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The plane, entering at a tilt, raked across six floors. Three flights up was the office of Euro Brokers, on the 84th floor. Most of the company's trading floor there was annihilated. Yet even there — at the bull's-eye of the airplane's impact — other people were alive: Robert Coll, Dave Vera, Ronald DiFrancesco and Kevin York, among others. Within minutes, they headed to the closest stairwell, led by Brian Clark, a fire warden on the 84th floor, who had his flashlight and whistle.
A fine powder mixed with light smoke floated through the stairwell. As they approached the 81st floor, Mr. Clark would recall, they met a slim man and a heavyset woman. "You can't go down," the woman screamed. "You got to go up. There is too much smoke and flame below."
This assessment changed everything. Hundreds of people came to a similar conclusion, but the smoke and the debris in the stairwell proved less of an obstacle than the fear of it. This very stairwell was the sole route out of the building, running from the top to the bottom of the south tower. Anyone who found this stairwell early enough could have walked to freedom.
This plain opportunity hardly read that way to the band of survivors who stood on the 81st floor landing, moments after the plane crash. They argued the alternatives, with Mr. Clark shining his flashlight into his colleagues' faces, asking each, "Up or down?" The debate was interrupted by shouts on the 81st floor.
"Help me! Help me!" Mr. Praimnath yelled. "I'm trapped. Don't leave me here!"
With no further discussion, the group in the stairs turned in different directions. As Mr. Clark recalls it, Mr. Coll, Mr. York and Mr. Vera headed up the stairs, along with the heavyset woman, the slim man and two others he knew from Euro Brokers but could not identify. Mr. York and Mr. Coll hooked arms to support the woman, Mr. Clark recalled. One of them said: "Come on, you can do it. We're in this together."
Mr. Clark and Mr. DiFrancesco headed toward the man yelling for help. Mr. Praimnath saw the flashlight beam and crawled toward it, over toppled desks and across fallen ceiling tiles. Minutes earlier, this had been Fuji Bank's loan department, employee lounge and computer room. Finally, he reached a damaged wall that separated him from the man with the flashlight.
From both sides, they ripped at the wall. A nail penetrated Mr. Praimnath's hand. He knocked it out against a hard surface in the darkness. Finally, the two men could see each other, but were still separated.
"You must jump," Mr. Clark told Mr. Praimnath, whose hand and left leg were now bleeding. "There is no other choice."
As Mr. Praimnath hopped up, Mr. Clark helped boost him over the obstacle. They ran to the stairwell and headed down. The steps were strewn with shattered wallboard. Flames licked in through cracks in the stairwell walls. Water from severed pipes poured down, forming a treacherous slurry.
They moved past the spot with the heavy smoke that the woman had warned Mr. Clark against. Perhaps the draft had shifted; maybe the smoke had not been all that bad to begin with. In any case, the stairs were clear and would be clear as late as 30 minutes after the south tower was hit.
Meanwhile, Mr. DiFrancesco took a detour in search of air, climbing about 10 floors, where he found the first group to go upstairs. They could not leave the stairwell; the doors would not open. Exhausted, in heavy smoke, people were lying down, Mr. DiFrancesco included. "Everyone else was starting to go to sleep," he said. Then, he recalled, he sat up, thinking, "I've got to see my wife and kids again." He ran down.
9:05
South Tower, 78th Floor, Elevator Sky Lobby, 54 minutes to collapse
Mary Jos cannot say for sure how long she was lying there, unconscious, on the floor of the sky lobby, outside the express elevator. Her first recollection of stirring is when she felt searing heat on her back and face. Maybe, she remembers thinking, she was on fire. Instinctively, she rolled over to smother the flames. She saw a blaze in the center of the room, and in the elevator shafts.
