Watch Dramatic Footage Of 9/11 Unfolding From Space Filmed By Astronaut Whose Friend Was Killed In Terror Attack

• Daily Mail
• American Frank Culbertson was above New York at time of attacks
• His images show plume of smoke streaming from World Trade Center
• Program includes film of Culbertson playing Taps on his bugle in space in tribute to his friend Chic Burlingame who died in the attacks

By JESSICA JERREAT

PUBLISHED: 23:17 EST, 6 March 2014 | UPDATED: 14:14 EST, 7 March 2014

This poignant footage from space shows smoke rising from New York’s Twin Towers, moments after two planes smashed into them in the terror attack which killed thousands of people.

The haunting photos and video, shown in full for the first time today on MailOnline, were shot byAmerican astronaut Frank Culbertson as he looked down helplessly on New York on September 11, 2001.

He said his first instinct was to grab a camera – and hours later he would discover a close friend, a pilot at the controls of one of the hijacked planes, was one of the dead.

The images emerged as part of research for a television series about astronauts and will be shown for the first time in the UK as part of Channel 4′s Live From Space season. 

Culbertson made the recording as the huge plume of smoke from the towers drifted across the city, only learning a few hours afterwards that his friend, Chic Burlingame, had been one of the pilots killed that day when his plane was flown into the Pentagon.

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