9/11 The Falling Man

"The Falling Man" is a story about a photograph taken by Richard Drew at 9:41:15 a.m., on September 11, 2001. 9/11: The Falling Man is a 2006 documentary film about the picture and the story behind it.

Initially, the faller was identified by Globe and Mail reporter Peter Cheney as Norberto Hernandez, but when the family looked at the whole series of pictures (there were approximately a dozen images), it was clear that it was not Hernandez.

Five years after the attacks, Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old employee of the Windows on the World restaurant, was identified by chef Michael Lomonaco as The Falling Man. Briley was a sound engineer who lived outside of Manhattan, in Mount Vernon, and worked in the North Tower restaurant. According to the documentary he was also identified by his brother in the morgue by his hands and shoes. Lomonaco claims that he was able to identify Briley by his clothes and body-type.

In one of the pictures, The Falling Man's clothes were blown away, revealing an orange undershirt similar to the shirt that Briley wore to work almost every day. His older sister, Gwendolyn, asserted he was wearing that shirt on the day of the attack. She told reporters of The Sunday Mirror, "When I first looked at the picture...and I saw it was a man - tall, slim - I said, 'If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.'" A charity has been set up for Briley's family, and many news programs have aired his story as being the one of The Falling Man. However, the identity of The Falling Man has never been officially confirmed.

The documentary can be found here.