Collapse
Unlike at the North Tower, initially, one of the three stairwells was still intact after Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower. This was because the plane struck the tower from an angle, and not straight on as Flight 11 in the North Tower had done. Only 18 people passed the impact zone through the available stairway and left the South Tower safely before it collapsed. One of them, Stanley Praimnath, was on the 81st floor and his office suffered a direct hit. He witnessed Flight 175 coming toward him. One of the wings ended up in his office. Some people above the impact zone made their way upward toward the roof in hopes of a helicopter rescue. However, access doors to the roof were locked. In any case, thick smoke and intense heat prevented rescue helicopters from landing. The South Tower collapsed at 9:59 after burning for 56 minutes.
Read more about this topic: United Airlines Flight 175
Famous quotes containing the word collapse:
“I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I’ll be all right; I’ve got a few veg.”
—Margaret Drabble (b. 1939)
“At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses.”
—Karl Liebknecht (1871–1919)
“Newspapers are unable, seemingly, to discriminate between a bicycle accident and the collapse of civilisation.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)