A rediscovered helicopter clip of the September 11 attacks has drawn hundreds of thousands of views on X as users say they had never before seen the tragedy from this aerial vantage point.
The footage, posted by an X user who wrote they had thought they “saw them all in the last 25 years since 9/11,” captures the burning North Tower from a helicopter hovering near the World Trade Center complex. Moments later, the second hijacked aircraft slams into the South Tower live on camera while a newscaster’s voice on the audio track still struggles to process the first impact.
“This is the first time I see this video clip and I thought I saw them all in the last 25 years since 9/11,” the user who posted the clip wrote on X.
What has gripped viewers is the raw confusion embedded in the broadcast itself. As the second plane strikes, the newscaster can be heard questioning whether something has happened to the South Tower, apparently unaware in real time that a second aircraft had hit. Commenters below the post explained the lag: on the original 2001 broadcast, a viewer had phoned in to alert the newsroom before the anchors themselves registered what had occurred.
One commenter recalled the exchange in detail, writing: “I watched this that morning. I didn’t see the second plane either. Somebody called in and told them a second plane hit the tower. The newscaster said, ‘you’re there?’ The woman said ‘no, I’m home watching on TV! Replay it! Look at the screen to the right!’ They did and we saw.”
Another user who watched the towers fall in real time described how their mind initially rejected the scale of what approached the South Tower, writing that they first mistook the second aircraft for a small plane before impact. “Typing this, I’m back in that moment. Horror. Fear. Abject terror-and rage,” they wrote.
The clip’s emergence comes just weeks before the 25th anniversary of the attacks, which killed 2,977 people on September 11, 2001, after al-Qaeda hijackers seized four passenger planes. Two were flown into the Twin Towers in New York City, a third struck the Pentagon in Virginia, and a fourth crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against the hijackers.
Footage from that morning continues to surface in part because so many New Yorkers happened to be recording on early digital devices, capturing angles never broadcast on television at the time. New clips are still being unearthed a quarter century later, often prompting fresh shock even among those who lived through the day.
Some viewers recalled experiencing the attacks from vast distances. One user said they were on business in Sydney and initially assumed the footage was a film until the second plane hit and reality set in. “I will never forget that day. Never forgive, never forget,” they wrote.
An estimated 6,000 to 25,000 people were injured alongside the nearly 3,000 killed. The anniversary later this month is expected to bring additional footage and testimony back into circulation online.