World Trade Center Jump Leads To Four Arrests

New York police have arrested four men in connection with a jump stunt from One World Trade Center tower.

Those held are three extreme-skydiving enthusiasts who jumped from the uncompleted tower last autumn, and another man accused of being an accomplice.

They all face charges including burglary, reckless endangerment and misdemeanour jumping from a structure.

One of the accused jumpers, Andrew Rossig, described the September 30 experience as "very exhilarating".

"It's a fair amount of free-fall time," he said of the jump from the 1,776-ft-tall tower, America's tallest skyscraper.

"You really get to enjoy the view of the city and see it from a different perspective," said Rossig, an avid BASE jumper. The acronym stands for "building, antenna, span, earth".

His co-defendants are James Brady, an ironworker who formerly worked at the site in Lower Manhattan; skydiving instructor Marko Markovich; and Kyle Hartwell, accused of being their cohort on the ground.

A five-minute video of their stunt was posted online.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, has condemned the stunt as a "lawless and selfish act that clearly endangered the public".

The incident has raised questions over security at a site that is supposed to be one of the most tightly protected in the country.

In March, a teen slipped through a gap in a fence, eluded an inattentive security guard and spent about two hours atop the tower.

A Defence lawyer for Rossig, Timothy Parlatore, said pulling off the stunt was easy.

"One of the first things my client said to me was that how surprised he was at how there was no security whatsoever, how easy it was to just walk right up in something that the mayor has just recently described as the No 1 terrorist target in the world," he said.

One World Trade Center is expected to open later this year, and will include a $40m (£24.2m) security system.