By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Images of the 9/11 attacks taken by a NYPD helicopter were released Wednesday by ABC News, showing the dust-filled horror from an unseen angle.
The pictures were released after the network filed a Freedom of Information Act request last year with the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
ABC posted 12 of more than 2,000 photos it received from the Institute to its website. The pictures show the massive dust cloud settling over lower Manhattan and coating the surrounding area after each tower fell.
The photos were taken by Greg Semendinger, a former detective with the NYPD’s Aviation Unit. He told the Associated Press he and his partner watched the second plane hit the towers as they hovered above the area searching for survivors.
They couldn’t find any.
“There was no sound,” he told the AP. “No sound whatsoever but the noise of the radio and the helicopter. I just kept taking pictures.”
More than 2,700 people were killed in the September 11 attacks.
