On the morning of September 11, 2011, veteran photojournalist Bill Biggart made his way to the World Trade Center to shoot what at first appeared to be a random, small-plane plane collision with one of the Twin Towers. He never made it back.

Four days later, rescue workers found his body and his cameras (above, with his other effects, seen in a photo by friend and fellow photographer Chip East). The cameras had been destroyed in the debris blast that killed him — but a memory card survived, recording what he saw in his last moments of life. The images Biggart left behind “represented everything Bill was there for,” Chip East told LIFE.com.

It’s been said countless times before, but it bears repeating: while hundreds of thousands (rightly, understandably) fled the site of the 9/11 attacks, countless first responders and journalists — including the photographers in this gallery — were drawn to the catastrophe. Not one emerged unchanged.

As for Biggart, his friends miss him, but they understand and accept why he was there. “Bill would not have been anywhere else,” Chip East says.