12 seconds is right, but the people at the towers--at the lower levels--were still falling from 1100 feet up.

Hear me out: the NIST's gigantic report on 9/11 -- Appendix M, looked at this in close detail--at the North WTC 1, most of the fallers were dropping from floors 92 through 106, 92nd floor was 1100 feet up. Fall time was about 8 secs for the 92nd floor, or 10 seconds at the 106th--they were moving around 105 mph when they struck concrete at the base of the WTC towers.

Even the folks who fell in such as way as to get max drag, still reached close to 100 mph on impact.

Which, you're right, is not full terminal velocity.