By pure luck. Nobody knew there was going to be an attack, but in a city as large as New York, there were bound to be a few people with cameras. And almost all videos showing a crash, actually show the second crash. There are only three videos which show the first crash. The clearest view of the crash was filmed by the Naudet brothers, who were filming documentary at the time. A tourist who was filming out of the window of the car he was riding in caught the impact in the background just before the car entered a tunnel. And a man had a webcam hooked up to his computer also caught the impact. There was also a fourth recording, but it only captured the aftermath on video. A cameraman for a local news station had set his camera down with it still filming, you can hear the plane flying in and crashing, with nearby people reacting to it. Then he picks the camera up and catches the tale end of the fireball.

There would have been many tourists filming the area anyway - the towers were a bit of an attraction. I think some mobiles had video capability back then - maybe not as common as now, but I'm sure this has been around back then.

Regardless, the plane would have been flying abnormally low for a while before crashing, so this would have given enough time to grab some means of video recording and begin filming - people recording it wouldn't have known the destination, but since it would have been way out the ordinary to see a jumbo jet plane flying so low over Manhattan, it was something that would have been filmed regardless of why it was happening.

There may have even been media out and about then on other business, or some other filming - such as that fire service video that happened to be in progress at the time.

When it came to broadcasting the clips, they would have been edited a bit to just show the bit where the plane impacted or close to impact - they would simply have cut out bits where the film may have been panning to it suddenly or whatever.

So, it wasn't a case of all those people filming it knowing it was about to happen - it just happened in front of them and they happened to have means to film it on them.

They didn't know there was going to be attack and there is only one video of Flight 11 hitting 1 World Trade Center. There is lots of video of Flight 175 hitting the South Tower because that happened later and by that time every camera in New York was aimed at the World Trade Center.

A French documentary filmmaker team, the brothers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were shadowing NYFD Engine 7, Ladder 1 to do a story about the experiences of a rookie firefighter or "probie" named Antonio "Tony" Benetatos. On the morning of 9/11 Engine 7, Ladder 1 answered a call about a possible natural gas leak and Jules went along to get some practice with the camera (Gedeon normally did the camera work). He just happened to be filming when he heard Flight 11 overhead and managed to get the aircraft in frame just in time before the impact. It was pure luck.

They didn't, it was just happenstance. There was a French film crew making a documentary about the FDNY who happened to be in the area when the first plane arrived. They filmed the aircraft because it was flying so low and fast and caught it flying into the WTC.

it was captured by firemen who were filming some sort of routine procedure at the time. Realising there was about to be a crash, the camera operator panned onto the plane

It was luck. Look at the actual film that is available. The first one was lucky (as in caught on film) pretty much meant that the press would be out in force after that. No brainer really.

I think there are always cameras around in such a big city. I saw it as it happened on the TV in the UK. I am including a link to an interesting article

the first plane hitting the building was not caught on news cameras. the much used footage you see of a plane crash is of the second plane. if there is footage of the first plane, then it would be from tourists, which were all over the area.

Tourist and yes 9/11 was a very documented day if infamy

the average tourist could no help shotting the twin towers area in Manhatten

and it was a very nice day for a photo shot

I am sure there were loads of tourists just filming the building. It was a pretty popular site to visit over here.

How did people know there was going to be an attack? There are loads of videos showing the first plane crash, people were ready to film it or even already filming it but how did the people know it was going to happen?

Thanks

Well 5 Israeli's were arrested filming at the scene from a van as they were 'acting suspiciously' and indeed, documenting the first attack on the WTC and cheering! Eventually they were deported back to Israel.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.js...

The thing is, they weren't the only ones to have prior knowledge but the FBI were always climbing an endless mountain investigating because how can they do their job when the CIA is working with a conflicting agenda?