At the time, Mark LaGanga didn’t know it.
As a CBS News photojournalist I took the West Side Highway from Manhattan On September 11, 2001, he didn’t know he was walking into the deadliest terrorist attack ever on American soil. He didn’t know the South Tower had already collapsed in on itself, and he couldn’t have imagined that the North Tower would collapse shortly thereafter, engulfing him and everyone around him in a thick cloud of ash.
All he knew was that he had to stay and film it.
Twenty-three years after the September 11 attacks, LaGanga’s footage that morning offers a unique first-hand account of the rescue workers on the scene moments after the two planes hit. LaGanga’s footage gives viewers a rare, up-close look at the 29 minutes of dust, confusion and silence that followed the collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
“I saw the Twin Towers fall”
Earlier that morning, LaGanga’s cell phone and landline rang simultaneously. A CBS News editor was calling and asking him to go to downtown Manhattan to film what at the time appeared to be a plane crash into a lower Manhattan building.
But as he walked downtown, LaGanga, now a 60 Minutes cameraman, tried to make sense of the nightmare unfolding before him.
When he could drive his news truck no further, when the street ahead was blocked by stopped cars and shocked people fleeing north, he parked and stood on the roof of his truck to get a better view of the smoke billowing from the North Tower. He turned on his camera a few minutes after 10 a.m.
The South Tower had collapsed at 9:59 a.m., but LaGanga hadn’t yet realized it.
“There was so much dust and the street signs were hard to see that I never really realized a tower had already fallen,” LaGanga said in a 2018 interview.
As he walked from the highway toward the base of the North Tower, he questioned passersby, asking the question on everyone’s mind: “What happened?” A police officer thought the roof had collapsed; a firefighter thought part of the building had collapsed. Even those who saw the scene up close couldn’t comprehend that the South Tower, a gargantuan 110-story skyscraper, had suddenly disappeared.
As LaGanga headed toward the North Tower, smoke and dust began to fill the cerulean sky. Eventually, they blotted out the sun. On the street near the remaining tower, New York City looked unrecognizable, hazy and monochrome. A thick layer of dust and soot coated every surface and muffled the sound of the building alarms.
LaGanga panned his camera upward to film the North Tower, burning and stark against a bright blue sky.
A few minutes later, he collapsed too. LaGanga’s camera continued to roll.
“It felt like a jet was flying overhead,” he said in 2018. “That’s why I lifted the hood.”
As the building collapsed, people rushed into the street in panic. A billow of smoke and dust engulfed LaGanga’s lens, and the screen went black. Several minutes passed. Finally, he coughed.
“Boy, that was close,” said a voice in the dark.
LaGanga returned to film the rescue and recovery operations on site for a week after the attack. He claims to have suffered no ill health from his time there.
Since then, LaGanga has continued to work as a photojournalist, most recently for 60 Minutes.
“Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is capture real moments,” he said in 2018. “Just follow along and try not to get in anybody’s way. But document real moments of what’s happening.”
The video above was originally posted on September 11, 2018 and edited by Will Croxton.
