NEW YORK, 8 September 2003 — The only videotape known to have captured both planes slamming into the World Trade Center, and only the second image of the first strike, has surfaced days before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The tape was shown yesterday morning on the ABC program “This Week.” It was unclear where ABC got the tape. New York Times spokesman Toby Usnik said the newspaper, which obtained the footage, had not given copies to any other media.
The video was shot by a Czech immigrant construction worker whose son at one point came close to accidentally erasing the rare, chilling footage, The Times reported on its website Saturday.
Federal officials investigating the trade center collapse are trying to obtain a copy of the hour-long tape, which could cast light on the cause of the north tower’s collapse by helping to determine factors including the exact speed at which the first plane traveled, The Times said.
The only other known footage of the first plane’s impact came from a French film crew making a documentary about a probationary firefighter.
Pavel Hlava, an immigrant from the Czech Republic, shot footage of the first plane hitting the north tower as a sport utility vehicle he was riding in entered the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel en route to lower Manhattan.
Hlava, who made the tape looking at the camera’s relatively low-resolution LCD display, told the Times he did not see the first plane as he focused on the towers. But the tape shows a whitish object hitting the tower, followed by dust spurting from the tower’s side and a silvery, expanding cloud.
Passing through the tunnel, Hlava, his brother and his boss heard a radio report that a small private plane had hit the World Trade Center, straight ahead outside the tunnel. That hardly prepared them for what they saw when they emerged: The north tower, looming over them, bursting with flames.
As Hlava continued filming, the second jet shrieked behind him. He caught the plane as it shot into the south tower, exploding into an orange fireball and sending papers flying in every direction. Later, after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, he focused on the buildings again as the south tower tilted to one side and collapsed.
Hlava and his brother, Josef, unsuccessfully tried to sell the tape in New York and in the Czech Republic, the newspaper said.
