Newly Emerged 9/11 Video Shows Previously Unseen Angle of Second Plane Hitting South Tower

Twenty-two years ago, terrorists hijacked four American commercial airplanes, according to the Department of Defense. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, another into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and the last, United Airlines Flight 93, was headed for Washington, D.C. Courageous passengers thwarted that plan, and the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, sparing countless lives.

In a shocking development, a previously unseen video of the September 11 attacks has surfaced on YouTube, capturing a rare angle of the second plane striking the South Tower of the World Trade Center. The uploader of the video claims that it was “accidentally left private” for almost two decades.

The nearly nine-minute-long video was made public last year and shows events most Americans have seen numerous times but from a different, and strikingly clear, angle.

The video was filmed by Kevin Westley, a combat veteran who served in the 2003 Iraq war as an aircraft commander, as he stood on a boat, surrounded by a crowd of stunned spectators, according to National World.

The footage initially centers on the flames engulfing the North Tower, but then dramatically shifts just in time to catch the second plane as it makes its direct approach into the South Tower.

“I posted this video in the 2000’s but accidently[sic] left it private for until now… I noticed the video was private and made it public,” said Westley, who made the video public in February 2022.

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While the emergence of the footage is noteworthy in its own right, critics argue that the circumstances surrounding its 20-year absence from public view raise unsettling questions.

A reader pointed out that “YouTube was launched on February 14, 2005.”

Another reader wrote, “YouTube was founded in 2005 and didn’t really take off until the end of that year. That’s at least 4 years where the “I accidentally left it private” explanation doesn’t hold water. In 2001, most of us could barely watch videos on our dial-up internet, much less upload them. We were all glued to our analog NTSC cathode ray tube TVs watching news networks that would have paid good money for this footage. What’s the real story here?”

Another reader said, “The video was posted a year ago. If he really posted it many years ago, all he would have to do is change the setting from private to public, and the upload date would not change. So his story makes no sense.”

YouTube was created by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The website was officially launched on February 14, 2005. YouTube quickly grew in popularity and was acquired by Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock.

Upon our investigation, Westley’s account was created back on Dec 31, 2006, according to his YouTube account. “I posted this video in the 2000’s,” Westely wrote in his caption.

The year “2000,” refers specifically to the year 2000, which is a single calendar year. While the term 2000’s refers to the entire decade that spans from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2009.