B-25 Crash into the Empire State Building

[Stryker]

I came across this story the other day and remember hearing about it years ago, but never really knew the details. The following is excerpts from two articles I found.
 
Saturday morning, July 28th, 1945, found New York City bathed in a thick fog. Visibility on the ground was bad enough, but up in the air that morning was Lt. Colonel William Smith, piloting a B-25 bomber over the city toward Newark where he was to pick up his commanding officer. The fog he found himself in was more like soup. For reasons that have never been adequately explained, Smith wound up over Municipal Airport (which is now LaGuardia) and asked the tower for a weather report. The controller instructed Smith to land, but the pilot made a serious blunder by insisting for clearance to continue to Newark. Municipal reluctantly gave the clearance, but the controller, still hoping to convince Smith of the seriousness of the situation, tried one more time, saying these final words to Smith: "From where I'm sitting, I can't see the top of the Empire State Building."
 
 
Regulations in Manhattan require all aircraft to fly no lower than 2,000 feet. Smith committed another blunder when he dropped under 1,000 feet to get out of the thickest part of the fog and take a peek at the ground, hoping to get his bearings straight. What he found was a forest of skyscrapers, the tops of which were all around him.
 
During the second world war many people worked a six day work week, and just about every building had a good number of people in them on every floor. The people in the uppermost floors of the New York Central Building at 9:48 AM didn't realize their luck. Colonel Smith banked away to the west just in time. How he got around the next few buildings is anybody's guess, but the one thing we do know is that despite his efforts to climb and bank away, he flew his plane, along with his two-man crew, into the north side of the 79th floor of the Empire State Building at 9:49 AM.
 
Inside the building there was only a small work force that day. On the 79th floor, in the offices of The National Catholic Welfare Service (now known as Catholic Relief Services), faith was put to a severe test as 11 workers were killed, some burned to death at their desks. The impact was thunderous, leading many, both inside and outside the building, to believe that New York City was being bombed. Debris was raining down from over 900 feet in the sky, much of it burning. Naturally, panic ensued.
 
Back on the 79th floor, a fire was burning. The 78th floor was involved, as well, and there were other problems. On impact, the plane's fuel had exploded, sending a fireball down the side of the building and through the inside via hallways and stairwells. The fireball reached all the way to the 75th floor. One of the plane's engines, broken loose from the wreckage, shot through the building, tearing through several walls and finally out a south side window, finally coming to rest on the roof of a 12-story building across 33rd Street. Miraculously, none of the tragedy's victims were killed by the giant engine.
 
The saga of engine number two is just as dramatic. It, too, broke loose from the plane on impact, but instead of exiting the building it flew directly into an elevator shaft and on top of an elevator car, which began to fall rapidly with two terrified women inside. Even in 1945 elevators were equipped with hydraulic "slowing" devices for emergencies like... well, nobody ever dreamed of emergencies like this one, but for emergencies, nonetheless. When a rescue crew finally reached what was left of the elevator car at the bottom of the shaft, they were amazed to find living, breathing women with one hell of a story to tell their grandchildren.
 


Back on 79, surviving office workers would have sadder stories to tell their grandchildren. Catherine O'Connor described the crash:   The plane exploded within the building. There were five or six seconds - I was tottering on my feet trying to keep my balance - and three-quarters of the office was instantaneously consumed in this sheet of flame. One man was standing inside the flame. I could see him. It was a co-worker, Joe Fountain. His whole body was on fire. I kept calling to him, "Come on, Joe; come on, Joe." He walked out of it.

Joe Fountain died several days later. Eleven of the office workers were burned to death, some still sitting at their desks, others while trying to run from the flames. All 3 crewmembers of the B-25 died. None who witnessed that day would be able to forget the sight of that burning plane wedged in the side of the building, the black billowing smoke partially obscuring the upper floors from view. The world has changed so much since that 1945 morning. The construction of the World Trade Center's twin towers relegated the Empire State Building to "3rd tallest building in New York" status, but as we know all too well, it has regained the rank of tallest in the saddest of ways. Thousands died in the WTC tragedy of 2001, while only fourteen died in the Empire State Building tragedy of 1945. One was an unnecessary accident, a doozy of a pilot's error, the other was murder.

[buckshot roberts]

Hey good post, I saw that sometime back on tv.

[Stryker]

One thing I didn't mention was The majority of the plane hit the 79th floor, creating a hole in the building eighteen feet wide and twenty feet high. Though the integrity of the Empire State Building was not affected, the cost of the damage done by the crash was $1 million in 1945 Money.