. So many haunting memories. I have video from that day of the aftermath, all of the garbage trucks lined up on Houston St., all of the doctors standing outside of St. Vincents waiting for victims who would never arrive.

The most haunting video of the day for me was the one of the man who was trying to scale the side of the building down. He must have been a free climber. He had made it a couple of floors before slipping and falling to his death. I think the conscious act of trying to save your life but then falling is worse than just deciding to jump. And the idea that in retrospect he was doing it all in vain because he wouldn't have made it too far before the towers collapsed anyway.

[quote] in many ways a free wheeling society where anything goes - freedom of speech etc - but in other ways it is quite conservative where euphemisms take the place of reality. Such as “bathroom” or “restroom” for “toilet”.

In this instance it's more there are those who don't want this sort of thing viewed because they think reminders of Islamic mass murder might generate Islamophobia. And Islam is a religion of peace.

R75 thanks!

Can you imagine surviving that -- and then the towers crumble?

R68 - there look to be 3 people in the pic R65 posted.

[quote]It may sound morbid and perhaps ghoulish

Not even remotely.

In the 9/11 documentary by the French brothers, the freight train explosion of bodies hitting the ground is heard several times. Unbelievably loud.

Father Judge was killed by one of the falling bodies. There had to be others, too.

"freight train explosion" is correct. When I watched that video this sounded to me just like the noise of two freight cars being pushed hard into each other as they assemble a train.

R82 That is why when they started evacuating people from the buildings through alternate underground exits

There is a video on youtube of someone being blown out of a window.

In the video, you can hear banging- to my knowledge/in my opinion the guy broke the window, and instantly this massive plume of back smoke loudly explodes out the window and you see him fly out. It is the same video where another person tries to climb down and then falls. Its the truly creepy one with "She's Always a Woman To Me" by Bill Joel playing in some elevator music fashion in that courtyard.. I will try and find it-

But for the most part these brave souls chose their deaths or were forced th choose.

another

[quote] sometimes wonder how long it took people in the buildings to reach the point mentally where the decision to jump seemed the best option.

Most of the people in those buildings were stockbrokers and almost all of the ones I know make a lot of money but are hyper drama queens. So decisions was easy, going for the most dramatic exit.

Shop bottoms like R87 are always jealous of people who make money. I can imagine the screaming as R87 throws themselves down a non working escalator at a dead mall.

I recall reading that the speed of the fall was likely not enough to render them unconscious, so the people who jumped were aware when they hit. I think they also had at least one person killed by having someone fall onto them.

Stockbroker Butt Hurt at R88. Typical.

By the way, Shop Bottoms seem to be the choice du jour of the gay Stockbrokers I know. How many decades older are you then the one spending all your money?

That was a pretty shitty thing to say, R87, even for here. Those people died in terror. Maybe have (a little) think.

R89.

We don't know their pronouns.

There was a woman who survived the fall for a few minutes. A first responder approached her and she said "I'm not dead. Call my daughter " The poor lady was unaware that her bottom half was mangled. 😳

I think one of the first firefighter deaths was when a body landed on him.

I call a Spade A Spade R90. Sorry they died, but they did not know at the time that they could not be rescued. They didn't know the building was going to collapse. They just took the most dramatic option. And like I said I know actual stock brokers and they all live large and dramatic lives. Like Realtors with more money and extra drama. I could tell you stories but no time for that here.

What, I wonder, were the undramatic options that day?

Honestly, this is one of the stupidest points I've ever seen argued on this place. High bar, too.

R97 would jump out the window every time there is a kitchen fire. No need to call the fire department or look another way out.

R96 Even if the building had not collapsed, was there a way to extinguish the fire in a way to save the people still alive above the points of impact? I don't know if there was.

Jenny in supply forgot to get the fire extinguishers recharged. If she had done her job they all would have lived.

You're a genius, R98. Please, keep posting.

The protocol would be to go to the roof and wait for a helicopter rescue. But it was impossible in this case because of the smoke.

R89/R94

Bull-FUCKING-shit.

[quote]I recall reading that the speed of the fall was likely not enough to render them unconscious, so the people who jumped were aware when they hit.

Sorry but you've got to be legitimately retarded to believe this. A person can be knocked unconscious (and possibly receive a fatal TBI) from falling from a height of just 10-15 feet.

Also, do they seriously NOT teach basic physics in middle and/or high school anymore?

Falling from that kind of height, the amount of momentum gained would've been enormous. Bodies were literally exploding upon impact with the ground.

Is the real situation not horrible enough without making up and spreading false ghoulish shit like that?

It wasn't made up. It was in an article on things the public were never told about 9/11 because it was thought too gruesome at the time.

On the other hand, if you stop suddenly from 200 km/hr over a distance of a few centimetres, everything in your body effectively weighs 7,500 times more than normal. Your 1.5 kg brain briefly weighs 10 tonnes. In that brief instant, cells are burst open and blood vessels are torn asunder. The aorta (the huge main artery coming out of the heart) will usually rip loose from the heart. For a few beats, your heart continues to pump blood into the space around the heart and lungs, while no blood goes to your brain. But most of the blood vessels in your brain have also instantaneously torn loose. After that brief instant, your "weight" returns to normal - but blood is now eating its way through your irreparably damaged brain. This is what medical people mean to when they refer to "massive internal bleeding".

There was a case of a parachutist who survived a fall (with broken limbs) when her parachute did not open. But the ground was very soft, and according to the fire officer, "She left a good 12 inch hole into the ground".

This is a legit account of 'what it was like' written by two NYT reporters. The aggregate accounts of survivors are presented here, starkly and without editorializing.

I wonder if it isn't more widely read because it reveals how many more firemen's lives could have been saved if the NYFD had been better equipped to communicate with their own units, an issue that predated 911. The NYPD was better prepared for an event of this magnitude than the Fire Department. The authors do suggest, from survivor accounts, that some jumpers were likely pushed out in the chaos.

[quote]Most of the people in those buildings were stockbrokers and almost all of the ones I know make a lot of money but are hyper drama queens. So decisions was easy, going for the most dramatic exit.

No one is going to call out r87 for "stockbrokers"?

Sweetie, "stockbrokers" ARE the shop bottoms of the finance industry. I don't doubt you know a lot of "stockbrokers" but that's not what was in the World Trade Center. It may have been filled with investment bankers, traders, and maybe even a few wealth management or private client people, but the World Trade Center was too expensive of real estate for mere "stockbrokers" who might be acquainted with the likes of you.

We don't even need to address the utter idiocy of the rest of your comment.

[quote]R63: Some people are so weird about suicide in the face of guaranteed death. A “piece of shit” for jumping? Grief is very strange.

That isn't 'grief'; that is Roman Catholicism and its peculiar attitude towards suicide.

This family rejected its deceased relative because of religious beliefs. That's pretty toxic.

R103, you misunderstood. He's not talking about the impact, he's talking about the speed of the fall rendering someone unconscious. It's been said that falling from a high enough distance will knock you out before you hit the ground. No, I don't have a reference. I'm just citing what is the obvious reference behind R94's post.

Interesting g article at r43, scary to think that there cpuld have been mlre deaths /more people trapped above the crash site, had the plane crashed into a lower floor say 30 or 50 floors lower

I wonder how many people used this occassion to fake their deaths

Devastating to read some people decided against going down the stairs and instead went up the stairs thinking a helicopeter would rescue them

The people trapped in the elevator. My goodness

Back then the media still had some decorum. They didn't think the public needed to hear every gory detail.

R109

Did you not read what that user (R89) wrote, which I quoted verbatim?

[quote]so the people who jumped were aware when they hit.

What else could they mean by writing "when they hit," if they aren't referring to people making impact with the ground after jumping/falling?

That person is claiming they "recall reading" about people jumping/falling out of a skyscraper window, falling however many stories, and still being conscious and fully aware after they hit the ground.

Which of course is ridiculous, sensationalist, morbid nonsense. It's just simply not possible from a scientific viewpoint (for the reasons I and R105 already mentioned).

[quote] For example, Marsh & McLennan, an insurance company, had offices on the 93rd through 100th floors in the north tower. About 1,000 worked there; 295 were at work at the time. All died. Fred Alger Management, a money manager, occupied most of the 93rd floor. Thirty-five of 55 employees were in. They all died.

Only 25 of 55 employees were in the New York Metro Transportation Council’s 82nd floor office. Three died. The receptionist was the only person in the office at the 16-employee law firm of Drinker Biddle & Reath on the 89th floor. She lived.

Wow, that receptionist

[quote] Devastating to read some people decided against going down the stairs

In the book I mentioned at R106 there was a man heading down the stairwell with a crowd of people when they were blocked by a collapsed ceiling. The smoke was overwhelming and most people decided to turn around and go to the roof. This guy felt a strong sensation, almost like a voice, telling him 'go down or you will die'. It looked impassable but he dug his way through and made it out.

I would love to have a conversation with someone who was in the building, just to hear first hand their experience, escape etc

Yes, R115, no one is saying the bodies never hit the ground. What we're talking about is whether they were conscious or not before the impact.

R105, what about skydivers? *Obviously* they open their shoot earlier, so they are higher when they stop their fall. But they are also jumping from I believe a higher altitude….wouldn’t their momentum/velocity be equal to those jumping off the Towers? And if that is true, they don’t pass out so….I’m just saying, I’m a logical person with lay-level knowledge of physics, and I do indeed believe that it’s possible that the jumpers were conscious the whole way down. But I’m curious about your thoughts, if you have a formula that shows velocity comparing a jumper with a sky- diver, I would learn to understand it more. I am also curious if velocity is slightly increased by the force of gravity.

I've read heart attacks may take a few seconds longer than the ten seconds it would take to hit. In this article it says, "there were reports that some tried parachuting, before the force generated by their fall ripped the drapes, the tablecloths, the desperately gathered fabric, from their hands. They were all, obviously, very much alive on their way down, and their way down lasted an approximate count of ten seconds. They were all, obviously, not just killed when they landed but destroyed, in body though not, one prays, in soul. [...]"

I was in an Airborne unit in the Army. Wish I could offer more insight but I really can't. Of course we were let out at a much lower altitude than sky divers. Don't forget you have a huge chute and when it opens it pulls you up. Jarringly. Then when you land on the ground it isn't this nice gentle landing you see so many times on TV. In fact more instruction goes on for the landing then anything else. You learn your five points of contact and how to roll. Even then. It. Still. Hurts. When you are in an Airborne unit and you ETS you almost always get a full disability without even trying. You have no knees left.

I can't imagine the horror of those who escaped the building , made it safely outside only to have the building collapse, and die in the rubble

The elevator was one of the worst place to be in that day

[quote] Lots don't have time to read the long of one.

Reading and writing seems to be beyond your grasp.

To those not yet born or too young to have any meaningful memories of the day, are you able to appreciate how stunning a series of events these attacks were?

Also, about the families denying that their loved one could have died by suicide--I suspect this is more because insurers might not pay out death benefits for suicide. That is the cynical reality of life in the American insurance industry. I think families in that situation should do what they have to do to get their policies paid out.

It was ruled that there were zero suicides at the towers. They were all murdered. If you want to read something almost as ghoulish as the attacks read how it was decided how much each family would be compensated by insurance companies.

Are you kidding r126? You should look at meme pages run by gen zs on, say, Instagram. They think it’s a joke.

I guess it’s best I’m not on social media, R129.

They think it’s a joke because they didn’t experience it. I’m pretty cynical, but I will always remember that feeling when it was clear that all of us were targets, whether innocent or guilty, just because we were Americans. Gen Z has plenty of time to have their fragility exposed.

I was looking for a meme for 911 and on Google they were almost all jokes. What is wrong with people to be so callous. The families alone are still alive and I'm sure still suffer after all this time the loss of their loved ones. Besides the fact it was a horrific thing to go through. Firemen, policemen who worked that day all prob have copd and ptsd. Just looking at the photos is enough to scar you. It may be one day we 'remember' but the very next day it still is on your mind.

Dont think the images will ever be totally banned, but as time goes on you will see them way less in the media. Even after the first 5 years the news media made great efforts to clean up the footage and images shown on the anniversaries. Now they are rarely shown on news broadcasts. I didn't seem them at all yesterday. There really is no need to show them, young people can research them in college and old people have them burned into memory.

[quote] I watched that documentary and it was hard for me to understand the family's hostility.

I get the grief is a complicated process, but that daughter didn't come across well at all. Maybe that 'piece of shit' wasn't her father, but it was somebody else's son/brother/father etc.

You’re right r79—a woman in a dress it looks like.

My company is moving to a high floor at One World Trade next month! I am working from home as much as I can and bringing a base jumping parachute for my desk on the days I must be in the office. Fuck that 3 days a week in office crap at a graveyard site where it might happen again! Coworkers are putting in PTSD permanent WFH requests. I probably will too!

Sad.

Those of you who witnessed this event — take heart. Younger generations don’t understand, that is mostly natural. Our job is to quietly tell the stories, not embellish, not exaggerate, just bottomline it.

R38 What does that mean however. People survive heart attacks all the time.

Oh, God.

R74 What color is the dress?

R96 What about all the Windows on the World workers?

R104 The phone calls are being made IN THE HOUSE! You’re an idiot. Jumping from that height = soup.

R111 Several

"I watched that documentary and it was hard for me to understand the family's hostility. I guess only they can understand it. I don't see him as committing suicide though. Whether he jumped or died otherwise he was still murdered. I was fascinated by this guy for a while."

That's a good point. If he jumped, yes, he technically committed suicide. But given the situation, I don't see it as the same as "normal" suicide, if that makes any sense.

R124 The jet fuel travelled (ignited) through the shaft. There are so many individual horror stories about that day. I hope they are working on an oral history. It’s like a mini version of all the WW2 stories. I know of one person who jumped in the water outside the back of the Amex building and promptly drowned because it’s cold and deep and they couldn’t swim well.

[quote]The protocol would be to go to the roof and wait for a helicopter rescue. But it was impossible in this case because of the smoke.

Oh you know that how? You were there? There were at least 10 or 20 floors it perfect condition above the impact that didn't even know what exactly happens. Assuming the building didn't collapse, a good number could have been rescued. At least 4 people above the impact on the 80th floor survived by just taking the stairs instead of jumping out the window.

The chopper pilots all said that landing on the roof was impossible because it was covered with air con and other equipment, smoke made it impossible to see even if they could manage to land and even if both these weren’t an issue, the door to the roof from the fire escape was locked.

I wasn’t there (I’m not the poster who you quoted, btw) but I did read the reports at the time and the pilots were quoted on that. There’s also a documentary called “In Memoriam: New York City 9/11” in which the helicopter pilots were interviewed - I’m just anticipating you demanding to know how I know, R147. It’s on YouTube.

In fact, one did. Well I’m lying, she survived the fall but did not survive the day. No one knows her identity as she has never been identified so she’s referred to as the “black tag lady”. Ernest Armstead gave an account of their brief interaction in “September 11: An Oral History”. You can find the whole relevant excerpt online, but I’ll summarize: Armstead worked in EMS tagging people green, yellow, red, and black to help other emergency workers prioritize which people to help, with black meaning the person is dead or close to it. He rushes to the first group of jumpers and begins to tag them black, but one lady in the group was still somehow lucid, though her body from the diaphragm and below was unrecognizable. They have a brief conversation where the lady pleads that she is not dead and to call her daughter. Armstead was trained to remember how she looked: a lady with nice hairdo and earrings.

So how exactly did she survive the fall? Most likely she just got lucky with a sudden air draft that cushioned her fall enough for her to survive the fall, but not enough to ensure her survival.

As a side note, Armstead claims she and the other jumpers in her group were blown out by the explosion, though that’s not true as there are images of the WTC lobby immediately after the impact that show no bodies. There’s a much more detailed write-up of her on Quora if you would like to learn more about her:

That's BS R148, I have personally been there on the roof several years before the attack. Tourist are allowed outside on a ramp in the open air. Helipad in the center.

R150: I think the relevant bit is that there was too much smoke for helicopters to land, which there clearly was.

R150 That's not a helipad in the center of the South Tower roof. Neither tower had a helipad. Plus, in addition to all the smoke billowing over the roofs of both buildings, the radio mast atop the North Tower would have made trying to land a helicopter an extremely dangerous maneuver. Imagine trying to land in overwhelming smoke, without a reliably unobstructed view of the roof surface, and the risk of the propeller having impact with the radio mast. Unfortunately, no bueno and would have easily jeopardized the safety of those aboard the helicopters.

R150 Apparently I'm mistaken, those were both helipads but had been decommissioned as far back as the late 1970s. I'd never known the towers to have helipads. Anyhow, the rest of the conditions still stand. Unfortunately it was jut too risky for the helicopter crews to attempt.

R150 yes I’ve been up on the South Tower observation deck too, I’m talking about the North Tower. Refer below.

There were two, you know.

And if you’re going to start throwing insults around, apart from getting your facts straight - grow a pair and call it “bullshit”, not “BS”, you pussy.

Here you go, R150. But I’m sure that you could land a helicopter there, right?

[quote] There were at least 10 or 20 floors it perfect condition above the impact that didn't even know what exactly happens

[quote] At least 4 people above the impact on the 80th floor survived by just taking the stairs instead of jumping out the window.

I could be misremembering, but wasn't only one stairwell left intact at/above the level of impact?

[quote] what about skydivers?

The world record is a jump from 135,898 feet (41.422 km). The current Guinness World Record for the fastest speed in 'speed skydiving' is 373.6 mph. With oxygen they did not faint from the fall.

Oxygen would not have been an issue for the 9/11 jumpers. One would hope they might have fainted from the horror of the situation but most likely they were aware until the instant of impact and obliteration.

As for the deaths of " stock brokers " yes some died but this early in the morning I'd think the deaths were disproportionately secretaries and receptionists.

R156 Due to the off-center impact in the South Tower, there was one passable stairwell. In the North Tower which was hit more head-on in the center, there were no passable stairwells above the impact.

The off-center and lower impact in the South Tower is also the reason it collapsed first. The lower impact placed more load on the remaining intact beams and columns. The higher and centered impact in the North Tower placed less additional load on the surviving structure not demolished by the plane impact, which is why that tower stood so much longer.

Helicopters don't all have to land to rescue people. How do you think people in the ocean are rescued?

Helicopters of the day were useless. The heat from the fires added to the very strong updrafts that come naturally with skyscrapers. Such updrafts were why the Empire State Building only had that one dirigible docking.

R159 you should share your expertise with the chopper pilots who were there that day and point out what they got wrong and how they could have rescued people.

You are missing the point r161. Most people on the upper floors would have ran to the roof knowing the stairs were cut off. Whether they could actually rescued is a side argument. If you were on a top floor in that situation not knowing what just happened, you mean to tell me you would just jump out the window without even entertaining the idea of rescue from the top where most buildings have helipads?

R162 The doors to the roof access were locked. All this back and forth about helicopter rescues is irrelevant. Have you seen a single photo or video clip of any victims waving from the tower rooftops? No.

R162 is R87 upthread who said that stockbrokers jumped because they are hyper drama queens and took the most dramatic exit.

R162 I can’t engage with the type of person who just used the expression “would have ran”.

R157: I think stockbrokers generally get in early. The European markets are already open when they wake up in NY, it’s part of the culture to work stupidly long hours etc.

Millennials and gen Z who bitch about how bad the world is nowadays need to have it drilled into their pea brains that the world is awful now BECAUSE of the events of 9/11. Brown people everywhere became the enemy, corporations flooded money into bonuses for the C-suites while aggressively cutting back on middle management which led to a recession and then Bush and far right bible thumpery paved the way for a war in the wrong country which led to… well you get it. They just need to be told over and over.

The French Naudet brothers documentary is on YouTube, The brothers tend to have too much of themselves in it which is annoying but their film has the fascination of You Are There.

I said it before and I will say it again, stockbrokers are drama queens. Jumping out of a window should be your last resort, not the one you pic for dramatic effect. You want a better example where no actual threat to life was involved but they did it anyway? Google the 1929 Stock Market crash. Rich people like stockbrokers who lost everything started jumping out the windows and off of bridges.

R146 how horrific , can't imagine the horror of these people trapped in the elevator as jetfuelled streamed through the shafts.

I'm surprised more people didn't jump into the water .

The video at r246, this guy didn't hear the plane crash into the building? How is it that a fireball from the elevator andnthe screech was what he first noticed and not the impact of the plane hitting the building?

I remember people saying that in the 1993 bombing, the protocol was for people to go to the roof to be rescued if going down was impossible. The doors to the rooftops were not supposed to be locked. But the smoke made rooftop rescues impossible that day anyway.

Even before 9/11/2001 I suspected that if there ever was a catastrophic fire in a skyscraper that the ability to fight the fire effectively and rescue people would be close to impossible.

Does a Yonex have a link of these last voice-mail messages left for relatives and friends.

Can you imagine what must have been goi g through these people's minds as they decided to jump out in groups or alone? I wonder if they thought they would survive or were aware they would die?

I have said it before and I'll say it again, R87 R168, you're a horrible entity, equating facing certain death with drama. I cannot despise you enough, you empty husk of waste product bacterial cells, stalking the earth.

R170, after that post, I can see why, Rose.

Sad to learn some people decided to go up only to find door to roof was locked. I read when the jumpers landed it was a "pink mist?" Gosh Also read that one woman was " lucid" when she landed , she spoke to rescue workers but didn't survive the impact

^ That has been posted here, but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

Fwiw, r177, if she was lucid when she landed, she survived the impact. She just didn't live long.

I'm not sure that one is true.

R149

[quote]Armstead claims she and the other jumpers in her group were blown out by the explosion, though that’s not true as there are images of the WTC lobby immediately after the impact that show no bodies.

David Kravette said people were blown out of the lobby by explosions from the elevator shafts.

R168 you seem weirdly obsessed with the dramatics of falling stockbrokers. Did you always want to be one but didn’t have the grades, Precious? Get stood up for a date with one on 9/10?

Tell us more!

The French guy that went into the lobby with the fireman said there were people on fire but he decided not to film them. They presumably got on fire from the fuel and flames that came down the elevator shaft.

Stockbroker troll is a moron. Just holding your hand over an open flame will cause and involuntary retraction. Imagine being *surrounded* by heat far worse than that. Plus jet fuel smoke. You’d do any thing to get away from it. But he wonders why people didn’t wait?

I read a story if a guy who worked on the 77 th floor, went upstairs to 78th after plane hit first tower then quickly went back down to his office only to have the second place hit the area where he just left. Everyone but handful on that floor died that day

I was amazed that crowds of people stood around and watched the towers burn. I would have gotten as far away as possible in case another plane came to attack another building.

R171 - maybe the Billy Joel music in the elevator was very loud.

NYC people - what was the timeline like for the city? What was the initial lull like in terms of every day life - going to, work, school, things open. And, outside of Ground Zero, when did the city outside of Ground Zero when did everyday life approach "normal" (in quotes for an obvious reason"). I can't imagine. Some people who weren't in the immediate vicinity must have fled the city regardless.

I have to agree, dying in an elevator while buring to death is hell on earth. A few did die that way.. Just horrific. anyone in an elevator going up or down in Tower 1 or Tower 2 during impact where fuel could go down the elevator shaft..

I just watched World Trade Center the Oliver Stone movie. When Nic Cage and his team arrive It shows liquid dripping in the foyer which I assumed was water but maybe it was fuel.

I'm grateful that no video of people hitting the ground has been shown. I would never seek it out but would worry that I unwittingly would come upon it.

You can hear the thuds as bodies land in the French documentary.

[quote] I was amazed that crowds of people stood around and watched the towers burn. I would have gotten as far away as possible in case another plane came to attack another building.

R184 You have to remember, before the South Tower impact many of the bystanders on the street didn't even know it was a plane that hit the North Tower. In those first minutes, there was a lot of speculation among the bystanders who weren't eyewitnesses to the impact. It wasn't until the second plane made impact with the South Tower that it became certain we were dealing with an act of terrorism. Also, despite the catastrophic damage and fires to both towers, I don't think anyone expected them to collapse until the South Tower imploded.

People were going about their morning and commuting to work when this attack occurred. They were in shock, disbelief, and horror at what they were seeing. It's easy to second-guess these people from a place of safety, but I don't think anyone can reasonably predict what they'd do and how quickly they'd act when in the actual moment of a catastrophic emergency.

Imagine if Smartphones and social media had been around back then. The people trapped in the towers posting online, people on the street recording the carnage, etc. It would've been a whole different - and much more graphic - experience. No way to censor all of it.

Based on r179 post, there were people who were on ground floor before building crashed yet didn't survive due to fireball exploding out of the elevator. Just awful

With no cell service in the elevators, sad to think people in the elevator who perished upon impact, due to jet fuel coming down the elevator shafts had no idea what happened.

One of the the saddest photos of that horrific day is that of the 2 people jumping out of the building holding hands and their bodies on fire. You can clearly see one of them with their feet aflame.

Is there building security camera footage of all this carnage?

The fact there were no screams when the bodies landed confirms these people were already dead before hitting the ground. There are reports that those on the ground saw jumpers flailing about, thrashing as if fighting the inevitable

The horror

Does anyone have a link of the audio where radio station played last goodbyes of the people trapped in the building?

This was not even 10 minutes after the first plane hit. Stockbroker troll needs to catch a clue.

[quote] Is there building security camera footage of all this carnage?

R196 I'm sure there was, but probably all destroyed when the buildings imploded. Back then, I'm not sure that data like security footage would have been transmitted and stored offsite at other data facilities. And, "the cloud" certainly didn't exist back then the way it does today. My guess is any security footage recorded of these events was destroyed in the collapse.

During 9/11 we never saw video of people jumping from the buildings in America while the rest of the world had full access to those shots. Americans always liked their crime scenes cleaned up. We have the highest rate of gun murders in the world but we're just too chicken to face what that really looks like and we never see any victims of the weekly shootings we have. If the public could actually see what little children look like with their faces blown off there would be much more pressure to legislate gun sales, etc.

We saw footage of the jumpers on every news broadcast on 9/11 and afterwards.

No we didn't. We saw it on international news but the news networks and the networks did not show full footage of the jumpers.

The news networks showed people jumping. It was all over the place. You can look up the original broadcasts online.

They didn't show the bodies.

They showed people jumping, but no not the bodies. Why should they have done that?

I read an amazing book recently called 'The Only Plane in the Sky' which was just people's recollections of escaping buildings and being in the area on the day. I thoroughly recommend it.

I remember seeing footage of the jumpers on NBC that day. I can't recall if they repeated footage on the following days.

[quote] Flight 175 passenger Bryan Sweeney’s final message for his wife “I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I’ll see you when you get there,” Mr Sweeney told his wife soon before the plane hit the south tower in New York.

What do we think he meant by " ill see you when you get there" ?

The express checkout at the Piggly Wiggly.

"Studio 54, Rose!"

R210, up in Cinnabon heaven!

[quote] I remember seeing footage of the jumpers on NBC that day. I can't recall if they repeated footage on the following days.

They didn't. My husband worked in the news business (CNN) and they were told not to under threat of losing their jobs.

There were pictures of them jumping in some newspapers.

I remember reading that the deaths of all those who jumped from the WTC were ruled homicides, not suicides.

One of the moments of footage that stayed with me took place seconds after the second tower fell. A firefighter took off his helmet and threw it on the ground in rage, presumably because he knew so many of his colleagues had just been killed.

Phone Calls From the Towers documentary at link.

And footage of people jumping out of the towers was repeated endlessly, and is present on most if not all of the many 9/11 documentaries.

Documentary on phone calls from passengers on the planes.

Melissa Doi was trapped in 105yh floor, asked 911 operator to do a 3 way call with her mom aso could speak to her one ladt time and operator couldn't

R131, I think one of the reasons Gen Zs see 9/11 as a joke is the extent to which Middle Americans seized on it as a giant MARY moment. It’s been buried in an avalanche of schmaltz.

(Aside: Ironically, many of the flyovers who clutch their pearls longest and hardest over 9/11 are conservative goobs like Defacto, with a canned ham between their ears instead of a brain, always out to “other” New York as “not really America,” run by Jews and flaky liberals, and overrun with crime. But suddenly every redneck on line at the chucky cheese in Indiana becomes an honorary New Yorker for purposes of glomming onto 9/11 victimization.)

Another reason is, let’s admit, gen Zs are children, and children are very keen to laugh and joke about things they’re not supposed to laugh and joke about.

My brother, a fireman was killed.. Left a wife, two teen boys, lots of sibs. While it isn't discussed, it left a deep scar.

Wow 221. I am so sorry. I look up to those firemen.

One man was named Orio Palmer. That guy MADE it up to (89th?) Floor in Tower 2. Where the 2nd plane hit that Express Elevator Lobby.

Just a hero for making it up there where so many injured were.. I don't know. They were heroes in every sense of the wor.

The oldest Gen Zers are now in their mid 20s so they're hardly kids.

Don't tell them that, r223.

[quote]One man was named Orio Palmer. That guy MADE it up to (89th?) Floor in Tower 2. Where the 2nd plane hit that Express Elevator Lobby.

His second in command, Stephen Bellson, was with him, r222. They carried 75 lbs of equipment apiece up all those flights.

[quote]you're a horrible entity, equating facing certain death with drama.

They were not all facing certain death. 99% or an estimated 18,000 people in those buildings when it was hit got out alive. Sure if you are absolutely trapped, then jump if you want, but I am sure just like the financial crash in 1929, more than a few drama queens in there ending their life unnecessary. One of the 3 stairways was completely untouched. The 2,000 that died just stayed too long.

In the North Tower all stairways were blocked. The South Tower had one intact stairway but there was intense fire and smoke.

It's probably just trolling, don't bother.

While I don't think 9/11 was a conspiracy, I do think negligence was involved. During the entire month of August, Bush was sitting in his stupid ranch in Texas and he repeatedly had security briefings that a major terrorist attack was imminent yet did nothing about it. It was gross dereliction of duty.

I still hate him with the heat of a thousand suns, just as I did when he was president.

R226 is the stockbrokers jumping troll - it’s a new one, quite specific but ultimately yawn-inducing.

R225- I had no idea. Thank you for telling me this-

Stephen was 51! Orio was 45!

78 floors with all of that equipment. To my knowledge they would be the only witnesses to that floor's devastation minus thhe very few people who were there and made it down (I think was maybe five people)

Stephen is linked here-

Orio is here-

Damn you, OBL!

The loss of Michael Weinberg might interest the youngsters in this bit of ancient history.

R127 the idea that insurance will not pay out in suicide is a myth from the movies. There is usually a time period after the beginning of the policy before it kicks in, but after that waiting period suicide is covered.

I've always wondered: wouldn't terrorists want the building at maximum occupancy for maximum deaths? At 8am - 9am on a Tuesday morning they would only be half full.

And how would they know it would end in 3 buildings crumpling to the ground- and not just be a couple planes smacking into the side?

And why were hijacked planes allowed to fly around for over an hour without any intervention from the armed forces- especially the one(s) headed for Washington?

R236, I don't know the answers to your first and third questions. (In fact, I've sometimes wondered why the hijacking wasn't planned for later in the day, when the building would presumably be fuller.) But as for the second: no one knew the buildings would fall. Even Osama bin Laden wasn't expecting it - it was a pleasant surprise for him.

[quote] "(Inaudible) we calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy, who would be killed based on the position of the tower," said bin Laden, according to the U.S. translation.

[quote] "We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all," recounted bin Laden, seated on a flowered sofa discussing the attacks with a group of men, possibly in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

[quote] Bin Laden, who inherited millions from his family's construction fortune in Saudi Arabia, makes reference to his own knowledge of that business.

[quote] "(Inaudible) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only," bin Laden said.

[quote] "This is all that we had hoped for," he said, according to the translation. Instead, the weight of the upper floors brought down the entire structures as they collapsed.

[quote] And why were hijacked planes allowed to fly around for over an hour without any intervention from the armed forces- especially the one(s) headed for Washington?

That flight was subject to a shoot-down order, but the passengers did the deed themselves.

R116 I worked at Drinker Biddle and Reath then. R236 I think they didn't realize that people in the city (at least our law firm) didn't get to work until 10 or 10:30. First we often had to work crazy late- 11pm frequently if not later. But we also just could not stand to waste the time in traffic. You could breeze in at 10 am (back then- now its just as bad). The receptionist had to be there to answer phones during normal business hours. If I recall correctly she had been training for a marathon so had sneakers with her and just powered down the stairs right away. There were messages through the loudspeakers telling people to remain in place and not to leave the building, the people who did said screw that and left anyway but it was just chance.

A man trapped on the 92nd floor from my town called his wife and knew there was no way out. He was at an investment firm stuck in an office with many of his co-workers because of the first and smoke. They had closed themselves in to the one office. He knew he was never coming home so he spoke with his wife and then called his son's high school. His son was 14 years old, a freshman. They called him out of class so he could go down to the principal's office and talk to his father for the last time. Can you imagine being that father and trying to explain to your kid that your were going to die and comfort him? Or being an freshman in high school and one day in class you get called out to speak to your father the last time? Just unimaginable.

And yes, the receptionist also talked about the fireball, that people just arriving for the day in the lobby, the elevator doors opened and just fire shot out. We all thought a small plane had hit the first tower, which I think had happened maybe a few weeks ago somewhere else in the city, so while a shame, we just went on with the day. When the second one hit we knew something was up, but we didn't know what was next, what could be the next target. the main goal was to get out of the city however we could.

That and the cell service and phone lines were down for hours. It was torture trying to get in touch with people and find out where they were. The path trains came into the WTC so many commuters were there. For hours it was chaos, trying to get safe, find out where loved ones were, to tell them we were safe, to find ways to meet up. The smell was in the city for weeks. There was burned paper still floating around the village. And the missing posters everywhere. Just everyone hoping their loved one had been hurt, had amnesia and was walking around out there. EVERYONE was desperate for magical amnesia. Initially the red cross asked for people to donate blood, they were going to need lots of blood when the survivors started coming in. So many people lined up and started giving blood and then they said to stop, they didn't need any more blood, there were no patients and their banks were full.

I remember at the time, that someone claimed they had identified "The Falling Man" quite soon and I remember thinking that this "identification" happened way too quickly based on that single photo. And the man they claimed was he was the one whose family claimed he would never commit suicide.

Later it was discovered that the photographer who had taken this picture had actually photographed a series of pictures and had chosen the particular photo because the angle of the body seemed to bisect the 2 towers. He still had the full set of photos which contained other pictures of the man falling.

After all the photos from the set were viewed and analyzed, it was discovered that the man in the photos had been wearing an orange t-shirt under his outer shirt. Because of this, the falling man was correctly identified as NOT being the first man named.

Rather the correct man's family knew that he was wearing an orange t-shirt and agreed that their family member was the one in the photographs.. He was a kitchen worker in one of the towers.

The person who did the quick identification was way out of line and too quick to publish a name.

R236, great points. Also, why wouldn't hijackers crash plane into lower floors to trap more people above?

What stays with me when I read about the jumpers is the description of a " pink mist" upon impact. This tell sme the bodied likely exploded in the air before impact.

However, I have also read accounts of people thrashing about upon descent

Yeah, you read it upthread when you posted this, r242

[quote] I read when the jumpers landed it was a "pink mist?" Gosh Also read that one woman was " lucid" when she landed , she spoke to rescue workers but didn't survive the impact.

You've also wondered about why more people didn't " jump into the water ". You're also r197, going on about bodies thrashing.

I don't know if you're a sick freak or just a troll, but you and the drama stockbroker guy need to DIAGF. Enough with the "pink mist" and "thrashing bodies" shit.

ASAP.

With retrospect, reading all this stuff about bodies smooshing into pink mist right before I have to go sleep was a poor life choice.

If even one piece of the 9/11 is a lie (building #7 free-falling, "Let's roll...", the Pentagon hole with no debris, etc.) then it's all a lie.

A lot of people gained a lot of money and power off 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, Dept. of Homeland Security, etc.

What a nightmare. Imagine the horror of feeling the tower collapsing beneath you

So many fucking ghouls on these threads - hardly anybody interested in the background to the attacks and why the Taliban did what they did. Just interested in gore.

The 9/11 truthers, the birthers, climate/Holocaust/election deniers, etc. may be on opposite sides of the political spectrum but all are cut from the same cloth.

When the guy screamed " oh God, oh God" was this because the tower was collapsing? If so how did he manage to stay on the phone while this was happening??

I read that months , weeks and years after that bones were discovered in and around the area of the Twin Towers. Is there any recent account of such discoveries?

Every year around this time, I become consumed and dig myself into a rabbit hole pf youtube/ any 9-11 centric internet forums. Today I read that a guy on one of the airplanes which crashed into the tower was alive afterwards, and called family to let them know the plan he was in and just crashed into the twin towers. This poor guy

If it was so successful why was it just a one time thing? I assume there are still terrorists out there wishing harm on countries. And the TSA employees miss things all the time. So why aren't planes crashing into buildings, nuclear reactors, etc. every day?

Yeah, and why haven’t the Japs attacked Pearl Harbor again?Just asking the question.

"[R236], great points. Also, why wouldn't hijackers crash plane into lower floors to trap more people above?"

Because lower floors require flying between more buildings. They're not going to swoop down to almost street level and hit it at the base. And they're not going to fly between lower skyscrapers to hit it at floor 30.

My husband was convinced to his dying day that Flight 93 was shot down. He was in the Air Force so I believed it. Probably by a military drone.

[quote] The oldest Gen Zers are now in their mid 20s so they're hardly kids.

Your brain doesn’t fully mature until you’re in your early 30s. And that’s truer of Gen Z than any other generation.

[quote] Probably by a military drone.

What?

To answer the above poster who asks why we don’t see more hijacked planes, I have read a little about this. I think the US did a full overhaul of airplane security protocols that were actually quite effective. Every passenger gets screened, x-rayed, scanned, sniffed by dogs for drugs/bombs, body searches/pat downs, requiring gun owners with weapons to have proper permits, removal of shoes (bombs), and of course, everyone’s favorite “no toiletries liquids over 3.5 ounces, zero drinking water.”

Right after 9/11, travel did *not* resume as normal, it took a very long time for millions of Americans to be willing to fly. Many were too scared to fly for a loooong time. During this time, I believe many airplanes had undercover US Marshalls, and from my understanding, they stayed there until the planes were overhauled too. Before 9/11, you might see inside the cockpit, the pilot might wave hello. After 9/11, the cockpits were secured with steel doors that could not be penetrated, with an eyehole for the crew (and I would imagine maybe some cameras to see the passenger area).

I believe flight attendants received much stronger training in taking swift actions if they notice anything suspicious. And quite frankly, the general public was quick to help out too. I believe when the shoe bomber tried to light the fuse of his home-made bomb with matches (which smelled strong, that’s how the attendant noticed so quickly), the flight attendant freaked and multiple men tackled him and basically beat the shit out of him as they duck-taped his ass. One of the biggest learnings is that passengers understood that cooperating with hijackers meant *certain* death, your chances of survival meant you have to fight back.

Obviously the passengers on the doomed Pennsylvania flight figured this out in real time knowing that other planes were also hijacked and being used to attack our country. I seem to recall that both the planes that hit the towers had the entire plane submit to the orders of the hijackers — the passengers watched crew and flight attendants being murdered, so they were in utter shock and were likely frozen and could only call they’d families. If they fought back too, I apologize for not remembering every detail — either way, I have nothing but compassion for them. My memory might be wrong, but I believe all the hijackers carried were box cutters for weapons, that’s it.

So many changes were made to air travel security that it hard to remember how it used to be (I’m 51), grew up with a mom who worked for United so I flew all the time on standby, it was a different and innocent time with very little security. This was when women had to wear hose to fly still, I got reprimanded and was forced to put on pantyhose coming back first class from Paris. It was during the post-9/11 world where airports stopped allowing families to go to the gates together, much less parking your car at arrivals to pick up a loved one (looking at you, barky cops at O’Hare!). So they did indeed build an air travel security system that we should say is overall a success. The level of coordination this attack took, how could they access the cockpit ever again? It’s just not possible today. But that doesn’t mean people aren’t trying. The Unabomber figured out that cargo holds can be a great place to hide a bomb, we’ve been fortunate no one has taken down another plane, but I think it could still happen, just not on scale of 9/11.

Sorry to ramble, it’s a gummy week.

R249: the phone did cut out pretty quickly. His ‘oh god oh god’ took 1-2 seconds and he was on a very high floor. So I guess he felt the building give, shouted those last words and then the phone lines were destroyed, the floor totally collapsed etc

I cannot - do not - listen to these calls.

NYC office workers start work relatively late in the morning.

If the planes had hit an hour or two later, many more lives would've been lost.

I agree with you R60 - as I said above, I saw the fireball from plane #2 standing on 8th Ave and later the second tower list and then sink like a ship from my rooftop in Chelsea. I got down to Broadway & Dey, 1 block from Ground Zero later that week, but have no desire to hear those poor doomed people; their faces surrounded us on missing posters everywhere you looked for weeks and weeks, and the burnt-wire smell of the fires lingered through Christmas.

^^ Excuse me - R260.

[quote] That was a pretty shitty thing to say, [R87], even for here. Those people died in terror. Maybe have (a little) think.

To R87’s point, I remember seeing Joan Rivers at the Fez at Time Cafe in downtown Manhattan a year or so after 9/11. We were all still dealing with the shock. And she said - Let be honest, not all the widows were crying that their husbands wouldn’t be home that evening.

Does anyone else in NYC at the time remember the burning plastic industrial smell that lasted for months in the air? I swear you could still smell it through march. And landlords were offering super discounted rates to move back down to FIDI well before we knew the lingering carcinogens would kill tons more people in the years to come?

My husband was working at Il Cantinori in the village at the time and they stayed open on 9/11 WITH outdoor dining. The smoke was so thick, it made no sense. And a couple of months later, because we lived below 34th st we qualified for a free FEMA air purifier and vacuum. Those were the days…

And everything after that day was a “Terrorist Attack.” Anyone else remember the odd Maple Syrup smell that swept the city and everyone thought it was a gas attack? We dusted off our gas masks we got after 9/11 just in case.

After multiple terrorist attacks, floods, hurricanes a pandemic and race riots, I called it quits in NYC in 2021 after 26 years. I created this t-shirt to commemorate the decision.

[quote]I cannot - do not - listen to these calls.

I heard one without knowing I was about to hear one while watching a report about 9/11 not too long after the terror attacks. It still haunts me. I would never deliberately listen to them.

R6 I guess the mind doesn't have time to fully process if it was indeed a choice. Or a leap backwards away from unimaginable heat. I hope it's true the body loses consciousness during such a huge fall. I also wonder if so many people crowding to windows forced some to fall?

Anyone remember the tech kid who was setting up a meeting in the restaurant and killed by flying debris exiting the building?

I actually had a vivid dream several years ago about being at the open window of the skyscraper and before I jumped I woke up. It was terrifying.

People dying during the fall might make us feel better but it’s not true - people died when they hit the ground. Stop trying to euphemise what happened.

[quote]I hope it's true the body loses consciousness during such a huge fall.

If that were true paratroopers and base jumpers would pass out, which is not what usually happens.

I was working downtown by South Street Seaport that day. There was a Farmers' Market every Tuesday around the base of the towers. I always wondered what happened to the vendors.

I remember our building getting dark when the debris drifted past our office building. We couldn't see a thing. I didn't leave until Ghouliani gave the order to evacuate lower Manhattan because of possible gas explosions. I was able to get on a NY Waterway Ferry to Hoboken where we were hosed down by a fire truck water cannon. I had texted my family that I was okay but didn't call people until I was on a NJ Transit train and heading for home. I didn't realize the full magnitude of what had happened until I watched the news that night. I try to stay away from the news on 9/11 and the reading of the names.

One thing that always struck me was the number of cars at the Chatham train station. There are had to 50 or so that were still there; cars belonging to people who died in the Towers.

It could have been even worse:

[quote] According to the 9/11 Commission, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed envisioned hijacking ten airplanes on both the East and West coasts, and for nine of them to crash into the World Trade Center in New York City; The Pentagon, United States Capitol, CIA Headquarters, and FBI Headquarters in the DC metropolitan area; the tallest buildings in California and Washington State (then the Liberty Tower in Los Angeles and Columbia Center in Seattle, respectively); and an unspecified nuclear power plant. Mohammed, in the tenth plane, would then kill every adult male passenger and land in a US airport where he would then give a speech denouncing US policies on Israel, the Philippines, and other Arab nations before releasing the remaining passengers.[13] Nothing came of the idea at the time, however, as bin Laden rejected the plan as being too elaborate.[5][9]

It could have been much worse if Flight 93 had not been delayed, allowing the passengers to learn their fate.

[quote] So many fucking ghouls on these threads - hardly anybody interested in the background to the attacks and why the Taliban did what they did.

Including you apparently. The Taliban weren't behind 911.

R221 I'm very sorry. I believe many of the firefighters could have been saved themselves that day if their communication worked.

[quote]I watched a documentary about this and they talked to the family of someone who was suspected to be Falling Man. The family was adamant that their loved one would never have committed suicide.

An example of how incredibly, shockingly, deplorably stupid some people can be.

^ That’s what religion can do to you.

[quote]I'm guessing it was more instinct than anything else. You would be so desperate for oxygen at all costs, you wouldn't even think straight.

True. And if these tragic people were still capable of rational thought in those moments, it might have occurred to them that if they jumped, they would almost certainly lose consciousness before they hit the ground, and that's arguably a much gentler death than what they would have experienced otherwise.

R275, you nailed it.

[quote]As far as passing out before you hit, who is to say? Think about extreme bungee jumpers — they don’t pass out, right? So the awful and gruesome truth is that maybe some passed out, but likely just as many were conscious during their free-fall. I’m sorry, but I believe this to be the truth, and the victims can only be honored by us telling the truth about their suffering.

Thanks for your "public service," you sick creep. Of course, no one can say that EVERY jumper passed out before they hit the ground, but it's likely that many of them did. Plus, even if some of them didn't pass out and were still conscious when they hit the ground, that would be a death so instantaneous that, at most, they probably had only a micro-second of pain and realization, which is certainly preferable to the much slower and more painful death of burning up in a skyscraper..

P.S. Your effort to compare what happened at the WTC to "extreme bungee jumping" is just stupid.

R267 so how do.you explain the " pink mist: whoosh of flesh and blood?

R271 wrote

[quote] could have been much worse if Flight 93 had not been delayed, allowing the passengers to learn their fate.

Huh? What?

R270 this would have been the end of America as we know it and he would have no time to land, his ass would have been shot in the air

Were the remains of the falling man ever discovered?

R280, the delayed launch of their flight afforded them the opportunity to learn of the fate of the (other) hijacked flights. The passengers in the other flights couldn’t know what the planned end game of their hijackers so they were sitting ducks. The Flight 93 passengers knew what the end game was so they futilely put up a valiant struggle, causing the plane - apparently headed for either the White House or the Capitol - to crash, instead, in Pennsylvania.

R6, from all the evidence it semes like only a handful of people jumped. Not more than 30. Those who jumped seemd like they were all forced too. There is a photo of 2 people literally on fire jumping. It was either jump or burn alive. Majority of people believed they would be rescued that day. They had no idea the building would collapse

Are there any recording of the flights which crashed into the twin towers?

R285

[quote] Are there any recording of the flights which crashed into the twin towers?

Yes. Betty Ong, flight attendant on United Flight 11, the first plane hijacked, which was the first plane to hit the North Tower.

Her call was recorded, until it was cut off, and the person talking to her is heard saying "Betty? Betty?"

You should be able to find the recording of the conversation online.

Correction.

Betty Ong was on American Airlines flight 11.

Here's a copy of the recorded section of the call.

At first, the person she's talking to thinks she's a passenger.

[quote] aircraft was in a banking left turn in its final moments, as it appeared the plane might have otherwise missed the building or merely scraped it with a wing. Therefore, those on the left side would have had a clear view of the towers approaching, with one burning.[27]

From.. wiki,.passenger on flight 175 Lee hanson was on the phonr with his dad as plane was crashing . His.last words too.were ".oh my.God,.oh.my.God"

It is clear passengers on flight 175 noticed an airplane had crashed into one of the towers and theirs were headed for the same fate.

[quote][R6], from all the evidence it semes like only a handful of people jumped. Not more than 30. Those who jumped seemd like they were all forced too. There is a photo of 2 people literally on fire jumping. It was either jump or burn alive. Majority of people believed they would be rescued that day. They had no idea the building would collapse

The evidence shows that hundreds of people jumped. There are individual videos out there where you can see people streaming out of the building. What kind of nonsense are you talking?

[quote]P.S. Your effort to compare what happened at the WTC to "extreme bungee jumping" is just stupid.

R278, it's understandable to want to try to mitigate the horror of the situation by believing that some of the people who fell to their deaths had diminished awareness, but we simply don't know. The point is that if the majority of bungee jumpers, base jumpers, and skydivers routinely lost consciousness during jumps the liability involved in these activities as recreation would make them completely untenable, as would the entire concept of paratroopers in the military. We have no way of knowing how many of the people who fell to their deaths on 9/11 were unconscious during the fall whether from smoke inhalation or some other cause. Given that recreational skydivers and military personnel who jump from great heights can and do remain conscious throughout it's certainly possible that some of the people who fell were aware until the last moment, as horrible as it is to contemplate.

Those people were conscious all the way down. Who is this idiot trying to push this nonsense that these people jumped off the tallest buildings in the hemisphere and then just went to sleep on the way down? Give me a fucking break.

The Stratosphere Hotel in Los Vegas allows customers to pay $200 to jump off the top of that building. I am pretty sure no one loses consciousness on the way down. Enough with the nonsense, people.

[quote] I sometimes wonder how long it took people in the buildings to reach the point mentally where the decision to jump seemed the best option

We’ve explained this. My neighbor was a fire marshal who worked at Ground Zero. Fires need oxygen to burn. You know how they tell you “close the doors when you leave an apartment during a fire”? That’s to keep oxygen behind a closed door. Leave a door open and the fire will roar right into that room in order to consume oxygen.

On 9/11 the fires were caused by jet fuel. You can see the smoke going up the side of Tower One like it’s a chimney. Many windows were broken by the impact. The fire was consuming all the oxygen. That’s why you see photos of people up against the windows. They were trying to get air. They were suffocating. You’ll do anything for air when you’re suffocating. People were breaking windows to get more air (which made the flames worse). Finally, people went out the window just to breathe. By this time, their lizard brain was in charge of them and it said. “Get air.”

Before jumping, some tried to grab window drapes, tablecloths or tried to use their jackets as parachutes. It didn’t work, but i guess it gave them some hope.

It was hot as hell from the fires, the oxygen had run out, the smoke was strangling them.

Regarding Flight 11

[quote] All 92 people on board were killed,[10] including David Angell (the creator and executive producer of the television sitcom Frasier), his wife Lynn Angell, and actress Berry Berenson, the widow of Anthony Perkins.[11] Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had been scheduled to be on the flight but arrived at the airport late due to having overslept.[12] Actor Mark Wahlberg was also scheduled to be on the flight but canceled his ticket the day before as a result of changed plans.[13] Actress Leighanne Littrell, wife of Backstreet Boys singer Brian Littrell, had also previously been booked on the flight but, like Wahlberg, changed her plans at the last minute.[14]

[quote]It's understandable to want to try to mitigate the horror of the situation by believing that some of the people who fell to their deaths had diminished awareness, but we simply don't know.

Right, I don't know for sure, and YOU don't know for sure.

[quote]The point is that if the majority of bungee jumpers, base jumpers, and skydivers routinely lost consciousness during jumps the liability involved in these activities as recreation would make them completely untenable, as would the entire concept of paratroopers in the military.

Again, you are idiotically trying to draw a comparison between (1) people jumping from great heights while holding on to bungee cords attached to something or with parachutes packed to their bodies, and (2) people jumping in free fall, with no bungee cord or parachute or whatever, from about 100 stories up, with nothing to impede or slow their fall as they get closer and closer to the ground. If you can't understand why people in group #2 would be far more likely to pass out before they hit the ground than people in group #1, then I'm sure it's beyond my powers to explain it to you.

[quote]Those people were conscious all the way down. Who is this idiot trying to push this nonsense that these people jumped off the tallest buildings in the hemisphere and then just went to sleep on the way down?

Losing consciousness during a free-fall from near the top of a 100-story building is NOT the same as "falling asleep." For you to insist otherwise marks you as either a blasted idiot or a hateful troll.

Jane Leeves discussing the loss of David Angell and his wife Lynn:

Interview with a miraculous survivor.

Note George W. Bush's expression at the 00:35 mark. It's not the response of someone just told about a plane hitting a building. He is not surprised. He stares, chews the inside of his cheek, nods slightly... then looks guilty. In trouble. The deed is done, but was it necessary? Was I a pawn? Am I still a loser, daddy?

R295, YOU STUPID FUCKING IDIOT, please explain the exact mechanism that would cause a person to lose consciousness entirely sometime during the span of a TEN SEC0ND FALL from the 90th floor to the ground.

What would cause them to pass out exactly?

A guy I went to school with was killed in the North Tower. He was 23. The nicest, kindest guy you could ever know. I still think about him all the time. His family is still devastated, his father died a few years after 9/11 and it really was from grief, he just kind of willed himself to death.

This picture was a photoshop but a good number of WTC workers near the windows had to have seen the planes headed towards them

r298 and that dumb fuck somehow seems to believe that the forces acting on someone during a ten second freefall that would allegedly render them unconscious don't also act on skydivers, parachutists, etc.

I am not an expert, but objects free falling within Earth's gravity accelerate at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second, so after a 8 seconds, an object would be falling at a rate of approximately 78.4 meters per second (variables such as wind resistance, amount of launch force, etc, would make that speed variable for each person.)

Rapid acceleration can cause a loss of consciousness, with the loss of consciousness occurring faster, the higher the rate of acceleration, however I don't think it is likely that falling toward the Earth under the force of gravity would cause this. Objects free falling feel a g-force of zero (weightlessness), whereas unconsciousness is generally caused by an external source of acceleration, creating acceleration multiple times higher than 1g.

R300 Stanley Praimnath is a famous survivor who says he saw the plane as it approached WTC2.

R300 can you imagine the horror of that? I read of a guy who was in his office when the plane hit , the wing of the aircraft almost clipped him, and he made it out alive. Sadly his coworkers went up for refuge while he decided to go down over jet fuel and debris

Also sad to think of those on the aircraft who witnessed the plane heading toward the building This exceprt from a passenger on Flight 175 who called his dad right before the crash

[quote] Peter Hanson made a second phone call to his father at 09:00:It's getting bad, Dad. A stewardess was stabbed. They seem to have knives and Mace. They said they have a bomb. It's getting very bad on the plane. Passengers are throwing up and getting sick. The plane is making jerky movements. I don't think the pilot is flying the plane. I think we are going down. I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building. Don't worry, Dad. If it happens, it'll be very fast ... Oh, my God ... oh, my God, oh, my God.[27]

Another one from flight attendant Amy Sweeny who called her manager from the aircraft

[quote] At 8:46 a.m., Sweeney was on the phone with Woodward when the plane crashed into the North Tower: "I see water. I see buildings. I see buildings! We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low. Oh my God we are flying way too low. Oh my God!"[8][9] She was survived by her husband and their two children.[1]

[quote] Again, you are idiotically trying to draw a comparison between (1) people jumping from great heights while holding on to bungee cords attached to something or with parachutes packed to their bodies, and (2) people jumping in free fall, with no bungee cord or parachute or whatever, from about 100 stories up, with nothing to impede or slow their fall as they get closer and closer to the ground. If

You tard. Do you think the elevators at WTC were pressurized so the occupants wouldn’t t lose consciousness when going down? Do you think the 110th floor was pressurized to keep workers from blacking out? Do you think people running down the stairs were blacking out when trying to escape the building?

In order for you to pass out you would need depressurization at a high altitude. WTC was only 1,368 ft tall. Passenger jets fly at 30,000 ft.

No. You wouldn’t pass out.

But I know you’re the Plane Crash Death Troll who has an obsession with people falling in and out of consciousness in a passenger plane, so that’s it for you. I won’t indulge your tardate fantasies any further.

Most of these videos are long gone now and removed from social media, but for a time, there were lots of videos on YouTube showing people falling from the towers. The ones that really struck me were the people seen jumping from the burning buildings holding hands, as if they had made a pact to end their lives together.

Someone I went to college with but didn't know personally--he was kind of a BMOC, a handsome senior good-guy type whose name everyone knew when I was a freshman--was working at Cantor Fitzgerald that day. His wife was Broadway star LaChanze, though I don't know if she was well known at the time. I didn't find out about his death in 9/11 until some years later (as I said, I didn't know him personally), but I think of him every year and look up to see how his wife and daughter, who was a baby at that time, are doing. It's not "my 9/11 story" because it has nothing to do with me and I don't really have one, but I bring it up because it's a way of contemplating life and death, lost youth and promise, and honoring the memory of a contemporary lost in all that horror. Some of his effects were recovered, including a watch.

Reading the more detailed plan above at R270 that was rejected reassures me that I wasn't being such a Mary when my coworker and I decided to stay home that day when we realized it was a terrorist attack and not an accident. We worked in a landmark building near the John Hancock in Chicago. She's the one who called in the morning to tell me what was happening and said she wasn't going in. I thought she was being overdramatic, but remember that no had any idea what the full plan and whether other cities were targeted, especially after the Pentagon was hit.

[quote]Do you think the elevators at WTC were pressurized so the occupants wouldn’t t lose consciousness when going down? Do you think the 110th floor was pressurized to keep workers from blacking out? Do you think people running down the stairs were blacking out when trying to escape the building?

You are beyond stupid, to the point of sheer idiocy, if you equate ANY of those things with what someone's mind and body go through when they jump from a 90th-floor window with no parachute, and not even into water but knowing they will land on a hard surface.

[quote]In order for you to pass out you would need depressurization at a high altitude. WTC was only 1,368 ft tall. Passenger jets fly at 30,000 ft.

Again, sheer idiocy.

My last word on the subject: I am NOT saying beyond a doubt that anyone who jumped out of a 90-story window without a parachute would absolutely lose consciousness before hitting the ground, but I think the mental/emotional trauma of such an act PLUS the physical trauma of moving that fast, etc. would certainly be enough to cause many people to lose consciousness during the fall.

You are truly the dumbest of trolls. In fact, you must be Davida because nobody else is entirely as stupid a you are.

I imagine the ungodly pain of burning and smothering in the smoke and fire gave them no choice but to jump. At least they could take one one last breathe of air and escape the unbearably painful fire. Some were accidentally pushed out by the people behind them, struggling to get air to breathe. It was also impossible to see in the smoke and fire so some people accidentally stepped out too far and fell. The images of the ones who jumped haunted me, still do. What a horrible choice, burn alive or jump to your death. I often wonder how long it took for them to fall. I hope it was too fast to feel much fear. What a heartbreaking, ghastly day.

R313 "What a horrible choice, burn alive or jump to your death."

The seamstresses of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory has to make the same decision 90 years earlier. 146 died that day.

R314- From the linked article:

"Because the doors to the stairwells and exits were locked[1][8] – a common practice at the time to prevent workers from taking unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft[9] – many of the workers could not escape from the burning building and jumped from the high windows. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU), which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers. "

JC, how horrible!

Former law enforcement here. I worked on a traffic fatality case involving a car and a pedestrian (pedestrian died). The crash took place at night, in an area (road) that's not frequented by pedestrians. (No crosswalks, no businesses, no houses.) Pedestrian was wearing dark clothing.

Pedestrian's family members wanted the car driver to be charged with vehicular homicide, but I just couldn't justify that charge. They accepted that but emphasized to me that their son *did not commit suicide.*

I hadn't really been thinking about suicide, I was more focused on whether a vehicular homicide case could be proven at trial.

Later, I talked w/one of the cops who had investigated the scene and he said: It was a suicide.

[quote] Pedestrian's family members wanted the car driver to be charged with vehicular homicide, but I just couldn't justify that charge. They accepted that but emphasized to me that their son *did not commit suicide.*

What ghastly family members. Effectively knowing the dead was a suicide, yet pushing a felony charge on the driver.

Imagine surviving the collapse, being under the rubble for hours and days, with nobody coming to rescue you. I'm certain there were people still alive buried under the rubble but rescue didn't come on time

R310, how is it possible for you to be such a strident idiot. You've completely manufactured an entire physiological response IN YOUR GODDAMN HEAD. Your theory bears no relationship to reality and you should really shut the fuck up and stop defending it.

R318- There had to have people trapped, unfortunately. I often wonder how long they lived and suffered. What a nightmarish way to die. One of my worst fears is to be trapped, enclosed. I remember how long everything burned. It seemed as if it would never end. Now that fat orange piece of shit sold everything to the people who did this to us.

R310- I believe it has been proven that one doesn't lose consciousness in such a fall. I remember researching this because I had hoped it would be so, but that height isn't high enough to cause LOC.

[quote] What ghastly family members. Effectively knowing the dead was a suicide, yet pushing a felony charge on the driver.

One thing that complicated the situation was that the driver was just at or above .08 blood alcohol content (BAC). However, the driver was going the speed limit and was squarely within his lane. I can't remember whether the driver submitted to field sobriety tests.

Like I said, it was nighttime (dark) and there were no crosswalks, houses or businesses in the area.

Even if sober, I don't think that any driver could have avoided the pedestrian in that situation.

Especially if they were stock brokers, those drama queens.

Can we move off of whether jumpers passed out or had heart attacks on the way down. Fuck. Of course it's possible someone could be in such panic and shock that they passed out or had a heart attack. And of course, unfortunately, many people didn't and were aware of the fall until right before they hit.

[quote]You've completely manufactured an entire physiological response IN YOUR GODDAMN HEAD.

Right, because it's so ridiculous to think that the trauma alone might cause someone to lose consciousness during a fall from a 90-story window.

[quote]Of course it's possible someone could be in such panic and shock that they passed out or had a heart attack. And of course, unfortunately, many people didn't and were aware of the fall until right before they hit.

Exactly. Seeing how some people faint at relatively minor things, such as the sight of blood, I rather suspect that a fairly large percentage of people might lose consciousness during a fall from a 90-story window. But no, not everyone -- and I NEVER insisted that EVERYONE would.

And I thought stockbrokers were bad....

R325- I'm sorry, I didn't consider passing out from fear, which of course is possible. I only reserved the height one had to fall from in order for LOC to occur. I hope they passed out, but sadly that isn't probably so. It took ten seconds for them to fall.

TIL for those who jumped from the WTC on 9/11/2001, the fall lasted 10 seconds. They struck the ground at just under 150 MPH -- not fast enough to lose consciousness while falling, but fast enough to ensure instant death on impact. The deaths of those who jumped were ruled homicide, not suicide.

The physiological response to fear is flight or fight. Not flight, flight or pass out.

[quote] But no, not everyone -- and I NEVER insisted that EVERYONE would.

Literally not one person passed out. Shut the fuck up.

[quote]Literally not one person passed out.

Needless to say, you have no way of knowing that. But I have an idea: We can have medical professionals wire you with sensors to monitor your vital signs, and then you can go jump out a 90-story window. After you die instantaneously upon impact with the ground, we can check the data recorded by the sensors to see whether or not you remained conscious throughout the fall. If not, I'll accept that as proof that NO ONE would EVER lose consciousness during such a fall -- even though, of course, it proves no such thing.

Deal?

Sure, idiot.

R330 you believe that you are absolutely right. People laugh at you behind your back, as we are here.

Two things can be true at the same time.

[quote]You believe that you are absolutely right.

Yes, I believe I'm absolutely right that it's perfectly rational and medically sound to believe that when people tragically have to jump from a 90-story window, at least some of them are going to lose consciousness during the fall, before they hit the ground.

[quote]People laugh at you behind your back, as we are here.

If you are not the same person whom I advised to jump from a 90-story building to prove your theory that no one would lose consciousness during such a fall, then I suggest you join that person.

[quote]Two things can be true at the same time.

I have no idea what you mean by that, but here are two things that are absolutely true in this case: (1) you are a fool, and (2) you are a cunt.

r318 unfortunately there were people trapped, buried that did not get rescued before they died. The response after 9/11 was immense. Thousands of people sprung into action to cover firehouses, transport people, establish communication channels, assist in clean up.

No R33 - you are either an idiot or a troll. I have not responded to your asinine "passing out" theory until now, but have read the whole thread and you are truly either unhinged or so fragile that you can't face the horrible truth that most of those 200 jumpers were indeed jumpers; they CHOSE to jump rather than burn to death, and there is no rational basis to believe that most, if any, of them lost consciousness during the 10 seconds that fall took.

The fact that you simply must respond to every common sense rebuttal of your assertion moves you decidedly into the troll category.

^^^ R333 - goddamn typo.

R333 do you call everybody who disagrees with you a cunt? Why is that?

[quote]Most of those 200 jumpers were indeed jumpers; they CHOSE to jump rather than burn to death, and there is no rational basis to believe that most, if any, of them lost consciousness during the 10 seconds that fall took.

First of all, there's a strong argument to be made that choosing to jump out of a 90-story window rather than burn to death is purely instinctual, rather than a "choice." I can't imagine anyone's instincts would allow them to stand there and be engulfed by flames, even though the alternative is horrible and certain death in its own way. But whether or not it's accurate to call it a choice, what the fuck does any of this have to do with whether or not some of those people lost consciousness during the fall? Is your idiot brain telling you that because they made the "choice" to jump, for some reason that would keep them from passing out on the way down?

And P.S., I didn't STATE that "most" or all of them lost consciousness during the fall, I wrote that it's perfectly rational to believe that SOME of them did so. Whereas you and your ilk are revealing your arrogant stupidity by repeatedly stating that "there is no rational basis to believe that most, IF ANY, of them lost consciousness."

Touch grass, dude

You're in red tag territory, R333/R338 et al. Calling people idiots or cunts and wishing death upon them because they disagree with you is troll behavior.

[Quote]A guy I went to school with was killed in the North Tower. He was 23.

R299 Is your classmate's name Gary, by any chance? My neighbor on the next block from me was a 23 yo who died in the north tower. I still think about him every year on the date and often when I walk past where the family used to live. New house, old one torn down. He was so young compared to the avg age of the victims working there. There were big blue ribbons tied around all of the trees on the block for years. They were never cut down, just allowed to dissolve by mother nature's hand.

I watched a video of one woman who escaped one of the towers describing her escape. . She said while walking down the stairs she came across people badly injured. She described one woman with blood pouring out of both eyes, all her toes blown off on one foot, shards of glass in her hair and on her chest. She was letting out a death curling scream

Another woman told the story of a security guard at one of the desks whom she had just went passed earlier. When she arrived at the lobby during her escape, that security guard was laying on the floor and his torso was severed from the other half of his body.

When the elevator opened some people were incinerated from jet fuel fire balls which had escaped

Good God, r342, r343, r344. "Pink mister" guy - creative writing is *really* not your forte, is it?

You know what would be a great idea....locate the NYC command and control center is the safest place in the city. Some place where no one would dream of targeting. Right at the base of the World Trade Center

- Rudy Giuliani

Getting back to the Falling Man would it be in poor taste to ask what was playing on his ipod?

I don't know about poor taste, but it would certainly be a lame joke that isn't worth posting, R347.

R251- I don't know what site you found THAT on, but I can assure you that no passenger on any of those planes was alive (even briefly) after any of those planes crashed- Those folks were utterly disintegrated. Where on earth did you read this??? Each one of those planes crashed at 350 miles per hour or more. Utterly impossible.

R359, do.you have the link for the video of the man being blown out of the window?

R345, why are you stalking me weirdo?

Disregard r251, r349.. He's the troll I referred to in r345.

I'm not stalking you, you crazy person, r351. I'm merely noting your ghoulish posts.

R351 has posted over 50 outlandish and gruesome posts here.

Sure stalker at r353...get a life stop stalking me!!!!!

[quote][R345], why are you stalking me weirdo?

All I'm doing is reading what you've written here, r351.

Isn't that why you wrote it? To be read and commented upon? Didn't you want the attention?

This is a very interesting documentary about a former FBI agent who was trying to warn the powers that be about bin laden and alqieda. He eventually left the agency, was head of security for one of the financial companies on the top floors. When the first plane hit, he knew exactly what was going on and by whom.

Gleaned from conspiracy sites:

1) The Pentagon strike is an anomaly to me. Having seen the aftermath of two crashes, the lack of any baggage, seats, debris, etc., leads me to believe that something other than an airliner struck that building. If the force of impact was such that the structure of the aircraft was "vaporized", the mass of a B-757 moving at such a speed would have obliterated the building. One needs only to review the video of the DC-10 that crashed at Sioux City to arrive at the same conclusion. Of particular interest is the absence of the engines. Aircraft engines are subjected to tests during certification prior to installation on airliners that would have exceeded the forces brought to bear on them had they struck the building. They are designed to shear off of the wings at impact, and the containment vessel -which protects the aircraft from explosions within the turbine section - would, without a doubt, have survived the crash and would have been clearly evident outside of the building.

^^ R350, You may be referring to something I mentioned way earlier in the thread. I actually looked for that video and could not find it.

The video is shot very close to the building, and it is some utterly annoying guy talking to the videographer while he shoots. "HEY! DID YOU SEE THAT!" "DID YOU SEE THAT?"..

It is very quiet where they are and such an interesting vantage point. You hear that creepy Billy Joel song playing the entire time.

I will look again..

2) About the planes. Why was there no wreckage from the planes. Why wernt they reported straight away to be deregistered, as should happen within 24 hours of a plane crash, why did only do it a few years ago. Why has the tail number from one of the planes been spotted flying some years after? Why does the FDR/NTSB data not add up, if the official story is true, then it would have been impossible to have knocked down the light poles in the street, equally as impossible as flying a 757 into the Pentagon at ground level, and not leaving a mark on the lawn outside. (I noticed even the 'pilot' couldnt deny that one). Why was it not shot down before it hit the Pentagon anyway, there was plenty of notice.? Why was there a small white plane seen circling over head when flight 77 hit, when all planes had been grounded? How does a plane made of light aluminium go through steel like that and leave a gaping hole. The plane should have been shredded on impact and blown up outside the building. More random questions, not all relating to aircraft. How did the towers come down, the fires didn't burn for long enough to weaken the steel.

3) And now to the subject at hand for this e-mail. Since 2004 I've been assigned to do some investigative work by "the boys in the basement" on the possibility of a coverup by U.$. Federal authorities in regard to 9/11. My very specific assignmnt has been to compare official crash site photos of Flight 93, the plane that alleged-lie and convenient-lie crashed at a remote area (a reclaimed strip mine) in Shanksville, PA., with photos of other crash sites around the world.

We are now 98% sure that a plane did NOT crash at the Shanksville site. A good case in point is the very recent crash of a plane in Nigeria. Photos of that crash show a tail and various wing parts... and also a landing gear and the remains of an engine.

The crash site for Flight 93... shows nothing, absolutely nothing but an odd hole in the ground that is too small for such a large plane. There are vitually no recognizable parts of a plane at Shanksville. No seats... no titanium landing gears... no tails or wing parts... no engines, etc. Officiall-dumb says that the plane evaporated upon impact. Little or nothing could be retrieved. ****""**** The grass was not even touched, still green. The hole was too small. I first heard that a truck bomb had gone off, then that info was updated to an airliner hitting the Pentagon. Do you realize the training it would take to master such a feat as to turn a huge jetliner around from that angle, hitting the only area of the building that was being remodeled?

Later that day building seven fell in a free fall and it wasn’t even hit. Mayor Giuliani had just spent $13 million to refurbish an entire floor for a command center. Destroyed in that building were FBI, CIA, Wall Street info, etc…

The U.S. Air force was told to stand down while all these planes are flying around known to be hijacked. Why? The day before 9/ll there was advanced trading on Wall Street regarding stocks from both airlines involved. Someone made a lot of money. With in hours of the attacks George Bush has the list of known terrorist and none of their names were on the passenger lists. How did he know so quickly?

Okay, I found the video- This thread has already become so toxic that I regret even posting this video.

These folks were human beings and I think these things need to be seen.

Weirdly enough, the song playing was a BeeGees tune- How Deep Is Your Love. Not Billy Joel like I remembered-

This video in some ways is one of the best out their due to the vantage point and the sounds you can hear. Its eerily quiet.

And I want to strangle that guy who will not shut the fuck up and sounds like he is enjoying the carnage. (You will hear this fucker)

Anyway- The entire video is compelling-

5:33- Has the victim being blown out of window- Far left of screen. I think the banging in the video are explosions as well as people trying to break the windows. I believe that victim broke the window and was immediately blown out- frankly, very similar to The Towering Inferno with Robert Wagner's mistress.

6:29-7:00 You can see the man who tried to "climb" down- This guy really tried and actually did it for a minute or so- and lost his grasp and fell. (His fall is pretty graceful too- and you do not see him hit. It looks like he actually fell on another building--

[quote]I've been assigned to do some investigative work by "the boys in the basement"

You kids stop that! Stop it RIGHT NOW!

DON'T MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!

Oh, yippee, a truther has found the thread.

R360, if Flight 93 didn’t crash in Pennsylvania then what happened to it? Are the 9/11 conspiracy sites saying that the plane never crashed at all?

Truther, birther, election denier. Crazies all.

I don't want to sound like a snob but I've noticed more than once that those flirting with conspiracy theories all seem to be very bad at writing.

[quote] I don't want to sound like a snob but I've noticed more than once that those flirting with conspiracy theories all seem to be very bad at writing.

Interesting, since such folks sure have an outsized view of their intelligence.

Possibly the silliest piece of "evidence" I have ever seen 9/11 truthers offer:

TY r361

Watching video at r361 , it's so odd watching folks go about their day, briefcase in hand, albeit hurriedly, after the first plan hit the WTC

R370- I was just thinking about this- Doesn't the video look like it was shot earlier in the nightmare, rather than later? I cannot tell- The last half strikes me as before the 2nd plane hit? I cannot even tell which tower this is... Its probably the best video out there of that day. Its just so close, and almost calm.. I don't know..

For the first time in US history since post WWII the country's NORAD was on stand-down order for that week of 9/10/2001 supposedly for some planned Air Force testing and maneuvers. This was done in coordination with VP Cheney and the military. That is the primary reason no military planes were able to intercept the hijack planes. It wasn't until Bush finally was in the decision making fold when he ordered that the hijack United Flight 93 be intercepted and shot down if necessary did any military plane, overriding the NORAD stand down orders. I don't believe Bush had direct knowledge of the planned hijackers, but Cheney did.

Does the " LOL Sueprman" video exist?

[quote]Watching video at [R361] , it's so odd watching folks go about their day, briefcase in hand, albeit hurriedly, after the first plan hit the WTC

[quote]I was just thinking about this- Doesn't the video look like it was shot earlier in the nightmare, rather than later? I cannot tell- The last half strikes me as before the 2nd plane hit?

What are you people talking about? I see NOTHING like "people going about their day" in that video, and at least at some point during it, you can clearly see BOTH towers have been hit.

[quote]Weirdly enough, the song playing was a BeeGees tune- How Deep Is Your Love. Not Billy Joel like I remembered-

At one point in the video, around the three minute mark, the song that's playing is an instrumental version of Billy Joel's "She's Always a Woman."

There was no reference point in 2001. People didn't know how to act.

Imagine if it happened today with what we know now, cell phones, etc. The staircases would have been jammed with people panicking to get out. But they just filed down like obedient schoolchildren, and that's how 1,000s survived.

[quote]For the first time in US history since post WWII the country's NORAD was on stand-down order for that week of 9/10/2001 supposedly for some planned Air Force testing and maneuvers. This was done in coordination with VP Cheney and the military. That is the primary reason no military planes were able to intercept the hijack planes.

This is not true.

And even if it was true, NORAD's responsibilities at the time were to identify and detect inbound threats to U.S. airspace. Their operational scope did not cover threats originating from within U.S. airspace.

Stop spreading nonsense and get yourself educated on the facts.

And by not true, I should clarify that yes, there was testing going on that week, and that did create some initial confusion, but there was no "stand down" order for the week of 9/11. That's not how these things work, except in the fevered imagination of conspiratorialists.

NORAD responsibilities includes air space threats of domestic origin.

Today they do.

On 9/11, they did not.

I've never even seen my husband's norads!

Everybody else on DL has, r380.

People stuck at an airport lounge on 9/11.

After the first hit, people did walk out of their office buildings like it was 5 pm. There were rumors that people in midtown were having lunch and sitting outside. I doubt that's true. Was anyone here in midtown that day> Can you confirm or deny this?

What? I personally wasn't in Manhattan, but yes, I knew people who were and were outside. Why wouldn't they be?

Having lunch? That early in the morning?

R385, not at the time the towers fell, afterwards. R384, I thought people would have wanted to be home, that's all.

Please get up we love you...

[quote] There were rumors that people in midtown were having lunch and sitting outside.

Hardly, both towers fell by 10:30 am

Video at r361, it's eerie how the lobby is so quiet , like everyine has gone home. ... while thousands were stuck on floors, stairwells and elevators struggling to make it to safety

This sounds you hear like a stapling machine sound, is this the sound of bodies upon impact with the ground below?

[quote]The French guy that went into the lobby with the fireman said there were people on fire but he decided not to film them. They presumably got on fire from the fuel and flames that came down the elevator shaft.

Lauren Manning was one of the people horribly burned by the fireball that came out of the elevator shafts in the north tower. She miraculously survived after being burned from head to toe, crossing 6 lanes of traffic, and narrowly avoiding the south tower collapse. She was also in the building during the 1993 attacks. Its like she was meant to be a survivor.

After seeing her at the DNC in 2016 I hoped she would run for office one day.

Sometimes I think, and hate myself for it immediately, is that this is just two buildings. Imagine how the people feel when we start bombing their countries. Over and over again. Destroying entire cities. Imagine how those people feel. I'm not saying two wrongs make a right. Just think of what those people thought.

If it matters, R392, there was also the Pentagon. An either the Capitol or the White House was also on the target list.

^ And either

Ugh. I’ve blocked this thread three times I think and it keeps reappearing in the feed.

I don’t have any objection to people discussing it, but I really can’t stand the photo. It makes me so sick to my stomach the way gross-out shock pics or pics of badly abused people or animals makes me feel.

I don’t want to read the thread or the article linked to find out why people may want it banned, but I’d be perfectly happy to never see it again. It’s a whole story in one photo and a very upsetting story at that.

Do. Not. Want. To. See.

I always hoped architects would figure out a way to evacuate people out safely. Revamp designs.

Put slides in the stairwells. Put heavy sprinklers and drainage systems. Have some kind of jelly like ooze in the ceilings to nullify the heat. Fire proofing

Are there any videos of inside the building the day of the attack?

Is there a video of the photo in OP's post?

R397 Yes, there are some on youtube and for several CNN aired a documentary that featured footage from a documentary film crew that had been following a FDNY unit prior to the attacks.

R270 damn. Imagine even Bin Laden saying hey now, that's too much.

Always take the fire stairs.

And you know what else: always trust your gut. I'll bet - and I mean no unkindness and criticism - but I'll bet there are scores of people who wound up dead who had the thought: I'm gonna get out of here but for one reason or another stayed put or waited too long.

The external load bearing structural design of the WTC was an integral reason why they collapsed. If it were built like other skyscrapers like the Empire State or the Chrysler building, the towers would not have collapsed. Also, the fire resistant stairways are only a mitigating factor in the event of a catastrophic fire. Any building above 30-40 floors drastically limits the ability of firefighters to effectively deal with a major fire.

I've actually read recently NY is slowly sinking from the weight of all those buildings. Long ago it used to be a lovely place with hills, creeks and trees. I love NY but I just wish they'd stop building all the skyscrapers.

Video at r401 imagine the horror of these people coming out of stairwell to mayhem

R397 - please look at the French documentary. You can see how all the firemen in the lobby are frustrated with their communication devices.

"This is a test..."

After suffering through those irritating commercials for decades, the Emergency Broadcast Sysyem wasn't even activated.

From Wikipedia:

"The system is primarily designed to allow the President of the United States to address the country via all radio and television stations in the event of a national emergency. Despite this, neither the system nor its predecessors have been used in this manner. The ubiquity of news coverage in these situations, such as during the September 11 attacks, has been credited to making usage of the system unnecessary or redundant. In practice, it is used at a regional scale to distribute information regarding imminent threats to public safety, such as severe weather situations (including flash floods and tornadoes), AMBER Alerts, and other civil emergencies."

First hand account in the building that day. This guy made it, was on the 105th floor. Amazing story.

[quote] Any building above 30-40 floors drastically limits the ability of firefighters to effectively deal with a major fire.

Nobody listened to Steve McQueen

Fire resistance only lasts about a 1/2 hour.

The documentary from the French brothers is interesting. They just happened to be recording a firefighter documentary and caught the first one hitting the building.

If they hadn't been there, there would be a lack of a lot of footage.

[quote]While I don't think 9/11 was a conspiracy, I do think negligence was involved. During the entire month of August, Bush was sitting in his stupid ranch in Texas and he repeatedly had security briefings that a major terrorist attack was imminent yet did nothing about it. It was gross dereliction of duty.

Also the CIA and FBI ramped up their resources and coordination for potential Y2K attacks in 1999 but scaled them back in 2001. It was all just horrible timing.

R409 He's the same guy in the video at R401.

R361's video shows abandoned fruit and veg stalls in the WTC plaza after the planes hit. That answers the question posed by an earlier poster re the "Farmers Market" set up at the foot of the towers on Tuesdays. It looks like everyone had fled to safety.

^ Won't somebody think of the vegans!

R414 yeah. Should have watched.

[quote] NORAD responsibilities includes air space threats of domestic origin.

NORAD's focus was the DEW line in northern Canada and radar towers on oil-type platforms out at sea. Thier mission was to detect Russian missiles or bombers flying in from Siberia. Not from Boston.

Additionally there had been a number of fighter squadrons scattered around the coasts but mostly these had been deactivated by Bill Clinton as his "peace dividend". The and anti-aircraft missile bases had been shut down years before that as the bomber threat gave way to the ICBMs.

My uncle flew to Boston that morning from Buenos Aires, landing first at JFK perhaps 20 minutes before the North Tower hit. He could see both towers from the runway, peaceful on a clear sunny morning. His connection to Boston was one of the last flights to leave JFK, before the grounding of all flights.

My aunt rushed to pick him up at Logan after hearing about the crashes. They'd just pulled away from the curb when in her rearview mirror she saw a dozen state troopers running full speed into the terminal - this is when they realized two flights originated from there.

This same aunt & uncle were also at Logan awaiting pick up the night the Ted Williams tunnel collapsed. Their son was coming to get them, and reached the tunnel maybe a minute after it was closed off. Same couple were at SeaTac the day of the suicidal runaway airplane in 2018, and were also in Barcelona perhaps a mile away from the terrorist attack in 2017. We call them the 'Disaster Escapists'.

I'd call them jinxes.

[quote] We call them the 'Disaster Escapists'.

Logic dictates anybody around that much mayhem must somehow be connected with causing it.

The R401 and R409 man has a great story to tell but he is not the one to tell it. I'm sorry but he is dull so little wonder the producers jazzed up his speech with woo-woo music and cutaways and screen graphics. Some people are natural orators. He is not. No wonder he works in insurance.

R419 Oh honey, your Aunt and Uncle are terrorists.

[quote]this is when they realized two flights originated from there

They knew the flights were from Boston as soon as they knew which flights had hit the towers. Your whole anecdote makes no sense whatsoever from a timeline perspective.

Disregard my post at R424. I misread the post at R419.

I am sorry, R419.

R422 I'm more impressed by the guy who was taking a call, saw the plane coming into the building, said "Lord I can't do this," dove under the desk, and managed to survive as the plane tore up his floor, ended up covered in dust, crawling through a wall and made it downstairs with a Canadian, turned around 2 blocks away and saw it collapse.

I knew I shouldn't have entered 😭 this thread 😔 it's so depressing 😭 imagining what went through this poor man's mind- thinking it would be an ordinary day at work and realizing it would be your last day on this earth. No time to make any decisions about family,no time for goodbyes-just having an utter belief that those you love 💕 and who loved you would be fine and had to go on without you...it breaks 😭💔 my heart.

This pandemic has been my personal 9/11. I lost not one -but TWO of my younger siblings in the span of 48 hours to COVID. This is the first I'm confessing this on any public platform. Because, really,what can anyone do about it ? Losing 1/4 of your immediate family literally overnight is very sobering and still hurts deeply,nearly four years on. Just like the families of 9/11 must be going through, everything is a reminder of the permanent loss and empty space your loved one left .

Please don't take the days for granted 🙏 there's not as much time as we think . Enjoy the good times and your health while you can because it's over far too soon .

Would the fire department or any other agency or official have an idea that the towers are going to collapse at a certain point and simply call off all efforts to go in? Was there a way to know that the towers would likely collapse without knowing exactly what happened and examining the crash zones?

[quote] Was there a way to know that the towers would likely collapse

The WTC's design was unique for its time with its supporting skeleton on the outside. I assume their estimates of the building's viability were based on traditional skyscrapers with strong central cores. An Army bomber once crashed into the Empire State Building and it easily shrugged off the damage to a couple of floors.

No, #428- because steel buildings that are built to resist earthquakes, hurricanes and plane crashes don't fall down from carpet and paper fires.

Yeah, R430. You're right. Those planes flying from Boston to San Francisco were powered by burning carpet and paper. Idiot.

#431, in each instance you see a giant fireball of jet fuelexplode but dissipate fairly quickly after the crash- leaving wood, cloth and paper to smolder. Observers were distracted by all the smoke.

The trade center collapsed because the steel frame supporting the upper floors was gravely weakened by the collision impact, and because the foam insulation that protected the steel infrastructure from high temperature fires was blown away by the sheer force of the impact.

Fire cannot melt steel but at a certain temperature, it does weaken it so that it cannot withstand the loads it otherwise would be able to handle.

This is not rocket science.

R432, here is an image of the North Tower taken from a helicopter AFTER the South Tower had already collapsed. The North Tower was hit more than an hour prior to this photo being taken. You think that's a paper fire?

R427

Very sorry to hear about your siblings and their deaths from COVID.

R428 In the 9/11 documentary that followed and filmed the firefighters, the firefighters had no idea what the fuck was going on. They tried their best to fight the fire, walk up all those steps and save whoever they could.

The firefighters in the north tower lobby called a mayday after the south tower fell. Later at the firehouse they were talking and some had no idea it fell at all or what time it fell while they were in the North. They know buildings can deteriorate and be totally lost but most of the building wasn't on fire, so I'm assuming it wasn't on the forefront of their mind until it happened.

Nobody looked at the building, said "eh it will crash, no point" and gave up. They all tried until the south tower collapsed and a may day to escape was called.

Had the buildings managed to stay up, I believe everything above the fire would have eventually burned away. Runways are foamed up because that JP-5 jet fuel is highly combustible. It would incredibly difficult, like taking a squirt gun to a bon fire.

I think it would have become obvious while encountering the chaos above and their goal became priority probably switched to bring people down safely. It would have been too overwhelming to extinguish.

I watched this documentary last night, and at one point, shortly after tower 2 fell, one of the firefighters was certain another plane had hit it, and that was why it collapsed. He was one of the ones who came in on his day off, and was suiting up to go looking for the rest of the crew from the fire house.

People outside of New York knew more about what was going on than a lot of people on the ground, as their communication had been largely cut off, and they didn't have the big picture external view that we had outside of New York.

I can't believe I hadn't seen that documentary before. It was harrowing. At one point I kept yelling at the screen "Where is Tony, where the fuck is Tony?"

R437 Tony's ok, and he's now a lieutenant with the fire department.

What gets me is Tony went with the retired chief to go help and was there searching rubble for 6 hours after it fell, looking for his friends from the firehouse and had no idea they were all back safe at the firehouse. He comes walking back to the station glad everyone is ok, but to me comes across like a Benny Hill hijinx carnival chase of disorganization.

The disconnect in communication that day is shocking. Text messages and cell phones existed but it was new tech that not everyone has, and a lot of it was knocked out. Anyway, the reality is brute force is what our police, firefighters, medics etc are good at and it's very difficult to organize inside chaos.

That French documentary violates it's own rules about the brothers filming. When they are reunited after the towers fall they are both seen on camera hugging back in the fire station. But who is filming them?? You can just imagine them saying, Hey firefighters - we need someone to film us for this scene in our movie.

The breakdown in communications was bad but not surprising considering the magnitude of what happened. They prepared some after 1993, installing radio repeaters in the WTC complex. Many off duty officers and firefighters converged on the scene, and they had officers who left their posts across the city which left other areas like bridges and ports susceptible. There was no way they could keep all those people connected with radios and organized at that time. A lot of responders deep in the North tower never saw the South Tower collapse and had no idea the order had been given to flee

I watched so many of these yesterday I feel like it all just happened. Made me cry. I feel so bad for all those people and families.

So sorry for your losses r427. That's hard. All premature losses, public (like in 9/11) or private, are difficult.

No prob, r425. It's a crazy story.

I should add about my disaster-prone uncle, he's not always been about cursed events. He came into Logan on a flight from the DR in '98, my aunt met him in the terminal and saw a big kerfuffle of lights and cameras behind him in the luggage area.

What's going on, she asked; "don't know, someone important must have been on my plane". It was Pedro Martinez, arriving in Boston for the 1st time after his trade to the Red Sox. All the local news stations were there to interview him.

I wonder how he kept his arms at his side.

I like my heroes to survive, not get killed, R443.

I think someone mentioned it upyhread but one of the saddest thing I've read about 9-11 is that doctors and nurses were waiting in boatloads atnthe hospital entrances expecting lots of injured but nobody came. Just too heartbreaking

I read an article about a cop who was buried under the rubble . He was in the hallway trying to usher people to saftey when the tower collapsed. When he was rescued and emerged from the rubble that night . He said his first thought was - why am I seeing the moon and why are the skies so empty - while under the rubble he assumed a car bomb/ blast of some sort had caused the destruction. It never crossed his mind the towers had collapsed

Would people in the South tower have known that the North Tower had collapsed?

I think you mean it the other way around. The people in the North Tower would surely have heard and felt something. If they looked down they would have seen clouds of smoke and dust. If someone was communicating with someone outside the building they would know.

So tragic

[quote] I think you mean it the other way around. The people in the North Tower would surely have heard and felt something. If they looked down they would have seen clouds of smoke and dust. If someone was communicating with someone outside the building they would know.

R448 All true, for those above the North Tower impact zone who were still alive at 9:59 a.m. when the South Tower collapsed. By that hour, the North Tower had been burning and billowing overwhelming smoke for roughly 73 minutes. It's heart-wrenching to contemplate, but by the time the South Tower imploded I have to assume that a lot of the North Tower victims had already succumbed to smoke inhalation.

It was pandemonium. No one knew anything.

R446 - Oliver Stone used this for World Trade Center,

R450, In the French brothers' doc, Jules was in the North Tower when the South Tower collapsed. They heard the noise, and ran further in because they knew what was happening. Jules and the Chief then went and checked the foot bridges for a way out of the building, due to debris and bodies coming down from above them. Jules later ran from the collapse of the North Tower, so he experience the collapse of both towers up close.

r447 the firefighters just felt and heard the rumbling in the North tower, but didn't know exactly what it was because they were mostly in windowless stairwells. Some of them never had radio contact because of failing equipment, so they never found out. The police dept radios were working at much better, but the two agencies weren't sharing enough information with each other.

[quote]On the 51st floor, three court officers felt the violent lurch and decided to get out. 'We did not know that the south tower collapsed -- never mind that the north tower was going to go,' said Deputy Chief Joseph Baccellieri, who had rushed into the tower along with two other court officers, Sgts. Alfred Moscola and Andrew Wender. The three started down. By that time, firefighters had been climbing stairs for more than an hour. Their mission seemed unclear. After the collapse, Chief Pfeifer radioed an order to get out. That message and others reached chiefs on some floors, but not on others.

People in the South Tower were told to stay put, that their building was secure. I wonder how many died due to that ill advised message.

I worked for Nextel during 9/11, and if remember correctly the Nextel 2 way radio service was the only semi-reliable communication network that worked at ground zero and on 9/11.

Rudy’s consulting group went to work for Nextel after 9/11 and heavily public sector organizations across the country to adopt Nextel devices , and Nextel sponsored the airing of the French documentary on CBS.

*heavily lobbied

R455 Were there any lawsuits over it?

R443, His arms weren't pulled in next to his body the whole way down. That photo was a split second in time. You'd know that if your lazy-ass bothered to read the article at OP. Or even just made a quick glance through it.

"One hundred days after the suicide attacks that brought down the twin towers of the World Trade Centre and killed nearly 3,000 people, the final fires have stopped burning at Ground Zero."

100 days it burned. No wonder people jumped to their death to escape an unimaginably hit, burning hell. What a terrifying, painful way to die.

Hot^

[quote] What a terrifying, painful way to die.

I'm fine with not experiencing euphoric great fortune, e.g., winning the lottery, if the tradeoff is not experiencing unimaginable horror. Would that such a bargain could be struck.

[quote]100 days it burned

It was like a dutch oven. The flammables and soft materials baking inside covered over by the debris and the heat trapped within.

I was reading that it took 10 seconds for them to fall to their death. I looked at my watch and waited for ten seconds to pass, imagining someone falling that length of time. It was much longer than I thought it would be and I regretted doing that, tbh. But the horror was the time they had to endure trapped in burning, choking hell in the sky, knowing no one would be coming to rescue them because no one could, rescue was impossible. What an unspeakably terrifying death.

[quote]I was reading that it took 10 seconds for them to fall to their death. I looked at my watch and waited for ten seconds to pass, imagining someone falling that length of time. It was much longer than I thought it would be and I regretted doing that, tbh. But the horror was the time they had to endure trapped in burning, choking hell in the sky, knowing no one would be coming to rescue them because no one could, rescue was impossible. What an unspeakably terrifying death.

What do you gain for yourself by imagining all of that in such horrible detail, and what purpose do you serve by posting about it on social media so that others can read it? Well, I guess I got what I deserved by clicking on this thread.

R465- That day and all of the details were on the news 24/7. It was a horrifying, traumatic event in this country and it was impossible to not imagine the horror of what they endured. It's called being human.

The vast majority of them killed by fire would have died very quickly. In fire it is more often the toxins in the smoke and lack of oxygen sucked up by the fire feeding itself, rather than burns. Not a pleasant way to die either but their suffering would have been minimal in many instances and thank God for that.

It is a peculiar thing to dwell upon so many years later, r466 (I guess I'll add "in my opinion" ).

That you focus on the suffering and write about it so graphically is a little odd. People like r465 and me who choose not to imagine such things are very human.

R467- Thank you. ❤️

[quote]It is a peculiar thing to dwell upon so many years later, [R466] (I guess I'll add "in my opinion" ). That you focus on the suffering and write about it so graphically is a little odd. People like [R465] and me who choose not to imagine such things are very human.

Exactly. Thanks, R468.

I'm going to theorize the morbid curiosity is some crazy fear for safety in America. What happened to them? Will it happen to me? It's like when you hear someone has cancer... so often, the response is some kind of testing question, to essentially convince yourself it won't happen to you because you're not like them. Did they smoke used to be the go to, but hardly anyone does so you don't hear it as much anymore.

All that said, the extreme focus on suffering is a bit off.

R471- Speaking only for myself, I believe one reason is that falling from a great height, fire, being trapped, are some of our worst fears.

Thank you ,r432, r437❤️💔😍😘

Just a personal observational note regarding the fireball -- as I said far above, I was standing on 23 & 8th looking at the damage from the first plane hit when suddenly a huge fireball exploded out of the side of the other tower -- but unlike all the still photos published later, it happened in a split second - you barely had time to register what you saw before it was gone.

I'm sure my memory of what it looked like is more "reconstructed" from those pictures than what I actually saw because I can remember thinking "what the hell was that?" when I guy ran to the corner from a store that had the news on yelling "It's another plane, it's another plane!"

Was it a short guy with a Latin accent, in a white suit?

Too soon, R475, too soon.

I dont understand d the part about the fireball shooting from the elevator and incenerating people. How would that happen? Does that mean people int he elevator were already dead? Why would people be waiting for the elevator after a plan had crashed into the building.

Can anyone explain please?

I wonder what was on his iPod. People literally had iPods back then.

R477 I think a fireball came down the freight elevator shaft and burned a man waiting outside it in the elevator. An estimated 200 died in the elevators either when he initial crash severed the cables causing them to plummet, by jet fuel/heat burning people or by those who remained trapped all that time being crushed when the tower collapsed

Actually they didn’t. The iPod didn’t come out until the following month. I feel like a sorry cunt.

Oh how horrific for the people stuck in the elevators literally burnt alive with nowhere to run

Yeah I didn't remember that's how do many died til I looked it up. Horrific

I remember one's scary escape experience that he and his coworkers were going down flights of stairs and suddenly met with debris blocking their way. They decided to go into one of the offices leading off the stairs to get to the other side where they knew was another staircase. When they entered the office, they were knee deep in water from the sprinkle and a cable was hanging from the ceiling moving around like a whip with sparks coming out of the end. He kept thinking please don't fall and hit the water and fry us all. It didn't and they made it out of the building. I would have been terrified.

I watched a documentary with 3 British survivors one of them described a scene they witnessed upon arriving at the lobby of one of the towers- he said the elevator was on fire and inside were burning bodies, burnt bodies, corpses all around. Additionally the fire was raging beneath the elevator

R484- I literally just watched this on Youtube an hour ago!!!

The elevators he found were in the 44th floor skylobby. i think the towers had 2 skylobbies- 44th and 78th floors-

It sounds like the elevators either fell to that skylobby upon the crash/fuel pouring down and igniting it- or the elevators were probably loading people on and about to go up or on their way down-- The elevator shafts were the main way the fires spread to lower floors thanks to the jet fuel...

Its just a horrifying thing 22 years later-

I know it's horrific and the only way I can cope it to believe that... as soon as their souls left their bodies they went up to heaven. Their guides their life on earth and asked some if they would like to go back. Some looked down through the clouds at earth, and said nah, I think they'll fine. I'll see my loved ones in 40 years, that's nothing.

Then they walked into the golden light of dreams where their was peace, happiness and perfect love. They knew all the answers and saw new worlds, much like all the near death experiences say, Iands, Raymond Moody and all the people that died but came back and say they don't fear death anymore say and whatnot.

I like to think they're all chilling in heaven, good, and it way worse on the survivors who got to live. I like to think it's good for their soul growth or something.

Well what do you want people to dwell on years later? The chicken dinner you had on Thursday night, 20 years ago?

R487 No that will be seen on the thread titled, "Tonights dinner"... because the internet...is forever :)

I don't think so. About thirty years ago there was this website of some guy who lived near Black's Beach in California and took nude photos of himself. It was hot, if primitive. I can't find it now.

Also, Sean Patrick Live. Where did that go?

The sky was so blue...

'Lava' appears to gush forth from the corner just before the tower collapses (15:35)

You know, the video at R492 is probably the most harrowing recording I have ever seen from that day. I can't believe I have never seen this before. This is devastating. I feel like I am right on the street with these people.

who filmed it?

R492 I've never seen that before. Horrible to think in that moment so many people still trapped were gone. And how huge that smoke/debris cloud was from ground level

Ideonat r492, Can't imagine the horror for those hanging out the window or trapped inside when the building collapsed

People on the street just did not know fully what was going on and naturally wanted to gawk at this skyscraper on fire. Then they have to try to outrun the debris, dust, smoke from the collapse.

I’m not sure why, but this year’s anniversary has sent me down the rabbit hole much further than I’ve gone since the early 2000s.

I wonder why that is.

R498 maybe it's some detail that's resonated with you in a different way, it your own mindspace this year. Same happened with me 2 years ago when it just kind of hit a different way.

Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II

In Ten Breaths: Tumbling Woman II, Eric Fischl used a single figure to call attention to the human dimension of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. Fischl intended Tumbling Woman to be "a healing object" for mourners of this unprecedented loss. The vulnerability of the human body, a motif Fischl used in sculptures before 2001, takes on special significance in this tragic context

[quote] Would people in the South tower have known that the North Tower had collapsed?

I remember reading an interview with a survivor of the North Tower who said that at one point, there was a colossal crashing sound and they actually felt the North Tower itself tilt slightly to one side. At the time, however, they didn't realise what was happening.

R498, same. Im watching videos during work, after, before bedtime etc. It's even now getting on my partner's nerves.

I want to see more videos of the jumpers.

I watched a video of a helicopter rescue team . They were attempting to find a spot on top of one of the towers, where they could possibly land, unfortunately the smoke was too much. The the pilot scanned the windows trying to see if it wa spossible to rescue anyone, again the smoke was too much. There were many people hanging out the windows near the helicopter. The pilot said the look he saw on the faces of these people hanging out the window stuck with him to this day.

[quote]I’m not sure why, but this year’s anniversary has sent me down the rabbit hole much further than I’ve gone since the early 2000s.

r498 I think some people just carry the historian gene for the survival of mankind, even the cavemen drew on walls to note significant events. As time marches on, the memory of these people who horrifically and heroically had their lives ended may slowly be forgotten...we naturally recount details so that humanity doesn't forget, that would be even more tragic. I find it similar to the Titanic, but this had so much more weight because it wasn't an accident.

My interest has always been the journalistic component, not the gore. The reporters were watching unimaginable scenarios play out in real time, had to react to and chronicle huge amounts of developments for weeks. Its totally overlooked now, but before the 2000 election and 9.11, Y2K was actually the great terrorist threat everyone was concerned about back then. We thought we were good and then 9.11 caught us off guard

9-11 was the great tragedy which welcomed inthe 00's as was the Covid Pandemic in 2020

It was the real start of the millennium, in a morbid way. The previous year and nine months seem more like an extension of the 90s, with hindsight. The news cycle transformed after 9/11.

So much changed after 911. Not all right away, but overtime. There are other reasons of course, but that was big.

The Howard Stern broadcast from that day is an interesting time capsule. Starts off like any show - joking, making fun of current events and people, overall ridiculousness. Then there's confusion about the first plane. Then here's dread, panic, anger, resolve. People kept calling in and giving updates.

Not sure this is all of this

I came across an article of the names of pregannt women who perished that day . Just horrific

Honest question - would the unborn children be counted among the official deaths? I'm guessing not.

The husband of Patricia Massari said he was on the phone with her when the first plan hit near her office window. Her last words were " oh my God" imagine the pain of her husband finding out why the call was cut so abruptly

I remember a video where some guy was recording the jumpers and the guy next to him said don't film that, show some respect, what the fuck is wrong with you.

I was there and it took a few years before I read or watched anything about it. I started with the masterpiece of a book that was mentioned upthread, 102 Minutes. I remember a few days later walking out of my building. On my floor there were newspapers building up in front of two doors. I remember thinking they forgot to stop their papers while on vacation. Then it hit me. Duh. No more newspapers were going to be picked up in front of those doors.

This thread probably caused me to go down the rabbit hole. I’ve seen some footage I’ve missed before and it’s made me so sad but, damn—I’m always in awe, and so proud, of New Yorkers.

Only Liza could put a fucking smile on 9-11. Never gave a fuck about her until this.

R513 idgi

Besides 102 minutes, any good book recommendations on the events on, leading up to 9/11?

R516 they fucking died in the towers and weren't going to be collecting their newspapers anymore.

R517, this book tells the story of what America does immediately after the attacks — it is a must-read, and if there is a 9/11 canon, it must be included. Absolutely unbelievable what our people went through over there. If you want to learn more about 9/11, go read this now.

[quote]I came across an article of the names of pregannt [sic] women who perished that day . Just horrific

Oh, bullshit, r509. You just made that up. You are the pink mist, thrashing bodies, oh my god gross out freak imagining how horrific people's deaths were. You're a 9/11 troll.

It's a really disgusting little hobby you have

[quote]I want to see more videos of the jumpers.

Of course you do. You're a grief and Gore porn troll.

Oh shut up, R520.

There are clips here and there of people hanging out of windows, but I don't think anyone has ever compiled them into one horrific video.

I find it fascinating, too- like we always gawk at car accidents. Perhaps to learn something in case we're ever in the a dimilar situation? I know many couldn't get out at all (stairways obliterated). But so many seemed to just sit still and wait for a Firefighter to arrive and carry them down. Passivity angers me.