One of two LIVE TV shots of WTC 7 going down – see CBS West St. above. It’s included here although the MSNBC shot only shows the smoke developing (early) and coming toward the camera — not the building falling. To get an idea of when the building descent begins in the video, see a synched video collage using the NBC News camera that was on the same street.
The audio is one of few authentic tracks available. Despite the fact that TV correspondent microphones are designed for low sensitivity to background noise, one audio filtering study suggests explosions were picked up by Ashleigh Banfield’s mic. Notice, also, that the people all turn their heads towards Ground Zero before sound of the ensuing collapse had time to reach them (exact camera location: 40.717901, -74.007335 —see map below— which was 0.609 km [0.379 mi] from the base of WTC7). Since the temperature was about 80 degrees F, the speed of sound was 347.25 meters per second (1,139.3 feet/sec), making the time for sound to travel from WTC7 to the camera exactly 1.75 seconds. Banfield’s reaction was 2.0 seconds after the first hint of east penthouse movement. An alternative explanation for Banfield’s quick reaction, of course, is that people in the surrounding crowd saw the penthouse begin to drop and said something, to which Banfield reacted. Remember, though, that the studio interrupted and cut away from an interview to go to Banfield because she thought she heard an explosion (see FOIA release 25 extended length version used in synched video mentioned above), likely within a minute of the “collapse.” Regarding audio, see also “Not Peskin,” R. Siegel, & CBS West St. — all of which (arguably) feature explosion sounds.
Find the clip in the video archive at msn.com or in the rare Boston VHS tape from MSTS1 (link 2 above, where at 6:05 we can see the building minutes before its destruction). Link 3 is the only available TV airing of any WTC7 collapse video at all on NBC’s 9/11 broadcast after the event until hours later, from a replay at 8:26 PM in the archive. Note that MSNBC is not at the archive.org site until Sept. 14.
“Raw” NIST Cumulus file: Freelance of WTC7 collapseFreelance WTC7 1 :: UPDATE: Release 25, folder 42A0126 – G25D38 has an mpeg-2 version in extended length. Watch at YouTube link 1 above.
MSNBC LIVE
YouTube 1, 2, 3 & 4
