Enhanced unedited HD view in playlist at TOP. See it stabilized expertly here with zoom. UPDATE Oct. 2011: Finally five minutes of audio has been found [here with better video swapped] in the redacted FBI/NIST version of the footage (faces are blanked out). BUT… the audio ends a minute before the plane hits. What the people say is interesting. “Two explosions. Two separate ones,” when the first plane hit; and a smoke storm in the basement of WTC 1, their ears popped. It seems as if the nearby radio caused Evan to adjust and accidentally kill the volume (?) UPDATE Sept. 2010: Audio has been found in about 10 seconds of the Fairbanks tape, about a minute before the plane impact (911allcausticcamera download source lost). UPDATE May 2010: A 22-minute long, high quality version of the Fairbanks tape has become available.
Evan Fairbanks appeared on primetime TV the night of 9/11 (footage aired at 10:40 p.m.) after having spoken with ABC anchor Peter Jennings earlier around 5:00 p.m.– the first airing of his famous plane impact footage, and South Tower “reverse mushroom cloud,” as he describes it.
In Jeff Hill’s telephone interview from Jan. 2008, Evan said the FBI made him a copy of his tape that morning. It’s uncertain whether the lack of audio in the footage is due to operator error – as Fairbanks says in the phone interview – or if the FBI dubbing removed the audio:
“‘And it was only after the first tower collapsed and FBI agents conducted me to a safe place, that I stopped shooting. When I told them what I had on videotaped, they brought me to their command center. They have the original, which has five minutes of audio. This is a copy. Sorry there’s no sound.'” – Fairbanks quote from Linda Linguvic, Greenwich Village Gazette
Also, a page in David Friend’s book Watching the World Change: The Stories Behind the Images of 9/11 (2006) almost contradicts Evan’s “operator error” statement: “Though he had shot with the audio turned on, the FBI had impounded his footage as evidence, returning a single copy to him with the sound inexplicably erased.” So it took 10 years to release the full video with audio — but it makes sense that Evan accidentally turned off the mic five minutes into filming, when the radio came into range. So again to clarify, this collapse footage never had audio.
Funny, when Evan’s clip was used by the feds in the U.S. vs. Moussaoui “20th hijacker” case, not only was the video silent… it was black and white! (Learn about the Moussaoui case now. More evidence of inside job and FBI obstruction from on high.)
Raw NIST Cumulus file: ABC Dub3 24 (watch with files 20 – 23 also) — Find audio in the redacted FBI version only at wtcdata.nist.gov. (To view, click “Continue” and agree to the terms. Then re-click this link.) See also NIST FOIA 09-42 911datasets.org release 25, folder 42A0103 – G25D13, after the Naka Nathaniel plane hit video.
