At 3 a.m. on September 30, 2013, three men jumped from New York City’s Freedom Tower, also known as One World Trade Center. Their parachutes opened minutes before hitting pavement on West Street. You can watch the whole thing here:
鈥攍eaping from fixed objects and hoping to high heaven that your parachute breaks the fall鈥攊s often illegal, as was the case with the predawn act of Andrew Rossig, James Brady, Kyle Hartwell, and Marco Markovich at the Freedom Tower.
On Monday, the four men (three jumpers and one lookout), who faced burglary charges, turned themselves in to authorities, .
鈥淲e just kind of walked in,鈥 Rossig, 33, one of the parachutists, told the Times. 鈥淚t鈥檚 supposed to be the most secure building in the world. God forbid it was somebody else getting in there with a real intention to harm New Yorkers.鈥
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first security breach at One World Trade Center. Just last week, Justin Casquejo, a 16-year-old from New Jersey, crawled through a hole in a fence at 4 a.m., climbed construction scaffolding, and caught an elevator to the 88th floor鈥1,368 feet above street level. and was caught by Port Authority police two hours later.
It took more than four months to track down the four men who BASE jumped from the Freedom Tower. Legal or not, it sounds like Rossig has no regrets.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a fair amount of free-fall time,鈥 he told the聽Times. 鈥淵ou really get to enjoy the view of the city.鈥