Her story was one of triumph over trauma. When the planes flew into the World Trade Center twin towers on September 11, 2001, Tania Head was on the floor where the plane hit the south tower. With her arm almost completely severed, she somehow made it out, only to still be at ground zero when the tower collapsed. One of the few survivors pulled from the rubble, Tania woke up in hospital with horrific injuries, only to be told that her fiancé, who was in the other tower, has died. She goes on to become president of the World Trade Center Survivors' Network, and is the public face of those who made it out. One little problem - Tania had never even been to the World Trade Center. Not only was she not in New York City on 9/11, she wasn't even in the United States. Her name wasn't even Tania.
This is Just The Gist of Alicia Esteve Head: the fake 9/11 survivor, the 2007 New York Times investigation that exposed her, and the 2012 documentary' The Woman Who Wasn't There' that asked the question everybody wanted the answer to... WHY?
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The Woman Who Wasn't There documentary (YouTube, 2012)
The Woman Who Wasn't There by Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. (2012)
In a 9/11 Survival Tale, the Pieces Just Don't Fit (The New York Times, 2007)
Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo Guglielmo interviewed on All Things Considered (NPR, 2012)
Excerpt from The Woman Who Wasn't There (NPR, 2012)
The 9/11 Faker documentary summary (Watch Documentaries, 2008)
Angelo Guglielmo essay on Tania Head (HuffPost, 2012)
Madrid newspaper details on Alicia Esteve Head (Survivor Guidelines, 2007)