9/11 anniversary – Harrowing true story of Falling Man pictured plunging from Twin Towers whose identity still a mystery
ON the nineteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the identity of one of their most well-known victims remains a mystery.
The man was seen jumping from the North Tower after the first plane struck, and was captured mid-air in a haunting image now known as the Falling Man.
'EXPLOITATIVE, VOYEURISTIC'
The image was printed by The New York Times the following day, but was labelled by critics as "exploitative" and "voyeuristic", and it was two years before it appeared in another major publication.
In the years since, many attempts have been maid to identify the Falling Man, but none have so far proved successful.
In a number of the images Drew took, the man can be seen to have a goatee and to be wearing black trousers and a white tunic, like the clothes of a restaurant worker.
The man in the image can also be seen to be wearing an orange shirt beneath his tunic, and Hernandez's wife has denied that he ever wore orange.
'AN UNKOWN SOLDIER'
But the detail has been used to identify Jonathan Briley, a sound engineer who also worked at Windows on the World, as a possible candidate.
His brother Timothy has said he wore an orange shirt so frequently it became a joked between them.
“I hope people can look at it now and accept that it’s a part of what happened that day.
"We saw pictures of the rescuers, we saw pictures of the planes hitting the building, we saw the recovery effort.
"And now we can also try to accept that as part of what really happened that day.”