The story of one photo: a man falling from the World Trade Center tower

Thousands of photographs captured the shock and horror gripped New Yorkers on Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, an entire nation and the world were stunned by the tragic aftermath of the Islamic extremist group Al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on hijacked planes. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and crushed the 110-story twin towers of the shopping center.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks were captured in countless images by news photographers, bystanders, security cameras, FBI agents, police officers, rescue workers, and virtually anyone who witnessed the tragedy with their own eyes. These photographs documented the horror, chaos, and emotion of 9/11 on every scale, from panoramic landscapes of smoke rising over the New York City skyline to a close-up of a woman’s face covered in a thick layer of dust and ash.

These images depict an escalation of horror as people look at the skyscrapers in flames and weep, then run away from the cloud of dust that surges across Manhattan after one of them collapses. It was a day of unforgettable images-apocalyptic, surreal, violent, haunting, monumental, and deeply personal—those that are painful to remember and those that are impossible to forget.

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The Falling Man, a photo taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew, shows one of the most terrifying horrors for nearly everyone. The photo shows a man falling from one of the World Trade Center towers. The man in the photo was trapped on the upper floors of the North Tower and either fell or jumped to avoid the fire and smoke. The photo was taken at exactly 9: 41: 15 a.m. on the day of the attacks.

On the morning of September 11, Richard Drew was on assignment for the Associated Press photographing a maternity fashion show in Bryant Park. Upon learning of the terrorist attack, Drew took the subway to the Chambers Street station, not far from the World Trade Center. “I was taking pictures of the building when one of the EMTs said: ‘Oh my God, look at this,’ and then we saw people falling to the ground,” Drew recounted. – “And I just instinctively started taking pictures of them as they were falling.

On the morning of September 11, Richard Drew was on assignment for the Associated Press photographing a maternity fashion show in Bryant Park. Upon learning of the terrorist attack, Drew took the subway to the Chambers Street station, not far from the World Trade Center. “I was taking pictures of the building when one of the EMTs said: ‘Oh my God, look at this,’ and then we saw people falling to the ground,” Drew recounted. – “And I just instinctively started taking pictures of them as they were falling.

Of the 2606 victims killed at the World Trade Center and on the ground in New York City during the attacks of September 11, some estimates suggest that fewer than 200 people were killed or maimed, while other estimates put the number at nearly 100.