Impending Death

[1] The photograph depicts the North Tower (1 WTC) of the World Trade Center, on fire after being struck by American Airlines Flight 11 at 8:46 a.m., and shortly before its collapse at 10:28 a.m.

Visible in the photograph are numerous people trapped in the upper floors of the building, hanging out of windows because of the intense smoke and heat.

[3] A similar, closer photograph, taken at a different angle by Jeff Christensen of Reuters, was later used in an attempt to identify the victims depicted.

On September 11, 2001, four commercial aircraft were hijacked and deliberately crashed as part of a coordinated attack on the United States.

In September 2006, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from the book Watching the World Change, detailing the efforts of family members of 9/11 victims to identify their relatives in the photograph and similar ones taken at other angles.