Every September 11, on the anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the story of Tania Head. The woman became global news for her moving experience as one of the few survivors of the upper floors of the South Tower of the World Trade Center during the terrorist attack. Her dramatic story, added to her bravery and fortitude in helping other people traumatized by the event, led her to be considered an icon. However, it was all a fallacy.
Tania Head was not, in fact, Tania Head. Her real name was—and is— Alicia Esteve Head. The aforementioned, originally from Barcelona, was not even in New York the day the American Airlines and United Airlines planes hijacked by al-Qaeda crashed into the Twin Towers. A lie that was uncovered years after the attack, when an investigation by The New York Times revealed the inconsistencies in his story.
Tania Head’s case is very peculiar because it shocked the entire world. Her story was an inspiration to millions of people, following one of the deadliest terrorist attacks ever recorded. The Catalan took advantage of a moment of vulnerability to gain prominence and be the center of attentionand chose to disappear from the public eye when the true nature of his actions came to light.
Tania Head and her cinematic rescue from the Twin Towers
Tania Head claimed to be the daughter of diplomats and the owner of an enviable university career, having graduated from Harvard and Stanford. In addition, she claimed to have worked as an executive in very high-level financial companies, taking her work to different parts of the world. From the United States to Singapore, passing through Argentina, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Tania Head claimed to be in the South Tower of the World Trade Center as an employee of Merrill Lynch, helping to finish the paperwork for the merger of two companies. According to her story, she was on the 96th floor when the first plane crashed into the North Tower. She was able to go down to the 78th floor to wait for the elevator, until the second aircraft hit their building and the chaos was final.
In her account of the events, Tania Head claimed to have suffered injuries to her right arm. In fact, she claimed to have been rescued by a man who covered her face with a red scarf, who was later identified as Welles Crowther. The 24-year-old, who died that same day, is known as “The Hero of the Red Scarf” for his brave work helping to save at least a dozen people trapped in the South Tower.
But the story is far from over there. According to the woman, while she was fleeing she ran into a dying firefighter who gave her her wedding ring to give to his wife. An assignment that she supposedly completed as soon as possible. Although the most dramatic point of the script was Dave’s death, her fiancé, who was in the North Tower and died that same September 11. Her dream wedding was scheduled for October; that is, just weeks away.
The stories of miraculous escapes and anonymous heroes who gave their lives to save strangers are a constant when reviewing what happened that fateful day in 2001. Who could be so heartless, then, as to doubt the comments that Tania Head began by making public in the survivor networks that were created after 9/11?
The legend
Tania Head started her own online support group for survivors of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Her initiative merged with the World Trade Center Survivors Network (World Trade Center Survivors’ Network) in 2004, and her charisma and mettle led her to become president of the organization.
From there, he became a reference among the survivors of the attack. Not only did she give interviews to the media and give talks at universities, but her image was immortalized in meetings with renowned politicians. Among them, Rudolph Giulianiwho was serving as Mayor of New York at the time of the attack on the Twin Towers.
However, an aura of mystery surrounded the story of Tania Head and her dramatic rescue from the World Trade Center. Although her figure was unobjectionable within the Survivors Network, an investigation by journalists David Dunlap and Serge Kovaleski, from The New York Times, began to expose potholes in its history.
Other members of the support group told National Geographic that the interview requests from said media began to upset the woman. To the point that she refused to provide details that would allow her friends to help her refute any potentially insulting information that could be published.
Tania Head refused to identify the firefighter who took her out of the South Tower. Neither did she say which hospital she had received care for the injuries on her arm. Likewise, a previously overlooked detail began to make more and more noise: all the other protagonists of his story had died. Therefore, there was no way to verify the veracity of his comments.
But what finally toppled her house of cards was the story of her fiancé, Dave. Although the man existed and died in the North Tower, His family denied any link with Tania Head.. What’s more, the woman’s own accounts of how far along the relationship was, which was supposed to consummate the marriage in October 2001, were erratic.
On September 27, 2007, The New York Times published the article that ended the Tania Head fallacy. Dunlap and Kovaleski’s research, titled In a 9/11 Survival Story, the Pieces Just Don’t Fit, caused an international stir. Not just because she refuted the rescue story Tania Head had told for years. She also stated that she, in fact, was not a graduate of Harvard and Stanford nor did she work at Merrill Lynch. In the days before the post came to light, the World Trade Center Survivors Network directory took away the position of president and cut all ties with her.
Tania was Alicia
Although it was the American press that exposed Tania Head’s lie, it was the newspaper The vanguard the one who revealed his true identity. Tania was, in reality, Alicia Esteve Head, from Barcelona. She was not the daughter of diplomats, but rather she belonged to a well-known business family that had made the news in 1992 for a fraud scandal with fake promissory notes. Both her father, Francisco Esteve Corbella, and her brother, Francisco Javier Esteve Head, received prison sentences for that crime.
Tania Head was not in New York or anywhere else in the United States during the attack on the Twin Towers. The aforementioned media also revealed that the wound on her right arm had been there since her days in Catalonia. Although the true nature of her injury was never clear, since at the time she claimed to have suffered it when she had an accident with her boyfriend while they were traveling in a Ferrari at more than 200 km/h.
Once the scandal broke, Esteve Head left North America and retreated back to Barcelona. Since then, his whereabouts became a source of great speculation. In 2008, an email reached the World Trade Center Survivors Network to report that he had committed suicide. However, it was also a lie.
In 2012, Robin Gaby Fisher and Angelo J Guglielmo published the book The Woman Who Wasn’t There (The woman who wasn’t there), telling of Tania Head’s deception. The publication also became a renowned documentary. As a result of them, the woman She was fired from her job at an insurance company in the Catalan city. The company’s argument was that its presence could damage the trust of its customers.
After a long time without anything being known about her whereabouts, in 2021 she was seen in Los Angeles, California. However, that same year a new return to Barcelona was also reported. to open your own renovation company. Having received no money or other benefits during his time in the World Trade Center Survivors Network, he technically did not commit any crime. The truth is that Tania Head—Alicia Esteve Head, actually—has been forever classified as “the 9/11 imposter”.