Are there pictures of the 9/11 airplane crashes?
Executive summary
Photographs and videos of the September 11, 2001 attacks do exist and are widely archived: multiple newsroom galleries and government collections contain images of the World Trade Center towers immediately after and during the airplane strikes, the Pentagon aftermath, and the crash site in Shanksville, Pennsylvania [1] [2] [3]. That said, the available visual record varies by target—there are clear, contemporaneous images and video showing a plane striking the World Trade Center, extensive aftermath photos of the Pentagon and the Shanksville site, and official footage documenting Flight 93’s investigation, but not every moment of each crash was captured on film [4] [5] [6].
1. Visual record of the World Trade Center: photographic and video evidence
News agencies, photo services and independent photographers captured the moments before and after the jets struck the Twin Towers, and curated galleries of defining 9/11 images include pictures of the second tower bursting into flames after impact and wide shots of the towers burning and collapsing [1] [2]; some video clips circulating in archives and public repositories show at least one of the planes striking a tower, including user-contributed video footage preserved by outlets such as C-SPAN [4]. Stock and archival services host thousands of 9/11-related images and clips—underscoring that multiple, corroborating visual records of the WTC attacks exist across media repositories [7] [8] [9].
2. The Pentagon: aftermath photography and official releases
Photographs documenting the Pentagon attack are held in military and federal collections and include images taken in the minutes and hours after American Airlines Flight 77 struck the building; the Navy’s historical office and other Defense Department galleries maintain chronological photo sets of the damage, and the FBI has re-released images from inside the Pentagon showing the crashed airliner’s impact area [10] [5] [3]. These collections make clear that while many published images show the building as struck and burning, the best-documented material is oriented toward damage and response rather than prolonged in‑air footage of the aircraft itself.
3. Flight 93 and the Pennsylvania crash site: a different photographic reality
The crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania—where passengers resisted the hijackers—left a relatively small crater and less visible wreckage than some expected, and investigators and the FBI documented a site that did not present large, intact fuselage remnants; the FBI’s materials and the National Park Service’s Flight 93 records describe the investigative findings and preserve photos of the site, but there is no widely circulated footage of an aircraft in flight immediately before impact as exists for the WTC [6] [11] [12]. The investigative record emphasizes the crater, scattered debris and the actions of the passengers rather than a filmed impact sequence.
4. Where images differ from public perception and where gaps remain
Public perception sometimes assumes there should be identical types of footage for each crash, but archives show variation: high-profile photographs and videos exist for the World Trade Center attacks and extensive aftermath documentation exists for the Pentagon and Shanksville sites, yet the angle, clarity and directness of “plane striking” imagery are not uniform—some crucial frames are available, others are primarily aftermath scenes [1] [5] [6]. Major repositories—including Reuters, CNN, U.S. government archives and commercial stock agencies—demonstrate both the existence of many authentic 9/11 images and the uneven nature of the visual record [1] [2] [3] [7].
5. Addressing alternate claims and conspiracies about “no pictures”
Claims that “there are no pictures” of the crashes do not withstand the material in mainstream and official archives: multiple news photo essays and government photo galleries contain images and videos tied directly to the attacks, and user-captured footage of at least one WTC strike is preserved in public clips [1] [2] [4]. Reporting and primary-source repositories cited here do not support the extreme assertion that no photographic evidence exists; however, they do show that the kinds of images available differ by site and that some argued expectations (for example, abundant in‑flight footage for every plane) are not met in the public record [5] [6].