A 2013 CNN documentary film, The Flag, directed by filmmakers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, investigated the mystery of this missing 9/11 icon and discovered video evidence that the flag went missing hours after it was first raised. Dreifus started a website in an effort to get the flag back. There was a size discrepancy: the yacht's flag measured 4 by 6 feet (1.2 m × 1.8 m), while the flag the city had measured 5 by 8 feet (1.5 m × 2.4 m). However, when the flag's owner prepared to formally donate the flag, it was discovered that it was not the flag from Ground Zero. The city thought it had possession of the flag after the attack Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki signed it, and it flew at the New York City Hall, Yankee Stadium and on the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) during its service in the Mideast. Soon after its raising above Ground Zero, the flag disappeared. They found a pole about 20 feet (6.1 m) off the ground jutting from a pile of debris thought to have been from the grounds of the Marriott World Trade Center hotel, situated adjacent to the towers. McWilliams cut the yardarm off of the yacht with a K12 Saw and then took the flag and its pole from the yacht to an evacuation area on the northwest side of the site. Kopelakis, which was docked in the yacht basin in the Hudson River at the World Financial Center. The flag came from the yacht Star of America, owned by Shirley Dreifus and her late husband Spiros E. The firefighters pictured were Brooklyn-based firefighters George Johnson of Rockaway Beach, Dan McWilliams of Long Island (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2). He was with photographer James Nachtwey when he saw the firefighters. They were about 20 feet (6.1 m) off the ground.įranklin had hitched a ride on a tugboat across the Hudson River, arriving around noon after the towers had collapsed. Franklin said the firefighters were about 150 yards (140 m) away from him and the debris was 100 yards (91 m) beyond that. At this time, he was standing under a pedestrian walkway across the West Side Highway that connected the center to the World Financial Center, located at the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site.
Franklin shot the photograph shortly after 5 p.m.