- Date:
- July 28, 1945
Empire State Building B-25 crash
Empire State Building B-25 crash, accident on July 28, 1945, in which an unarmed U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bomber on a routine transport trip crashed into the north side of New York Cityâs Empire State Building while flying in thick fog. The plane broke up and started a fire, and the accident killed 14 people: all 3 of those on the plane and 11 in the building. Though a great deal of damage occurred, the buildingâs structural integrity remained intact.
Lieutenant Colonel William F. Smith, Jr., was an experienced and highly decorated pilot. He had a few days earlier flown the B-25 from its home base in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he spent some time with his family. On that Saturday morning he was scheduled to pick up the commander of the Sioux Falls base from Newark, New Jersey, and then return to Sioux Falls. Traveling with him was crew member Christopher Domitrovich and a passenger, Albert Perna, a machinistâs mate who needed a ride to the New York City area. As Smith approached New York City he found himself in such a thick fog that he was unsure of his position, and he radioed the La Guardia Airport tower, which told him he was south of La Guardia and gave him landing instructions. Smith said that he was headed to Newark and would land there. With civil and army aviation authorities in disagreement as to the risk this plan posed, the air traffic controller at La Guardia cleared Smith to continue to Newark but mentioned that he could no longer see the top of the Empire State Building.
Smith was still disoriented and, setting a course that he believed was toward Newark, found himself among Manhattanâs skyscrapers. After avoiding both the Chrysler Building and the New York Central Building he weaved between skyscrapers until he suddenly came face to face with the towering Empire State Building. Smith put the bomber into a steep climb and tried to bank away, but to no avail. The B-25 tore into the north side, smashing a hole 18 feet (5.5 m) wide and 20 feet (6.1 m) deep between the 78th and 80th floors, where the offices of the Catholic War Relief Services were located.
One of the B-25âs engines fell into an elevator shaft and severed the cables of an elevator car, which went into free fall until somewhat slowed by its automatic braking system. The cables coiled at the bottom of the shaft, cushioning the landing, and air forced upward also slowed the elevatorâs descent. Miraculously, when rescuers reached the basement, they found Betty Lou Oliver, the young elevator operator, in the mangled car still alive. It remains the worldâs longest survived elevator fall.
Aviation fuel ignited, killing office workers and sending a cascade of fire down the outside of the building, also scorching stairwells and hallways within down to the 75th floor. Debris rained toward the street but, luckily, most landed on the structureâs wider skirt. One engine was propelled right though the building, exploded through the opposite south-side windows and plummeted onto the roof of a building across 33rd Street, starting a fire that consumed a penthouse art studio. The 11 people killed in the building encompassed 9 office workers, a janitor, and an elevator operator. A further 26 people were injured.
Amazingly for such an explosive incident, the death toll was relatively light and there were not many serious injuriesâpossibly owing to the fact that the crash occurred on a Saturday, when fewer people were at work. The fire was put out inside 40 minutes, and most of the Empire State Building was open for business the following Monday. It took only three months for the damage caused by the crash to be repaired. By the following year, the United Distillers of America were occupying the 78th floor.