In the youtube video reposted above by
jasm you can see:
1) one side of the A frame (the one farther from the oserver?), falls first with at least one stay still attached; it is likely taken down by the stay itself
2) the opposing side (the one closer to the observer?), still upright when the other one is falling down, falls down immediately after, but it has no stay attached
So it would appear that the closer side loses both stays first, then the farther side is taken down by its stays, then the closer side falls down.
The closer side in the video, however, is the nothern one, this would indicate that the stays that initiated the collapse were the northern ones, contrary to what is assumed in the beautiful article of the NYT posted by
jasm.
However the distinction between farther and closer side in the video is unclear, due to the blurred view, so the NYT might be correct. Observation of how the rubble of the A frames is scattered on the ground can easily resolve the issue.
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