I don’t want to see them, but were there any photos or videos shown of the people jumped on 9/11/01 from 1,000 feet in the World Trade Towers hitting the ground?
It’s hard to answer this question factually, because they could exist but not have been distributed.
It seems that if they exist, they were not distributed. There are several sites (AT LEAST) that post anything and everything on the web (ogrish.com is one), and they’ve not had WTC jumpers landing. They have shown the results of others who have jumped from other buildings at other times, in pic format, and various sites show everything from castrations to live dismemberment.
Lacking the evidence that they exist, you can draw a conclusion.
One reason may be that the bodies usually fell on the roofs of the surrounding buildings (the Marriott Hotel, the U.S. Custom House, or the Commodities Exchange Building).
Oh, there certainly were pictures and videos of the people falling… and they were published/distributed, even to a limited extent here in the US.
Are you asking whether there are pictures of people after they were done falling, that is, lying in a broken, crumpled heap? Probably - but I don’t think those have been passed around much.
There were those two documentary French brothers who caught a fair amount of that day on video - including the sound of the jumpers hitting - which was later made into a TV special… they’ve mentioned they have video of things like people on fire and such they have not released, they may well have some footage of jumpers they’re keeping under wraps, too.
I have that documentary on tape.
I had read a newspaper review of the documentary that morning, before the premier, where they described what those sounds were. Ivylad and I watched it, and tears streaming down my face, I asked him if he knew what those sounds were. He thought it was debris. They didn’t explain until after a few more of those crashes what it actually was.
But the firefighters knew. You could tell by the expression on their faces.
What is the name of this documentary, or the names of the makers of it? I’ve not heard of it. Any links, anyone?
I’ve been curious about this myself. Is a human shape even recognizeable or does it splat?
I heard that there were body parts all around the WTC, so I suppose the body breaks apart. Ugh.
French brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were making a videotape documentary on the training of New York firefighters, and were out on a routine call on Sept. 11 to check a gas leak from a manhole north of the World Trade Center, when they caught on camera the first passenger jet crashing into the North Tower. They rushed with the firefighters to the WTC, and continued to tape them at work inside the North Tower until shortly after the South Tower fell. (Another videotape of the first crash was made by a Czech immigrant as he was entering the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel to lower Manhattan.)
The Naudet Brothers’ subsequent documentary, 9/11, was shown by CBS in 2002. More.
To answer KidCharlemagne’s question, some bodies did remain intact and recognizable after falling the distance, although after massive trauma like that, they were inevitably surrounded by a pool of blood. More.
The film is called 9/11 and was made by brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet. In my opinion, it is both astonishing and heart breaking. The brothers were filimng a documentary about a young man just starting his career as a NYC fireman. They were on a midtown street when the first plane hit the tower. The brother captured the only known footgae of the first plane flying over manhattan and hitting the tower. They also have extensive footage from inside the towers after the attack but before the collision.
It’s available on video and DVD, and I think everybody should watch it.
Many years ago, exiting my apartment building, I was asked by police if I would try to identify a woman who had committed suicide by jumping from her balcony onto the sidewalk below.
I was able to recognize the face, and tell them which floor I thought she was from, though I didn’t know her name.
She had jumped from about the 8th or 9th floor, and landed face-down. The body was all in one piece. The face was recognizable, though the nose was broken and appeared to have been pushed flat into the face. There was some blood from the mouth, but no great pool of blood (unless it was under the blanket that they had covering the body. They only lifted up the part over the face & chest for me to look. I did notice that the whole chest area appeared to have been crushed – it looked like there was only about 4 inches of height from the sidewalk to the highest part of the back – considerably less than normal. Other than that, the body was fairly recognizable and not even all that upsetting to look at.
So long as we’re asking questions about this, were any of the jumpers identified?
I would also expect that there was little opportunity to take pictures of the bodies of the jumpers, as the time between when they jumped and when the buildings collapsed was relatively short. I would imagine the bodies of the jumpers were buried under debris after the collapse.
South Tower: Collapsed 45 minutes after being hit.
North Tower: Collapsed 1 hour 45 minutes after being hit.
You’re mentioning an 8 or 9 story fall. 80 or 90 feet. Multiply that by 10 or 12, and now think what you would be looking at under the blanket.
:eek:
Check this site. It mentions the number of jumpers at 200.
That’s the same link I gave above.
Having spoken to a few skydivers who had the misfortune to see a friend “bounce” (nice euphenism, ay? Not really - you really can bounce if you fall from a great height) a lot seems to depend on what you hit. Bodies that had fallen from 10,000 feet often were recognizable. Apparently, it’s pretty obvious bones and such are broken, and parts may or may not be ripped off, but a human body can remain largely intact (if not alive).
Terminal velocity in a spread-eagle position is only about 120 mph - air resistance prevents you from going faster. Greater speeds can be achieved by a head-first or feet first position that offers less air resistance, but it’s extremely unlikely an untrained person would be able to maintain such a position even if they wanted to do so.
Hit the sharp edge of a wall or something like a power line you might sheer off bits, but there’s a reasonable possibility some of the bodies were recognizable and largely in one piece after impact.
Some of the body parts could have also been generated in the initial crash, since flying debris can cut and slice people into pieces.
If falling people landed on grass or something like an awning that would give, they would be killed but remain largely in one piece.
It is so hard to watch it, especially as it gets closer to Sept 11. First it’s June, then it’s August, then it’s September 10, and the French brothers are making a special meal for the firefighters (they seriously underestimated the amount of lamb they would need) then it was 8:30 in the morning…
You want to scream, “Time out! Stop! I don’t want to play anymore!”
Then they’re checking the gas leak, and there’s a roar in the sky, and everyone looks up…
Yeah, but, I had an HTTP in front of mine.
