Rare September 11 attack footage hidden for 20 years set to appear in documentary

A woman who captured the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York on video from a fire escape is in talks with documentary filmmakers, The New York Times (NYT) reports.

According to the newspaper, footage recorded by Thuc Doan Nguyen-Brophy will be featured in the short documentary My Fire Escape, which tells the stories of Chinatown residents who survived the attacks. 

The recording, which remained in the woman’s safe for more than 20 years, shows thick black smoke rising from the North Tower and the moment the second plane struck the South Tower. Nguyen-Brophy said she had avoided watching the footage for years, fearing that she might see people jumping from the burning buildings. 

Last year, Nguyen-Brophy donated the original tape, along with the rights to exhibit the footage, to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The museum actively collects photographs and videos documenting the September 11 attacks, examining each submission to establish the donor’s reasons for recording what they witnessed or experienced. A metadata analysis of Nguyen-Brophy’s footage confirmed that it was recorded on September 11, 2001.

Dylan Williams, an associate curator at the 9/11 Museum, described the amateur recording as a rare visual artefact from a time when people did not routinely carry high-resolution cameras in their pockets.

“With social media, things are scripted before they ever get filmed and posted,” Williams said. “So footage like Thuc’s is remarkable because it really does animate a moment in time.”

On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists from al-Qaeda hijacked four passenger planes in the United States. Two were flown into the World Trade Centre towers, then the tallest buildings in New York; a third crashed into the Pentagon near Washington, D.C. The fourth was also headed toward the US capital but crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. A total of 2,977 people were killed in the attacks.

By Jeyhun Aghazada