Sister of famous 9/11 Falling Man shares truth behind controversial image 25 years after tragedy
Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.
25 years after one of the most haunting images of 9/11 was captured, the sister of the man widely believed to be pictured has opened up about the pain — and the faith — that has carried her family through it.
The photograph, taken by Associated Press photographer Richard Drew at 9:41am and 15 seconds on September 11, 2001, shows a man falling head-first from the World Trade Center, seemingly at peace in his final moments.
It became known as 'Falling Man', an image so controversial that many newspapers, including the New York Times, pulled it from circulation within days of publishing it after readers said it was too painful to look at.
Advert
No official list of those who jumped from the towers that day was ever put together, with New York's Chief Medical Examiner classifying all reported deaths as homicides.
Estimates of how many people jumped range from around 50 to more than 200, over a 90-minute window, with almost no photographic record of who they were.
Who is the man in the 'Falling Man' photograph?
The search for the man's identity ran for years.
A Canadian journalist first linked the image to Norberto Hernandez, a pastry chef at the Windows on the World restaurant, after his sister recognized the clothing.
However, Hernandez's devout Catholic family rejected the theory, insisting he would never have jumped.
It was Esquire writer Tom Junod who reopened the investigation, discovering that Drew's camera had actually captured a sequence of frames.
In later shots, the man's shirt blew open to reveal a distinctive orange T-shirt underneath, a detail that ruled out Hernandez, who didn't own one.
Junod instead identified the most likely match as Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-old sound engineer at Windows on the World, who stood 6ft 5in tall, wore black high-top shoes, and was known to wear an orange T-shirt beneath his work uniform.
'Their spirits were caught'
Briley's widow packed away his clothes not long after his death, meaning it's never been possible to confirm what he wore that morning.
Now 72, Briley's sister Gwen Briley-Strand still watches the anniversary coverage every year.
"There are times when it feels like 25 years but, then again, there are times when it feels like yesterday," she told the Daily Mail. "It's a wave of grief. Some years are better than others."
Briley-Strand said her brother, who had asthma, had been ordained a deacon just six months before his death and grew up playing gospel piano.
He'd spent the week before 9/11 on holiday in Florida with her and her husband, joining the trip at the last minute, the final time she saw him.
She said she doesn't believe faith condemns those who jumped, rejecting the idea held by some religious families that it amounted to suicide.
'It was the last moments of his life'
"I believe that all those individuals that jumped were caught. Their spirits were caught," she said, adding that she thinks of her brother as representing the roughly 3,000 people who died that day.
Briley was the middle of five siblings, one of whom, Alex Briley, was an original member of Village People.
Speaking about the photograph in 2021, Drew told CBS News: "I didn't take the picture. The camera took the picture of the falling man. And when these people were falling, I would then put my finger on the trigger of the camera and I'd hold the camera up, and I'd photograph and follow them going down, and then the camera would open and close and take the pictures as they were going down.
"I have, I think, eight or nine frames of this gentleman falling, and the camera just happened to cycle in that time when he was completely vertical. I didn't see that picture really until I got back to the office and then started looking at my stuff on my laptop. I didn't see it."
In a 2023 interview with Quill, the photographer addressed the criticism the photo received.
"But it wasn’t his death. It was the last moments of his life," Drew said. "As a photojournalist, I chronicle people’s lives. This was part of the man’s life. I think people were upset because the photo looked so … quiet. It didn’t show actual violence, which we’d gotten numb to by then."
The image itself is now reportedly held in the private collection of Sir Elton John, who has previously called it ‘one of the most perfect photographs ever taken’.
If you've been affected by the contents of this article you can find more information and support at the VOICES Center for Resilience via their website.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.
If you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Thomas Bamford