One of the most chilling images to emerge from the horror of 9/11 was the image of a man falling headlong 1,300ft to the street below against the steel-and-glass background of the World Trade Center.
While pictures of the Twin Towers billowing smoke and flames will remain the most enduring image of the terrorist attacks, this one man's dying moments somehow humanise the toll of New York's darkest day. And yet, as famous as the image is, the man's identity has remained a mystery, till 2006, when a 43-year-old employee of a restaurant called ‘Windows on the World’, was identified by American chef and television personality Michael Lomonaco as The Falling Man.
The man was possibly Jonathan Briley, a sound engineer who worked in the restaurant ‘Windows on the World’ at the top of the north tower.
Over the years, his family had always assumed he perished in the building.
On the day he died, Jonathan had kissed his wife Hillary goodbye before making the 20-mile journey from his home in Mount Vernon to Manhattan where the restaurant was located.
That morning, ‘Windows on the World’ was holding a breakfast for 16 members of the Waters Financial Technology Congress, and 71 other guests.
At 8.45am, less than an hour after Jonathan arrived for work, American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the north tower. The impact sliced through floors 93 to 99, killing hundreds, immediately creating a 1,000C inferno as the plane's fuel ignited.
The fireball was so intense that people in the building's lobby were burned as the flames shot down the lift shafts.
But it was the 1,000 people trapped on floors 100 to 107 who were unluckiest. With the lift shafts severed and staircases blocked by rubble, fire and choking smoke, there was no escape.
With the air becoming unbreath-able, desperate staff and diners began smashing windows. And it was in those final moments that Jonathan, an asthmatic, must have made his dreadful decision.
Official estimates of how many people leapt from the buildings vary from 50 to 200.
This picture of the falling man is somewhat deceptive; it gives the impression the man is falling straight down. In reality, this is just one of a dozen photographs of his fall. In the other photos, it is evident that he is tumbling through the air out of control.
9/11: The Falling Man is a 2006 documentary film about the picture and the story behind it. It was made by American filmmaker Henry Singer and filmed by Richard Numeroff, a New York-based director of photography. The film is loosely based on Junod's Esquire story. It also drew its material from photographer Lyle Owerko's pictures of falling people. It debuted on March 16, 2006, on the British television network Channel 4. It later made its North American premiere on Canada's CBC Newsworld on September 6, 2006, and has been broadcast in over 30 countries. The U.S. premiere was September 10, 2007, on the Discovery Times Channel.
