We will never know for sure the thought process behind any of the people that jumped. Some MAY have thought God would save them. Some MAY have thought they could survive somehow. Some MAY have taken the lesser of two evils and in fact jumped to their deaths.

We will never know for sure, so it's impossible to answer the question w/o a large percentage of speculation. It is very possible that all the answers have in fact been discussed here already. But unfortunately we will never know.

Everyone is correct though. It does say in the Bible that suicide is a sin because it is murdering one's self.