No, the North Tower was the first to be hit, but the second to fall.
I remember a picture like that too, and it was not the picture linked above. It was taken from a more straight-on, or maybe left side (photographer’s left) point-of-view of the hole in the North Tower. I don’t remember the pink suit, though, but I do remember the person as being a woman though I don’t know exactly why I know that. I believe the photo was even captioned as “woman looks out the hole” where ever it was that I saw it.
Then it’s the North Tower. The first plane to hit was banked sharply just prior to impact, which shows in the linked photo. The second one hit the other tower more or less level, but came in at a sharp angle.
There’s a better copy of the picture in the FEMA report 9WTC Building Performance Study) on page 2-18. I’m willing to bet that it’s a person, given that the proportions work out so well between the legs, torso, and head, and the object size corresponds with the size of a person. The key would be to find another picture of the same opening, at a different time, and see if there’s anything still there.
How ther person got there I can only speculate. The object is on the 94th floor, so it may be that someone managed to work their way down that far but could go no further.
–Patch
I think you have the sequence backward Q.E.D.
The second plane was the one that was banked. Look here.
This picture shows the first hit to be horizontal (on the right) and the second hit
You’re right there, Rick. Thanks.
Still wrong. The first plane hit the North Tower with wings more or less level. The second plane hit the South Tower sharply banked.
Walloon: Last night on Discovery they ran the special “Collapse, why the Towers Fell” or something like that, which included a detailed look at the last moments of the first impact from the French camera crew that taped it. They reported (and it’s born out by a look at the damage in the photos) that the plane did a sharp bank at the last moment, probebly to maximize the amount of damage caused.
Here is a copy of that picture, it is much better. I think it looks more like bent steel in this photo.
here’s two more images, I blew up the area 2X and 4X. I guess it could still be a person. But there are a lot of fires in that area, what would the ambient temerature be?
The more I look at it, the more I think it’s a woman leaning against the column, looking down.
Damn depressing image.
–Patch
Bob55: By the time you get to 4X, I think it’s pretty clear that it’s a person, and a woman at that. The only other explaination that I can imagine is that it’s either a dummy or a cutout that was in an office and ended up at the window, but that strikes me as rather unlikely. How she survived the impact is beyond my imagination. I really wonder if she made it out.
The more I look at it, I wonder if it’s the same woman that I remember seeing in that other photo. My memory tells me that it was a woman in a pink suit, but it’s been a couple years.
The first plane crashed into six floors (93-98) of the North Tower. The second plane crashed into seven floors (78-84) of the South Tower. I’m estimating the first plane was banked at 25 degrees, while the second plane was banked at 40 degrees. A useful graphic (click arrow to get the second page).
Let me correct something I wrote earlier. One of the three stairwells in the South Tower remained undamaged from top to bottom.
Funny that, because the more I look at it, the more I’m convinced that it isn’t a person.
I can’t imagine how anyone can conclude that it’s a women based on anything more than the color of the clothes. Speaking of which, those WHITEish pants sure are clean for walking around in that burning, ashy, smokey mess.
woman*
Given that scores of still and video cameras were by then aimed at that opening in the North Tower, I think at least a few other photographers would have gotten shots of the alleged woman moving, gesturing, jumping, etc. However, that does not seem to be the case. This is an artifact of damaged steel (bottom of “woman”) and flame (top of “woman”), made suggestive by angle and distance.
And notice how the clean “clothes” (that should have been in quotes in my first post) are the same colors that are common throughout the picture, particularly nearby.
Here’s another photo of the crash site on the North Tower. Compare it with the other photo, and you can see the same stubby piece of steel column (below the last “hanging” piece of steel column on the left before the largest part of the hole begins) that forms the “woman’s” pants.
on the full picture, if you look to the right of where the ‘woman’ is (which i’m convinced is metal and flame) at about a 30 degree angle it looks like a man in a black suit sat looking across.
people will read what they will into these things. the 4x pic posted above looks nothing like a woman.