David Kravette, a Cantor Fitzgerald bond trader based on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower, survived the September 11, 2001 attacks only because he happened to be in the lobby when American Airlines Flight 11 struck. He had gone downstairs to vouch for a client's IT visitor who lacked identification, a task he volunteered for instead of sending his heavily pregnant assistant, and had walked just 15 to 20 steps into the lobby when the plane hit at 8:46am, engulfing the area in burning jet fuel. Every colleague who remained on his floor died, making his survival, as he put it, feel like "winning the lottery".

Cantor Fitzgerald occupied floors 101 to 105, directly above where the aircraft struck, and lost 658 of its 960 New York employees plus 50 contractors and visitors, the highest death toll suffered by any single employer that day. Kravette said the visiting IT team had initially gone to the wrong tower and only reached him after their colleague failed to produce identification, a delay that spared his life. He described a fireball tearing through the lobby and shattering its five-storey windows before narrowly missing him, forcing him to escape via an overpass. His story features in the History Channel documentary "102 Minutes Inside the Towers", airing on the 25th anniversary of the attacks.